Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 2 - Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

Clearly uncomfortable with her French, Bertle only grumbled some sort of halfhearted reply.

“You’re registered out of Portsmouth, aren’t you?” asked Jeremiah, and Bertle nodded. “Then we’ll change your papers just enough to make ‘em pass for American. There’s a Portsmouth in Rhode Island, too, far up at the northern end of Aquidneck. We’ll make that the Raleigh ’s home port, and pray the French won’t know the difference between an American and an English crew.”

“They’ll never guess if you pretend you’re the captain, Jeremiah!” cried Caro gleefully. “All the rest of us can keep quiet while you speak for us. No one, not even a Frenchman, would ever mistake you for English!”

Jeremiah smiled at her, delighted that she’d suggested it before he’d had to volunteer. Given the circumstances, he was willing to overlook how the compliment was more than a bit backhanded.

But it was no compliment at all to Bertle. “Are you daft, woman? You expect me to turn over my pretty little Raleigh to some Yankee by-blow so he can play at being a captain?”

Caro drew herself up straight, her blue eyes snapping with indignation. “He is no by-blow, Captain Bertle, and he is my husband, and I’ll thank you not to insult either of us any further,” she said tartly. “As for his capability to sail your silly little boat, why, he’s been a captain himself for years and years, and he sails ships so fine as to make this one look like no more than a peapod!”

Jeremiah lay his hand on her shoulder. “Steady, my dear, don’t go overboard.”

“It’s all true, Jeremiah, and I won’t have him say otherwise.” She rested her hand on top of his with what she hoped would seem like wifely loyalty. “In America, Captain Bertle, my husband owns a half-dozen trading vessels in his own name, and holds shares in goodness knows how many others. If he is a passenger in your precious Raleigh, and not the master of a sloop—a finer, better sloop—of his own, why then, it’s because he so chooses, not because he is incapable!”

Bertle’s mouth worked furiously. “I’ve only your word that says so, ma’am. Even if the whole braggart tale’s true, it still don’t change the fact of him being a Yankee.”

“No, it doesn’t,” agreed Jeremiah. “Nor does it change how that French frigate’s bearing down on us.”

“Damnation, Sparhawk!” sputtered Bertle. “What in blazes do you expect of me?”

“It’s your decision, Bertle,” continued Jeremiah relentlessly. He knew what destruction a warning shot from a frigate could bring, even if the others didn’t. “We Americans aren’t at war with anyone just now. My wife and I wouldn’t be touched. You and your crew could lose your ship and your freedom, but we’d be merely inconvenienced. Your choice, Captain.”

“May the devil himself take your choices, Sparhawk!” Bertle slammed his fist down on the railing. “I’m sorry I ever let the pair of you thieving rogues on board!”

But later that afternoon, when the frigate’s longboat bobbed alongside the Raleigh, it was Jeremiah who stood waiting as the captain to receive the French lieutenant. On Jeremiah’s arm was Caro, and behind him, barely silenced by necessity, stood Bertle and Hart. As the Frenchmen began to climb from their boat up the side, Jeremiah took one final glance at Bertle and the rest of the sour-faced crew and sent a last, urgent prayer to heaven that the lot of them would behave. He wouldn’t lay a penny that they could.

“You’ll do splendidly,” whispered Caro as she slipped her hand from his arm and instead twined her fingers into his, something she hadn’t done since the first night. “However could you not?”

From the restless way her fingers moved, Jeremiah wasn’t sure who was being reassured, but he liked knowing she believed in him, almost as much as he liked holding her small, gloved hand once again.

As he pressed her hand in return, he could just make out her smile beneath the shadow of her veil. He had insisted she drop it down again over her face, and he was glad he had. Not only did he jealously wish to keep Caro’s beauty hidden from the notoriously flirtatious Frenchmen, but also because she was almost radiating excited delight. No one, not even a Frenchman prone to giving ladies the benefit of the doubt, would believe she was grieving for anyone.

“Bonjour, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said the lieutenant with a neat bow from the waist that seemed at odds with the party of four heavily armed marines and three seamen who accompanied him on board. The lieutenant’s red and white uniform glittered with brass and braid, and when he lifted his hat Jeremiah saw that the Frenchman still wore his hair clubbed back with a ribbon in the old style of the monarchists. “I am Lieutenant Jean Delafosse of the frigate Beau Courage, and because you do not fly a flag, monsieur, I fear I must ask you to show me your papers.”

“Lieutenant.” Jeremiah lifted his hat a fraction, but didn’t bow. At least the man spoke English. His own French was serviceable but rusty, and he’d rather put the other man at the disadvantage. “Jeremiah Sparhawk, master of the American sloop Raleigh, bound for Naples. And we don’t fly a flag because we lost it clean away in a little blow off Finisterre.”

“Indeed, monsieur? One of my men swore he saw a British flag when he first sighted you, but perhaps he only wished it so.” Delafosse’s gaze swept the sloop’s deck, a quick appraisal to match his ill-concealed skepticism. He glanced at one of the French seaman, and without a word the man trotted back to check the line that would have held the flag. “The men are always eager for prizes, and your sloop would bring a pretty sum.”

“She would if she were English, Lieutenant,” said Jeremiah evenly, offering Delafosse the leather portfolio that contained the Raleigh ’s slightly altered papers. “But as I told you before, the sloop’s American, same as I am myself.”

The French sailor returned and whispered his findings to the lieutenant, who nodded and said nothing. Once again Jeremiah found himself praying, this time that the line on the jack staff had been convincingly frayed.

But Delafosse instead looked toward Caro with obvious interest, one hand over his heart as he bowed again. “My sympathies, mademoiselle, for your loss, whatever its nature.”

“She’s my wife, Lieutenant, not a mademoiselle,” said Jeremiah, the edgy possessiveness in his voice warning enough to make the Frenchman’s black brows rise.

“A bloody Frenchman killed her brother,” said Hart, loud enough for every man on deck to hear him. “A stinking, bloody Frenchman.”

The tension on the deck increased a hundredfold, and immediately Jeremiah swung around to face the mate. “One more outburst like that, Hart,” he said, his hands clenched in fists behind his bark and his voice crackling with authority, “and you’ll answer directly to me.”

But Caro lay her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t, love, please,” she begged softly, her whole posture seeming to bend beneath the weight of her sorrow. “Mr. Hart meant no ill, I’m sure.”

She turned toward Delafosse. “My brother was killed last year fighting in Spain, Lieutenant, but I—we—did not learn of his death until several weeks ago.” Her voice was so tremulous that the Frenchman was forced to lean forward to hear her. “My husband is taking me to Naples and Rome to help me overcome my grief.”

The Frenchman’s face softened with pity, and Jeremiah realized that with those few sentences Caro had done more to save the Raleigh than all the other English on board put together. She was good at such deceptions, almost too good, and uneasily Jeremiah wondered yet again which side of her was the real one.