Page 4 of Echo in the Wind

For a moment, he stared out the windows at the moonlight dancing on the waters in the ship’s wake. Then looking to the shore they’d just left, his thoughts wandered back to the English smugglers. Something niggled at the back of his mind.

“What did you think of the English smuggler who insisted on seeing our goods?”

“Young and mebbe a trifle arrogant,” came Émile’s reply, “but I respect him for his caution. Ye would have done the same.”

“Probably…” In his mind, Jean pictured the slender form, the well-turned calves and the smooth skin of the young man’s cheek revealed beneath the brim of his hat. The voice had been low enough to be a young man, but the more Jean considered what he had seen, the more he became certain this “he” was a “she”.

Women sometimes participated in smuggling. Perhaps she was one of the village women aiding her husband, most likely the tall Englishman with the scarred face. But her speech, though terse, sounded genteel. Moreover, English countrywomen did not usually do the talking in smuggling transactions. A mystery he might solve if he decided to make another run on his way to France. He still had a wealth of goods in his warehouse on Guernsey Island to unload.

Gabe came to stand beside him at the window. “Sir, your clothes are ready for the reception. With your leave, I would see Cook about your supper.”

“Good lad. Some food would be most welcome.” Jean watched the boy as he made his way to the cabin door. Gabe was about the same height as the young English smuggler, but he had a masculine swagger unlike the leader of the smugglers. The difference made him think his suspicion had been correct.

“After Chichester, we sail to London?” inquired Émile from where he sat at the table.

Jean turned from the window, his half-filled glass in hand. “That is still my plan. It has been over a year since my daughter wed the English captain. There have been letters, of course, but tomorrow’s reception for their Prime Minister will be the first time I will have the chance to see for myself if Claire is happy.”

“Does she know of yer elevation to the title?”

“I sent her a message as soon as I received word.”

Émile’s smile softened his harsh countenance. “I would like to see the little one.” Jean’s daughter, whom Émile fondly called “little one”, always brought a smile to the quartermaster’s craggy face.

Jean took a sip of his cognac. “I thought to accept her invitation to travel with her and her husband to London while you sail la Reine Noire to meet me there. You should arrive in time to attend the christening for my namesake.”

“Oui, I remember the promise her husband made ye.”

“The very one.” Jean was inwardly pleased the son his daughter had given her English husband would bear Jean’s name. Though he had reached the age of forty, he would hardly be a doddering grand-père and could teach the lad much about the sea. “The crew might enjoy some time in London.”

Émile nodded. “As long as they can eat on the ship, the crew will not complain. Ye do not serve ordinary seamen’s fare, Capitaine. They have grown used to brioche for breakfast and French cooking for dinner. The English eat very little bread and call themselves economical because they have no soup or dessert.”

“The English dinner is like eternity,” Jean remarked. “It has no beginning and no end. And nowhere save England do people drink worse coffee. How they endure such a prodigious quantity of brown water, I shall never know. But we need have no concern when we dine at Claire’s table. She wrote to tell me she has finally hired a French cook.”

Émile laughed. “I shall look forward to that. And after London, what then?”

Jean patted the pocket of his coat, reminded of the letter from his father’s lawyer that had arrived just as they sailed from Lorient. J’ai le regret de vous informer…

He let out a breath. “I must return to Saintonge. The funeral for my father and brother will have occurred by then, which is just as well. My father would not have wanted me to attend.”

He thought for a moment. “If the maître du château is still the same one, he is a capable estate manager. And the servants under him will see all is done as it should be.” He smiled to himself. “I wonder how they will react to the disowned younger son becoming the master.”

Jean twisted his glass in his hand, brooding over the other matter.

“Something troubles ye?”

His gaze met the deep-set brown eyes of his quartermaster, the man to whom he owed a life debt and his friend for many years. “You know me too well, Émile. Oui, there is more. It seems my brother left a child and named me her guardian.”

“A child?” Émile asked incredulous. “Was there no wife?”

“There was, but she died some years ago. There is only the young daughter, Zoé. Given our strained relationship and my rather dangerous pursuits these last years, I am surprised Henri would place her in my hands.”

Émile shook his head. “Likely he did not expect to die as young as he did. A carriage accident is a bad way to go. Struck down in the road like a stray dog—no valor, no honor, not even a chance to confess.”

“But to charge me with seeing to his daughter…”

“Ye have been a good father to Claire, Capitaine. He might have remembered that. And now the estate, the vineyards and the wealth of the Saintonges are yers.” Émile pursed his lips and lifted his heavy shoulders in a shrug. “Not that ye need ’em.”

“I do not even want them,” Jean said dismissively. With the richesse he had built in the decades since his father had cast him out, he no longer resented the loss of his heritage. “But I cannot refuse to care for my own flesh and blood.”