Page 89 of Echo in the Wind

Jean had invited Joanna and Zoé to dine with him and Émile in his cabin. Gabe left with Joanna’s maid to escort her to the galley where they would eat together as they had the night before. When they’d gone, Joanna asked, “Will Gabrielle be all right with your men?”

“No one will bother her in the galley,” he replied. “My crew knows she is your maid and you are my guest.” He gave her a look meant to convey he had communicated to his men she belonged to him. “Definitely out of bounds.”

While his niece conversed with Émile, the two having become fast friends, Jean handed Joanna a glass of sherry and picked up his brandy, beckoning her to join him at the stern windows. From here, they could glimpse the lights on shore from the taverns and hillside homes.

“Did you enjoy your time with Madame Provot?”

“’Tis much easier to be fitted for breeches,” she said, a mischievous grin lighting her face. “And you might want to know that Madame Provot would appreciate having more time for her creations.”

He laughed. “Ah, oui. She has made her feelings known before.”

Some of his men entered, carrying trays with their supper. He and Joanna joined the others at the table.

The meal was simple by a nobleman’s standards but elaborate for seafaring men. For all the time he spent on his ships, Jean insisted on decent food. Perhaps it was the memory of those first years with Ariane when he’d been poor and their food was often a simple fish stew. Ariane never complained and he had loved her all the more for it. Once he had been able to afford better fare and a cook, he made sure his small family ate well.

Jean liked his food French and cooked with skill. The white fish served them tonight, cooked in wine and butter with fennel, was among his favorites.

“In France, it’s called ‘le loup’,” Zoé explained to Joanna, showing her pride at knowing something an English earl’s sister might not.

Joanna screwed up her face. “The wolf?”

“’Tis an aggressive fish,” teased Émile in serious fashion.

They all laughed at Joanna’s reaction, looking at them askance as if she did not believe his quartermaster.

“But it is an aggressive fish,” Jean insisted.

In addition to the fish, they also had fowl wings en hâtelets, cooked on skewers, cauliflower with Parmesan and a salad. He made sure all his ships carried fine Bordeaux wine as well as cognac, which they drank this evening.

He watched Joanna sip the dark red wine, her cheeks flushed and her laughter ringing out at Zoé’s chatter. He loved watching the candlelight flicker across her face and causing the copper strands in her auburn hair to glisten. She was a woman any man would be proud of.

It frightened him to think he could lose her to England, or worse, to illness or some attack by brigands. He was beginning to think it mattered not if she were mistress or wife. The pain of losing her would be just as great. Hadn’t Louis XV mourned the death of his mistress, Madame de Pompadour? Jean had refused to consider marrying again, thinking he could protect his heart from the pain of loss and avoid the plunge into darkness that had followed Ariane’s death. Now, he had to wonder if it were even possible to protect his heart from Joanna.

Paris became the topic of their conversation since neither Joanna nor Zoé had been there. His niece asked Joanna her opinion about the gowns Madame Provot had made for them. Joanna expressed her pleasure at the vermilion silk robe à la française. “I shall save it for something special. And the gown with the green satin underskirt is lovely.”

It should not have surprised him that his niece looked to Joanna for a woman’s advice. Zoé needed more than a father; she needed a mother. He had raised Claire alone with the help of the Ursuline Sisters of Saint-Denis. But even they could not take the place of a mother.

At the end of the meal, they climbed to the weather deck to enjoy the balmy evening. Franklin, who’d likely been hunting for his own dinner, sauntered up to Joanna and rubbed against the foot of her gown, his long black tail raised high. Holding on to the rail, she reached down to scratch his ears. “Funny cat,” she said to the animal.

Jean came up behind her and whispered in her ear, “You have claimed my cat, Mademoiselle.”

She laughed. “So I have. Do you mind terribly?” She looked at him in all innocence.

“Not as long as I have you both,” he teased.

A short distance away, Zoé tagged after Émile as he inspected the deck. Though rough in appearance and voice, his quartermaster showed great patience with the child, just as he had with Claire at that same age. It made Jean wonder why Émile had never married. He had nieces and nephews he cared for—his brother’s children—but none of his own.

“Those are deck prisms, little one,” Émile explained to Zoé when she asked about the glass set into the weather deck. “They bring light into the deck below but without allowing water to leak downward. The glass is flat here, but the prism hangs below the overhead and sends the light sideways. A very clever invention.”

“Most clever,” said Zoé, staring down at the glass under her feet.

“Your niece has an intelligent and curious mind,” said Joanna.

He slowly let out a breath. “She does, and I must decide what to do with her.” He turned to gaze over the rail at the sun, now lower in the sky and reflecting off the blue waters. “Should I send her to the Sisters of Saint-Denis for her education? Or should I keep her with me? My life is not exactly one in which a child, particularly a girl, fits easily.”

Joanna turned to place her palms on the rail’s brightwork. “Given all she has suffered and her great attachment to you, I would keep her with you. She needn’t go on all your voyages, but when you come home, she would be there.”

“True. She could live in Lorient or even Saintonge.”