by Lee Rowan
Wide awake now, he rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, wishing that Davy were lying beside him, glad that he was not. If one of them had to be captured by the French, it was he who deserved it.
And oh, what that would do to Davy, if he were caught. To know that he had provided the means of putting his lover into danger, and perhaps to a disgraceful death as a spy. A fine reward for all his love and care.
Well, Davy had set limits on how far he was willing to go, and in a sense, Marshall had deliberately trodden on those limits. He had indeed gone away again, and though he was reading the letters as he’d promised, there was no way to answer them, and there might never be.
If Davy’s common sense was as good as his heart, he would realize that Marshall was genuinely not worthy of his love. If this was the best he could do, perhaps Davy really would be better off if he were free to find another—and this time, he was not putting a false face of sacrifice on it. Why would David Archer want to stay with a man whose actions, in a crisis, stemmed from fear rather than love? Why should he stay?
Marshall threw off the blankets and went to stand by the window—not the one they’d agreed to use for signaling, but one that faced the harbor. He could see the dim outline of the French ship, and he knew the Mermaid was out there, too, somewhere. He could signal from this window—but the Frenchman would see it and know that something was afoot. Not that he’d try any such thing; it might draw the Mermaid into a trap, though he was certain Davy had seen the enemy ship.
Perhaps things would look better in the morning. Perhaps Dr. Colbert would finally appear, and it might even be possible for Étienne Beauchene to take advantage of his connections to grant safe passage for his colleague and the sailor who had merely been trying to fetch him home to his family.
Perhaps it was time to get some sleep.
THE FRENCHMAN had not moved. And Archer knew they would not move until they had determined why that small English vessel kept returning to linger near the mouth of the bay.
The other ship’s presence was worrisome, but in a way, it was reassuring. He had finally decided that if Will had been captured, the French captain would certainly have left a guard at the chateau and sailed back to Le Havre with his prisoner, to turn him over to the authorities. No, unless Will had gone somewhere else altogether, he was surely at the chateau.
Why had the place not been searched? Did Beauchene have connection to power in Bonaparte’s new empire that would make a mere naval captain reluctant to disturb him? If so, how was it that the man had not signaled the ship himself and surrendered his guest?
Then again, if Beauchene accepted Will’s story, he might feel that while an Englishman was an unusual sort of guest this far off the beaten path, his presence was not a threat. In fact, this far removed from contact with the larger world and tied to his home by poor health, the poor old sod might be so desperate for any company at all that Will would have to steal the silver and seduce the housemaid for Beauchene to throw him out.
And Will, for his part, would be trapped almost literally between the devil and the deep blue sea. Whether or not Dr. Colbert showed up, Will could not venture out of the chateau until the French frigate had given up waiting and gone on its way.
There was no chance the Frenchman would give up so long as the Mermaid kept hovering about. What Archer needed most was a diversion to bring that ship out and send him elsewhere. If they were at war, that could be easily managed by sending a few men ashore with some gunpowder a little way up the coast. But the Mermaid’s boat was too small to get men in and out again before the frigate would be upon them, and in any case, this was not the place to fire the first shot of new hostilities.
There was one other thing he might try. He could go ashore at the dark of the moon, with a handful of men, and see if he could bring Will out under cover of night. That tactic stood a chance of success. The only problem with it was that if it worked at all, it would work once, and only once, and if he went in to fetch Will before the doctor arrived, they would not get another chance.
He had to draw that frigate out of the harbor. What I really need most is another ship.
What I really need is Will.
He stood at the rail for a long time, gazing out at the roofline of the chateau, a ghostly silhouette in the light of moon and stars. He should have taken a chance, pushed past Will’s natural reticence, and climbed out of his own hammock and into his lover’s. He should not have allowed his resentment at the unopened letters to keep him from asking for what he knew Will wanted to give.
He should not have let that foolish, acrimonious exchange be the last conversation they might ever have.
He should not… and he would not. But he could not be in two places at once; he would need help.
“Barrow,” he said to the patient sailor standing only a few feet away, “take us out. North-northeast, show no lights until we’re over the horizon, but keep a close eye for other ships.”
“THIS IS astonishing,” Marshall said, delighted by the complexity of the work spread out before him. He and Beauchene had spent much of the morning and nearly all afternoon in the library, located in a room with south and west windows—to catch the brightest light, the scholar said, to help his weak vision.
Marshall had seen some of these formulae applied to fortifications, but he had never encountered the work in its entirety. It was no boast to say that Monge was a true genius. “The simplicity of it—this would save hours of calculation!”
“Indeed, it would,” Beauchene said. “And the wonder of this is that M. Monge developed it when he was but a student at the military academy. Before this was discovered, simply to work out the calculations for défilement of a fortress could take—oh, many hours longer. When he first used it, his own teacher did not want to accept that he was able to complete the work so quickly.”
Marshall had asked permission to take notes, but he still felt faintly guilty at being given such valuable information. “Are you certain you should be showing me this, monsieur? After all, our countries are likely to be at war again, and soon.”
Beauchene peered at him over those heavy spectacles, his hazel eyes warm in the sunlight. “Captain, I wish that all your countrymen shared your exquisite scruples.” He pushed aside a strand of hair that fell into his face. “But no, he made this discovery decades ago, and if you had turned your eyes to earthworks instead of the heavens, you would surely have seen it by now. I am betraying no secrets, and I do not believe that you are my enemy.”
Marshall felt a twinge of guilt. “Monsieur, I must be honest with you. I cannot condone what Bonaparte has done, and if war breaks out again—as I feel it must—I would return to the Navy gladly. Though I must say I am extremely pleased that I would not find you yourself facing me from the deck of a French man-of-war.”
Beauchene smiled. “Captain, are we alone?”
Marshall blinked, then realized that Beauchene’s eyesight really was too poor to see every corner of the room. He got up and went out into the hall, just to be certain. Returning to his chair, he said, “Yes, we are.”
“Bon. I would not want to shock Jean-Claude, or have him report me as a traitor.” He reached for the bottle of wine between them and poured a bit more into his glass and into Will’s. “Would it surprise you if I say that I have no love for the First Consul? It is true, he has brought order to France—and spread chaos through the rest of Europe. He has allowed Frenchmen to behave like savages in Egypt, and there are even rumors that he had my countrymen put to death—his own wounded soldiers!—to speed his retreat from that Godforsaken region. He has sacrificed too many lives to his own ambition, and his claims of honor—pfui! Honor? At Malta, he begged safe harbor from the Knights, and then attacked them once his needs were met.”
“I know,” Marshall said. “I think that may be one reason England has not returned Malta, even though it was part of the treaty to do so.”
“He will pick that bone when he is ready to fight, I promi
se you. As soon as he has the fleet brought to readiness and the army reorganized, he will take up arms once more. And he may win, in the end. He is skilled at what he does and completely without compunction; he would do anything for victory. To please certain influential swine, he even brought slavery back to my country, after the Revolution had abolished it. For that alone I could despise him.”
Beauchene took off his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “I do not wish to see England conquer us, I do not want to see Bonaparte triumph—no matter how it goes, my poor France will be the loser. It is a hard thing, to love one’s country and see it so betrayed.”
There was too much passion in the man’s words for Will to doubt his sincerity; outrage gave him a fire that the love of his studies did not. “But… you do military work for the Comte de Péluse….”
“Napoleon is not France, Captain, though he may believe they are one and the same. This is still my country. My family’s bones lie in this ground.”
Marshall nodded understanding, wondering if his own patriotism was weak. He was English, born and bred, but he did not have this deep love of any single part of the land. Of course, his family had not been so deeply rooted; he had grown up in the vicarage his father had been given, and his family’s bones lay in various churchyards in many small towns. “Your work will remain when this present trouble is gone.”
“Perhaps so, but I am not even concerned for that. I do the mathematics for the joy of it, my friend. Do it I must—it is the same as breathing.” He put his hand over Marshall’s. “Is it not the same with you? I cannot converse with you, and see your intelligence and good nature, and believe that when you send your ship into battle, it is because you wish to see men die, or count your victory in the number of lives destroyed.”
Marshall grimaced. “I am no saint, monsieur, but no. It is not that I seek to kill—but I have killed your countrymen in battle, and no doubt will again.”
“As they would kill you, of course.”
“Yes. But the goal is to capture—if a ship surrenders to me without a shot fired, I count that a victory. When I was younger, it was otherwise, of course. I joined the Navy at fourteen, and a boy needs no reason to fight the French, or anyone else. But until a boy sees death, he thinks himself immortal.” He thought of Davy, and the risk that would come with renewed warfare. “As I grow older, I find more joy in sailing and navigation. I have seen enough of death. But to protect my own country… of course I will fight, as hard as I can.”
“That is a reason anyone can appreciate, I think,” Beauchene said. “And a man must face death for that. The war took my own father some years ago, at this season, just before Christmas. A stupid cause—his horse stepped on his foot and it became infected. He was sent home from the front, but died soon after he arrived.”
“I am sorry.” Will sighed. It was impossible to think of this gentle man as the enemy, and easier to see himself as the uncivilized savage. “I wish that more of your countrymen were like you, monsieur. ‘Peace on earth to men of good will….’ I wonder sometimes if it is even possible.”
“Could you call me Étienne? I think of you as a friend, not an adversary.”
The offhand request made Marshall slightly uncomfortable, but he did feel a greater affinity for this Frenchman than he had for many of his fellow officers. “Certainly… Étienne. My own given name is William, if you wish to use it.”
“Merci, William.” The name had a certain charm pronounced “Weelyom.”
Embarrassed, Marshall sought a general subject. “I think it a pity that men and nations can find nothing better than to fight one another. It seems the easiest thing is always to send out armies. Could our leaders not sit down together with some of this excellent wine and find some other way to settle our differences?”
Beauchene smiled, shaking his head. “No, my friend. If we had six or eight men together, perhaps, if they were not too arrogant. But with even a few more, it would become politics, and all would be lost. Generals are seldom ‘men of good will,’ and politics is nothing more than war in a clean uniform.”
Will smiled ruefully, thinking of the vicious attacks on Pitt, the brutal and sometimes even bloody animosity between Whig and Tory. “It’s worse than war, I think. At least in a war, you know the attack will be coming from the enemy.”
Beauchene slapped the table. “I knew you were a sane man! I despise war, William. But more than that, I despise politics—yes, even our own glorious Revolution. La gloire! Liberté, Egalité, and especially Fraternité! Such beautiful words—but only words. The old regime was corrupt, yes, of course it was. But the Committee for Public Safety—that was a marvel of hypocrisy. The noble words, the ugly deeds…. Scarcely was the ink dry on the paper before it began corrupting itself and killing our people. The men who want power—they are unfit to hold it. I think of all lust, the lust for power is the greatest evil.”
The echo of Davy’s words a few days ago was unsettling. And so was the realization that Étienne Beauchene’s hand was still resting upon his own, and even more disturbing was the fact that he found that touch pleasant.
“I have a friend who would agree with you,” he said, trying to make his movement casual as he retrieved his hand and picked up his glass. “To friends, near and far—to men of good will.”
“I can drink to that with pleasure,” Beauchene said, and did. He paused a moment, looking thoughtful as a stray gleam of sunset touched his hair, giving it a copper glow. “This friend—is he upon your ship?”
“Yes. I wish there were some way for me to communicate with him, but I fear that if I were to attempt it, matters would only get worse.”
“Jean-Claude told me there has been a French ship in the harbor since yours sailed off. You have seen it, I think.”
“Yes,” Marshall admitted. “That is probably the reason he left so abruptly—those were my orders, though, as the ship’s owner, he could have chosen to do otherwise.”
“So he has gone and cannot return. Would it help, do you think, for me to invite the captain to come ashore and explain to him why you are here?”
If it were only that simple. “That is for you to decide, of course,” Marshall said, “but I’m afraid that in the current diplomatic situation, it would not help at all. I have no official papers, no permission to remove a French citizen from his own country… and I cannot hope that the captain of that ship would be as amiable a man as you are. It is his duty to be suspicious of a foreign sailor, as I would be in his position.”
“There is also the problem that we cannot produce Dr. Colbert,” Beauchene said wryly. He addressed an imaginary third party: “‘M’sieu Captain, this English sailor is here only to take his friend’s uncle back to his family.’ ‘Very well, produce this uncle!’ ‘Alas, we cannot, he seems to have lost himself.’”
Marshall laughed at the dialogue, though it was no joke. “True enough. Even worse, I have no ship to take him on if he should appear. I do wish he had made other arrangements, or that there were some way to get in touch with him.”
“I am beginning to worry for him.” Beauchene glanced toward the window, where the light was nearly gone. “He is not yet sixty, but the trip is long and the way dangerous, and he should have been here—what, four days ago?”
“Yes. Or even a day sooner. It’s past time to take action, but I did not wish to presume. It is your home.”
“I agree. We should act, then. What do you wish to do?”
What Marshall wished to do was borrow a horse, if such a thing was to be had. “I wish to go looking for him, but as an Englishman, I could not inquire along the road, so there’s little hope I would find him. Is there anyone in the household who could be sent to look for him? I’ve little money with me, but we have funds aboard the Mermaid and the Baron would be happy to pay for assistance if it meant finding his father-in-law.”
“That is a difficulty, but not because of money. I cannot send Jean-Claude. He is needed here, to car
ry wood and water for the house. The rest of us are incapable of venturing very far—and although your French is very good, you are so obviously English that you would not be safe.”
“I am able-bodied, Étienne. I could deal with the firewood, and I’ve spent most of my life on water.”
“But you are a guest!”
He seemed genuinely shocked at the suggestion that a guest might pitch in and lend a hand. “An uninvited guest,” Marshall pointed out, “who has put you to a great deal of trouble.”
“And whose company has given me a great deal of pleasure. No, no, my friend, let us wait until tomorrow. It would do no good to begin at sunset. I will speak to our old cook. Her daughter lives in the village—perhaps her son-in-law can take leave of his fermenting vats for a day or two. Dr. Colbert has been our guest before, so it would not cause talk or suspicion if I said he was expected here.”
Marshall felt his spirits grow lighter even as the room grew dim. “Thank you, my friend. I have become more and more concerned as the days passed—though, I admit, your library has a great power of distraction. I hope the doctor is merely delayed, but if the worst has happened, it would be best to know that, too.”
“We must hope it has not. Dr. Colbert knew my parents long before I was born, and we have all lost too many friends. He deserves to be back with his grandchildren for Christmas. I should have spoken before now, but I was certain he would arrive just as arrangements were made to go look for him.”
“In that case, now that we have laid plans, perhaps we may expect him tomorrow,” Will said.
“Indeed. Shall we set a plate for him at dinner tonight? Speaking of dinner, what is the time?”
Marshall checked his watch. “A few minutes to five. Shall I light the candles?”
