Upon A Starlit Tide

2. Rough Water, Dark Moon

2

Rough Water, Dark Moon

Luce’s unfortunate affliction, Gratienne called it. Or Luce’s curse, when she thought her youngest daughter was not close by. Charlotte called it far worse—hurtful things that made Luce want to curl her legs beneath her skirts, or run away, if running had not pained her so.

She removed her boots and stockings, wincing. Unlike her legs, which were long and smooth, her feet were as gnarled and brittle as driftwood. Oddly curved, they turned inward and under, so that her toes were a mess of misshapen, flattened bones, thick with calluses and pain. And pain. And pain.

The surgeons had no name for it. Jean-Baptiste had summoned several over the years, along with barbers and apothecaries. He had even taken Luce to Paris to see the kingdom’s finest healers. On one thing they all agreed: Luce had been born with a rare and terrible affliction, and there was no means of curing it.

‘Look here, then,’ came a tiny voice from the rose bush. ‘What’s happened to you ?’

Luce sighed. ‘Nothing you need concern yourself with.’

‘I disagree!’ A woman no taller than a cat hopped from between the roses. She was dressed all in green, with red stockings and a jaunty red hat. Before Luce could say otherwise, the lutine—for that is what she was—was examining Luce’s feet with an air of scientific curiosity, her hands clasped behind her back.

‘What have you been doing?’ she asked, tsk ing as Luce scooped water over her feet. Oh, sweet relief. It was as nothing to the succor that seawater would have brought her, but it would do. ‘Not being careful, eh?’

Ordinarily Luce was mindful of her feet. She walked slowly, considering the placement of each step, the surface and angle least likely to cause her pain. The rapid climb up the rocky path and back to the house had been just the thing to set them on fire.

‘You could say that.’ She dipped into the bucket again. The water was blissfully cold, and it was taking all her willpower not to plunge both feet in at once and dabble them like a duck.

In the house, the sound of voices receded and then sharpened as their owners flowed into the grand salon. The doors overlooking the lawn were open, and Luce clearly heard her mother telling the servants, Nanette and Marie-Jeanne, to bring hot water, towels, and blankets.

The little creature tsk ed again, waggling her fingers, and a piece of clean washing that looked suspiciously like one of the embroidered handkerchiefs Luce had seen drying in the laundry room appeared in her tiny hand. ‘Voilà!’

‘Is that—’

‘Be grateful, not nosy, tall one.’

Luce bit back a smile as she thought of Veronique’s face, should her sister discover what her beautiful handkerchief had been used for. ‘Thank you.’

‘Welcome.’

The lutine watched as Luce dabbed at her foot with the kerchief, smoothing away the sand and heat. The little rose-woman was not the only Fae creature living on the malouinière grounds. There were korrigans in the kitchens and water sprites in the well. The scullery maid was always careful to leave a flat stone or three before the oven each night for the little folk to warm themselves upon, as well as bread and other treats. It would not do to lose them, after all. Everyone in Saint-Malo—from the wealthiest shipowner to the lowliest kitchen boy—understood that. The steady hum of the storm-stone rising from the house and the estate walls, the protection and peace it offered, was entirely due to the presence of Fae Folk and the magic they imparted. Stone, sea, earth—they blessed it all.

‘Rude not to answer questions,’ the rose-lady said. ‘What has the tall one been doing?’

‘I dragged a drowning man out of the sea.’

The lutine blinked. ‘The tall one lies!’

‘Not at all.’ Luce told the tale while she washed her other foot. Well, most of the tale. She left out how cold the sailor’s hands had felt through the sodden cotton of her chemise, and the startling warmth of his tongue as it brushed against hers.

Her cheeks flooded with heat. This was not what she had expected of her morning. She had risen early to comb the shore for storm treasure, nothing more. Unusual shells, she had thought, as she slipped through the chapel and out into the freedom of the early morning. Or, if a ship had wrecked out in the Manche, something more substantial. A spy-glass, perhaps, or a sounding line, its cordage knotted, but salvageable. Once, after a storm, she had found a wooden box floating in the cove. It had contained a sextant of gleaming brass, perfectly safe, perfectly dry. It was her greatest treasure, taking pride of place on the rough stone shelves of Luce’s sea-cave—her greatest secret. It was there that she kept all her salvaged treasures, and there that she retreated when the strictures and bustle of her family, her entire life, became too much to bear.

But then this morning, there he was. As strange and unexpected as the rarest shell. Just waiting for her to find him.

The lutine was watching her, eyes bright as jewels in her crinkled face.

‘Dangerous path you’re treading,’ she said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’ Luce’s blush deepened. She wondered if the little lady could somehow see the mark of a kiss on her lips, the imprint of hands upon her skin.

‘Only a fool steals a soul from the sea once the sea has claimed it.’

‘That’s just sailors’ superstition.’ She had heard it often enough from Bones, and even Samuel. Most sailors, smugglers, and fishermen hesitated to rescue their stricken brethren from the sea, for fear that their own lives would be forfeit.

‘’Tis true enough. Now you owe the sea a soul.’

A prickling of foreboding whispered across Luce’s skin. Beyond the lawn, the house, the sea pines whispered, as though a new wind had woken. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

‘Foolish,’ the lutine said, with a solemn shake of her head. ‘Foolish to risk your soul like that. I will ask the wind to watch over you.’

‘And I you.’

Another snap of those tiny fingers, and a set of clean silk stockings and two pink garters appeared in her hands. These, Luce saw with relief, were her own, and she felt no guilt as she slid her clean toes inside the stockings and drew them up to her thighs, securing them with the ribbons. When she looked up, the lutine was gone.

Luce waited until she was sure the fishermen had left the grounds— until the low whickering from the stables and the contented clucking of the chickens wandering near the gates were the only sounds— before she returned to the house. The vestibule, with its imposing ceilings, marble floors, and enormous stone staircase, was empty.

‘Those fools didn’t know a thing,’ Luce heard her sister Charlotte say from the grand salon. The enormous, ornate double doors were slightly ajar, hiding the activity within. ‘Who is he, do you think?’

Who, indeed? Luce considered that as she crossed the vestibule. She knew all the great ship-owning families of Saint-Malo: the Gaultiers and the Desailles. The Fontaine-Roux and the de Chatelaines. The Le Fers, the Landais, and the Rivières. Perhaps this man was a foreigner? From Amsterdam or Spain? Perhaps— she hesitated, steps slowing—he was English?

The war with England was in its second year now. ‘Tussocking over the Americas,’ Samuel called it, though Luce’s father would have disagreed. ‘It is a matter of French pride,’ Jean-Baptiste had told her. ‘We cannot let the English take the Ohio.’ The fighting was not limited to the New World. There had been fighting in Saxony, Bohemia, and Moravia, as well as the Mediterranean. It affected everyone in Saint-Malo—merchants, traders, and shipowners alike. With trade interrupted, and the Manche and Atlantique bristling with enemy ships, men like Luce’s father turned, as they had always done, to privateering. Armed with a Letter of Marque from the king, he would swiftly pull together investors, a crew, and a captain. ‘It is not only our right, but our duty,’ Jean-Baptiste would oft proclaim. By disrupting English shipping and destroying or taking its ships, the corsairs of Saint-Malo were assisting the king by distracting the English Navy, as well as adding to the French war coffers by sharing their spoils with the Crown. They were also—Luce glanced at the Italian marble floor, elaborate golden candelabra and matching mirror, still covered by layers of linen after last night’s storm— making a great deal of money. Of course, it was not only France who took to privateering. England, too, had its own raiders. Just like the gentlemen of Saint-Malo, they scoured the Manche, the Atlantique, and beyond, attacking, sinking, and stealing enemy ships, fighting for country and glory. If this man was an English privateer, he was her father’s, Saint-Malo’s, and all of Bretagne’s enemy.

Guilt of an entirely different kind rose within Luce. She hurried toward the grand salon, then whirled as someone hissed her name.

Samuel and Bones were standing in the shadows beneath the stairs, tricorns in hand, grinning.

‘Found your clothes, then,’ Samuel whispered, with an amiable wink. ‘Good for you.’

‘I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, Samuel,’ Bones muttered, turning to his cousin in mock disapproval. ‘Anyone would think you enjoy glimpsing well-bred young women swimming in their underthings.’

Framed by the intricately carved pair of fish bearing the bronze ship’s bell, their overcoats of oiled leather stark against the pastel paneling on the walls—dove-grey, cream trim, the height of fashion—the two smugglers looked large, rough, and completely incorrigible.

‘What are you still doing here?’ Luce hissed, hurrying toward them.

‘The same as you.’ Samuel looked wounded. ‘Saving that poor soul from certain death.’

Bones was no longer smiling. ‘Tell me you didn’t pull him from the water, Luce,’ he said, his usually good-natured face grave. ‘That he was already on the beach when you found him.’

Luce sighed. Bones wholeheartedly believed, as all seamen did, in the superstitions that soaked their craft. Customs that could save your life or doom it. Habits that could change the whim of the weather, the will of the waves. ‘You’re as bad as the lutine, Bones, with your superstitions.’

‘You know better than to do something like that, Luce,’ he scolded. ‘The sea must have its number.’

‘I—’ Luce froze as the voices in the salon drifted closer, as though someone—Nanette, perhaps—was about to step into the vestibule. Bones, swearing softly, bolted through the front doors and across the courtyard, out of sight. Samuel merely stood his ground, grinning in a way he knew Luce found to be most disagreeable.

‘Curse you, Samuel.’ She placed both hands on his chest and pushed him farther into the shadows. Though he could have stopped her easily—he was a full head taller than she, and strong from years of sea-work—he retreated obediently, ducking his tawny head to avoid bashing it on the stairs. A moment later Veronique’s chambermaid, Anna-Marie, hurried intently by, her neat, capped head bent low.

‘You took an age to come inside,’ Samuel said, when Anna-Marie had gone. ‘Bones was worried your mother would catch us loitering and toss us arse-first into her rose bushes.’

‘Keep your voice down, or she will toss us both !’ Luce’s hands were still on his chest. Carefully, she removed them.

‘You’re in a foul mood,’ he observed. ‘Feet hurting?’

‘I’m fine. I just... I don’t want my family knowing what happened this morning, that’s all.’

Samuel frowned. ‘That man owes his life to you, Luce. Why should you hide it?’

‘Because—as you well know, Samuel—my entire family believes I was at prayer in the chapel this morning, not... not running about the shore in my chemise.’

Or kissing strangers, for that matter. She glanced up at him, at the curve of his lips, lifting in a half smile.

‘Well, no need to worry about that. No one saw you but Bones and me.’

Those words from any other man might have made Luce shudder and draw away. They implied an intimacy, after all: an unseemly, uninvited, knowledge. In Samuel’s rough French, however—he, like Bones, was English, though decidedly more interested in profits than patriotism—they were a reassurance, nothing more. In all the time they had spent together, on the shore and in his boat, he had never once made her feel uneasy.

She watched him a moment, wondering if he had seen more than just her underthings on the beach: Luce, wrapped in the near-drowned man’s arms, kissing him as though she alone could push the life back into him. No. No, the young man had flopped back onto the sand well before the fishermen, Samuel among them, rounded the headland. And Samuel, for his part, was calm as always. There was no question in his grey eyes, no.... what was she looking for? Jealousy? Consternation?

She ought to know better.

Samuel and Bones were part of a small operation that smuggled contraband from Bretagne to their village in Dorset. Tea, wine, and brandy. Silks and lace and fine Breton linens. When Luce and Samuel first met, he had been searching for a place to store contraband between Manche crossings—space in the crowded warehouses in Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan was far too expensive for smugglers of his ilk, he later explained. Somewhere close to his lodgings at a Saint-Coulomb farmhouse, where an elderly widow gave both him and Bones a meal a day and rough beds in the loft above her barn. There were several caves that had caught his eye, but all were occupied—tide-women, though rare, were still about, as well as fions and the same crotchety band of jetins Luce had met that morning at the cove. Samuel was stumbling up the beach, suffering the indignation of having curses as well as stones hurled at him by the latter, when he came upon Luce swimming. Later, he had admitted that he had thought her one of the sea-folk, at first, with her long dark hair. It was only when she swam into the shallows and banished the furious jetins with a word that he realised she was not one of the Fae as he had supposed, but the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Léon.

Turning his back while she emerged from the water and dressed, Samuel had expected nothing more from his future than swift punishment for encroaching upon not only Monsieur Léon’s property but the privacy of his youngest daughter. He had not anticipated being the subject of Luce’s keen appraisal. She had known within a moment of hearing his spluttered apologies and curses that he was English—thanks to the many tutors her father had procured for her over the years, she not only spoke fluent English, but Latin and Spanish, too—and wasted no time in asking him what his business was. Stunned into honesty, he explained his predicament: he was in need of a cave. Somewhere large and dry. Somewhere secret.

Luce had known the perfect place. A sea-cave hidden amid the tumbling rocks beneath the cliffs and protected by the presence of the powerful groac’h, or tide-crone, who lived in her own cave nearby. Despite the many stories of the fae woman’s wickedness and savagery, Luce had always found her to leave well enough alone, if the same courtesy was bestowed upon her. Even better, her presence caused the local fishermen to give the cove a wide berth. Luce showed Samuel the cave—he agreed that it was perfect—and offered it to him on two conditions: one, that he avoid the parts that Luce had already claimed for her own use, and two, that he teach her how to sail.

Samuel was unable to pass up such an opportunity—a cave protected by the presence of a malignant sea hag? It was more than he had hoped for. ‘By all means,’ he had said in his stillclumsy French. ‘I will gladly teach you to sail, mademoiselle.’

‘Then we have an agreement,’ Luce replied in perfect English, shaking his hand.

Samuel had honoured it, too, arriving at the cove at least once a week whenever Luce and her family were residing at Le Bleu Sauvage, in the quiet of the mornings when the rest of her family slept or sipped coffee in their chambers, completely unaware that Luce had slipped through the chapel and gone out on the water with an unscrupulous smuggler from Dorset. Samuel’s presence was an island in an otherwise dreary ocean of tutors and music lessons, embroidery and tiresome social engagements; suppers and lunches, piqniques and dances. Luce did her best to avoid them. She had little in common with the other young ladies of Saint-Malo, with their talk of marriage and trousseaus and shopping trips to Paris. She had her father, of course, and the many books he brought for her— geography, natural history, and mathematics. But it was only Samuel who gave her what she most wanted: the open water, and its freedom.

Footsteps. Nanette, bearing a pitcher, scurried by, followed by Claudine, her arms loaded with blankets. Neither servant so much as glanced under the stairs before hurrying into the salon.

‘Very good,’ came Gratienne’s voice from within. ‘Now, take that blanket and spread it out under him. No, this way. Here, lift him, lift him. That’s right. No point ruining that chintz.’

‘I wonder who he is,’ Samuel said, tilting his head in an effort to catch a glimpse of the goings-on between the crack in the salon doors. The ends of his brown hair, crisped gold by long days of sun and salt, glimmered like her mother’s candelabra. ‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘No.’ Luce’s cheeks flamed. She was glad of the cool shadows beneath the stairs.

‘I suppose we’ll find out when he wakes.’

‘I suppose we will.’ A moment of dread. Would the sailor reveal her part in his rescue? He was, at this very moment, surrounded by her family. It would take only a word or two for him to reveal all.

Samuel was watching her. ‘I doubt he’ll recall much,’ he said, as if perceiving her thoughts. ‘God alone knows how long he was drifting, cold and exhausted. It will be a miracle if he remembers anything at all.’

‘I hope that’s true.’ Please, be true. Relief, and something else. Disappointment? She feared that the sailor might remember her, it was true; yet, at the same time, she loathed the notion of him forgetting. The memory of his kiss was warm on her lips; she touched her fingertips to them guiltily.

‘One can only hope,’ Samuel said with a shrug.

Luce narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re thinking of the ship.’ He grinned. ‘I’m thinking of the ship.’

Smuggling was not the only unlawful pastime with which Samuel filled his days. He was also a storm diver, a hunter of the precious storm-stone ballast used by Malouin shipowners and captains to protect their vessels from foul weather, attack, and mutiny alike (‘Not all storms are related to the weather, after all,’ Papa was fond of saying). Harvesting the stone from wrecks and reefs was illegal— Samuel knew this as well as anyone. But storm-stone was no longer as plentiful or powerful as it had been a century ago, when Bretagne’s population of Fae creatures had been larger, and there were strict laws in place to protect the city’s supply. There had to be. As more and more of the Fae left Bretagne, it became harder and harder to find good quality stone. A thriving black market had developed, which Samuel had no qualms about levering to his advantage. The rarer something was, after all, the higher the price.

‘I gave him a discreet little slap or two on the way up,’ Samuel admitted. ‘Hoped he might wake and say what kind of cloud the ship was carrying, and where it went down. He wouldn’t rouse, more’s the pity.’

‘You didn’t!’ Luce tried, and failed, to keep from laughing. ‘That man almost died, Samuel—his crew are unaccounted for—and all you care about is whether he might help you line your pockets!’

‘We’re not all of us lucky enough to be Léons,’ he said, with a meaningful glance at the opulent vestibule. It was the first time, Luce realised, she had ever seen Samuel in her father’s house. Beside the spindly side table with its ridiculously ostentatious decorations— flowers and birds, swirls of leaves and sea shells—he looked supremely out of place.

... And no less attractive for it , said a small, rather irritating part of Luce.

‘If we’re going to talk about who owes what,’ Samuel was saying, ‘let’s talk about what he owes you. You put yourself at risk when you swam out to save him.’

‘Nonsense. I’m a strong swimmer.’

‘You are,’ he agreed. ‘But that’s not what I’m talking about. You stole a soul from the Manche when you brought him in. It will not forget.’

‘Heavens above, Samuel. Not you, too?’

She should have known. Samuel was not as effusive as his cousin when it came to sea lore, but he saw omens in the clouds and portents in the colour of the water just the same.

‘The Manche has never been anything but kind to me,’ she said. ‘I am not afraid.’

‘I wish I could say the same,’ he said soberly. ‘Lend me some of that confidence, would you? I’ll need it tonight.’

‘You’re making a run?’

‘Looks like it. The moon’s new and the weather’s lurking. Perfect night for a little “fishing”.’

Luce frowned. ‘The crossing will be rough.’

‘It will. The Manche is in a foul mood.’

‘Why tempt it, then?’

‘You know why. Rough water, dark moon—good smuggling.’ Luce nodded. Dark moons hid sails, and bad weather kept customs men—and their speedy clippers—at bay. Even so, the thought of Samuel and Bones sailing their little two-masted lugger, the Dove, across the dark expanse of the Manche filled her with misgiving.

‘I thought you said you weren’t afraid?’ Samuel teased. ‘There’s no need to look so worried; we’re only going to Guernsey.’

The salon doors creaked open, and Marie-Jeanne bustled through. She spared not a glance as she passed by, hurrying toward the kitchen.

‘How many servants are there?’ Samuel asked in wonder.

‘I should see if they need help,’ Luce said. The urge to see the sailor again, to know how he fared, was suddenly strong.

‘Of course.’ Samuel watched the salon warily. ‘Much as I’ve enjoyed lingering with you beneath these fancy stairs, I have things of my own to see to. Is it safe to leave?’

Luce peered out from beneath the stairs. ‘I think so.’

He ducked out from the cover of the shadows, overcoat swirling as he strode for the door. At the last moment he stopped, came back. ‘I’m going to search for that wreck when we get back from Guernsey. The tide will be just right in the morning. Come with me. Six bells?’

Despite herself, Luce nodded.

‘If for some reason you can’t meet me’—he inclined his head toward the grand salon, and her family—‘leave a note at the chapel.’

‘I will. Take care tonight, Samuel. The Manche is in a greedy mood.’

‘Then I’ll be in good company.’ He threw her another wink and settled his battered tricorn on his head. ‘But I’ll take care, just for you.’