Upon A Starlit Tide

6. All Wild and Beautiful

6

All Wild and Beautiful

On horseback, Luce’s feet were as good as anyone else’s. A touch of her heels, a click of her tongue, and she could be skimming lightly over orchards and fields, through swathes of forest, or along roadways thick with primroses, violets, and wild hyacinths.

Jean-Baptiste was just as fearless, often partaking in the hunting and racing that took place throughout the summer. Side by side, they cantered past farmhouses and the occasional gated drive leading to manors or malouinières, St. Jean jouncing along behind, the packhorse’s lead rein clutched in one white-knuckled fist.

Luce heard his sigh of relief when they reached SaintCoulomb—a clustering of granite houses with the church’s spire blooming in their midst—and slowed to a sedate walk.

‘I have another surprise for you,’ Jean-Baptiste said.

‘Oh, Papa,’ Luce said, her heart sinking. ‘I do not need for anything. Truly.’

‘I have found a new music tutor for you,’ he said. ‘From the Royal Academy, no less. He is due to arrive this week.’

The swallows had returned, dipping between the rooftops. Luce barely noticed them. While she understood the gift her father had given her and her sisters by procuring tutors for them over the years—daughters rarely received an education so thorough— those same teachers had become undeniably problematic when Luce began to receive instruction—of a very different kind—from Samuel. A new tutor would be another obstacle in an already extensive list.

‘Did Maman ask you to do this?’ she asked carefully. ‘I know she wishes I’d practise more...’

‘I thought you would be pleased,’ Jean-Baptiste said, looking disappointed. ‘Monsieur Ferrand is an accomplished composer. He has studied science and mathematics, too. I know you love to learn...’

At the sight of his face, the hurt there, Luce softened. ‘You are right. I do. It’s very generous of you, Papa. Thank you.’

With luck this Monsieur Ferrand would be as old as the rest of the tutors—and as willing to sleep late, and nod drowsily over a cup of chocolate in the evenings.

Saint-Malo came into view. Hazy with spray and distance, the walled city clung grimly to its nest of rocks, pushing resolutely toward the sea. It was surrounded by water on three sides: to the north, the Manche; the south, the wide harbour with its dockyards; and to the southwest, the mouth of the river Rance, crowded with ships of every size and description.

The city took shape as they rode closer. The cathedral, its lonely spire rising above the rooftops and towers, and the fortress crouching at the easternmost edge. Islands, reefs, and rocks dotted the water surrounding the city, the largest topped with forts bristling with cannon and mistrust: Fort Royale, Grand Bé, Petit Bé, and La Conchée. They, like the ramparts and walls, were made entirely of storm-stone. Its thundering hum surged in time with Luce’s blood, tingling against her face and neck. It was why the city had never been breached, why the Dutch and the English had broken like waves against it, again and again, over the centuries. Come, then, it seemed to say. Do your worst.

The storm-stone continued to beat silently against Luce’s bones as they reached the Sillon, the narrow causeway that, during high tide, was the only means of accessing the city, and fell in with the carts, carriages, and people making their way to the gates. To one side, a great stretch of beach, and the Manche. To the other, the inner harbour, the smell of hot tar rising strong from the crews breaming the boats beached on the rough sands like whales.

The fortress perched at the end of the causeway, its high walls manned by soldiers of the garrison, the shoulders and tower of the cathedral watching protectively over all. Jean-Baptiste led the way through Saint-Vincent Gate, and the sun and northwesterly breeze were quickly swallowed by the walls. Tortured little streets wove between crooked stone houses, their rooftops huddling against the sky. Gulls wheeled above, or perched on chimneypots. They passed a series of shopfronts: sailmakers, linen and cod merchants, wine-sellers, clothing, and ships’ supplies. Grease shops oozed with butter, lard, and oil, and pothouses spilled music and rowdy sailors onto the cobbles. Luce’s horse shied as a fight erupted close by, two brawny tars swinging drunkenly at each other as their delighted crewmates cheered. Jean-Baptiste turned his horse neatly down the nearest side-street with barely a glance. Luce, following him, could not help but look back. The men were reeling and stumbling together in a clumsy dance, hindered by both their roaring shipmates and the arrival of the City Guard. The result, predictably, was utter chaos. Luce leaned as far back in the saddle as she was able, pilfering every detail of the brawl before her mount’s steady pace stole it from sight. St. Jean, rounding the corner behind her, winked conspiratorially.

The pungent scent of the nearby fish market thickened the air, its salty-strong smell a surprising relief; Saint-Malo smelled like the hold of a ship after a long sea voyage: bilgewater, unwashed bodies, and rotting timber.

The Léon home was a tall and stately affair on the corner of Rue Saint-Philippe, beside the wall and Saint Michel’s Bastion. Jean-Baptiste had bought the house from the Rivière family near twenty years ago. Four storeys of impeccably crafted storm-stone, it overlooked the harbour entrance and, on the other side of the bay, the distant dockyards of Saint-Servan. There was a watch-house built into the steeply pitched roof, where Jean-Baptiste could keep an eye on his forty-nine ships as they entered or sailed from the harbour, and enormous windows able to catch refreshing sea breezes any time of year, or offer glimpses of the tip of the cathedral. Beneath the town house, two levels of cellars and storerooms had been hewn into the rock. Every conceivable luxury was crammed into the cool darkness there: tea and coffee, spices, cacao, printed cottons from India, sugar and indigo from the West Indies, tobacco from the Americas, French silks, wine, brandy, and lace, and Spanish oil and silver.

Inside the gates, Luce unhooked her legs from the side-saddle and slid carefully to the cobbled ground. Two sets of graceful, rounded stairs led from the courtyard to the double glass doors of the grand salon a level above, mirroring each other as they curved to meet at the landing. Beneath them, a set of sturdy doors opened directly into the cellars.

Luce waited while St. Jean lit a lantern for her father, then followed him inside. The air cooled at once, and the sounds of the street, the sea, faded. The rumble of storm-stone, the tingling in her skin, was overwhelming. She closed her eyes, letting herself adjust.

‘Coming?’ Jean-Baptiste was waiting for her in the corridor, his lantern held high.

‘Yes, Papa.’

There were ten rooms in all, and Jean-Baptiste knew the contents of each intimately, down to the tiniest box of indigo. (He could also tell you which of his ships had brought the indigo from the French Antilles, and how much he expected to make from it.) To their left, Luce knew, lay the spice room. To the right, Breton linens bound for Cádiz and beyond.

‘Here we are, then,’ he said, leading Luce down the corridor. ‘The silk room.’

St. Jean was already there, lighting the lanterns set at intervals along the walls. Storm-stone walls thick with shelving appeared, and above, a timber ceiling crossed by enormous, rough-hewn beams. Every inch of the timeworn timber floor, made with the salvaged decks of an erstwhile corsair, was covered in packages and sea chests.

‘What would you like?’ Jean-Baptiste asked, prowling between the chests. ‘Pink satin? Green silk faille with silver embroidery? Cream silk taffeta?’

The room was brightening with every lantern St. Jean lit, revealing a rainbow of silky colour fit to rival the finest mercer or modiste.

Luce, however, was looking longingly through the doorway to the adjoining chamber, where a collection of salty oddments and endings sat rather sadly between packs of furs and crates of tobacco. Too large to be kept in the town house or Le Bleu Sauvage, her father’s keepsakes—acquired during his years at sea—were infinitely fascinating. Navigational equipment, maps in long leather canisters, swords, pistols, and two or three of the hideous-looking grapnels he had used to climb the slippery sides of soon-to-be-captured ships. A ship was considered captured when the boarding crew had seized its colours. There were plenty of those, too, including several faded English ensigns.

‘Mon trésor?’ Jean-Baptiste was watching her. ‘What do you think?’

‘I hardly know, Papa,’ Luce said, forcing herself to focus. ‘There are so many.’ She had the uncomfortable notion that Charlotte’s prediction—that Luce would have first choice of their father’s fabrics—had been correct. ‘Perhaps we should start by finding something beautiful for Charlotte and Veronique?’

‘What a splendid idea.’

Luce helped her father wade through the glittering sea of chests, opening here, unrolling there, discussing the merits of silver and gold thread, the difference between blue celeste and bleu lapis. St. Jean carefully packed their selections in tissue paper and waxed canvas. And then, of course, came the trimmings: a rainbow’s worth of silk ribbons, a garden of silk flowers, miles of silken thread, and a menagerie of feathers.

‘That,’ Jean-Baptiste said, adding the trimmings to the mountain of bundles and giving them a satisfied pat, ‘should do. Although...’ He moved back through the maze of chests, opened one, and held up a piece of blue silk, as deep as the Manche on a summer day. ‘Eh voilà! I saved this one for you, mon trésor.’

‘Oh, Papa,’ Luce breathed, despite herself. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘It is too dark to be fashionable, I know,’ Jean-Baptiste said, bringing the silk faille to her.

‘You know I don’t care about that.’

He held it up to her cheek. ‘It’s as I thought,’ he said approvingly. ‘The exact colour of your eyes. Shall I have St. Jean pack it with the rest?’

The silk glistened in the lanterns’ light. It was cool and soft against Luce’s hand. Wearing it, she knew, would be like wearing the sea.

‘Yes, please,’ she said.

There were near thirty dockyards scattered across the shores of Saint-Malo, Rocabey, and Saint-Servan. Samuel often said you couldn’t walk on the beach without bashing your shins on a pile of timber or getting a face full of tar smoke. The yard Jean-Baptiste favored was half an hour’s ride from the gates of Saint-Malo, near Saint-Servan. Reaching it required traveling through the salt marshes of the Talards, with their dockyard, ropeworks, and powder magazine, and around the sweep of muddy beaches littered with fishing boats and drying nets.

Luce recognised the Lucinde at once. Of the three frigates resting in the building slips, only one was near completion. Cradled in her stocks, she seemed unperturbed by her layers of scaffolding, or the workmen crawling upon her like hungry insects.

Waiting patiently for her freedom.

Luce followed her father past the timber stores and ropeworks, the smithy and the sawpits, the rigging and mast houses. There were workmen everywhere, hauling timber, tending fires, sawing and steaming and shouting. The smells of smoke and fresh-cut timber and tar blended with the slightly rotten smell of the beach at low tide. Luce breathed it in.

‘What do you think of her?’ Jean-Baptiste asked, reining in his horse on the beach. Luce did the same, then slipped her feet free of the stirrups and slid to the sand.

‘She’s perfect.’ Even without her masts and sails—they would be added once she was safely launched—the ship was beautiful.

‘Can we go aboard?’

‘Of course.’

Leaving the horses with St. Jean, they walked together down the beach. The workers, recognising Jean-Baptiste, nodded respectfully as he passed. One of them, an older man who was clearly in charge, raised a hand in greeting.

‘Charles Le Page,’ Jean-Baptiste said quietly to Luce, as the man hurried over. ‘Master shipwright.’ He greeted the shipwright warmly and gestured to Luce. ‘Allow me to introduce my daughter—’

‘Lucinde,’ Le Page finished, with a smile. ‘Forgive my familiarity, mademoiselle. But we have met before, you know.’

Luce frowned, confused. ‘We have, monsieur?’

‘Indeed.’ He pointed straight up, to where the prow of the Lucinde loomed against the sky. There, affixed to the beak and the knee of the head, was the ship’s figurehead. ‘Would you like to meet her?’

They followed the shipwright along the slip, and up the ramp to the scaffolding.

‘You will need to climb, I’m afraid,’ Le Page said, slipping through a break in the planking. ‘Here, allow me.’

He helped Luce into the belly of the ship. It was dim and cool, stripes of dusty sunlight cutting through the shadows.

‘The decks are fully planked and ready for caulking,’ Le Page said, leading them up a steep set of stairs. ‘And the stern gallery and rudder have been fitted.’

‘I would like to see them,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘Of course.’

Luce trailed behind the men as they crossed the upper deck. Even unfinished, with gaping holes where her masts and capstans would soon be, it was hard not to imagine that the deck was moving gently. That the Lucinde was running before the wind and the stars.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ Jean-Baptiste said, squeezing her hand. ‘It is impossible not to imagine her on the fly, no? Come. See your figurehead.’

Construction on the prow had only recently ended. The smell of timber, freshly cut and caulked, was strong, the scaffolding surrounding the beak and prow still in place.

‘I don’t have to tell you to be mindful,’ Le Page said, helping Luce onto the platform skirting the prow.

‘There’s no need to worry about this one,’ Jean-Baptiste said proudly. ‘She knows her way ’round a ship. Now, about that rudder...’

Luce was already edging around the Lucinde ’s hull as the men’s voices drifted away. The wind, which had seemed gentle enough on the beach, clawed at her bergère hat. She gripped the wide brim with one hand, used her other to keep her wide skirts from catching on the rail. Perhaps, she thought, thinking of one Samuel Thorner, if women were not compelled to wear such ridiculous clothing, they would be better at moving about on ships.

At last she reached the figurehead.

There were countless mirrors at Le Bleu Sauvage—only Claudine, who was responsible for covering each one during thunderstorms, would know the exact number. In the vestibule and dining room, the bedchambers and salons. Even the servants’ entrance contained a small, pitted rectangle of silvered glass.

Because of this, Luce knew her own countenance well. Its shape and expression. The precise colour of her eyes and hair (blue and black, respectively). It was, however, something else entirely to see herself carved in oak, and painted in remarkable detail.

Freckles dusted the figurehead’s nose. Her hand, resting against her brow as she surveyed the horizon, was identical to Luce’s own: long-fingered, browned by the sun. Her black hair was loose, flowing over the prow. White lace, cleverly carved, foamed at her elbow-length sleeves and bodice. Her dress was a deep, rich blue. Like her hair, it ruffled and snapped in an imaginary wind, coming to an abrupt end just below her thighs, as though she were emerging from the ship’s timbers: half within, and half without.

No feet, Charlotte had giggled as she looked over the plans at supper, and now Luce understood why. The figurehead’s legs, knees, and feet disappeared completely beneath the folds of carved blue timber. The old shame gnawed at her, as well as... something else. She ran a hand over the figurehead’s hip, feeling for the exact place her body ended and the ship began. The feeling of freedom, of movement, was gone; she seemed trapped, bound tightly by wood and iron. Compelled, through no choice of her own, to follow a course charted by another.

‘I take it you’re not happy with the craftsmanship, Mademoiselle Léon?’ came a smooth voice from the deck above.

Luce looked up.

Morgan de Chatelaine was leaning on the bow rail, smiling down at her.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, too surprised to be polite.

‘The same as you, I imagine.’ He leapt lightly over the rail and onto the scaffolding. (Oh, how she envied him the quickness of his step, his casual, easy grace!) ‘Admiring your father’s new ship.’

He looked exactly as he had only hours before, in the salon at Le Bleu Sauvage. Paler, perhaps, and a little out of breath, though he was trying to hide it.

‘It’s my ship,’ she said, rather rudely. He had startled her, after all.

Morgan raised a doubtful eyebrow. ‘Yours?’

‘Yes.’

A brief look of confusion. Then he nodded in understanding. ‘You mean she’s named for you.’

‘No. I mean she’s mine. ’

‘I thought she was your father’s.’

‘She is. But he is giving her to me.’

‘I see.’ Both eyebrows lifted this time. ‘Quite the gift.’

‘My father is generous.’

‘Lucky you.’ He looked away from her, out over the yard, and leaned his elbows on the makeshift railing. ‘Would that I could say the same.’

Luce remembered the tension between father and son earlier that morning. ‘I take it your father is not pleased about the loss of the Dauphin. ’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

He was quiet for long moments, shoulders hunched, his gaze roving moodily over the dockyard. Luce wondered what to say. For the first time in her life, she wished she were more like Veronique. Her sister, with her grace and charm, would know exactly how to speak to the man beside her.

‘I am surprised to see you here,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Your mother said you needed rest.’

Grace and charm, indeed.

‘My mother says a lot of things. It doesn’t mean she’s right.’ He straightened, looked at her—and at the figurehead behind her. ‘Good God! You weren’t lying when you said the ship was yours, were you?’ He stepped closer to the carved-Luce, taking in her face, her hair, her bare arms. ‘It looks just like you.’

The sight of him so close to the figurehead, face upturned, his lips mere inches from her curving wooden ones, put Luce strongly in mind of what had passed between them after the storm. She cleared her throat. ‘I suppose it does.’

‘Come, you must give credit where it’s due. The likeness is remarkable.’

‘I suppose so,’ Luce said doubtfully. She wished he would move away from the figurehead. Seeing herself rendered so, and his witnessing it, was discomfiting, indeed.

‘Quite the gift,’ Morgan said again, softly. ‘And what will you do with your ship, Mademoiselle Léon?’

‘I do not yet know.’

He moved along the scaffolding, narrowing his gaze as he took in the ship’s prow, her hull. He ran a hand over her timbers, inspected the caulking. ‘Perhaps she will take you to Cádiz?’

Luce stared at him. ‘Cádiz?’

‘Of course.’ His dark eyes were kind, interested. ‘You spoke of it today with such interest. It obviously intrigues you.’

‘Intrigues me?’

‘Yes, the—do you intend to repeat everything I say, mademoiselle?’

He really was handsome—disarmingly so, with his black hair ruffled by the wind and his wide, warm smile. Luce looked away, her cheeks burning. ‘No.’

His smile widened. ‘Well, that is a relief. It would be a rather one-sided conversation, otherwise. Me talking, you repeating things. It is often the way with young women, I find. But you... I feel as though you might actually have something to say.’

At that moment Luce could, of course, think of nothing to say. He was very near, close enough that she could have reached out and touched his hand. The thought made her heart quicken.

‘And so, here we are,’ Morgan said, leaning against the figurehead companionably, his dark eyes twinkling with mirth. ‘Together with so much to say.’

‘Well, I did want to ask you...’ Do you remember who saved you on the beach? Do you remember that kiss? ‘What happened? To the Dauphin, I mean.’

A cloud passed across his face, and she regretted her words at once. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘I should not have asked you that.’

‘Two English frigates came upon us as we passed the ?les de la Manche,’ he said quietly. ‘One on one they would have had no hope against us—but the two of them...’ He shifted against the figurehead’s blue skirts. ‘We managed to get away, despite the damage, but the storm finished us off. The Dauphin was to be my first command. I had planned to go raiding, make a name for myself.’ He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter now. The Dauphin is gone, my crew lost—along with my father’s trust in me.’

But how? Luce longed to ask. How did you lose the ship when she was carrying such powerful stone? And why did your father lie about it?

Morgan was quiet. Thinking, no doubt, of the Dauphin heaving herself to pieces, listless and defeated. ‘Sometimes I wonder how I was the only one to survive,’ he said softly. ‘Why no one else made it to shore. My mother calls it a miracle, my father a curse. He says it is his duty to punish me. That, as captain, I was responsible for every soul aboard. Not to mention the—’ He shook his head, helpless. ‘He has refused to furnish me with another ship—or the coin to secure one.’

‘For how long?’

A bitter laugh. ‘For as long as he sees fit.’ He straightened, sighed. ‘I heard your family speaking of you, you know. You hear such things, when you are abed in an unfamiliar house.’

Luce winced. ‘What did they say?’

‘Your mother did not seem pleased with you. She said you were never where you were supposed to be. And that your collection of sea shells was making the entire house smell.’

Luce smiled. ‘That’s probably true.’

His gaze traveled over her, rested on her face, her hair. ‘It is not seemly for a lady to keep such things, she said. Even if your father does bring them to you. People, she said, will talk.’ His voice softened. ‘Between you and me, I wondered if she should not be more concerned about people suspecting you of being a seamaid.’

Luce’s heart hammered in her chest. She thought of his lips on hers, the salt-kiss on the beach. Did he remember?

‘You’ve seen one of the sea-folk?’ she asked.

Every seaman had his tale. A green-haired woman combing her hair before a storm, or diving alongside a ship, or gazing at her reflection in a hand mirror. A fisherman who ensnared a seamaid in his net and, despite the maiden’s pleas, refused to set her free. Injure or anger a seamaid and she would raise a storm. Placate her and you would have good luck. Some old shellbacks told of kindly seamaids who offered stricken sailors help; others described monsters who lured men to their drowning deaths, ornamenting their gardens with their salt-washed bones. These tales, and a hundred more, Luce had heard.

‘Of course,’ Morgan said. ‘Haven’t you?’

Luce shook her head. ‘There are no sea-folk in Bretagne anymore. Though Samuel swears—’

‘Samuel?’

Damn my soul. ‘One of the fishermen who delivers to our kitchens at Le Bleu Sauvage,’ she said hastily. ‘He swears that he once saw the shimmer of a tail and the gleam of pale skin beneath the waves off his bow.’ And don’t even think about saying I only saw it because I was half-seas over, Luce. I know what I saw. ‘Most people believe the sea-folk have moved on to wilder shores. They do not like ships, or people.’

‘I have heard the same,’ Morgan said.

‘Did you see them in Cádiz, then?’

‘The French Antilles.’ His voice was softer still. ‘I will never forget it. And when first I saw you...’

Luce could scarce breathe. She waited for him to say more, but Morgan was gazing out over the dockyard, a faraway look on his face. Ask him. The words were dancing on the edge of her tongue, yet still she hesitated. God alone knows how long he was drifting, cold and exhausted, Samuel had said. It will be a miracle if he remembers anything at all. Perhaps it was for the best if Morgan had forgotten. Well-behaved young women did not swim in their chemises and drag sailors from the sea. They did not allow said sailors to wrap their cold arms about them and steal their souls away.

And yet. She needed to know.

‘When... when first you saw me?’

He turned back to her, blinked. ‘Yes—today in your father’s salon. You had the look of the Fae about you.’ He smiled shyly. ‘All wild and beautiful. And everything I had heard them say, the way they spoke of you, made sense. I wondered about you.’

I wondered about you.

All wild and beautiful.

‘Well, I do have too many sea shells,’ she said lightly, as though his last words were not echoing in her bones.

He was watching her. Waiting, she realised, for her to say more.

‘You will think me strange, I fear.’

‘Never.’ He raised a hand to his heart, all theatrical earnestness, and she laughed.

‘Very well. I am interested in the history of things. The sea, its creatures. How it came to be, what has shaped it.’

‘I knew it,’ Morgan said, sliding closer. ‘I knew you would be fascinating. Tell me, then. Is it just the shaping of the sea that intrigues you? Or do you wish to sail it, too?’

A stab of sudden guilt. Luce had only ever spoken of sailing with one other person. It was Samuel who had taught her how to sail the Dove. How to read the wind and chart a course. How to tack, and prepare for bad weather. Sailing was their secret. But Morgan was here, now. Morgan, who thought Luce had the look of the sea-folk, all wild and beautiful.

‘I long to sail,’ she said. ‘If it were possible, I would command my own ship— this ship. Sail to Cádiz and the French Antilles, as you have done. Find those wild places where the sea-folk still exist.’

She waited for him to laugh.

He didn’t. ‘Why isn’t it possible?’

‘You know why.’ She gestured at herself. ‘Look at me.’

‘Oh, I am.’

Luce could not help it; she blushed.

‘There is nothing strange about wanting those things,’ Morgan said, leaning closer still. He smiled, the corner of his beautiful mouth lifting as though she were his secret, and he hers.

It was all Luce could do to stop herself from reaching out and touching him. That sea-green sleeve, resting so close to hers on the rail, perhaps. Or his hand. He was like storm-stone, tingling against her skin, calling her closer.

‘Do you know,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘That my father has a collection of curiosities? It is very large and wondrous. And, in my humble opinion, rather disgusting.’

Luce laughed. ‘I have heard of it.’

Who had not? It was common knowledge that Monsieur de Chatelaine had the most impressive collection of oddities in Bretagne. Luce’s father had spoken of it with awe and more than a little envy—his own collection paled into insignificance beside it. Luce had longed to see it for as long as she could remember.

‘What would you say, then—’ Morgan’s face was a mere handspan from Luce’s own, now. She could smell the pomade in his hair: almonds and cloves, bergamot and musk. ‘—if I stole you away at the ball and gave you a tour of the collection? You could poke and peer at my father’s rare sea shells to your heart’s content.’

He traced the inside of Luce’s wrist with his fingertips. Back and forth, burning a path across her skin.

‘I’d like that.’ Impossible to say more; she was wordless, boneless.

‘Good.’

‘Lucinde?’ Her father’s voice floated down from the forecastle deck. Luce scrambled away from Morgan, her feet jarring painfully, as Morgan stepped neatly back, pressing himself tightly against the figurehead, whose flowing skirts hid him from view.

‘Are you ready, mon trésor?’ her father called down. ‘We must leave now if we are to return in time for supper.’

‘Yes, Papa.’ Luce edged back along the scaffold, squeezing past Morgan. They grinned at each other as she passed, that wonderful, secret smile.

A brisk wind blew in from the northwest as she rode back to the malouinière with her father and St. Jean. It cut across the Manche and the fields, creeping with insistent fingers along the back of her neck. She hardly felt it. Morgan’s warm touch, his shadowed glance, remained.