Katharine Ashe - When a Scot Loves a Lady

My profound thanks go to Jackie Skinner of the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, and to the wonderful people of the British Red Cross who were using the Assembly Rooms for a blood drive when I visited and who welcomed me so kindly (and with such tasty treats!). Thanks also to Amy Drysdale and the fabulous volunteers of Georgian House, who were fonts of marvelous information.

While the story in this book did not make it to Edinburgh, the people of that beautiful city gifted me with their generosity and a flavor of sincere and whimsical kindness, laughter, and intelligence that now means Scotland to me. Gwen and Jake Scott of The Glebe House in North Berwick offered me residence in their beautiful Georgian manse filled with period antiques, a home from which I happily —joyfully!—explored the breathtaking Lothians. This author is a convert to lowland Scotland for life.

Warm thanks go to Sandy Blair, who delightfully introduced me to the wonders of writing Scots, to Marie-Claude Dubois for her invaluable assistance with French, and to Miranda Neville for sharing with me her expertise in piquet (and wine and general hilarity) and for editing what we fondly refer to as “the strip piquet scene.” Thanks also to Melissa Ford Lucken for helping me see who Kitty and Leam really wanted to be, for her precious friendship in tears and laughter, and for agreeing with me that loyal readers are quite wonderfully like champagne.

I am especially indebted to two people whose work on Leam and Kitty’s story truly brought it forth: my mother, Georgann Brophy, and my husband, Laurent Dubois. They make my books possible, they make my books better, and they do so with endless patience, grace, and love.

Devonshire, 1803 The girls played as though nothing could harm them. For nothing could on the crest of the scrubby green Devonshire hill overlooking the ocean where they had played their whole lives. Their father was a baron, and they wore white quilted muslin to their calves and pinafores embroidered with silk.

The wind was mild, blowing their skirts about slender legs and whipping up their hair, dislodging bonnets again and again. The elder, twelve, tall and long-limbed like a boy, picked the most delicate bluebells, fashioning them into a bouquet. The younger, petite and laughing, swung her arms wide, scattering wild violets in a circle about her. She ran, dark ringlets streaming behind, toward the edge of the cliff. Her sister followed, a dreaming glimmer in her eyes, golden locks swishing about her shoulders.

A sail appeared upon the horizon leagues away where azure sky met glittering ocean.

“If I were a sailor, Ser,” the younger sister called across the hillock, “I would become captain of a great tall ship and sail to the ends of the earth and back again simply to say that I had.”

Serena shook her head fondly. “They do not allow girls to become sailors, Vi.”

“Who gives a rotten fig for what they allow?” Viola’s laughter caught in the breeze curling about her.

“If any girl could be a sea captain, it would be you.” Serena’s eyes shone warm with affection.

Viola rushed to swing her arms about her sister’s waist. “You are a princess, Serena.”

“And you are an imp, for which I admire you greatly.”

“Mama admires sailors.” Viola skipped along the edge of the sheer drop. “I saw her speaking with one when we were in Clovelly for the ribbons.”

“Mama is kind to everyone.” Serena smiled. “She must have been giving the man an alms.”

But it had not looked like Mama was giving him alms. She had spoken with the sailor for many minutes, and when she returned to Viola, tears teetered in her eyes.

“Perhaps he wished for more alms than Mama could give him.”

The ship came closer and lowered a longboat, twelve men at oars. The sisters watched. They were accustomed enough to the sight, living so close to a harbor as they did, yet ever curious as the young are.

“Do you think they are smugglers, Ser?”

“I suppose they could be. Cook said smugglers were about when she went to market Wednesday.

Papa says smugglers are to be welcomed because of the war now.”

“I don’t recognize the ship.”

“How would you know to recognize any ship?”

Viola rolled her dark eyes. “Its banner, silly.”

The boat came toward the beach fifty feet below, knocking against the surf, its bow jutting up and down like a butter churn. Men jumped out, soaking their trousers in the waves. They pulled the craft onto the pebbly sand. Four of them moved toward the narrow path that wound its way up the cliff side.

“It looks as though they mean to climb straight up,” Serena said, taking her lower lip between her teeth. “Onto Papa’s land?”

Viola grasped her sister’s fingers. To be so close to real smugglers was something she had only dreamed. She might ask them about their travels. Or their cargo. They could have something truly precious aboard, priceless treasure from afar. They would surely have stories to tell of those far-off places.

“Hold my hand, Ser,” she said on an excited quaver. “We shall greet them and ask their business.”

The sailor in the lead was a stocky man and well-looking in a dark fashion, not in the least scabrous or filthy as one might expect. He and his companions came along the crest of their father’s land directly toward Viola and Serena.

“Why,” Viola exclaimed, “that is the same sailor Mama gave alms to the other day.” But nothing concerned the girls in this, or in the sailor’s greeting, broad and smiling as he glanced at their locked hands. For they had the love of sisters, fierce and tender, and nothing could harm them.

London, 1818 Fellow Britons, The people of our great kingdom must not see another farthing of their livelihoods squandered on the idle rich. Thus, my quest continues! In rooting out information concerning that mysterious gentleman’s establishment at 14½ Dover Street, the so-called Falcon Club, I have learned an intriguing morsel of information. One of its members is a sailor and they call him Sea Hawk.

Birds, birds, and more birds! Who will it be next, Mother Goose?

Unfortunately I have not learned the name of his vessel. But would it not be unsurprising to discover him to be a member of our navy or a commissioned privateer? Yet another expenditure of public funds on the personal interests of those whose privilege is already mammoth.

I will not rest until all members of the Falcon Club are revealed or, due to my investigating, the club itself disbands in fear of thorough detection.

—Lady Justice Lady Justice In Care of Brittle & Sons, Printers London Madam, Your persistence in seeking the identities of the members of our humble club cannot but gratify. How splendid for us to claim the marked attentions of a lady of such enterprise.

You have hit the mark. One of us is indeed a sailor. I wish you the best of good fortune in determining which of the legion of Englishmen upon the seas at this time he is. But, wait! May I assist? I am in possession of a modest skiff. If you wish, I shall happily lend it to you so that you may put to sea in search of your quarry. Better yet, I shall work the oars. Perhaps sitting opposite as you peer over the foamy swells I will find myself as enamored of your beauty as I am of your tenacious intelligence—for only a beauty would hide her sharp wit behind such a daunting name and project.

I confess myself curious beyond endurance, on the verge of seeking your identity as assiduously as you seek ours. Say the word, madam, and I shall have my boat at your dock this instant.

Yours, Peregrine Secretary, The Falcon Club Dear Sir, I planted the missive bearing the code name so that L.J. might find it and busy herself chasing shadows. The old girl’s pockets are no doubt as empty as her boasts, and she must keep her publishers happy.

In fact, the code name Sea Hawk may well be defunct. I have had no direct communication from him in fifteen months. The Admiralty reports that he yet holds a privateer’s commission, but has had no news from him since the conclusion of the Scottish business more than a year ago. Even in his work for the Club he has rarely followed any lead but his own. I suspect he has resigned as we previously imagined. We must count England fortunate that he is now at least nominally loyal to the crown, rather than its enemy.

In service, Peregrine

Jinan Seton stared at his true love and the blood ran cold in his veins. Rain-splattered wind whipped about him as he watched her, beauty incarnate, sink in a mass of flames and black smoke into the Atlantic Ocean.

The most graceful little schooner ever upon the seas. Gone.

His chest heaved in a silent groan as the final remnants of burning wood, canvas, and hemp disappeared beneath foamy green swells. A scattering of parts bobbed to the surface, slices of planking, snapped spars, empty barrels, shreds of sail. Her lovely corpse rent asunder.

The American brig’s deck rocked beneath his braced feet, rain slashing thicker now, obscuring the wreckage of his ship fifty yards away. He clamped his eyes shut against the pain.

“She was a good ’un, Master Jin.” The hulking beast standing beside him shook his chestnut head mournfully. “Weren’t your fault she’s gone into the drink.”

Jin scowled. Not his fault. Damn and blast American privateers shooting at anything with a sail.

“They acted like pirates,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice rough. “They lowered a longboat.

They shot without warning.”

“Snuck up on us right good.” The massive head bobbed.

Jin sucked a breath through quivering nostrils and clenched his jaw, arms straining against the ropes trapping him to the brig’s mast. Someone would pay for this. In the most uncomfortable manner possible.

“Treated her likes a queen, you did,” Mattie mumbled above the increasing roar of anger in Jin’s ears that obscured the shouts around him and moans of wounded men. Jin swung his head about, craning to see past his helmsman’s bulk, searching, counting. There was Matouba strapped to a rail, Juan tied to rigging, Little Billy struggling in the hands of a sailor twice his breadth. Big Mattie blocked his view of the rest of the deck, but thirty more—

“Th’others scrambled for the boats when she caught afire.” Mattie grunted. “Boys are well enough, seeing as these fellas ain’t pirates after all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about.” Jin cracked a hard laugh. “I am trussed like a roast pig and the Cavalier is hundreds of feet below. No, I haven’t a care in the world.”

“Don’t you try fooling me. I knows you care more about our boys than your lady, no matter how much you doted on her.”

“Wrong, as usual, Matt.” He glanced up and saw clearly now the flag of the state of Massachusetts hanging limp in the rain that pattered his face. He’d lost his hat. No doubt it happened at some point during the scuffle from longboat to enemy deck when he’d abruptly realized he had ordered his men to board an American privateer, not a pirate vessel. Rain dripped from the tip of his nose into his mouth.

He spit it out and slewed his gaze around.

Shrouded in silvery gray, the deck of the brig was littered with human and nautical debris. Men from both crews lay prone, sailors seeing to wounds with hasty triage. Square sails hung loose from masts, several torn, a yardarm broken, sections of rail splintered and cut through with cannon shot, black powder marks everywhere. Even taken unaware, the Cavalier had given good fight. But the Yank vessel was still afloat. While Jin’s ship was at the bottom of the sea.

He closed his eyes again. His men were alive, and he could afford another ship. He could afford a dozen more. Of course, he had promised the Cavalier’s former owner he would take care of her. But he had promised himself even more. This setback would not cow him.