To Tame the Wind (Agents of the Crown Book 0) (4 page)

Simon turned to his first mate. “Mr. Landor, see to the
transport for Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Berube to the port of Dieppe.”

True to his word, a little more than a week later, Elijah and
Giles stumbled into Simon’s cabin where the
Fairwinds
was anchored in
Rye. The wide grin on the old seaman’s face and Giles’ eyes twinkling with
mirth told Simon the two had been successful.

“Well?” Simon asked, eager to hear the news. “Sit down and
tell me.”

“Before I ferget,” said Elijah, “here are the messages I
retrieved from the Scribe’s tree.” The seaman shoved a packet of paper toward
him on his desk, then took his pipe out of his waistcoat pocket and packed it
with tobacco. The two men sat in the chairs facing his desk.

“And the other item of business that has you smiling?”

“Aye, we got lucky there, Cap’n,” said Elijah, looking to
Giles to explain.

Giles was prepared. “Seems the villagers in Saint-Denis
remember well a convent student whose father, Jean Donet de Saintonge, the son
of the comte de Saintonge”—he paused and raised his brows—“is a wealthy
benefactor of the convent.”

Though Simon was aware Donet had turned pirate some years
ago, he had no idea the Frenchman possessed noble blood. The why of it made the
man all the more intriguing. “That is most interesting. I can only wonder why a
comte’s son would deny his heritage to become a pirate.”

“Perhaps he was bored,” suggested Giles.

“Must be more than that,” Simon conjectured. But the subject
was not his primary concern. “Did you get a description of the girl?”

“Aye, we did,” said Elijah. “Had a chat with the butcher in
Saint-Denis. Man rambled on about an older girl, one who stayed on when others
left. Talked about her hair as black as the nuns’ habits. Said she often
accompanies the sisters when they come to the village on errands. The butcher
couldn’t leave off talkin’ about her strikin’ blue eyes. ‘A clever girl’ he
said.”

“And that’s not all, Cap’n,” said Giles. “Once I learned
that the nuns were customers of the butcher, in the guise of delivering fresh
meat to the convent, I gained entry. Took no time at all to learn the layout of
the place and the location of the students’ sleeping chambers and the one
Donet’s daughter shares with some older girls. I marked their window that leads
from the garden.”

“You have a knack for intrigue, Giles.” Simon smiled,
satisfied he now had all he needed. Rising, he strode through the open cabin
door, followed by the two men, and ascended the ladder to the weather deck.
There, he announced to his first mate and his assembled crew, “We leave with
the tide for Dieppe and thence to Paris.” To Jordan he handed the packet from
the Scribe. “See that these messages get to London.”

Much to Simon’s satisfaction, the wind and the tide were
with them. Not long after, he set a southerly course and they sailed that
evening. The long summer days gave them light for many hours.

The pale light of dawn saw them anchored off the port of
Dieppe, the
Fairwinds
now flying the flag of an American privateer.

Though the wind had favored them, the weather on the north
coast of France was less than agreeable. The scattered rain had not impaired
their progress as they dropped anchor and let down the skiff, but it was enough
to concern him for the mission ahead and the carriage ride to Paris. He did not
look forward to muddy roads that would slow their progress south.

Wasting no time, Simon departed the ship, climbing down the
Jacob’s ladder to where four of his men waited in the skiff. He sat in the
stern with his tricorne hat pulled down over his forehead to ward off the rain
while the crew he’d handpicked for the mission pulled at the oars bringing them
ashore.

The cliffs of Dieppe loomed ahead in brooding shades of
black and ochre flecked with occasional patches of rust, made more somber by
the rain. Hundreds of feet high, they hemmed in the port like a setting for a
dark jewel, a forbidding wall that urged caution. It was familiar ground to
Simon. He’d anchored off Dieppe many times whilst on missions for England to
retrieve messages from the Scribe and pay calls on his contacts for news of
French supply ships. He smiled to himself, remembering the masquerade he’d
attended two years before to spy on one of his targets. There had been the
diversion of his amour dressed as a trousered hussar. And the young chit he’d
mistaken for a costumed courtesan. Not all of his assignments were unpleasant.

Elijah raised his head and the wind whipped stray, gray
hairs around his face. “Smilin’ at the rain, Cap’n?”

“No, ’twas just a memory. What of the arrangements on
shore?”

“I knew ye’d be anxious to be off, Cap’n, so before we left
France fer Rye, we arranged for a post chaise and team to be waitin’ fer ye.
Giles can see to those while I secure the skiff.”

The thin sailmaker nodded. His tricorne, beaded with rain,
shadowed his features, save for his stubbled jaw. “Aye, Cap’n, ’tis all
organized.”

In short order, they reached the shore and the skiff was
stowed. Soon, they were in the carriage and hurtling down the road to Paris,
mud flying in all directions.

By the time they reached Saint-Denis, it was evening.
Encouraged by extra coin, the coachman had driven hard, stopping only to change
horses. The sleep they’d managed was much disturbed by the rutted road, but it
was enough. And they’d have hot food before it was time to seek out their prey.

Saint-Denis

Exhausted, Claire finished the letter to her papa, set the
paper on the bedside table and blew out the candle.

The half-dozen older students in her chamber were already
asleep on their narrow beds. One of the most senior of the convent’s boarding
students, she enjoyed her role as a
dizainière
, a pupil-teacher, with
younger students to look after. It meant her days were full and they left her
with little enthusiasm for conversation when she sought her bed after Vespers.

Claire undressed in the dark room. Echoing through the
walls, Claire could hear the soft voices of the nuns singing at Compline in the
chapel. It was a soothing, familiar sound. One day soon, she would join them.

Would she be a good nun? In the past two years she had tried
hard to repress her secret longings so that she might become an acceptable
postulant. She had not always succeeded. The memory of a golden man and the
craving for a life beyond the convent’s walls and a home where she could put to
use all the nuns had taught her still lurked, hidden in the recesses of her
mind. When the cravings taunted her, she would remember her vow to a dying
girl.

Would Élise, looking down from Heaven, be pleased? And what
of Papa’s plans? If he knew his only daughter intended to join the Order, would
he agree? Or might he still insist she wed? She had wondered whom her papa had
selected. Since her meeting with the Reverend Mother, Sister Angélique had told
her the man was a lawyer in Paris. She shoved aside the curiosity it roused.
Like her secret longings, it was not to be.

She rubbed her eyes. Worry over her conversation with the
Reverend Mother and the nightmares that came often had robbed her of sleep for
days. And this day had been full. After her classes, she had accompanied Sister
Angélique to the village for shopping. Upon her return, she had sought a quiet
place to rest for a few minutes, but her mind was filled with what she must tell
her papa in the letter she knew she must write. Surely he would understand why
she could not marry.

When the afternoon began to wane, she had drawn on what
little patience she’d had left and helped the younger girls with their work
before joining the others to set the table for the evening meal. Afterwards,
she was so weary she had to pinch herself twice during Vespers to stay awake.
But she had not allowed herself to pursue her rest until she had composed the
letter to her papa.

Weariness crept over her like a heavy cloak, dragging her
down. She was too tired to think more about her future this night. The solace
of her bed called to her. Perhaps tonight the nightmares—the wretched dreams of
Élise gasping out her last breaths—would not come.

She reached for her nightgown, a pale swath lying across the
foot of her bed, illuminated by the moonlight shining through the glass panes
of the only window in the room. In the mornings, the window allowed her a
glimpse of the sun’s first rays. That and the waking birds called her to Matins
each day.

Pulling the modest nightgown over her head, she plaited her
long hair and peeled back the cover of her bed. She stepped out of her slippers
and slipped into the welcome coolness of the clean sheets.

A noise outside the window disturbed her thoughts, but too
bleary-eyed to care about an owl out for its evening meal, she rolled over,
said a quick prayer for her papa, and succumbed to sleep.

Giles eased the window open and Simon, using his arms,
soundlessly lifted his body onto the sill and then into the room. The sailmaker
followed closely behind. Simon stepped to one side and gestured Giles away from
the window where the moonlight would most assuredly reveal him in silhouette
should one of the girls awaken.

Simon surveyed the sleeping students. Several with dark hair
rested their heads on white pillows.
Damn.
How was he to find the one
with blue eyes without waking them all? And what if more than one had blue
eyes? A moment’s anxiety gripped him. He had no time for this. Forcing himself
to remain calm, he gazed about the room in the faint light afforded him, seeing
what appeared to be workbooks and papers stacked on the small tables paired
with each bed. From the table closest to him—next to the bed where a girl with
dark hair slept—he picked up a letter, still unsealed. Tilting it toward the
moonlight, he studied the elegant script.

M. Jean Donet
,
Lorient.

He grinned. Luck was with him. He’d found the girl. He gazed
down at her. Her head lay to the side, her black plait resting over her
shoulder. In the moonlight her skin looked like fine porcelain.

Gesturing to Giles, Simon pulled a handkerchief and a strip
of cloth from his pocket, then gently rolled the girl onto her back. She
moaned, but before she could rouse, he stuffed the handkerchief into her mouth
and wrapped the strip of cloth around her mouth, securing it with a knot at the
back of her head.

Her eyes flew open, her fear stark and tangible. She tried
to sit up, her hands reaching for the cloth around her mouth.

He grabbed her hands. “
Ça suffit
!”
he whispered in French as he bound her wrists with a strip of cloth. “I will
not harm you.”

Even in the dim light her eyes flashed her disbelief.

She twisted on her bed, straining against the binding cloths
and kicking out her feet. Her muffled grunts were starting to worry him for
fear one of the other girls might hear.

He pulled the blanket from her bed and wrapped it around her
against the night chill.

Giles grabbed her ankles and bound them, then stepped to the
window and jumped to the ground.

Simon scooped up the squirming girl and passed her through
the window into the sailmaker’s outstretched arms.

He was about to depart when he remembered the note tucked
into his breeches. Lifting the paper from its hiding place, he laid it on the
girl’s pillow. A last scan of the room told him the other girls still slept.
Satisfied, he jumped through the open window to the ground, turned and eased
the window closed. Reclaiming the girl from Giles, he and the sailmaker crept
from the convent grounds and to the carriage where his men waited.

Trussed up like a cat in a bag, fear and anger warred within
Claire as she was awkwardly jostled in the arms of her abductor. Now starkly
awake, questions swirled in her head. Though the cloth rudely stuffed into her
mouth prevented her from demanding answers, she uttered a muffled oath that
would have shocked the Reverend Mother.

Who are these men?
The man who carried her had not
been overly rough. He could have thrown her over his shoulder like a bag of
stolen goods but oddly, he carried her like something that he valued, something
precious.

Racking her brain, Claire tried to recall an incident or
anything that might provide a clue as to the source of her abduction, but she
could think of nothing. Her life at the convent was simple, uncomplicated,
absent of discord, particularly in the last two years.

Why have they taken me?

Perhaps they knew her papa was a man of means? Would they
hold her for ransom? But there were other girls of the nobility at the convent
whose fathers were wealthy men with lands and titles. Why had these bandits
taken her?

She shivered with fear at the thought of what might lie
ahead.

Robbed of her sight for the moment and unable to speak, her
other senses rose to the fore. The sound of the men’s boots crushing plants as
they strode through the gardens, the tight bindings that chaffed her hands and
ankles and the warmth of the man’s shoulder where her head rested, albeit
unwillingly. She was angry now, more angry than afraid.

Who are these men?
When her eyes had first opened,
she had glimpsed only a masculine form and fair hair. His face had been
shadowed. Unlike the other one who had carried her for a brief moment, the one
who held her now did not smell of unwashed clothes. His scent was of soap and
salt, like the smell of the sea.

When speaking to the others, even in hushed tones, his voice
was somehow vaguely familiar. It was also the voice of command.
He must be
their leader.

Though he had initially spoken to her in whispered French,
he now conversed with his men in English. And the deep timbre of his voice
stirred her memory.
Had she heard it before?

She understood some of their whispered English since her
papa had long used the language in his business and her mother had taught her
to speak and read it as a child. Still, years had passed since she had spoken
the language. But she understood their words saying they were headed to a ship,
the
Fairwinds
.

Where they pirates then? Would they sail to England with her
as their captive? Could it have something to do with their American war?

But why take me?

At the crack of the coachman’s whip, the horses leapt ahead,
speeding the carriage northwest toward Dieppe. Simon relaxed for the first time
in hours.

Elijah and Giles rode on top with the coachman; two more of
Simon’s men followed on horseback as guards, leaving him alone in the carriage
with the girl. Long after she had ceased struggling, he could feel her anger
rolling off her in waves. He had said nothing, knowing enough about women to
allow her anger to cool before he tried to reason with her. Not wishing to hear
her angry invective, he left the gag in place.

Sometime later, the girl’s moan roused Simon from sleep.
Even in the dim light with part of her face covered by the gag and blindfold,
he could see she was pale and her face was twisted in what appeared to be pain
as she dreamed, slumped awkwardly against the back of the seat. He gently
removed her gag and blindfold, taking care not to wake her. Her hands and feet
he left bound. The face that was revealed took his breath away. She was
beautiful with an oval face, dark, crescent brows and delicate, bow-shaped
lips. No child, this one, but a woman full grown.

On impulse, he lifted her into his lap to make her more
comfortable in the swaying carriage, and to try and calm her. As his chin
brushed her cheek, he caught a whiff of fresh lavender.

Her skin was as soft and smooth as a baby’s. Cradling her
head against his shoulder, he reveled in the feel of her warmth. Gathering the
curl at the end of her long plait between his fingers, he noticed it, too, was
soft. And as black as a raven’s wing. Everything about her was feminine,
alluring.

She ceased moaning and curled into his chest like a kitten
seeking his warmth.

Her beautiful, bow-shaped lips tempted him. For a moment he
considered stealing a kiss. But she was his enemy’s innocent daughter. And he
her abductor.

No kiss of his would be welcomed and none was given.