The Admiral's Heart by Danelle Harmon

him. Dead, gone, and all
but forgotten, just like that.
    The Duke of Blackheath carefully laid the
letter inside the drawer, which he shut and locked. He gazed once
more out the window, lord of all he surveyed but unable to master
his own bitter emptiness. A mile away, at the foot of the downs, he
could just see the twinkling lights of Ravenscombe village, could
envision its ancient church with its Norman tower and tombs of de
Montforte dead. And there, inside, high on the stone wall of the
chancel, was the simple bronze plaque that was all they had to tell
posterity that his brother had ever even lived.
    Charles, the second son.
    God help them all if anything happened to
him, Lucien, and the dukedom passed to the third.
    No. God would not be so cruel.
    He snuffed the single candle and with the
darkness enclosing him, the sky still glowing beyond the window,
moved from the room.
     

 
    Berkshire, England, 1776
     

Chapter 1
     
    The Flying White was bound for Oxford, and
it was running late. Now, trying to make up time lost to a broken
axle, the driver had whipped up the team, and the coach careered
through the night in a cacophony of shouts, thundering hooves, and
cries from the passengers who were clinging for their lives on the
roof above.
    Strong lanterns cut through the rainy
darkness, picking out ditches, trees, and hedgerows as the vehicle
hurtled through the Lambourn Downs at a pace that had Juliet
Paige's heart in her throat. Because of Charlotte, her
six-month-old daughter, Juliet had been lucky enough to get a seat
inside the coach, but even so, her head banged against the leather
squabs on the right, her shoulder against an elderly gent on her
left, and her neck ached with the constant side to side movement.
On the seat across from her, another young mother clung to her two
frightened children, one huddled under each arm. It had been a
dreadful run up from Southampton indeed, and Juliet was feeling
almost as ill as she had during the long sea voyage over from
Boston.
    The coach hit a bump, became airborne for a
split second, and landed hard, snapping her neck, throwing her
violently against the man on her left, and causing the passengers
clinging to the roof above to cry out in terror. Someone's trunk
went flying off the coach, but the driver never slowed the
galloping team.
    “God help us!” murmured the young mother
across from Juliet as her children cringed fearfully against
her.
    Juliet grasped the strap and hung her head,
fighting nausea as she hugged her own child. Her lips touched the
baby's downy gold curls. “Almost there,” she whispered, for
Charlotte's ears alone. “Almost there—to your papa's home.”
    Suddenly without warning, there were shouts,
a horse's frightened whinny, and violent curses from the driver.
Someone on the roof screamed. The coach careened madly, the
inhabitants both inside and out shrieking in terror as the vehicle
hurtled along on two wheels for another forty or fifty feet before
finally crashing heavily down on its axles with another
neck-snapping jolt, shattering a window with the impact and
spilling the elderly gent to the floor. Outside, someone was
sobbing in fear and pain.
    And inside, the atmosphere of the coach went
as still as death.
    “We're being robbed!” cried the old man,
getting to his knees to peer out the rain-spattered window.
    Shots rang out. There was a heavy thud from
above, then movement just beyond the ominous black pane. And then
suddenly, without warning it imploded, showering the inside
passengers in a hail of glass.
    Gasping, they looked up to see a heavy
pistol—and a masked face just beyond it.
    “Yer money or yer life. Now! ”
    ~~~~
    It was the very devil of a night. No moon,
no stars, and a light rain stinging his face as Lord Gareth Francis
de Montforte sent his horse, Crusader, flying down the Wantage road
at a speed approaching suicide. Stands of beech and oak shot past,
there then gone. Pounding hooves splashed through puddles