Prologue
Prologue
August 27, 1816
Bay of Algiers
36.7728°N, 3.1479°E
Royal Marine Sergeant Richard Bourne kept his men in a steady rhythm of firing congreve rockets from their bomb ship, appropriately named HMSBeelzebub, and hoped to hell he’d retain some semblance of hearing when this day was over.
Thank God the display from the bombs was spectacular and terrifying, and the targets large, because they were wildly inaccurate.
Captain Will Thorne had plucked him from the ranks and put him in charge for the day over one of his floating bombs on the water. Their mission was simple. Bomb the hell out of the ramparts of the Dey of Algiers’ harbor-front defenses until he capitulated to Lord Admiral Exmouth’s demands: Free all the Christian slaves and desist from taking English and Dutch captives off ships from that day forward.
The night before, the mission had seemed simple, but now he was not so sure. He’d never envisioned his first command would be in a flimsy excuse for a small, rocking ship with room enough only for the wildly erratic rockets and the men who had to fire them.Saints Preserve Ireland.
1
1820
Falmouth, England
50.1526° N, 5.0663° W
Lieutenant Richard Bourne of His Majesty’s Royal Marines was bone tired of trying to convince lately retired fellow sailors to take up the watery drum and come back to the Royal Navy. He shoved his booted feet out straight beneath the tavern table and took a deep draught of his beer. He hadn’t met the quota Captain Bellingham had hoped for that day, and this last stop at the Green Dolphin had not been promising.
The boastful broadsides he’d had printed and posted at every public place in Falmouth proclaimed:All Dashing High-spirited YOUNG HEROES Who wish to obtain GLORY in the SERVICE of their Country, have now the finest opportunity by entering that enterprizing respectable Corps - THE ROYAL MARINES, etc., etc. The final appeal, all in large, bold letters wasPRIZE MONEY.
What he really wanted were veterans of Royal Navy service who’d been paid off when their ships were retired after the French wars. Despite the rosy picture the broadside painted, Richard well knew the sad truth. Everyone was tired of fighting. If you’d survived the many skirmishes at sea and made it home safely, and hopefully in one piece, you were not keen to head back out to the hellish waters off Africa. Especially when the pay was not that great, and the lure of prize ships getting scarcer every year.
However, a glimmer of hope lay in the tendency of sailors to spend their payouts faster than their wives would like. And then there was the curse of the Navy wife - a man underfoot who had been out of house for years during the wars. He’d seen that dynamic play out between his own mother and father back in County Meath.
A smile quirked up at the edges of his mouth at the memory of the many battles he’d observed between Major Liam and Margaret Bourne. Soon followed by longer making-up times. Making-up times which had sent him and his siblings into paroxysms of groans and shared looks of disbelief. Their father had frequently made a complete cake of himself struggling to woo their mother all over again to earn her forgiveness.
And then, the elder Bourne would return to his regiment, soon to be followed by Mrs. Bourne welcoming another bairn into the extensive Bourne household brood.
His next sip of the Falmouth tavern’s fine beer was interrupted by an altercation near the bar so fierce and raucous that he nearly choked.
He turned in his chair and then leapt to his feet. A group of drunken men were throwing rotten applesat a woman surely at least in her sixties. She had an ethereal kind of beauty that would not fade with age, unusually clear skin with a rosy cast to her cheeks, and…she was dressed in full costumed regalia as a witch. The elderly lady’s hair flowed down her back, long and silver, shot with occasional threads of russet. Her voice, low and lilting, but of such a timbre that it carried throughout the establishment, was reciting, if memory served him, one of the witches’ scenes from Macbeth.
Harriet,Dowager Countess of Blandford, tried to keep her legendary temper in check and her voice low and conciliatory. She struggled to mollify the current footman whose sole job was to oversee her son and his guard mastiffs, Max and Fleur. However, he did have a point. The mud and dirt the three miscreants tracked into her late grandfather’s lodge outside Falmouth were a staggering challenge to the strongest of servants. The immense buckets of slobber the two animals seemed to generate daily were enough to nettle any reasonable man.
“John Thomas…” Her footman was the third generation of John Thomas’es to serve in her family’s household. She remembered from her childhood, and appreciated, the “can-do” attitude his father had always brought to any difficult task, not to mention the fact that he’d probably saved her life in the aftermath of her husband’s death at Waterloo.
“Young Lord Nicholas means well, but I’m…” He paused as if gathering his courage. “I’m afraid he encourages those two bullies overmuch in their pranks.”
“Please,” Harriet began. “Please understand my complete sympathy for your situation, but I assure you, those two creatures have kept my son out of danger, twice now. They have to stay.” She stared for a moment into the young man’s soft brown eyes. “I’ve heard from Mrs. Lanigan you’re due some congratulations. You were married this Sunday past.” He blushed furiously and averted his gaze.
“Setting up a household can be a challenge. Please accept this gift from our family along with our best wishes for a happy life.” She pulled a small bag of coins from a drawer in her grandfather’s old desk and handed it to the young man.
After another telling blush, he accepted the gift and hung his head. “You are too generous, milady. I’m sorry I brought my petty complaints to you today.”
She took a longer look at his face and noted some smudges beneath his eyes. His young wife was perhaps keeping her new husband awake overly long at night. It was difficult stifling a smile, but she managed, remembering the early days of her own marriage.
“Why don’t you take a half day for the rest of the day? Perhaps you could use some time to rest before facing Nicholas and his two cohorts again tomorrow. We’ll find someone else to oversee them today.”
“Thank you, milady. Perhaps I am a bit tired. Is there anything else you require?”
