Chapter 1
September 1814
Cressmouth, England
Across the park from Marlowe Castle
“This way, if you please.”
Jack Skeffington—genteel landowner, eligible widower, and exhausted father of indefatigable twins—led his business associate through a hidden panel behind his office escritoire to a secret room lined with shelves of mementos from various exploits of days long past.
Redmire gave a knowing smile. “Walls have ears, do they?”
At first glance, one would not guess Redmire to be a pirate-for-hire. Of the two men, Jack was the one with a jagged scar down one cheek and the tip of one ear missing, giving his left side a somewhat elfish appearance. A piratical elf with a terrifying dimple. Who had ignored his wounds and won the fight, thank you very much.
In contrast, Redmire practically looked like a country vicar.
Jack lit several candles and threw himself into the closer of two plush leather chairs. “Who cares what the walls hear? My staff keeps secrets very well. It’s my offspring who cannot grant a moment’s clemency.”
“You’re hiding from… ten-year-olds?” Redmire asked politely.
“I’m shielding innocent children from the mundane drudgery of balancing smuggling routes with cargo manifests in order to refine transportation timetables.” Jack flapped a hand at the box in Redmire’s arms. “Is there brandy in there or not?”
“Brandyandchampagne.” Redmire set his pistol on the tea table next to a pair of empty wine glasses and knelt upon the Axminster carpet to pry open the wooden box. He handed two lovingly packed bottles to Jack, then settled in the chair opposite.
Jack grinned. “I was right?”
“You’re always right… when it comes to people’s taste for illegal wine.” Redmire crossed his boots atop the wooden box. “Although it required a wee bit of finesse. I reminded the distributors that our soldiers and the Prussians drank champagne from this very vineyard to celebrate Bonaparte’s defeat in April.”
“Did you do the bit about taxes?”
“I did.” Redmire’s smile widened, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “‘Bypassing French export taxes’—and English import tax, but who’s counting?—‘means each sip is like defeating Boney anew.’”
“And it worked every time?”
“Everytime.” Redmire motioned to the bottles in Jack’s lap. “Don’t be churlish. Open it.”
“With pleasure.” Jack placed the brandy on the floor and set about uncorking the bottle of Madame Clicquot’s legendary champagne. He filled Redmire’s glass first, then his own.
Closing his eyes in pleasure, Jack lifted his glass to his nose and inhaled. The piquant effervescence masked some of the subtle aroma, but the slightly mineral, fruity taste transported him at once to the Reims vineyards in the east of France, where the grapes for Veuve Clicquot went from tiny buds in the fields to racks of bottles on the riddling table where sediment was removed from the necks before shipping.
“Are you playing your game?” Redmire asked drolly.
“It’s not a game. It’s a… daydream,” Jack admitted. “And, yes. I was imagining what it would be like to own and manage a vineyard like Clicquot’s.”
“Rather than financing certain distribution channels from afar? A lot of work, I’d wager. Stick with your little village of perpetual Christmastide.” Redmire pantomimed a chill. “I glimpsed a dozen parked sleighs as I crested the mountain.”
“Likely queued for annual maintenance at the le Duc smithy. Autumn comes early in Cressmouth, and so does winter. We’ll have snow before you know it, and those sleighs will be the only hacks worth hiring.”
Redmire shuddered. “I prefer the sea, if you please. Don’t you miss the days when we used to—”
The hidden panel leading to Jack’s office swung open, and a four-and-a-half foot tall replica of Jack himself burst through the door. Overlong dark brown hair, thickly lashed dark brown eyes, but high spots of color on his flushed cheeks instead of the mark of a sword.
“Frederick,” said Jack with well-practiced patience, “I am in the midst of an important meeting.”
Sometimes, sayingFrederickin a stern tone of voice was enough to stem the tide.
Not today.
