Free Eye of the Storm by Lee Rowan Page A

there been some misfortune, an outbreak of disease? There should be children…
    There was no sound but the cry of the gulls.
    The path up the hill was steep, but certainly easier than going straight up the chains. After twenty minutes’ steady climb, he came to a wrought-iron gate set between two stone pillars. The gate was mostly for show at this point, as the stone wall on either side had either been battered or weathered until it was no barrier at all.
    He called a greeting in French, but there was no reply, so he opened the gate—it was not locked—and continued along the path to the imposing house. He knocked at the door, but heard not so much as an echo coming from within. Not surprising, of course—the door itself looked as though it was made of planks hewn from an ancient tree-trunk, at least three inches thick.
    After waiting for several minutes, he gave up and decided to scout around the back. If there was anyone living here at all, there should be some activity near the kitchen garden. There might be a chicken-coop in back, or a dovecote.
    The stone flags that led around the back were worn, but looked as though they still saw regular use. They had been swept clean of dead leaves, at any rate. Marshall followed them, and discovered a small stone terrace at the back of the house, and a discouraged, dormant herb garden. He had nearly reached the back door when he heard a click behind him—a sound he recognized as the cocking of a pistol. And  “ Mains vers le haut!” followed, hesitantly, by “Put up your hands, you English dog!” in heavily accented English.
    Knowing that Davy would never let him hear the end of this—and hoping he would have the chance to hear his lover say “I told you so!”—Marshall slowly raised his hands.
     
     
    Dear Will:
    I hope this finds you well. I must say it is far too quiet here since you went back to sea, but no doubt His Majesty has more need of your services than we have of your company. My cousin is well, though he misses his wife very much and I must admit I feel the lack of agreeable companionship pretty severely myself.
    The weather has been unremittingly glorious, and if it were not for the knowledge that hurricane season will begin in another few months—and the loneliness, and the tedium—I could call this Paradise. It was that, for a little while, but the ability to appreciate the tropics seems to have left me very suddenly, just this past week, and I would be delighted if I could ever get it back.
    I hope you will be sent back to these waters soon. Please write, when your duties permit.
    Your most humble servant,
    D S-J
    “My apologies, monsieur.”
    It was a friendly voice, at least, not the harsh croak of the elderly fellow who’d crept up on him with the pistol. Marshall barely had time to tuck his letter safely away when the door to the cellar creaked open. “Thank you,” he called up in French. “I did not mean to alarm your household.”
    “Jean-Claude is easily alarmed, and suspicious of strangers. But he tells me you are a friend of Jacques Colbert?”
    “Indeed, sir. My name is William Marshall, and I am Captain of the yacht Mermaid. The gentleman who owns her is a nephew of Dr. Colbert, a cousin of his son-in-law.”
    He hoped his French was adequate to this task. That mouthful felt exactly like a grammar lesson from the tutor aboard the Titan , although the situation was embarrassingly opposite what Captain Cooper had intended to cultivate. His captain had wanted the young gentlemen taught the language in order to converse politely with captured French officers, not to make themselves understood when the French had the upper hand.
    “Yes, it is understood that my friend’s daughter married an English milord. I am Etienne Beauchene. The doctor and I have many common interests of a scientific nature.”
    Marshall breathed a sigh of relief. “I am delighted to meet you, Monsieur. We had been told that a friend of Dr. Colbert’s lived here