Free Revenant Eve by Sherwood Smith Page B

windows overlooking the ship’s wake. Aurélie was escorted to one side of the captain, the parson’s wife at his other side.
    Aurélie had been taught dainty manners. She quietly avoided the gravy-rich slab of meat put on her plate, confining herself to the potatoes, peas, and what turned out to be the last of the white bread.
    For drink, the women were offered citrus juice while the men downed a lot of wine. Big, scarred sailors were on duty as waiters, their manners rough and ready. They kept the wine aflow, as well as demonstrating deft skills at keeping the dishes on the table, a skill much needed. As the meal progressed, the room tilted more sharply, making me glad I wasn’t sitting with them. I know I would have been majorly seasick. The parson’s mother-in-law put down her silverware, and sat there going pale and green as she kept swallowing.
    The captain did not ask if his guests would like to go lie down. He merely observed that the wind was freshening, and issued orders for the officer on watch to clew up the royals and topgallants if he was of a mind.
    As before, my awareness of what was passing blurred if Aurélie had no interest, and she clearly had no interest in the conversation, which covered gossip in Kingston, ships and captains at various stations, andrumors about the French Revolution. From the hints I’d garnered so far, I figured the time was somewhere in the middle of the 1790s.
    Aurélie brightened when dessert appeared, a suety mass called plum duff, with rum poured over it. Her sailor attendant gave her a hearty helping, with the result her cheeks were quite pink when the captain sat back and decided it was time to pay attention to his guests as individuals.
    He turned to Aurélie first. “Now, young lady, how am I to address a marquis’s daughter? Are you Lady something, or is it Donna?”
    Aurélie said obediently, “I am Doña Aurélie de Mascarenhas. But my mother says, I must be ‘Lady’ when I am in England.”
    “Oho, Donna it is,” the captain replied. His face was red and shining under his wig, his glass attentively filled every time he took a swallow. “So, tell us about your Papa, young donna. Is he related to the Dukes of Aveiro? I remember there was some kind o’ to-do, but that would be in my father’s time. Weren’t most of ’em put to death?”
    “They are the Portuguese connections of the family,” Aurélie said. “I do not know them. My father, he died when I was two. He had a letter of marque against France.”
    “But you speak French, do you not?”
    “That’s because my Grandmère is French. She came to Saint-Domingue from Martinique when she was small. She told me many stories about her cousins, the Taschers, at Les Trois-Îlets. ’Tis very beautiful, she says.”
    “Tascher!” one of the lieutenants exclaimed. “Why, isn’t that the name of the Creole dasher taken up by one of the Directors in Paris?”
    Definitely Josephine—Tascher de la Pagerie was her maiden name.
    The captain raised his glass and said deliberately, “We will toast the lady.” Ah. A reminder that they ought not to take a lady’s name in vain. I knew that wasn’t going to last. Poor Josephine was soon to be almost as vilified as her second husband.
    The men raised their glasses, but before they could drink, the stern windows filled with blue-white glare, and thunder cracked, loud as cannon, directly overhead. Aurélie jumped, causing laughter among the officers.“It is not pirates,” the captain said. “The only battle is betwixt us and the celestial bodies. You will be very glad to live in civilization again, where there are no hurricanes or pirates. For my middies told me that you are quite a fire-eater, young donna. We shall toast our young donna.…”

EIGHT

    T HE ONLY INTERRUPTION to the slow unwinding ribbon of the ship’s wake, stitching together the changing sea and sky, was Aurélie’s single attempt to climb into the tops. No sooner had she scrambled up to