Free The Randolph Legacy by Eileen Charbonneau

government to procure his release.”
     
     
    A t their small suite of rooms across the river in Alexandria, Judith’s father listened intently. “Papa, imagine how even Dolley Madison acquired such information with this city in ruins around her.”
    He stroked his chin. “That makes three gifts.”
    “Three?”
    “Did thee not unpack thy trunk since we arrived, Judith?”
    “Not all of it. We were so busy, then I was called before the president’s wife so quickly that the last few things—”
    “Including thy green serge gown.”
    “Have the moths gotten at the weave? Or mildew?”
    “It is unharmed. But among its folded layers I found two gifts to place beside Dolley Madison’s.” He reached into a drawer and brought forth a delicate silhouette. Judith recognized herself immediately, her scissors in her hands. She was in the process of cutting the figure of Fayette flying about the lines of the mizzenmast. How had Washington fashioned this clever image without her knowledge?
    “Thee taught him well,” her father said softly. “And here, look what else found its way into thy trunk.”
    Eli reached into the drawer again. He placed a miniature two-masted brig into her hands. She had never seen this model. It was twice the size of the largest of Washington’s others. She could barely contain it between her hands, though it was lighter than it looked. Judith’s eyes scanned the masts, quarter galleries, and into the windowed stern lit by glowing lanterns. There she found a room furnished with miniature tapestries, chests, a table with tiny candles on top, three stout chairs around.
    “Judith—” Her father called her out of her fascination. “Thee has not yet observed the figurehead of thy worthy vessel.”
    A white-haired mermaid modestly attired in green serge scales and seaweed led the vessel, holding the twined flags of France and the United States and a tricolor ribbon pronouncing her name: Survivor.
     
     
    F ayette had wished for something to take Washington’s mind off their time with Judith Mercer. But a gale out of the Gulf of Mexico was not ideal. He strapped the injured in their sick-bay berths as the Standard pitched again. There was no use in trying to stop the several leaks from the gundeck. The pots would overturn in the next swell. Sick, injured, and caretakers alike, would have to dry out later.
    The latest ship’s-surgeon, not yet bestowed with his sea legs, was himself ill, but working his way around to all their patients. Perhaps now he could slip below, Fayette thought, to check for flooding in their hold cabin, to make sure Washington was secure.
    He’d only reached the stairwell before a drenched midshipman
grabbed his shoulder. He was on his first tour, this one. Stephenson. Small, about the size Washington had been after Trafalgar. Stephenson had attached himself to a bigger, boastful boy. The two had become inseparable. Until now.
    Young Stephenson’s eyes were swollen. “Mr. Fayette, you used to be captain of the mizzenmast,” he yelled. Though two decks removed from the waves’ roar, yelling was necessary. “I would count it as a great favor if you would cast your word on bringing Jamie down!”
    “Down from where?”
    “He’s on the yard above the mizzen sail, sir. While we were bringing in the sheet, his ripped. He lost his balance. Now he’s caught, as in some devil’s grip. He’s not let us near. Kicked me back. Sent Mr. Truxum down bleeding.”
    Fayette glanced down the stairwell. He saw the gleam of water in the hold. How much? Only a few inches, surely. Washington was secured high in his hammock, he told himself, sleeping through the storm as he’d slept through many others. Still, a pang of concern stung. Fayette turned from the hold, followed Stephenson topside.
    One look at the midshipman wedged between the yard and mast confirmed Fayette’s first instincts. “The grip he’s in is one of his own fear,” he told Stephenson.
    A fork of lightning hit