Page 4 of The Dueling Duchess

Her father held a similar bag, but his contained the remaining tools of his trade; Michel Charles Tremblay had once been the personal gunmaker to the last king of France, Louis XVI.

Cecile took her father’s bag and slung it over her other shoulder. He caught her hand and gave it a weak squeeze. They clung together, her father’s body shaking worse and worse as the dark, starless night dragged on. The storm, rather than abating, became worse, the waves that pummeled the boat like something out in the ocean rather than the channel.

She knew the men had never planned to row the full twenty-one miles, no doubt hoping to go by sail when weather permitted. Soon, they were exhausted and took turns rowing while one rested.

As one dismal hour led to the next, she lost track of anything but her own misery—her frozen hands and sodden clothing, the wind howling incessantly.

“We’re going back!”

The voice jolted her out of her personal hell, and she glanced up at the two men. She couldn’t tell who’d yelled at her, but they both looked half-dead. One of them pointed to lightning off the portside of the boat. Bolt after bolt cleaved the sky, almost as if it were walking in their direction.

The men were frantically rowing as if they could race Mother Nature herself.

Cecile turned to her father. “Papa! We’re going back!” she shouted at his bowed head.

But he didn’t move.

“Papa?” She grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

His head flopped back and the weight carried him off the bench and onto his back. He stared up at her with wide, sightless eyes.

“Papa!”

Blinding light illuminated the sky, and every hair on her body stood on end. One of the men screamed and lurched to his feet, dropping his oar in the process. The man who’d been next to him was slumped forward, flames leaping from his body.

The boat tipped precariously as the other fisherman stumbled, his weight throwing the small skiff off balance.

Cecile clung to the gunwale as the world turned upside down, taking her with it. The water muffled her screams and one of her arms was caught in the bags she’d crisscrossed over her torso, trapping her beneath the boat.

She choked on a mouthful of water and tugged on her arm. The straps of one of the satchels had somehow bound her hand to an oarlock. Cecile yanked hard, screaming as something in her hand twisted and snapped.

Clutching her hand to her chest she kicked her feet, struggling to reach the surface. But when her head bumped wood, she realized she was trapped beneath the boat, where a pocket of air had formed.

Cecile reached overhead with her uninjured hand and discovered a rope that must be attached to the boat. She clutched the rope and treaded water. It was quiet—eerily so, the only sound water slapping against the wood and her own ragged breathing.

Papa is dead.

The sudden thought was like a knife to her chest. Cecile had not cried for years, not since the sans culottes had come and burned down the duke’s castle. Although the duke had been in Paris at the time, that had not stopped the rabble from killing servants—people who’d been her friends and family all her life.

And now her father was gone.

Even if she survived this storm, she’d be alone.

We have a cousin in England, Cecile, her father had said more than once. You can go to him if you are ever in need.

But her cousin Curtis was just a name; he was a stranger.

She had no one.

The grim weight of her future was heavier than the soaked garments that tugged her down. It would be so easy to just let go—to sink into oblivion and join her father.

But her hand refused to release the rope. And when the air in her shelter became thinner and thinner, instead of letting go, she kicked herself out from beneath the boat and clung to the hull as the storm raged around her.

Hours later, after the driving rain had turned into a gentle patter and the shrieking wind was little more than a brisk breeze, Cecile was still holding on as dawn broke over the horizon, and England.

Part I

The Present