Prince of Ravenscar

Next in the Sherbrooke series

Excerpt for PRINCE OF RAVENSCAR by Catherine Coulter

Near Saint Osyth

On the Southern Coast of England

March 1831

The night was as black as the Devil's dreams, not even a ghost of a moon, not a single star to pierce through the thick rain clouds.

It was a perfect night.

Julian tethered his sixteen-hand bay gelding, Cannon, to a skinny branch of a lone bent oak tree and made his way carefully down the steep narrow winding path to the hidden cove, a trek he'd made countless times in the years before he'd left England. It was good to be back. He slapped his arms against the cold, the wind off the channel slamming against his thick coat, wheedling in to cozy up to his bones. Down, down he went. When he finally reached the shadowed overhang in the cliff, he lit the lamp and held it up, flashed it three times, a signal he himself had established many years before.

Three answering flashes of light came five minutes later, some fifty yards offshore. Two boats were moving closer now with every passing second. Soon they'd be close enough for him to hear the oars dipping rhythmically through the water. Julian felt his blood pump faster, as it always did with the ever-present threat of excisemen suddenly appearing over the edge of the high cliff, waving guns and yelling. He could only hope the bribes his man Harlan had put into place held, though to his knowledge no one even knew about this small hidden cove.

No matter how you dressed it up, smuggling--- free trading always sounded high-flying and righteous---was still against the law. And smuggling would continue until those idiots in the government finally did away with the high import duties. Would they ever see reason? Julian hoped it would take the old curmudgeons a while, since he'd enjoyed the midnight hide-and-seek since he was sixteen, when Sergeant Lambert had introduced him to the adventures of smuggling. Teas, tobacco, China rice, gin -- it didn't matter, he did it all. Every time Julian walked down to this beach, he thought of Lambert, who'd died the way he'd lived, all flash and excitement, charging forward, his bayonet fixed, a yell coming from his mouth when a howitzer shot had exploded at his feet. Julian remembered falling to his knees, tears flooding down his face as the mayhem continued around him, searching, tearing at the bloody ground, but there'd been nothing left of Lambert. Julian knew someone had dragged him away from where Lambert had died, because he remembered Wellington buffeting his shoulder, telling him to carry a message to his left flank. It was demmed important, move! And Julian ran faster than he ever had before.

He still wondered how he'd managed to survive Waterloo with only one sword gash on his left shoulder. Blessedly, his memory of those long hours that became days blurred with the battle blood and screams and death, and with Wellington's voice, yelling orders, always encouraging, even at the end of the day, when exhaustion sapped everyone's will.

His mother had asked him once about Waterloo, but evidently the look on his face had stopped her in her tracks. She simply pulled him against her and said nothing more about it. But she'd been very proud when the Duke of Wellington himself had sent a commendation to the sixteen-year-old Julian.

Until Julian left England three years ago, every June seventeenth he'd visited Sergeant Lambert's empty grave at his farmhouse near Saint Osyth. Julian was certain Lambert's spirit knew he was using his favorite smuggling cave, and perhaps he occasionally slipped through from the other side to watch Julian bring in his boats. Is there smuggling in Heaven, Lambert? Why, he'd asked Lambert once when he'd been sixteen years old, couldn't men ever be content with what they had? Because greed and envy and jealousy were sewn into the very fabric of a man's body, Lambert had said, and spat.

So quickly the future became the present, and the present became a collection of memories, some bringing a smile, others still with the power to smash you with despair. Would he die in the next war, blown apart, as Lambert had died at Waterloo? Witness what was happening in Europe, revolution everywhere, and death and destruction, and always there was hope that something good would come of the violence. He wondered if this was ever true.

All's well, Captain!"

He smiled and walked down to greet Cockeral, a madman, some whispered--but only out of his hearing.

He stilled. He'd heard something, he knew it. Excisemen? He held up his hand for quiet, and Cockeral and his men fell flat beside the boats.

Someone was there, watching, waiting, Julian knew it. But what? Who?

Time passed. They unloaded the cargo, mostly brandy and tea this time, and stored it in the hidden cave. Julian listened but heard only the wind.

When he fell exhausted into bed an hour before dawn, he knew to his gut his prized hidden caves were no longer a secret.