Echo in the Wind

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from Echo in the Wind... Lady Joanna as the Master of the Beach

Bognor, West Sussex, England, April 1784

      Except for the small waves rushing to shore, hissing as they raced  over the shingles, Bognor’s coast was eerily bereft of sound. Lady  Joanna West hated the disquiet she always experienced before a smuggling  run. Tonight, the blood throbbed in her veins with the anxious pounding  of her heart, for this time, she would be dealing with a total  stranger.
     Would he be fair, this new partner in free trade? Or  might he be a feared revenue agent in disguise, ready to cinch a  hangman’s noose around her slender neck?
     The answer lay just  offshore, silhouetted against a cobalt blue sky streaked with gold from  the setting sun: a black-sided ship, her sails lifted like a lady  gathering up her skirts, poised to flee, waited for a signal.
      Crouched behind a rock with her younger brother, Joanna hesitated,  studying the ship. Eight gun ports marched across the side of the brig,  making her wonder at the battles the captain anticipated that he should  carry sixteen guns.
     She and her men were unarmed. They would be  helpless should he decide to cheat them, his barrels full of water  instead of brandy, his tea no more than dried weeds.
     It had been tried before.
      “You are certain Zack speaks for this captain?” she asked Freddie  whose dark auburn curls beneath his slouched hat made his boyish face  appear younger than his seventeen years. But to one who knew him well,  the set of his jaw hinted at the man he would one day become.
      “I’ll fetch him,” Freddie said in a hushed tone, “and you can ask him  yourself.” He disappeared into the shadows where her men waited among  the trees.
     Zack appeared, squatting beside her, a giant of a man  with a scar on the left side of his face from the war. Like the  mastiffs that guarded the grounds of her family’s estate, he was big and  ugly, fierce with enemies, but gentle with those he was charged to  protect.
     “Young Frederick here says ye want to know about this  ship, m’lady.” At her nod, Zack gazed toward the brig. “He used to come  here regular with nary a con nor a cheat. He’s been gone awhile now. I  heard he might have worked up some other business—royal business.” He  rolled his massive shoulders in a shrug. “In my experience, a tiger  doesn’t change his stripes. He’s a Frog, aye, but I trust the Frenchie’s  one of us, a free trader still.”
     She took in a deep breath of  the salted air blowing onshore and let it out. “Good.” Zack’s assurance  had been some comfort but not enough to end her concerns. What royal  business? For tonight, she need not know. “Give the signal,” she  directed her brother, “but I intend to see for myself if the cargo is  what we ordered.”
     Without seeking the position, Joanna had  become the smugglers’ master of the beach, responsible for getting the  cargo ashore and away to inland routes and London markets with no  revenue man the wiser. She took seriously her role to assure the  villagers got what they paid for. Their survival depended upon it.
     “Zack, will you row me to the ship?”
      “O’ course, if ’tis what ye want.” The frown over his hazel eyes  revealed his displeasure, but Zack knew an order when he heard one, no  matter how politely it had been phrased. He would never question her  authority in front of the men.
     Freddie lifted the lantern from  the pebbled beach and slid open the metal cover on one side. A small  flame flickered into the Channel, alerting the ship the coast was clear  of the Riding Officer. The dying rays of the sun still danced on the  rippling water, but the lantern’s light would tell the ship’s captain  all was well.
     Joanna got to her feet, tugging her felt hat over  her ears and tucking strands of her long red hair beneath the brim. The  hat and Freddie’s borrowed shirt and breeches rendered her one of the  men. Even though his jacket was a bit short, she dare not borrow clothes  belonging to her older brother, Richard. He knew nothing of her nightly  pursuits and would not approve.
     “I’m going with you,” said Freddie.
      “All right, but stay in the boat.” When she’d decided to help the  villagers in smuggling goods that kept brandy and tea flowing to  England’s wealthy and food on the tables of Chichester’s poor, her  younger brother had insisted on becoming her partner. Still, she tried  to keep him from danger.
     Out on the water, the ship’s crew  lowered three longboats into the water, then scurried down manropes  slung over the side. Dropping into the boats, they began to accept  barrels and chests lowered from the deck.
     With a word to her  men, Joanna climbed into the small rowing boat at the water’s edge. Her  two companions followed, and Zack pressed his strength to the oars.
      With the first of the longboats loaded, the French crew pulled away  from the ship, rowing hard toward the beach. Their boat passed her  smaller vessel and she gave them a studying perusal.
     Their bright neck scarfs and knitted jerseys, coupled with the set of their caps, rendered them decidedly French.
      To a man, their hair was long and loose rather than plaited in  pigtails as an English sailor might wear. The knives at their belts,  their narrowed eyes and sneers made them appear cutthroats. Of course,  to them, she and her brother were no more than young English “rosbifs” who had no understanding of a ship like the one on which the Frenchmen served. In that, they would be right.
     She shivered and turned away from their harsh glares to fix her eyes on the ship and her mind on the task ahead.
      The French brig loomed large as they drew close. A frisson of fear  snaked down her spine when she looked up to see an ominous figure  standing at the rail.
     Like an apparition, he was dressed all in  black, his features lost in the shadows beneath his tricorne. Even his  hair, tied back at his nape, was black. One side of his coat was pulled  back to reveal his hand resting on a pistol. From his waist hung a sword  with a golden hilt.
     She could not see his eyes, but she felt his penetrating gaze and shuddered. He appeared more pirate than merchant.

Copyright © 2017 Regan Walker