Somerville Book 3 Treasure: Somerville, #3

By Chris Daniel

FRANCE, ENGLAND, 1793.

War has been declared between the revolutonary authorities in France and Great Britain. Rebecca's clandestine trips on behalf of the British Admiralty become ever more hazardous. 

 

Revolution threatens. London simmers with unease as events in France unleash turmoil in Europe. And Rebecca Somerville, reluctant heiress of a bankrupt estate, is drawn ever deeper into a clandestine world.
Her freedom - even her life - are in danger. Challenged from all sides, she relies once more on her unconventional behaviour and the friends and allies who can offer support and succour.
And piece-by-piece begins to unravel the mystery of the Somerville treasure.
If it exists...

Saved from the French spymaster. Leclerc, by an unlikely rescuer, Rebecca is immediately caught in another deadly trap - with, initially, little prospect of escape. Though her freedom is curtailed, events conspire to allow her the capacity to break out of her restrictions and behave in her usual unconventional manner.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CGC Daniel
• Release date: Nov 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215299944

Book preview

~ OLD ACQUAINTANCE~

Water dripped from the oars as they lifted from the black river. Little more than a shuffle escaped the rowlocks wrapped in sacking as I sculled gently with the current, capturing the last of the flood to help us to our landing.

Before me in the stern with a hand on the tiller Zeke guided me with touch, keeping a lookout as best he could through the intense, cold darkness. Behind my back in the very prow of the dinghy squatted the shrouded, hooded figure who'd uttered not a word during the three days of our passage, huddled like a blot on an ancient bloodstain. Wafting limbs of mist clawed at us as if the cold had physical form and wished us harm, but it drifted uselessly past us as the oars reached and lifted with  rhythmic precision.

Neither of my companions exclaimed; yet I knew the very instant they spotted the signal ahead, a kind of collective breath of relief as our mission neared its end and we could escape homewards. An end at least for Zeke and me, for our passenger would be landing on enemy soil, though for him it was not foreign.

A rapid glance over my shoulder confirmed the position of the flash of the lantern and I altered course slightly. Already in the bow our passenger was shifting, making ready to step out but rocking the small craft easily. I hissed a warning and he stilled.

One, two pulls on the oars and he was seizing on to a mossy landing stage which crumbled beneath his grasp as I pulled alongside. I reached for our cargo's meagre bag, tossing it to him as he hovered nervously on the rotting timber. Nimbly and with relief he danced beyond view into the low bushes whence I heard a muffled murmur, and Zeke reached forward to shove us back out into the stream.

The one word I ever heard him utter hissed at us from the darkness: 'Merci!', though the first syllable was throttled so I heard only '-ci'. We drifted out into the river to begin our journey to safety. And warmth and a hot toddy, I hoped. Here, though I could not make out the banks, I knew that our landing place was where the river had broadened into a wider stretch, almost a lake. Even staring hard at the landing stage I could detect sign of neither our cargo nor his contact, who must have fled away through the trees as swiftly as their legs allowed. It would do them ill to be caught. There was no movement, no flash of light, no sound; Zeke and I were now alone as if the man had never existed.

I shifted to the stern to take the tiller and let Zeke take the oars for the run downstream. Shortly the tide would turn, and the ebb would help our way to the mouth of the river where we'd moored 'Bernadette', the pilot cutter Adam and I had called home for nearly two years. Adam would be there keeping watch, I had no doubt; he could not sleep when we had cargo for France, and in this year of 1793 the danger had suddenly and dramatically worsened. And Arthur, Zeke's somewhat simple nephew but skilled boatman, probably slept soundly in the stern. War had now been declared between the French revolutionary authorities and Great Britain, and on this freezing March night we were running the gauntlet by entering a French river to deliver an agent, even if the river was a quiet backwater on the edge of Brittany which only the most insignificant of vessels might navigate. And which needed a unique expertise to reach in the first place through the offshore shoals and rocks scattered all about the Cote d'Armor. In English we called it the Armoured Coast because it was so formidably rock-bound, but in fact the name means Sea Coast in the local Breton language. I preferred to think of it as armoured as I had marvelled at the way Zeke found his passage through all hazards in all weathers.

Our cargo was no more ours to worry about so the skiff felt lightened of a load as we headed towards safety...or at least towards less peril. War now declared between our two nations made the presence of four Englishmen on the banks of a Breton river an event to be regarded with grave suspicion by the revolutionary authorities, who would doubtless take a deep interest in us were we to be discovered. Some innocent traffic persisted between the two countries – coastal folk have little need of the rigid lines of landsmen, and contact is inevitable – so we might have tried to argue our cause, that we were naught but innocent sailors.

In any case we were not four Englishmen: we were three and myself, not a man but an English lady: Rebecca Somerville, Lady Marshwood, to give me my full title. But I hated my husband's name and was in the process of ridding myself of it if the law would allow. This went against his wishes, so our battle was dragging on. And how the wife of an English earl came to be ferrying illicit cargo into an enemy land is a long and complicated story. My little crew and I had done this before (though not since war had been declared, which was but a month or two), and the small stipend  I received as an agent of the British crown had allowed Adam and me to live our vagabond existence once I'd decided to flee all the dangers aligned against me in London.

A black night in March, when the deep chill locks your being inside its savage vice, reminds you just how much you can yearn for a fireside and a hot toddy, and the thought of 'Bernadette's' snug cabin hastened us downstream.

We had left her about midnight; it was now closer to two in the morning. We had another hour to go before warmth and comfort, before we could begin to think of being safe; for once aboard we still had to run out to the Channel, and all before dawn for fear of being accosted. Once out in the bay we were more likely to be taken for a local craft, but along the river we were out of place, a foreign thing that would attract puzzled glances. Our advantage was that we had not had to penetrate deep into the interior but had stayed relatively close to the mouth of the river.

I dug a flagon from beneath my cloak and shared a sip with Zeke. We sculled gently and silently down the middle of the river, high now and covering the mudflats either side of the dredged channel marked by withies. We could not see the withies but at this state of the tide we were safe enough from running aground. An occasional loom of shadow indicated where the bank might be, or a tree. There'd been barely a candle flicker on our way upstream, and though Zeke had warned me we'd probably see a fisherman there had been no sign of life. Besides, in the skiff we too were merely fishermen so should attract little notice.

I swallowed the sip of brandy, enjoying the illusion of heat as it ran down my throat. Sir Joseph would be pleased, another of his agents successfully landed, another mission accomplished. Without the help of my friend Sir Joseph Hodges in the Admiralty and his clandestine activities, Adam and I would have been harder pressed to survive, to remain beyond the reach of my husband's violence and the threat from French agents and their allies in London, whose interest I had previously stirred.

As silently as was possible in a moving skiff being rowed on water, we drifted on. I huddled on the stern thwart while Zeke sculled gently: we had agreed he should row back to 'Bernadette' because it was at this point we might have had need of speed, to escape had there been ambush.

My mind wandered. This year I would reach my majority. Not that it would change my circumstance much, because as a mere woman I remained my husband's possession like it or not. The Earl of Marshwood had married me very much against my wishes because he believed me heiress to a mythical fortune which, owing to its staggering size, he had determined would be his – not that his lordship was in any great need of funds. Although a number of people were now actively involved in following clues as to the whereabouts and even existence of the Somerville Treasure, as I had come to think of it, it remained elusive. I had run away to sea with my friend, Adam, a young man whose grandfather had been very kind to me and who had helped me in the past. An early experience of his lordship's crude wooing had caused a reaction in me to regard men – even men I might admire or even love – with suspicion, and thus to distance myself from any closer attachment despite the lurid lies being spread about me at my husband's behest in the penny pamphlets regarding the relations between Adam and me.

For my part, a simple girl surprised and horrified to find herself heiress to the very estate where I had grown up with my cousins in a small cottage, I wished only for a return to the everyday joys of my early years. My mother had died when I was little so I'd been brought up largely by my uncle and aunt before my aunt's untimely death and the decision taken by my radical, non-conformist uncle to escape the backwardness of England for a free life in the new American Republic. My father being at that point still alive though as usual away on a voyage to far lands, it had been decided by those who decide such things that I'd be much better off remaining in England to await his return. I had wanted to accompany him on that last voyage as I was a big girl (I thought), but none of my grown-ups felt that a ship was the right place to continue the upbringing of a fourteen-year-old female so I was obliged to remain in England.

The parish was only too delighted a year or so on to seize my soul from my uncle's wayward upbringing and thrust its care and mine into the hands of an upstanding, God-fearing local worthy. It was shortly after hearing of the Somerville inheritance that I learnt of my father's death so inherited in his stead, to the delight of my guardian who thus received a tiny but unexpected stipend extracted from the estate's meagre remnants. After a year or two of his unrelenting browbeating, he decided I was ready to be paraded as the Honourable Rebecca Somerville (instead of my birth name, Miller), heiress to the Somerville estate, around the houses and before the noses of the local gentry in hopes a whiff of my pedigree might grab a minor squire or so to take me off his hands – for by then he was eminently tired of my obstinate refusal to become what he wished me to be.

To his utter incredulity it was no minor local oaf who took to me but the Earl of Marshwood himself, an ageing rake so notorious he had never bothered with a wife before, merely taking a woman as and when he wished. I was led to believe there was many a scandal concerning his name and the ruination of a female reputation. At any rate, towards me he showed very much less affection than to the bones he fed his dogs, and very early in our acquaintance had taken violent and gross possession of his terrified young bride-to-be, together with a noble friend of his so they could share my debauch. To them it was simply sport.

I have never forgiven them.

The earl's health, I heard from Sir Joseph, was poor. Sometimes he appeared ready to die, others he was alive again, though his movement was strictly curtailed. Sadly, this had not been at my hand. A rough urchin, believing the earl to have violated (and probably killed) his little sister, had inflicted a sore and nigh-on deadly wound in revenge. The earl had married me shortly before this aboard a yacht he had chartered with the aim of expediting the event, because by doing so he became entitled to all I owned, and I as a person became his possession. The Somerville treasure, which he so lusted over, was thus safely in his clutches.

Our marriage, I thanked a kindly Providence, remained unconsummated other than by his act of violence, and now I was fortunate to have a lawyer working on my behalf to annul the contract. And the wound young George had delivered had removed the earl's capacity for intimate congress; neither could he walk. Thus constricted I knew to be his hell, but I felt nothing at all for him. Not even loathing.

Now here was I, a married woman of rank, living on a small boat with a young man close to me in age. No wonder there were all kinds of rumours. But my lord Marshwood had damaged me in more ways than one, and I found myself unable to allow Adam and me both what we might normally have enjoyed. Perhaps one day I might prove to be healed, but not yet.

The current beneath us was running well now; in an hour it would be stronger still, sweeping us out deep into the bay. Wind there was little, perhaps the sigh of a cat's paw now and again. During the coming day we would probably lie in the lee of the land, tucked away in a rocky bay on a coast known to Zeke. I was cold, famished and desperate for my bed, but we'd be weighing anchor and heading home before I would have a chance to rest.

I had drifted into thoughts of Sir Joseph – or more precisely of his warm and cosy salon and fireside in London to try to still my chattering teeth – when alerted by a grunt from Zeke I stared harder into the blackness forrard to make out a loom ahead, a darker shape. No light welcomed us; I chuckled silently – Adam had evidently fallen asleep, and Arthur could sleep through any explosion of cannon. We had agreed he'd set a candle to guide our way, but there was no light as we came rapidly alongside and I grabbed for the line we'd rigged for just this purpose. Fastening the skiff and letting her float on the current, we clambered aboard with stiff joints aching and not without noise, relieved that a hot toddy, a bite to eat and a warm bed would soon be had.

Still no Adam. I tugged at the cabin door to go below, wondering at his lack of greeting. Surely he must have heard us? But the cabin was in darkness as I ventured down the steps into the saloon.

Adam?

A light flared, dazzling after the dark. Adam sat bolt upright, face pale and eyes staring at me, mouth bulging as he fought to speak through the scarf gagging him, his arms wrapped behind his back. I glanced to his left, to the source of the light, my breath trapped in my throat. A candle took the flame and glowed. A man turned his head towards me and smiled.

A smile is the human expression of warmth and pleasure. This grimace on this marked face contained neither. It was an expression of triumph and disdain.

"Citoyenne Marshwood, bonsoir. Quelle surprise. I am delighted to make your acquaintance again!" The smile widened.

I am not one of those delicate young things to swoon if a candle blows out. I have been through some quite appalling experiences, terrified yes but feeling faint and 'womanly' never. But my legs almost gave beneath me then. My heart was clamped in the icy vice of terror before this slight, inconspicuous man I had hoped – nay, prayed – never to see again. I lowered myself on to a seat, barely aware of the pistol in his hand motioning Zeke down the steps into the cabin behind me.

Monsieur Leclerc.

My voice was barely audible. Sickness soured my stomach, and I swallowed hard to keep it in check.

~ LECLERC ~

Release Adam. I'm not sure it's really a snarl when your voice barely functions but I was not only terrified; I was furious. At myself. At Adam, for letting himself be taken. At Sir Joseph for putting me in this position. But mainly at Leclerc because he frightened me more than anyone I'd ever met. Including the earl, whose treatment of me had been in truth far worse and more abusive than this man's scrupulous courtesy.

In answer to my demand Leclerc cocked the pistol and held it to Adam's head.

Make sure your man knows that if he moves a muscle I will blow this man's head off.

I glanced at Zeke, crouched and watchful. He'd had years of life in His Majesty's Navy, so I imagine he'd seen a gun or two in his days. Zeke moved his chin an inch.

Now, Citizen. Let me have some answers and you may be on your way. Who sends you on these missions?

Missions? How could he know?

Leclerc closed his eyes with a sigh, emphasising his limited patience with a jab of the pistol at Adam's head.

Stop playing games with me, Citizen. Not many months ago you led my men a merry dance across Normandy, but they are fools beguiled by a pretty face. Your wiles and your beauty do not touch me...though I perceive your situation is much altered... Now, the pale eyes glittered at me balefully, who...sends...you?

I swallowed nothing from a dry mouth. I couldn't give up Sir Joseph. My mind hurtled around a series of lies which might have a chance of standing up to this man's clever gaze.

The slap of his hand on the table between us was like a gunshot, and I jumped.

H-Harding, I managed.

Oh how clever was I, how devious. We knew nothing of Harding, save that his name had been associated with a group of men involved in plots aimed at inciting imitations of the American and French revolutions in England. These same men had threatened me and blackened my name in an attempt to further their aims. Another reason for my flight from London.

His eyes regarded me with open contempt.

Who is Harding?

Why should he know that name? I knew Leclerc was one of the most powerful men in France – albeit well out of sight of the public gaze – but if Harding had been the main agent of France in London he would certainly have known. It was clear from his expression that he really didn't.

He is an official at the Admiralty. In England it was the Admiralty which took care of intelligence from abroad, being in charge of the ships which plied the oceans and visited different lands. Adam and I have the ship, Zeke is our skipper. We run errands to earn enough -

He snorted his derision. I so love to see it, Citizen. This attempt to make yourself appear small, an insignificant little mouse always at the orders of others, so helpless and lost! You are superb, magnificent! A true spy! I have seen how you can manipulate a whole room full of strong men so they feel sorry for you and will forever be at your bidding.

He leant across towards me. He'd taken the pistol from Adam's head and had laid it on the table near his right hand, and for one wild instant I saw myself reaching for it and shooting him in the chest. But even had I been able to seize the weapon I could probably not have fired it. A twisted finger jabbed at me, forcing me to glance down at his damaged hand. I knew he had suffered torture under King Louis, from one of the secret organisations the king had so enjoyed intriguing with. His face took on a sinister turn and I sat mesmerised and frozen by the malevolence of those pale eyes.

You waste my time. You are a criminal, an enemy of France and of the revolution. I can take you all now – all four of you, in case you thought I hadn't discovered the other one – and execute you before dawn, throw you into a hole where you will never be found. He pressed further towards me. "Do you wish for that, Citoyenne?"

Something bumped lightly against the hull, and I saw Zeke wince from the corner of my eye. A flare of hope burst through me but Leclerc ignored it. The candle flickered. The stove had died and the deep cold, worsened by damp, coiled through the cabin. I shivered inside my cloak.

"Monsieur - "

"Citizen!"

Citizen, it is cold. May I make us all a... My voice petered out as he stared at me incredulously.

Citizen... He inhaled deeply, slowly letting his breath go. You are involved in operations against the people of France, against the interests of the revolutionary authorities. We have spoken to the agents you have landed during many months. Who sends you on these operations to plant spies and saboteurs in our midst? Who is he?

I told you. Hastings -

His full name? His position? How he appears? A shoulder lifted at each question. Citizen, I may enjoy delaying your execution a little while, as I extract all the information I can from you and your associates. Believe me, it will not be nice for you – or them. He shook his head with exasperation. And you ask me for a drink... His chuckle was a harsh grating from deep in his throat.

For a moment I thought of bluster but his patience was running thin and I could easily make it snap. At the moment we were aboard my ship and he was alone below deck, so I was probably in the best place I could be considering these circumstances. By now he should have called in his men to haul us off to the nearest dungeon and dump us there to await our fate. Yet he seemed content to stay here and chat. Why?

"Monsieur – Citizen, I mean – I don't know what you believe me involved in - "

Where is your husband, Citizen?

The abrupt change of subject gave me pause. In former days he and my husband had collaborated to exploit those fleeing the worst excesses of the revolution, many of whom were innocent victims of greedy and jealous neighbours settling old scores.

In England. An invalid.

Oh? He was surprised; this was news to him.

A street attack. He was stabbed, nearly died. He cannot walk and is often more close to death than life these days.

Ah. His glance flicked from me to Adam. The mouse can play while the cat is away. I see. So he will not rescue you this time.

The last time I had been in the clutches of this man – in a mad attempt to rescue my childhood friend Robert from his imprisonment as a spy – it had been my lord's acquaintance with Leclerc which had previously freed me. Though that freedom was rapidly curtailed by my lordship's unceremonious marrying of me aboard the yacht he'd chartered for that very purpose. At least that experience had sparked my love for the sea and sailing.

Leclerc sighed sadly. I would dearly love to prolong our conversation, Citizen. I have so many questions I must ask you. Sadly, now is not the time. There are so many pressing concerns at the moment. He could use his pale eyes as weapons, and now they settled on me like the threat of broadside from a man-o'-war. You are acquainted with the so-called Marquis de Lacanet.

It was not a question. I swallowed my reflex lie. I was learning that something true but I hoped misleading would always trump an outright falsehood. He was reaching into an inside pocket of his coat.

I have met him, I answered cautiously, crouching like a rat cornered by a terrier.

You aided and abetted his escape. Or at least that of the fortune he has stolen from the people of France.

I helped his wife and family come to England. She is English, as you know. I did nothing wrong -

"A court of the people would disagree, Citizen. As does the law. By law you aided a fugitive to remove his wealth, stolen from the people of France. His wife, as you say, is English. And of course is free to go. Or she was then, when our countries were not yet at war. Now, however...you are a citizen – sorry, subject, of course, since you have a king to rule over you – of a country against whom we must fight. We are surrounded by enemies who even now threaten our eastern borders. We are beset from all sides. We are a new country now, we have much to learn. Our king is dead, no more do we live under tyranny. Even our enemies we treat with humanity: there is a new form of execution which is quick, civilised, far from the barbarism of hanging. We are merciful, Citizen, when we have to end the lives of our enemies. And it is the people now who decide... He shrugged expressively. Our people, Citizen, feel themselves understandably threatened by malicious enemies, and you can hardly expect leniency for your crimes."

The marquis had been determined to remain in France to fight for the life of the king, a cause now lost since the king's recent execution. That Leclerc should show interest in him made me think that perhaps the marquis' war against the revolution was enjoying success. Perhaps the British were helping him, I was not privy to the details of the cargoes Sir Joseph had entrusted to me, so had no idea how deeply they might have been entangled in such a plot.

My companions are not involved in any way. They know nothing of what I have been doing. They are innocent. If you free them I shall help you all I can. Adam writhed beneath his bonds. My mouth was so dry. I have no idea if I believed my own words.

Leclerc sighed again, eyes closing in resignation. His twisted hands rubbed at his face. You may all be free, he said, smiling again in a way I did not like. Soon. But I have a task for you, Citizen. He was tapping an envelope he'd tugged from his pocket against a thumb.

Oh? I was not going to like this.

It's a simple task. You are to return to England. There you will seek out Citizen Lacanet and demand she return the wealth she stole. In return I shall allow her to exchange letters with her husband, and shall even spare his life if I can persuade a court that he is totally repentant of his crimes against them.

Louis is in prison?

Louis! Hah, he is your friend! Then you will be ever more persuasive with Citizen Lacanet. It is vital you are. You have one month. And then Lacanet will die.

His hand chopped against the table with a smack of finality.

And so will your friend. He will remain behind as my guest in France. Should you fail to return in a month, he will be tried and, I assure you, found guilty of his crimes – they are too numerous for clemency. And then he will die. Mercifully, of course, as we are not cruel people.

Between Adam and me passed a look of hopeless desperation. I nodded slowly.

I will do as you say. Please don't hurt Adam...

Take this. He handed the envelope across the table. It will help persuade her. It is a letter from her husband making it clear where his new allegiance lies. You are to convey this to her – unopened, obviously, for you are an honourable woman and would not spy on a friend – and then to return to me with her written response, informing when and how soon she can return the stolen wealth. Is that clear, Citizen?

I bowed my head, defeated. It is clear, Citizen.

~ RETURN TO LONDON ~

The fire in the grate had burnt low, so Sir Joseph was able to turn away from the tears I couldn't stop swelling in my eyes and busy himself with the coals.

At least I was warm.

My thoughts were of  Adam. If he was lucky he'd be in a freezing dungeon somewhere in France; if not lucky, then already a corpse, murdered by the authorities or inmates. In the current madness reigning there, his chances of survival were slim.

I'd argued – pleaded – with Leclerc but he'd merely observed me with a yawn as his louts entered the cabin on command and dragged my friend away, still bound and gagged; and one had restrained me even as I'd stood, half-ready to try the tricks my father had taught me, to use my body as a weapon. But it was beyond my strength to react now and although I squirmed and begged, nobody took any notice of me. Adam's eyes were wide, trying to pass a message that his gagged voice could not. Reassuring me probably, but I was not to be reassured.