Ramage's Devil Read online

  She undid the top two buttons of her dress, recently collected from a French dressmaker using materials Sarah had brought with her from England. “The sun has some warmth in it, if you wait long enough, but not enough to tan. Yes,” she said matter-offactly, “I knew about that when you first proposed. Anyway, your mother warned me. In fact she used almost the same words. She said what a shock it had been for her as a new bride when she realized that her husband had another wife. She was very relieved that I already knew about you and your first bride, the navy.”

  “Well, we met under unusual circumstances.”

  She blushed as he reached over and undid the next two buttons of her dress, pulling back the soft material so that he could see her breasts.

  “Bonaparte has done one thing for us—the French fashions help lovers,” he said, and kissed a nipple, touching it with his tongue so it stiffened.

  It was strange, she reflected, that you held your husband naked in bed; you even walked round the bedroom naked in front of him, and it all seemed quite natural. Yet out here in the sunshine, lying on the grass with bare breasts, she felt shy, as though this was the first time that Nicholas had unfastened a button. But how right he was about French fashions! Unlike in London, bare arms in the drawing rooms were commonplace here and very few French women of fashion bothered with corsets, although those sensitive of their plumpness wore narrow stays. And the flimsy materials! Often they were almost transparent, and most respectable women wore petticoats, but she had seen several women who passed for respectable wearing dresses that revealed their whole body when they stood against the light, and it was quite extraordinary how often they found themselves in front of a window. Still, anything was welcome that freed women from the constriction of corsets: why should women have to live as though squeezed in a wine press for the sake of fashion? Nevertheless, she pictured some women she knew and imagined them freed of corsets: it would be like slitting the side of a sack of corn!

  She felt her breasts hardening as he pretended to inspect her nipples for the first time, commenting on their colour and size. Did he really like large nipples?

  “Very well,” she said, concentrating with great effort, “so the navy is your first wife and you are honeymooning in Brittany with your second on secret business. What business?”

  “It’s no secret,” he protested. “Our passeports are in order: the French authorities admitted us—welcomed, almost—to the country, enchanted that we are on our honeymoon, so if I happen to be able to count up the number and type of ships being fitted out in Brest, and perhaps La Rochelle and L’Orient … well, that would be only the natural curiosity of a couple interested in ships and the sea. After all, you have only just completed a voyage to India and back, and you love looking at ships—don’t you?”

  “Of course, dearest,” she said with a smile. “And having closely inspected my breasts, taken my virginity, counted the ships and returned to London at the end of your honeymoon, what do you report to whom—and why? Surely the Admiralty must know what is going on in the French ports?”

  “If not what happens on nearby clifftops. No, the Admiralty as such is not the problem. The man who seems to be completely hoodwinked by Bonaparte is the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord St Vincent. He’s laying up ships of the line and frigates. That in itself doesn’t matter so much because they could be commissioned again in a few weeks, but he’s letting go all the prime seamen: they are being turned loose and are just disappearing like chaff in the wind, looking for work. You can commission all the ships again in a month and get them to sea—providing you have the seamen.”

  “But, dearest, surely an admiral like Lord St Vincent realizes all that?”

  “Of course he realizes he needs trained seamen to commission ships and get them to sea. His mistake is he doesn’t believe we need the ships. He doesn’t think we’ll be at war again with Bonaparte for another five years.”

  “Five years? Why not seven, or nine—or three?”

  “He’s attempting a complete overhaul of all the dockyards—to get rid of the theft, corruption and inefficiency which ranges from commissioners at the top to workmen at the bottom. It will take at least five years.”

  “So, my dear, do you think your honeymoon in Brittany will result in Lord St Vincent changing his mind and not paying off any more ships?”

  The whimsical note in her voice took the sting out of the question, and he frowned as he answered. It was a fair question and hard to answer satisfactorily. “It’s almost too late to stop him paying off ships: most are already laid up. No sooner had we arrived home in the Calypso than (as you well know) I had orders to go on round to Chatham and lay her up. That means all those men I’ve been collecting together for years, from the time of my first command, the Kathleen in the Mediterranean, will be turned out of the navy the moment the Calypso is laid up.”

  “And the commission and warrant officers—Southwick, Aitken and the others, yes and young Paolo—what happens to them?”

  “Well, they’ll join another ship if they can find a berth, but hundreds of lieutenants and masters will be after a few dozen jobs. Paolo should find another ship because my father has enough influence to arrange a midshipman’s berth. There’s virtually no limit on the number a ship can carry: it depends on the captain.”

  She sat upright to avoid the sun dazzling her and wondered if it could possibly tan her bosom a little. Her nipples were so large and brown. Did Nicholas prefer small pink ones, she wondered again. He seemed more than satisfied with them as they were, although she realized new husbands were unlikely to be critical.

  “So you lose everyone once the ship is laid up again,” she commented. “Supposing a month later—a month after you are back in London—the Admiralty commissions the Calypso again and gives you command?”

  “I can ask for the officers, and for Southwick, and if they’re not employed I’d probably get them. But the men—not one, unless they heard about it and volunteered, because they’d be scattered across the country, or perhaps serving in merchant ships.”

  “And if the war started again?”

  “I still wouldn’t get them back. They’d volunteer or be pressed and be sent to whichever ship needed men most urgently. I’d have to start all over again. My name is well enough known that volunteers would join, hoping for prize-money. But—well, you saw that I knew just about everything concerning every man in the Calypso.”

  “Yes, you seemed to be father confessor to men twice your age. Anyway, at least we’re not at war,” she said and touched his arm. “At least you’re not away at sea and I’m not sick with worry in case you have been wounded. Killed even.”

  “That’s a cheerful thought for a summer’s afternoon!” he protested.

  “Every time I hold you in bed, I feel a scar,” she retorted. “Like knots in a log. You’ve been lucky so far, the shot or sword cuts have not damaged anything vital. Why, you’ve done more than enough already to be able to resign your commission and just run the St Kew estate.”

  “My mother has been talking to you!”

  “Not really. She would like you to, and so would your father.”

  “He has no faith in the Admiralty or politicians.”

  “That’s hardly surprising, considering what they did to him. If they hadn’t made him the scapegoat so many years ago, he would probably have been First Lord now, not St Vincent.”

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps—but I wouldn’t have done so well.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “He would have been so determined that no one should accuse him of favouring his son that I’d probably still be a lieutenant commanding a cutter, probably on the fishery patrol off Newfoundland.”

  “So although you might complain about Lord St Vincent’s policies, you’ve done well enough, thanks to him.” Sarah was unsure why she was sticking up for St Vincent, who had always seemed taciturn, almost boorish, when she had met him.

  “Thanks to his predecessor,
Lord Spencer. He gave me my first chances in the early days—the chance to win my spurs, as it were.”

  “So you have a honeymoon task—to get enough information to persuade the First Lord and the Cabinet to change the country’s policy towards Bonaparte!”

  “Not quite,” he said wryly. “Just to convince the First Lord to keep enough ships in commission. I—we, rather—don’t want war; we just want to be ready because we think it is coming.”

  She buttoned up her dress. “Come on, let’s get on our way. War may be coming, but it’s certain we have only a few weeks of our honeymoon left and Jean-Jacques expects us for an early supper.”

  Sarah riding side-saddle brought a stop to the daily life in each village: women stood at the doors of their houses or shops, or came down the paths to the gates in response to cries from their children.

  “We’re probably the first foreigners they’ve seen since before the Revolution,” Ramage commented, keeping a tight rein on his horse, which was nervous at the shrill cries and cheers of the darting children.

  “They wonder what nationality we are,” Sarah said. “There’d be fewer smiles if they knew we were English.”

  “Yes, they won’t like the rosbifs here. Still, we could be Spanish, or even French: here in Brittany anyone from another province is a foreigner!”

  “But we are obviously aristos,” Sarah said quietly. “They probably think we escaped the guillotine at the Revolution and with the peace have returned from exile …”

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “I am not very worried about that! It’s more significant that Fort du Toulbroch, Fort de Mengam and the Lion Battery are still fully manned, as though the war was still on and a British squadron might sail up the Gullet any moment.”

  “I can see another fort ahead of us. There, just to the right of that church.”

  “Yes, the church is at St Pierre and the fort is de Delec, less than a mile short of Brest. This side of it, anyway.”

  “How many sides are there?”

  He laughed and explained: “The port is built on both sides of the entrance of the Penfeld river, just where it runs out into the Gullet. From what I remember of the charts and from what Jean-Jacques said last night, the arsenal is this side, by the entrance to the river. Then as you go upstream there’s the repair jetty, and a couple of dry docks and another arsenal. Then on the other side, to the east, there’s the château with high walls: an enormous fortress complete with gate and towers. There are barracks further inland. The commander-in-chief’s house is in the centre of town, the Hôtel du Commandant de la Marine, in the Rue de Siam, although why I should remember that I don’t know! There’s a naval college nearby. All along this side of the river are more quays, for another arsenal which is probably used for storing guns and carriages. On the road to Paris at the main gate, the Porte de Landerneau on the north side of the town, there’s the hospital. I remember the map of the town in the Hydrographic Office at the Admiralty, drawn ten or fifteen years ago, noted that the pile of garbage from the hospital was polluting the water. And the cartographer was called St Nicolin. Strange how one’s memory dredges up these odd items!”

  “Look,” Sarah said, “I can see masts. Like trees that have lost their leaves.”

  “Yes, there’s just one more village, Laninon, before we reach the port. Ah, over to the right you can now see the ships at anchor in the Roads in front of the port. Yards crossed, sails bent on—why, it really does look as if Bonaparte is preparing a fleet. To send to India, the West Indies, the Cape? … Eight … nine … eleven ships of the line. Thirteen … fifteen … sixteen frigates. Four transports. And various others—corvettes, frigates en flûte—”

  “What are they?” she interrupted.

  “Frigates with most of the guns removed and fitted out as transports. And,” he continued, listing what he saw, “they’re anchored out in the Roads, ready to sail. I wonder what we will see along the quays once we get into the port …”

  She shivered. “I don’t like this, Nicholas. Supposing they stop us in the port and want to see your documents? You captured and sank enough French ships for them to know your name only too well. They could accuse you of being a spy.”

  “Hardly a spy,” he protested. “My papers give my full name. There’s nothing secret about our visit—we’re on our honeymoon. I’m not writing down lists of ships … And remember, there’s nothing to prevent a French naval officer visiting Portsmouth, or Plymouth—nor anywhere he wants in England. He could probably set up an easel in front of Southsea Castle and paint all the ships he saw riding at anchor at Spithead, and with half a dozen small boys and a sergeant of fusiliers watching him admiringly.”

  “Yes, but remember what Jean-Jacques said,” Sarah reminded him.

  “Dearest, poor Jean-Jacques is a stranger in his own country. He’s lived in England as an exile since 1793. Nine years. A long time.”

  “He realizes that. Imagine leaving a château empty, except for vandals, for nine years … Still, I must say he’s done everything to make us comfortable. Thank goodness he brought linen, crockery and cutlery with him from England. The place might be short of furniture but it’s still more comfortable than the back of this horse!”

  As they jogged along the lane skirting the coast and passing through the village of Laninon before reaching the Penfeld river, Ramage noted the state of the road. Apart from its width it was little more than a deserted track pocked every couple of yards with large potholes. Yet it was obviously the most important road for the defence of Brest because it was the only link (without going miles inland and swinging out again) with the three forts and the Lion Battery. The defences of Brest were between the port and Pointe St Mathieu, but quite apart from rushing out field artillery or cavalry, it was unlikely a company of soldiers could hurry along here on a dark night without a quarter of them spraining ankles in potholes. Yet summer was the time to fill potholes so that cartwheels and horses’ hooves packed down the earth.

  By the time they returned to the château, to be greeted by Jean-Jacques, they were weary, feeling almost stunned by the monotonous trotting of the horses. Jean-Jacques’ valet, Gilbert, busied himself with buckets of water, filling the only bath in the house. This, a large circular basin about twelve inches deep, had been found outside—the Revolutionaries had used it for watering their horses. Now, with it sitting on a thick bath mat on the dressing room floor Gilbert walked back and forth from the kitchen stove with buckets and jugs of hot water. Finally, with six inches of hot water in the bath and some jugs of cold left beside it, he reported all was ready and left.

  Those buttons! Being constantly in the company of a woman with a beautiful body (with a body, he told himself proudly, which delighted a French dressmaker who took pride in cutting and stitching her material to emphasize or take advantage of every nuance of breast and thigh), buttons took on a new meaning for him. Previously they were devices for holding together pieces of cloth; now they could be a gateway to ecstasies.

  Slowly she undid the buttons of her dress, starting at the bottom so that finally with a quick shrug of her arms the whole dress slid to the floor, and as he started up from the armchair she said: “No, dearest: poor Gilbert has spent the whole afternoon boiling this water—let’s use it while it is hot.” More buttons, more shrugs, and she stood naked, pleased at his obvious pleasure in watching her. Yes, her breasts were firm; yes, her hips were generous without being plump. Yes, her buttocks had that pleasing fullness: so many Frenchwomen, she noticed, had the flatness of young boys.

  She turned slowly, and then picked up the towel. “You bring the soap,” she said, and he stood up and began to undress, thankful that while in France he found it easier to forget breeches, which the French seemed to associate entirely with the aristocracy, and wore the trousers which the sans-culottes had adopted as a garment and a slogan.

  By the time they had bathed and dressed, Sarah wearing a pale yellow dress which was low cut in the latest fashion, Ramage was sure
he would doze off at the dinner table. However, in the high-ceilinged dining-room, sparsely furnished with a table and five chairs, they found Jean-Jacques in high spirits. He had, he told them, just been able to trace some more of the furniture left behind and stolen by looters when he fled the Revolution.

  Stocky, with crinkly black hair, a nose so hooked that in some lights he looked like a contented puffin, and dressed as though Louis XVI was still on the throne, instead of long ago executed by a revolutionary mob, Jean-Jacques wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Landerneau, out on the Paris road, that’s where I found them,” he said. “A dining table, twelve chairs, the sideboard and wine-cooler.”

  “Who had them?”

  “The mayor. He was using the table and four chairs; the rest were stored in his stable. Luckily his wife was proud of the table and kept it well polished.”

  “What happens now?” Sarah asked.

  “Tomorrow I am sending my bailiff and a couple of carts to collect everything. With plenty of straw to protect the wood.”

  “The mayor doesn’t claim they’re his?” Ramage asked.

  “Oh yes, although of course he doesn’t deny they were once mine. He claims the Revolution put an end to all private property.”

  “You had an answer ready for that!” Ramage could imagine the conversation.

  “Oh yes. He had half a dozen silver tankards on the sideboard with someone’s crest on them, so I said in that case I’d take three since he had no claim to them. His wife nearly had hysterics!”

  “But you haven’t made a friend—a mayor can be a dangerous enemy,” Sarah said.

  “The Count of Rennes has few friends in Brittany after the Revolution,” Jean-Jacques said grimly. “My real enemy is Bonaparte, so I need hardly care about the mayor of little more than a hamlet. And since Héloïse—well, stayed behind—when I went to England I have no sons to inherit the title or this château. Rennes,” he said quietly, as though talking to himself while he stared back through the centuries, “the ancient capital of Brittany. Two hundred years ago we were one of the half dozen most powerful families in the country. Now the last survivor is reduced to retrieving sticks of his furniture from the local thieves. Where are all my paintings, my silver, my gorgeous carpets, the Gobelins tapestry which ran the length of that wall?”—he gestured to one side of the long dining-room—”the Venetian glassware which has been handed down from father to son for generations? Being used by oafs.