The Heroic Baron (2 page)

His valet, Cranston, scratched on the library door.
“Come.” Futilely, Alain straightened his rumpled clothing, knowing the meticulous Cranston would have an
apoplexy upon sight.

To his credit, Cranston refrained from scolding,
much to Alain’s eternal gratitude. The loyal but stiff necked valet merely cocked an examining eyebrow at
his charge-Alain knew Cranston would always look at
him thusly. Cranston styled himself as an artist, not as
an employee. “My lord, I have laid out fresh clothes
and your shaving things in your room. I will have your
dishabille resolved in no time.” He snapped his fingers
to emphasize his point.

“Thank you, Cranston. When we’re finished, please
tell Harker I will take breakfast in the estate office. Send
word to Daniel Mullins that I want to visit the project
site after I eat. We have decisions to make regarding the
`grand vision’ if we want to stay on schedule.” It felt
good to give orders. It imbued the day with an ordinary
quality, as if his life hadn’t been disrupted by tragedy.
He felt almost normal. Perhaps, if he could carry on
with business as usual, he wouldn’t have to feel at all.

“Alain! I didn’t expect to see you out today!”

Alain turned in his saddle to greet Daniel Mullins,
friend and the architectural brains behind his vision.
“We have deadlines to meet. People are counting on us
to go ahead with the project.” And he needed to stay
busy so he wouldn’t start hurting again. The “grand vision” was a soothing balm. The outlines of the buildings were already visible from his post up on the cliffs
overlooking Hythe. Wooden pickets and white string
marked the layout of his dreams. He had bricklayers
and masons waiting to start laying the foundations of
the three buildings.

“The weather is conspiring against us” Daniel edged
his horse closer to Alain’s big bay, cupping his hand to
his mouth to be heard against the wind. “I’m not sure we’ll meet any deadlines in the rain. We can’t lay the
brick foundations in mud.”

Alain gave a frustrated shrugged. “The ground was
too frozen in the winter to dig, and now the ground is
too muddy.”

Daniel reached over to clap Alain on the back. “Spring
will be here soon enough. It’s March. The bad weather
won’t last much longer. Besides, there’s no hurry as long
as the war with Napoleon is still on. War time isn’t conducive to travel. Your backers won’t be visiting until August after the Season lets out in London. By then, we’ll
have made an impressive amount of progress”

Alain nodded reluctantly. He was impatient. He
wanted to move forward with the “grand vision.” He
wanted to see something tangible, to know that his efforts weren’t in vain, that he was doing something useful with his life. The need to be useful was especially
foremost in his mind this past week. Facing the mortality of others inevitably led to facing one’s own mortality. He was going to die. What would he leave behind?
To what purpose was his existence?

He had conceived of the idea two years ago, driven
by a relentless case of ennui after his sister’s wedding
to Westbrooke. He’d watched his sister start her life as
the marchioness of a wealthy peer shortly after his best
friend, Tristan Moreland, departed to join the English
Peninsular Campaign against Napoleon. The two people he was closest to had moved on from their childhood romps into adulthood, leaving him behind. To
assuage his feelings of loneliness and abandonment,
he’d paid a visit to Hythe, home of The Refuge, one of
two Wickham family baronial estates.

The Hythe of his childhood was a quiet village. Historically, Hythe had been quiet for centuries since the
thirteen hundreds. The war with Napoleon had upset
the lazy balance in Hythe and the strangled war time
economy had wrecked havoc with the people’s abilities
to provide for themselves honestly. As the heir to The
Refuge, Alain felt responsible for their plight. They
were his people. He’d known what he wanted to do so
he called upon an old friend from Eton, Daniel Mullins,
who was now a young, rising architect under the
Prince’s Regency. Then he’d gathered together backers
who’d help financially sponsor the project.

“The wind is picking up,” Daniel said beside him.
“Let’s ride down to the buildings. I want to check the
stakes and make sure they hold”

Alain’s spirits lifted as he dismounted a few minutes
later after navigating the winding trail down to the village. It did him good to see the string outlines of his
project. Even with this small amount of detail, he could
fill his head with imaginings of Hythe as a bustling resort town. Not on par with Brighton, of course, a little
further down the coast. It was not meant to compete
with Brighton. His town was for middle-class families
looking for an affordable vacation, an inexpensive escape from the oppressive heat of a London summer.

Satisfied that the stakes were secure against a storm
blowing off the channel, Daniel suggested a mug of grog.
“Everyone in town will be at The Sail and Oar except the
most intrepid of ferrymen” Daniel stomped his feet and
blew on his hands against the cold stirred up by the wind.

Alain laughed. “You try so hard to be a sailor, my
friend. I am afraid you’re a landlubber at heart”

“I am an architect after all.” Daniel took the ribbing
good-naturedly. “We can leave the horses up here at the
livery and walk down.”

The Sail and Oar was located on the currently quiet
wharf. Gray whitecapped waves banged against the pilings, crafts bobbed defiantly at their strong moorings
against the Channel’s onslaught. Despite the cold outside, The Sail and Oar emanated the warmth of rich
laughter and the camaraderie of men holed up for the
duration. Indeed, many of these men had been holed up
since the December storms made plying their sea-going
trades impossible until spring brought calmer waters.

Upon seeing him, the men broke into cheers, forming a gauntlet of sorts to thump him on the back. Someone thrust a mug of ale in his hand. Someone else
steered him to an empty seat at a bench amid them.
Someone else, who he recognized as Matthew Hinton,
the town blacksmith, raised a frothing mug in a toast.
“To the baron!” The phrase chorused around him amid
a cacophony of clanking tankards.

Alain dug in his purse for coins for a round of drinks.
Matthew Hinton’s beefy paw stopped him. “Your coppers are no good here today, are they men?” Hinton
looked around at the crowded public room, eyeing
everyone for approval. Everyone nodded in agreement.
Alain took the kind gesture graciously. It was their way
of mourning with him. In a small, warm way, the village mourning with him eased the foreboding sense of
loss that had permeated his life over the last week. His
family had been part of the community fabric for three
generations. His loss was their loss. He was not alone
in his grief. His quiet, stalwart father who worked dili gently behind the scenes as well as his generous, more
vivacious emigre mother would be missed by them all.
His spirits improving, Alain raised his tankard for a
second toast. “To Hythe and its good people!”

Suddenly the door whipped open bringing with it a
rush of wind and spray and Matthew Hinton’s eightyear-old son. He was soaked and panting. “Da, there’s a
boat! Ma sent me to tell you that it’s breaking up. There
are people on it! Da, you’ve got to help it.”

Alain was on his feet next to Matthew. “Show us the
boat, Tommy”

The scow was two hundred feet from shore and
foundering. With the weather conditions as they were,
it might as well have been a mile. Alain rapidly scanned
the shore, his sharp eyes lighting on a sturdy row boat.
He pointed to it, firing off orders. “Matthew, you and I
will take the row boat out. Malcolm, take what men you
need and get your boat underway” Alain scanned the
gray waters one more time before jumping in the row
boat with Matthew. “We’ve got to hurry; someone is already in the water!”

Alain’s shirt was plastered against his skin by the
time he and Matthew managed to maneuver their row
boat close to the foundering little dinghy. With each
stroke, the winds threatened to blow them off course, if
not worse. Alain recognized his strength alone would
not have gotten the row boat to its destination.

On board the sinking craft, a woman was shouting
hysterically and pointing to the man in the water, while
a small child clung to her wet skirts screaming. An
older boy had the presence of mind to alternate his ef forts between bailing water and attempting to reach the
drowning man with a long pole. Both efforts were
valiant but futile. The bailing bucket was no match for
the wrath of the English Channel and the pole was too
short, even if he could have kept the boat on course.

Acting quickly, Alain reached for the cordon of rope
lying at his feet. He tossed it to the man in the water,
who grabbed it desperately. Matthew steadied the boat
with his massive blacksmith’s strength while Alain
tugged the rope, hand over hand. The man couldn’t
hold on. By Alain’s estimation, he’d been in the water
for ten minutes. It was miraculous the stormy waves
hadn’t already claimed him, but the cold was deadly.
His hands were too frozen to grasp the rope. Alain
sighted Malcolm’s boat. It would reach them within
minutes. “Get the woman and children into our boat
and then transfer to Malcolm’s,” Alain instructed. “I’m
going in after the man.” With that, Alain secured himself to the boat with a makeshift harness and plunged
into the icy waters.

At the best of times, the Channel was a cold place to
swim. This time of year, it was positively frigid. Twenty
glacial feet later, Alain reached the man’s side. The man
was barely conscious, the cold having sapped the last of
his strength. At least that meant the man wouldn’t fight
him and drown his rescuer in the process. Alain gripped
the man under the armpits and tugged on the rope, signaling Matthew to pull him back in.

Matthew pulled him aboard and Alain collapsed,
shivering, alongside his rescued bundle in the bottom
of the boat. Matthew threw a blanket around Alain.

“Take some rope and lash the boats together,” Alain
said between chattering teeth. “I won’t be able to help
you row back.”

Matthew nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Everyone is
safe. Nothing left of the boat, though”

Alain squinted through the spray to where the injured boat had been. It was gone. It had sunk rapidly after his mad jump into the Channel. He put a hand on the
chest of the man he’d rescued. The man’s skin was
chilly, his heartbeat slow but steady. Alain covered him
with the spare blanket and began chafing his hands
while Matthew arranged to get them safely to shore.

Back on land, Daniel waited anxiously to help unload the boats. Alain was glad to see his friend had
arranged for blankets and a wagon to meet them. The
family from the boat was in no shape to walk even the
fifty feet to The Sail and Oar. Alain discovered he
wasn’t either. He would have fallen if Daniel hadn’t
waded to his aid after Matthew hauled the man ashore.

“Whatever possessed you to jump in the Channel?
You could have drowned, strong swimmer or not.”
Daniel scolded, taking Alain’s weight and dragging
him to the wagon where he unceremoniously dumped
him on the tailgate.

Alain took the dry blanket Daniel held out to him and
huddled down into it, soaking up what small amount of
warmth it provided. “I wonder, Daniel, whatever possesses a man to sail his family across the Channel in such
weather”

“You are not going to stay and find out. We’ll get you
dry, and then you’re going straight back to The Refuge.
Cranston can look after you properly,” Daniel ordered.

Alain protested. “I can’t just leave them. These people are my responsibility.” He looked down at his ruined boots. “Besides, Cranston will flay me for what
I’ve done to his hard work on these Hessians.”

Daniel sighed. “I’ll be your eyes and ears. Let me get
you settled, and I’ll come back down to learn what I can”

Three hours later, Alain was significantly warmer but
no less curious as he lounged by the blazing inferno
Harker had insisted be built up in the library. Perhaps too
hot, although it wasn’t as hot as Cranston’s temper after
the valet had seen his boots. Of course, Alain knew
Cranston’s outrage over the boots was a cleverly disguised ruse to hide his chagrin over Alain’s stunt in the
Channel. Alain tossed off the lap throw draped across his
legs. It made him feel like an invalid. Where was Daniel?

As if on cue, Harker entered the room and announced Daniel’s arrival. “You’re soaking wet!” Alain
exclaimed over his friend’s appearance. “Come by the
fire and dry out. In a moment you’ll be more sweaty
than wet” He waited as long as he could before pestering Daniel for information.

“So, are you going to tell me what possesses a man
to risk his family in such a manner?” Alain said when
he could stand it no longer.

Daniel glanced at the mantel clock. “Five minutes.
That’s nearly a record for you. I was wondering how
long you’d last”

“That’s three hours and five minutes. Dash it, Daniel;
I’ve been cooped up here for hours waiting on tenterhooks for you to return” Alain strode to the sideboard
and poured his friend a drink. Coffee and sandwiches were on the way if he knew Harker, but brandy would
be a good warmer in the interim. He handed it to his
friend. “Teasing aside, thank you for going.”

“Teasing aside, you are welcome.” Daniel sipped
from the glass before speaking again. “Here’s what I
know. I only got sense out of the boy. The mother was
too distraught and the father, well, you know what
shape he’s in. Their name is Panchette. They’re from
France. They used to own a bakery, but circumstances
being what they are in Paris, the family could no longer
make a living. According to the boy, Gascon, they
couldn’t afford to make bread for themselves, let alone
a neighborhood. Faced with starvation and eviction and
nowhere to go, they decided to chance the waters and
bet on a better life in England.”