Surrender the Stars

Surrender the Stars

The Author's Cut Edition

Raveneau Novel #2

by

Cynthia Wright

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Copyright © 1987 by Wrighter, Inc.

Cover by Kim Killion

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Thank You
.

Dedication

For my readers

with love and appreciation

Prologue

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

April 7, 1814

A luminous full moon spilled silvery light over the Georgian facade of Hampshire House and its lawns studded with beds of daffodils and hyacinths. Because Senator Lion Hampshire and his wife Meagan were in residence at their country estate south of Philadelphia, the villa was also lit from within, aglow with candlelight and convivial laughter.

Only one upstairs window still shone with light. Inside, Devon Raveneau sat at a pretty Queen Anne dressing table. After inserting an emerald comb into the fashionable strawberry-blond knot atop her head, she absently appraised her reflection.

"Are you ready to venture forth?" inquired her husband. Coming up behind her, he bent to kiss the curve of her neck.

"Yes, Andre, but why do I have the feeling that there is more afoot here tonight than a simple supper among friends? It shouldn't seem odd that Caro and Alec Beauvisage would write to us in Connecticut and invite us to visit them in Philadelphia, or that Lion and Meagan would travel up from Washington to see us and arrange this lovely party, but it does. It's as if there's something in the air, waiting to be said. Did you sense it when you were with Alec and Lion today?"

Raveneau shrugged, even though he, too, was aware of the undercurrents now that the six of them were together at Hampshire House.
"Cherie
, we should join the others. They've already gone downstairs. If there's something that's waiting to be said, perhaps we'll learn what it is this evening."

She stood up and smoothed back his silvery hair. "You're right, of course."

In the hallway, they parted. Andre Raveneau went down to join the two men he had known since the Revolutionary War, before any of them had met their wives. Devon walked toward the back stairway, where she was met by tantalizing aromas of soup, salmon, lamb, and tarts.

"Devon, is that you?" Meagan Hampshire called up to her. "I'm just checking to see that Bramble doesn't overexert. Come and join us!"

She found Meagan and Caro at the bottom of the stairs, and compliments were exchanged all around. All three women were in their forties but retained a fresh, intelligent vitality that made them more beautiful with age. They remained petite and slim in the flattering high-waisted fashions of the day, the soft tendrils that brushed their creamy cheeks lending them a girlish charm. Meagan's hair was ebony, Caro's honey-hued, and Devon's a rosy-gold; all three shades mixed with strands of silver that gleamed in the lamplight.

The kitchen was huge, whitewashed, and dominated by a scrubbed oaken table. Firelight not only bathed the room but danced around a kettle of fragrant soup that hung in the hearth. Bramble, a bent, sour-faced elderly woman clad in black, was tasting her creation when the trio of females emerged from the stairway.

"Good evening, Bramble!" Meagan called.

The long wooden spoon clattered to the floor as the cook jumped, one hand pressed to her sinewy breast. "Have ye no thought for the heart of an old woman?" she scolded. "In future, don't be creeping up on me!"

"I'm sorry, but—"

"I suppose ye mean to remind me that ye are mistress of this house and may come and go where ye like, but I don't mind repeating that I have a few rules of my own and if ye cannot abide by them, I vow I'll work elsewhere!"

"So you've been telling me for twenty-five years, dearest Bramble." Meagan's emerald eyes twinkled affectionately as she remembered the long-ago days when she, at eighteen, posed as a maid and had answered to Bramble. Later, Meagan had been appointed housekeeper, eventually becoming Lion's wife, but through it all and over these many years, Bramble had never quite forgotten the original arrangement between herself and her mistress. It amused Meagan to allow a measure of power to this dour old woman, knowing how she reveled in it. "Truly, I am contrite. Forgive me—and then tell me how our supper progresses."

"That's a foolish question! Ye should know well enough that my meals are always served at the scheduled hour!"

Devon and Caro exchanged glances as their younger friend crossed to the hearth and whispered, "Bramble,
you
should know well enough who is mistress in this house. Curb your tongue."

Seeking distraction, the two women across the kitchen exchanged news about their children. Caro told Devon that her son, Etienne, now thirty, was a major who was away in the war. He and his wife had a new baby daughter. Natalya, her elder daughter, was living in France with the family of Alec's brother, Nicholai, and had written her first novel. Kristin, the youngest, had been engaged twice but now was in love with yet another young man.