The Bright and Breaking Sea (A Captain Kit Brightling Novel Book 1)

The Brightling house had plenty to commend it—the orangerie, with its fragrant potted citrus; the garden, nearly overburdened with peonies and boxwoods and roses. But the best room of all belonged to Hetta.

Her study was a museum, a library, a gallery. The walls were covered in books and folios that held prints of lands Kit hadn’t yet had the opportunity to see. The chairs were leather and deep, and the tables held artifacts and stones. A globe stood near Hetta’s claw-footed desk, an imposing, bulky piece of furniture covered in bric-a-brac and carvings. It was large enough, and Hetta was small enough, that she could have made a bunk out of it. She was not quite five feet tall, with pale skin and short hair, and brown eyes that saw much.

She’d summoned Kit, and sat beside that desk in a tunic of brilliant turquoise undoubtedly obtained outside the Isles, much to the consternation of Mrs. Eaves, who believed the clothes entirely too garish for a Saxon household.

A fireplace faced the desk, hanging above it a painting of her late husband in uniform, wearing a charming and slightly lopsided smile, rather than the cool reserve usually shown in portraits. Sir Harry’s hair was short and red and stuck up in tufts, and his cravat was slightly off center.

Hetta peered at Kit over her spectacles, then carefully put down the book and removed them. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” Kit said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her.

“Help yourself if you’d like some tea.” Hetta gestured to a side table where a teapot and cup awaited. “Mrs. Eaves brought it in—well, I’m not sure how long ago. It may not be warm.”

“Bergamot?”

“It is.”

Kit touched a fingertip gingerly to the white ceramic pot. “Still warm,” she said, then glanced back at Hetta. “Would you like some?”

“Please.”

Kit poured two cups, added light sugar as Hetta preferred, and generous sugar and milk in hers. When she’d given Hetta the cup, she took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, savored the first sweet sip.

“Oh, I’ve missed this.”

“Run out of tea on board?”

“Milk,” Kit said, opening her eyes. “We only had a bit iced down in the hold, and we had to drink it quickly.”

“And how was your mission?” Hetta asked. When she wasn’t raising children, Hetta assisted the Crown as an analyst of intelligence gathered by the Crown Command’s Foreign Office. Hetta and Sir Harry had been in Gallia, seeking out useful information, when he’d died.

As with Kit, few knew of Hetta’s real work, and they assumed she spent the majority of her free time like those who’d been born into the Beau Monde: at her leisure. They didn’t know of her ongoing service, and believed she’d only been inducted into the Order of Saint James, one of the nation’s highest honors, because she’d lost her husband.

“A coded letter in Gerard’s handwriting,” Kit said, and watched expressions stream across Hetta’s face. Pride, concern, dismay.

“So much for the ban on communications,” Hetta said. She sat back in the chair again. “I told them Montgraf was a poor choice. It seems imposing—the jagged peaks, inaccessible castle. But there’s a village at the base of the mountain. A bit of gold crossing the hands of an eager villager, and much havoc can be wrought. Where was it bound?”

“Pencester.”

Hetta nodded. “A disappointment, if not a surprise, to learn we’ve operatives in the Isles.”

“And that may not be the only evidence of treachery. I’m leaving in the morning on a rescue mission.”

Hetta stilled, teacup nearly to her lips. “Who?” she asked, and Kit could all but feel the dread that spilled into the air.

“Marcus Dunwood.”

Porcelain rattled as Hetta lowered the cup and saucer again. “Vas tiva es,” she murmured. It was half question, half curse in the old language: What have the gods wrought?

Hetta sat quietly for a moment, brow furrowed and gaze staring as she considered, evaluated. “He was supposed to be in disguise,” she said, after raising her gaze to Kit again.

“Compromised,” Kit said, and saw the flash of temper in Hetta’s dark eyes. “He was captured on a packet and is believed to be in Finistère. I leave in the morning.”

“I’ll wish you fair winds. I suppose you’ve already been to Portnoy’s?”

Kit grinned. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Hetta sipped, rolled her eyes.

“What do you know about Viscount Queenscliffe?” Kit asked.

This time, Hetta’s brows shot up. “The Grants hold that particular seat. As I recall, the family had financial troubles when the last viscount died. Two sons—the younger was a bit of a wastrel, and I believe there was some consternation about the older son’s taking a commission.”

Easy enough to guess Rian was the older son.

“Is the elder trustworthy?” Kit asked.

“I don’t know enough of him to say. The family is generally well regarded, but for the lack of funds. Why do you ask?”

Kit cleared a bit of space on the edge of Hetta’s desk—moving a box of pinned butterflies and a spyglass—and put down the cup and saucer.

“He is to accompany me on the mission,” Kit said. “We are to lead it together, by order of the queen.”

“As you’re here,” Hetta said coolly, “it doesn’t appear you’ve been imprisoned for refusing her.”

“She is my queen, and I’m not fond of treason.” Restless now, Kit rose, wandered to the globe in its golden mount. She put a hand to the gemstone surface, felt the cold beneath her hand. Then spun it with a finger so the Isles whirled past, a dot in a great blue sea.

“I don’t like having a member of the Beau Monde on my ship.” She looked back at Hetta. “And I don’t like involving in my mission a man I don’t know, much less giving him partial control. Not when lives are at stake.”

“The queen is young,” Hetta said. “But she is not naive. She’d have had her reasons for adding him. And there’s one easy way to confirm his motives.”

Kit looked up, expecting Hetta to offer to send an inquiry.

“Ask him,” Hetta said, amusement in her eyes.

Kit snorted. “I doubt he’ll willingly confess to perfidy.”

“Assuming he’s involved in perfidy, which is unlikely.” The cabinet clock sounded the hours ominously. “As you’ve an early morning, you might try to get some sleep.”

“I should,” Kit agreed.

“I didn’t know you still wore your ribbon,” Hetta said, gaze dropping. Kit looked down. She’d left her jacket unbuttoned, and a frayed end of ribbon peeked out.

“I do,” Kit said, and fastened the buttons again. “As a reminder of how lucky I am, and Principle of Self-Sufficiency No. 7—The best of life comes from having earned it.”

She walked around the desk, pressed a kiss to Hetta’s cheek. Hetta covered Kit’s hand with hers.

“The world is becoming dangerous again,” she said. “Be as careful as you can.”

“The world has always been dangerous,” Kit said. “But some are better at hiding it. And there’s too much of the world that I haven’t yet seen to leave it so quickly.”

She walked to the door, but paused by a shelf and pulled out a slim volume of adventure stories. She held it up to obtain Hetta’s permission.

Hetta’s expression was grim. “There are a thousand books in this room. Discourses on ancient philosophies. Treatises on naval maneuvers. And my children only want fairy tales and love stories.”

“Because they aren’t discourses on ancient philosophies or treatises on naval maneuvers,” Kit said, and skipped out before she was treated to a lecture on the importance of intellectual breadth. That was Principle of Self-Sufficiency No. 8.

Ten minutes later, Kit was chin-deep in a copper tub of lavender-scented water, with a sweet in one hand and a book in the other.

She was home, even if only for a little while.