Feathers in the Wind: The Cygnets Read online

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  Red Rose Publishing

  www.redrosepublishing.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Camille Anthony

  First published in 2007-09-06, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Feathers on the Wind

  Book 1: The Cygents

  By

  Camille Anthony

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Feathers On the Wind: Book 1: The Cygents

  Red Rose Publishing

  Copyright© 2007 Camille Anthony

  ISBN: 978-1-60435-018-0

  ISBN: 1-60435-018-0

  Cover Artist: Rene Lyons

  Editor: Savannah Gray

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws, you can not trade, sell or give any ebooks away.

  Red Rose Publishing

  www.redrosepublishing.com

  Forestport, NY 13338

  Feathers on the Wind

  Book 1: The Cygents

  By

  Camille Anthony

  Historical Note

  A glossary has been provided at the back of this story to assist with your reading.

  Several characters in this story are actual people; the Sultan Selim III, the two sultanas, Mirhima and Nekshidel, to name a few. All others, except for one or two of the English cast, such as Prime Minister Pitt, are figments of my over-active imagination. However, I wish to point out that the Eastern characters are all historically true to life. In my research, I discovered people who acted exactly as my characters do. The Ottoman Empire, of which Turkey was the seat of power, was a strange, exotic mixture of civilization and barbarity. Men thought nothing of virtually locking women away, or using them as mindless receptacles for their intemperate lusts. Yet these same men revered their mothers and sisters. Their medical practices were far in advance of England's. You would not find an Eastern physician bleeding a patient who was already weakened by fever. On the other hand, they still attributed many illnesses to the work of demons or witchs’ curses. I have hurled my characters into this seething cauldron of intrigue and political mayhem, for from adversity, comes strength...

  Camille Anthony

  2006

  BOOK ONE: THE CYGNETS

  Life is but the road that leads one to Love,

  And for the young swan, there are many attractions.

  Yet, when once the true mate is sighted,

  All others become feathers on the wind...

  Prologue

  The Cornish coast, England

  November 1797

  The Turkish ship rode at anchor almost a half mile out from shore, barely visible to the shivering man squinting through the spray-dampened mists. The sound of the sails snapping and creaking, their billowing tarps filling with the furious gusts fueled by the lashing storm, reached him where he hid behind the advantageous hillock of tangled sea grape and sand. Shifting uncomfortably, he shielded his eyes with a chilled hand and blinked rapidly in an attempt to focus his bleary gaze on the suspect he'd been doggedly following for the last three days.

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  The wind howled, whipping away the man's expensive hat, the unruly gusts ruffling the rain-slicked black hair clinging to his forehead in damp curls. His black cloak billowed cloud-like about his broad shoulders, alternately obscuring and revealing the lines of his rugged physique.

  The light of the moon, peeking fitfully between clashing clouds, played across stern, handsome features cut into a face as hard as rock. Deep-set eyes, harboring fathomless pools of mystery, looked out at the world with bitter cynicism. Large, square hands were thrust into the copious pockets of the black riding cape; the right hand, from long practice, absently toying with the small, roughly carved crystalline elephant, a cherished memento always on his person. His booted feet rested firmly at the crumbling edge of the cliffs fronting the storm-ripped stretch of beach, symbolic of the man's stance in life—he stood on the precipice of change.

  This night he would complete his well-thought out, long-harbored revenge against a family that had dared to prosper while he, who should have been favored, had been forced to accept their insulting, casual generosity. His hatred ran deep, and would not be assuaged until his would-be benefactors—his enemies—groveled, begging, at his feet. He liked the idea that at the same time he brought down his prey, he would strike a blow against the country, the government that had stifled him all his life.

  The man chuckled to himself, pondering the vagaries of his present situation, finding bitter humor in the convoluted maze his life had become. His treason against Country and Crown was such a small thing. After all, he owed no loyalty to England, being an exile in a land that had always been cold and harsh to him, cheating him of his rightful inheritance. A cuckoo's egg amid the plodding English, his singular strangeness had long gone un-remarked. Therefore, he felt no remorse over what he had set in motion. These steps were the opening gambit; an intricate invitation to dance. Eventually, he would cause them all to cavort on his puppeteer's strings...

  Finally, I will have my due.

  He exalted over what he did this night to destroy an important man. At long last, the place, the position he had maneuvered years to fill would become his. He planned to build his dynasty on the ruins of his Nemesis ... for she had planned it so. Every step well orchestrated; nothing left to chance—no, not even the presence of the duped witness believing himself well hidden beyond the shrub-littered bluff—

  The signal-light flickered across the beach and his head came up as he snapped to alertness. Muscles quivering with eagerness, heart thudding erratically as a rush of adrenaline fueled his excitement, he braced his shoulders against the wind and began to pick his way down the sheer, crumbling cliffs...

  Chapter One

  Written from Wyndmere Castle, December 1797

  Selim, I saved your life. Please, save my son's.

  —Emily Tyson, Duchess of Wyndmere

  London, England

  March 1798

  "The prisoner will face the King's bench."

  The stentorian tones of the court clerk rang through the murmuring of the crowd gathered to watch the trial of a duke. Nobles mingled with commoners, all looking forward to the excitement afforded by this rare treat.

  His grace, the Duke of Wyndmere, turned in the docks until he faced the row of his peers preparing to pronounce judgment on him. The habit of years enabled him to maintain an expression of remote unconcern, but at his side, his hands—shackled in heavy irons—balled into impotent fists.

  After three months of trials, he no longer held any hope for a verdict of innocence. The evidence presented against him, though false, was impressive. The prosecution had produced numerous witnesses. A buxom tavern wench insisted he had visited often enough to become intimately acquainted with her charms. The wench was not even in his style—but he did not expect the court to know that. The ostler, who claimed to have held his h
orse, and the tavern-keeper, both testified Jared had been a frequent visitor during the past winter, using the tavern's back room to meet with shady characters that never showed their faces.

  The witnesses’ testimonies were devastating, but the veracity of the prosecution's main eyewitness sounded the death-knell to his hopes of acquittal. Robert Townesend claimed to have personally observed that infamous last exchange. He was there to see the information leaked that allowed Napoleon Bonaparte's Minister of Information to capture three of England's best under-cover agents.

  Held in high regard among those in His Majesty's secret service, Robert, like Jared, himself, held the coveted distinction of having been one of Pitt's “Bulldogs". No one had reason to discount or doubt his evidence against Wyndmere, for during the course of the trial, it had become public knowledge that the two men had worked together back in ‘90 when Wyndmere had been a carefree Viscount. Townesend considered Jared his friend and the pain that had etched his face as he testified against his one-time partner had been evident to all who watched. The struggle between his duty and his loyalty to Wyndmere had been wrenchingly apparent when he'd broken down in tears at the last making his testimony doubly damning.

  Even Wyndmere, knowing Robert lied, had felt moved by Townesend's supposed dilemma.

  The Lord Chief Justice of England rose and nodded to the bailiff, who banged his staff repeatedly. The hollow booming echoed throughout the chamber, silencing the murmur of conversation and drawing the crowd's attention to the bench.

  Clearing his throat, the Justice gazed down on Jared. “Before the court pronounces judgment, has the accused anything to say in his behalf?” Jared could read the repugnance and acidic disgust stamped on the highest court official's face. Neither he, nor the audience had any doubt of the man's personal decision.

  Coming to his full six feet, two inches of height, Jared tossed his head in an attempt to shift the stubbornly wayward ebony curl that immediately returned to rest upon his forehead, obscuring his vision. He needed a haircut, and a shave would not have come amiss.

  Being a trained agent, adept at escape, Wyndmere had been denied visitors. Fearful of seeming to favor the high-profile prisoner their superiors appeared to hold in disgust, the guards had even waived the common practice of graft that encouraged family members to buy upgrades in food and life-comforts for the inmates. They repeatedly turned away his mother, along with her gifts meant to ease his way.

  Three months in the bowels of the Tower with pan baths, no razors and not even a comb, meant he was not at his best as he stood before his accusers today. He knew it. Hell, he could smell it.

  As he gathered his thoughts, his gaze roamed the gallery noting the so-called ladies among the group of avid spectators. They looked upon him with hungry eyes and he knew—knowing them intimately—that his sketchy grooming only served to lend him an aura of dark, animal magnetism arousing to those who spiced their lovemaking with danger.

  The tower had brought out the beast in him, and several of the women, knowing his strong sexual appetites, shivered and licked their lips, their greedy, hungry eyes—speculative over the lust three months of abstinence must have wrought—watching Jared's every move.

  The Duke let his gaze pass them as if they were invisible. Ignoring the importuning eyes of the women he hesitated to call Ladies, his amber-gold eyes sweeping the crowd. He passed over the rowdies in the near galleries to meet the old, sad eyes of one of his judges.

  Arnold Beardsley, Duke of Raeburn, had been a friend of the Tyson family for years; an honorary uncle to the young Viscount. He and Jared's late father had been school chums, taken the grand tour together, and once upon a time, had found themselves rivals over the same woman.

  Seeing the disappointment and loss of respect in those aged gray eyes scorched Jared's soul. Righteous anger boiled up inside but on its heels, an overwhelming sensation of futility swept over him.

  For some unknown and unfathomable reason, someone had chosen to destroy his life, to impugn his honor. Working from the shadows, his foe had struck and retreated, never leaving a trace. How was he to fight an unseen, unknown enemy?

  His breath hitched. How it galled him to stand before his peers, nakedly open to their judgment, his only covering the flimsy shield of his assertions of innocence, his denials of any treasonous acts.

  He was the eighth Duke of Wyndmere, by damn. One of the most sought-after men in England, Jared knew himself to be passably good looking. However, had he been ugly as a troll, he'd still be mobbed in the hallowed halls of Almacks because of his family's prominence and wealth. Imminently eligible, the Mamas of the Ton loved him. He controlled the vast land holdings and assorted business ventures of the Wyndmere family, not to mention the lands and holdings of his mother, one of the once celebrated and still notorious Barrington heiresses.

  He faithfully dropped five thousand a month to his mother's favorite charities, and had long been sought after by ladybirds and Cyprians for both his dedication to their carnal pleasure and rumors of his flamboyant generosity.

  He was honest in his dealings at the card table, paying promptly when losing, always willing to wait till the next quarter's allowance when owed by a young buck. He didn't fleece the green lordlings up from the country; indeed, he'd gone out of his way to rescue a few from the grasps of the Captain Sharps. Because of these practices, he was generally well-liked among the men of the Ton.

  Why would anyone think the relatively piddling amount of cash he could gain selling state secrets would interest a man who had, in his wild, not-so-long-ago youth, served the government as an undercover agent?

  Despite his openly lived life, he stood here accused and already condemned. There was a deep reasoning behind this farce, but Jared seriously doubted he would be allowed to investigate it. It would be, at best, improbable for him to be able to gather any kind of useful information before he would be forced to leave England forever. Knowing all that, aware of the futility of the gesture of a statement, he yet felt compelled to make one.

  Proudly lifting his head, making direct eye-contact with each member of the bench, he squared his shoulders and tried to reason with his judges.

  "Sirs, it is obvious that treason was done here—I do not deny that. However, I am not the perpetrator. I have served my country and King without fail, and at times, to my own peril. I am wealthy beyond avarice. What use would I have for a paltry sum such as you claim was exchanged? I served England against Bonaparte and I continue to serve her, now. I am innocent. As God is my witness, I shall never cease to proclaim that innocence. By banishing me, you leave the real traitor free to continue his or her crimes. I urge you, if not for my sake, then for the security of England, not to let it end here. Keep searching until the traitor is found—."

  "You ought t’ be ‘ung, bleedin traitor."

  The shouted interruption came from the pits that catered to the lower classes. It was a rare occurrence for them to witness such prime entertainment as the trial of one of the nobility. The fellow's lowly neighbors cheered wildly, but the high-born audience occupying the horseshoe-shaped galleries that provided a ringside seat to the proceedings, shuffled their feet uncomfortably, casting their eyes anywhere but on the disheveled man who stood proudly erect in the stocks.

  Jared snorted. As if it was somehow embarrassing, disturbing actually, to see such a haughty Lord brought low. How did one address a Duke fallen from grace, as it were? Was it even good ton to speak to a convicted Duke? And what would one say? “Good day, your Graceless Grace—?"

  Wyndmere's shoulders slumped. Obviously, his speech had been to no avail. Closing himself off, erasing all expression from his face, he wearily desisted, waiting numbly as the court conferred in low-voiced murmurs, preparing to conclude their business.

  Pretending a disinterest he didn't feel, Jared's gaze was aimlessly wandering over the occupants in the galleries when he was jolted out of his woolgathering. Attention and more seized by the agitated, yet graceful hand movement
s of a lively girl intensely arguing with her companions, he strained to filter out hundreds of simultaneous conversations. Picking up fragments of her speech, he was stunned to hear the woman defending him.

  Her contentions were logical, well thought out, and reasoned. Many were ones he had himself used during the long months his trial had dragged on. Her vocabulary was extensive, her superior schooling evident. There were not many young men as well-versed in Latin or Greek as she proved herself to be by quoting Aquinas and Socrates on logic—in their original tongues.

  He was intrigued. At first glance she looked hardly more than a girl. But she turned and her profile belied that impression. An examination of her lush curves assured Jared that his interest had indeed been caught by a mature woman, albeit a young one.

  At that moment, she glanced up and his breath froze. His heart pounded, pulse raced. Their gazes met and held from across the courtroom, which shrank and receded until the universe contained only tiger bright eyes timelessly enmeshed with silvery gray.

  She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, yet he couldn't help devouring the picture she presented. A pair of large, liquid, expressive gray eyes held a simple honesty, a depth of empathy he had never before encountered in a female. Her pale pink day-dress emphasized her youth, while providing a flattering foil for the thick clouds of black, glossy curls rioting about her face and down her back. Her full, sensuous lips begged a man's mouth, and Jared couldn't be sure, but he thought their deep pink color owed nothing to artifice.

  Jared stiffened, watching as one of her companions tapped her shoulder and pointed his way, bringing the group's collective gaze to bear on him. Caught staring, he quirked a sardonic eyebrow and dipped his head in salute. A tide of red flowed up the girl's cheeks as she became aware she was the object of his intense perusal.

  Damn the circumstances, and the person responsible for them. Jared fumed. And how ironic it was this trial brought him into the orbit of the first well-born woman to possibly interest him in a marital way. He closed his eyes on an internalized curse. Damn his enemy and the fates that he was in no position to pursue her.