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  HEART OF FRAGILE STARS

  Rakes & Rebels: The Beauvisage Family, Book 1

  Cynthia Wright

  Heart of Fragile Stars

  Rakes & Rebels: The Beauvisage Family, Book 1

  Copyright © 2015 by Cynthia Challed

  Excerpt from Caroline Copyright © 1977, 2012 by Cynthia Challed

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright(s) reserved above and below, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  Please Note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Thank You.

  Author’s Choice Digital Edition

  Published by Boxwood Manor Books

  Cover Art by The Killion Group, Inc.

  Digital Formatting by Author E.M.S.

  ~ Table of Contents ~

  Copyright

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Thank you for reading

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from CAROLINE

  Meet Cynthia Wright

  Books by Cynthia Wright

  The Jewels of Historical Romance

  Final Word

  ~ Book Description ~

  A pirate and a high-born maiden, brought together by an ancient sword…

  Dashing French corsair Jean-Philippe Beauvisage revels in his unrestricted life…until the night at a ball in Georgian London, when a Russian beauty steals his heart.

  Heartbroken Antonia Varyshkova, who has lost her parents and her home in a St. Petersburg fire, stops in London en route to a new life with her brother in America. When her arrogant ship’s captain, Tobias Ormond, insists that she attend a ball with him, Antonia reluctantly agrees.

  The instant connection between Jean-Philippe and Antonia is soul-deep, but it seems that there cannot be a future for them. She sails off to America and he returns to his pirate’s life at sea…until an ancient Roman sword which may be cursed forces Beauvisage to chase down the very ship carrying the woman he loves.

  Set sail on the high seas of 1749 and hold on tight for a love story you’ll never forget!

  HEART OF FRAGILE STARS is Book 1 in

  Rakes & Rebels: The Beauvisage Family:

  1 – HEART OF FRAGILE STARS: a novella prequel to CAROLINE (Jean-Philippe & Antonia)

  2 – CAROLINE (Alec & Caro)

  3 – TOUCH THE SUN (Lion & Meagan)

  4 – SPRING FIRES (Nicholai & Lisette)

  5 – HER DANGEROUS VISCOUNT (Grey & Natalya)

  Chapter 1

  July, 1749

  Château du Soleil, St. Briac-sur-Loire, France

  “If you have not yet begun to think of marriage, it’s time you did.”

  Jean-Philippe Beauvisage glanced over at his father in frank surprise. Just a moment ago, they had been strolling together in the vineyards surrounding his ancestral home, Château du Soleil. Although he was hungry, travel stained, and aching for sleep, he’d dutifully accepted his father’s invitation to walk. This abrupt statement was the last thing he’d expected.

  “Did you send an urgent summons for me to travel home from London so that you might tell me that?”

  Étienne, Marquis de St. Briac slowly turned to gaze back through narrowed eyes. “Of course not, but I will admit that it concerns your mother and me that you live as you do. You are twenty-six, mon fils. It’s time to stop wenching and pirating and come home where you belong.”

  “Pirating? You speak as if I were playing at life—like a child. I can assure you, that is not the case.” Jean-Philippe felt his own eyes harden as his barriers went up. “You raised me to make my own choices, Father, not to blindly fall in step behind you.”

  “Perhaps we are simply worried about your safety…” Étienne broke off. “Eh bien. You are right. You make your own choices. Your mother insists that hunger for the chase is in your blood. And, it is true…marriage is not the reason I asked you to come home.” He looked out over the vineyards and drew a harsh sigh. “I never thought I could feel anything but a sense of enchantment while surveying our land, but that day has come.”

  Enchantment. Jean-Philippe realized that word had always perfectly described the airy white towers of their family château and the encircling grapevine-covered hillsides that swept as far as the eye could see. It was summer, and the luminous sunshine of the Loire River Valley should have produced abundant clusters of grapes by now, but as Jean-Philippe took a closer look at the vines, he realized that the grapes were far smaller than they should have been. Even their leaves were beginning to wither.

  “This land has always given me great joy,” Étienne continued. “For three decades, your mother and I have tended the vineyards and Nature has dependably worked her miracles throughout the seasons.” His expression darkened. “Until this year.”

  Listening, Jean-Philippe wondered if he were having a bad dream. How could it be real? From the moment of his birth, this place had seemed almost too perfect, and he had rebelled against the plans his parents made for him to settle down in the family château to carry on making their estate wines. That’s what the men of this family had always done, toiling happily here since the 15th century, but Jean-Philippe could never imagine so confined a life for himself.

  “I don’t suppose it would grieve you if all the grapevines died,” Étienne muttered with a trace of suspicion. “Then you would be liberated from all our expectations.”

  “Acquit me, sir! I was on my way to an extended gambling party at Richmond House when I received word of a catastrophe from Maman. Did I not immediately call for my horse and start for France? After landing at Dieppe, Pierre and I rode all night to get here.”

  His father looked dubious. “Of course. I know that it must be a sacrifice for you to be at home rather than gaming in London, or on the quarterdeck of your pirate ship, scanning the horizon for wealthy English vessels to capture. What do they call you these days? Le Vaurien des Mers?”

  “If you mean to demean me with your words, sir, you have not succeeded. They could call me many worse things than a Sea Rogue.” Jean-Philippe stood up a bit straighter, hoping to rise an inch or two taller than the older man to emphasize his point. Secretly, he wondered if his father were a little envious of all the adventures he had enjoyed. “Now then, tell me what you have learned about the disease that is afflicting the vines. It must have a name.”

  “No one seems to have seen it before. The only person who claims to know what is happening is your mother. She insists it is a curse,” Étienne replied sardonically. He bent down and motioned to his son to look closer at the faded leaves. “Some invisible pest is putting its poison into my vines. The roots are withering, no matter how much water and s
unshine they receive.”

  “Surely something can be done.”

  “Gaston, one of my winemakers, claims that he saw a similar scourge in the Americas. He prescribes the placement of a live toad under each vine, to draw the poison out.”

  “What?” Jean-Philippe exclaimed. “Now I have heard everything.”

  “Save your incredulity, mon fils. Even if I thought it would cure our problem, I can’t imagine where I would get thousands of live toads.”

  Jean-Philippe felt his stomach rumble. “We will think of something, but in the meantime, I am famished—and I promised Maman that I would help her with something in the tower storeroom before I have a bath and some sleep.”

  As the two men started down the pathway that led to the château, Étienne arched a brow and remarked, “No doubt it is connected to her curse. Brace yourself…”

  * * *

  “You are looking quite dissipated, chéri,” Danielle Beauvisage said to her only son as they climbed the tower staircase.

  “I beg you, Madame, do not mince words to save my feelings,” Jean-Philippe parried in a tone of ironic amusement. The instinct to tease her was as strong as it had ever been. “I’ve had no sleep for two days, not because I’ve been wicked, but because I was making haste to reach Château du Soleil.”

  “But you are sometimes wicked, n’est-ce pas?”

  He laughed. “Yes, perhaps, but not today. Instead, I have come home to assist you and Father with your problem.”

  “That is precisely why I have brought you to my storeroom.”

  They came into the tower room, lit by a trio of arrow-slit windows. The space was filled with crates, trunks, and even pieces of furniture Jean-Philippe had never seen before. It occurred to him then that he couldn’t remember ever entering this chamber before. “What is all this, Maman?”

  When she waved a delicate hand at the clutter, tiers of lace fluttered gracefully from her elbow-length sleeves. “These are all the possessions I brought to my marriage. In the beginning, I thought I might need them, but with your father I soon found that all my needs were met.” Inclining her head in his direction, Danielle added, “You should begin to think about marriage, you know.”

  “How can I? Long ago I realized that any match I would make would pale compared to that of my own parents. I don’t know if I could bear the disappointment.”

  “So you have told me many times,” she said tartly. “I am not worried, for love will chase you down when you least expect it. And we have a more pressing matter, do we not? A curse has fallen on our estate but you shall save us, my darling.”

  “I will?” Plucking a tufted silk chair from a corner, he sat down and stretched out his legs. “Pray enlighten me.”

  She struck a pose in the center of the circular room, bathed in shafts of sunlight. “Attend me, then, as I tell you a story, beginning with my wedding to your father.”

  “I know all about it. When you ran away to avoid an arranged marriage to the Marquis de St. Briac, a handsome stranger found you in the woods and helped you to escape. The stranger, as it turned out, was your intended, who later became my father.” Jean-Philippe gave a short laugh. “He was every bit as much un vaurien as I, it seems.”

  “Oui, Étienne was a rogue, but he loved me instantly and loves me still. And, although I never tire of that tale, it is not the one I wanted to recount to you.”

  Jean-Philippe managed to suppress a sigh. He was bone-tired and had little patience for his mother’s dramatics, but it seemed that there was nothing for it but to listen. He lifted both dark brows and flipped a hand up in the air, gesturing for her to proceed.

  There was a little three-legged stool on the stone floor near him and Danielle perched there, her bronze silk skirts billowing out around her on their whalebone panniers. She looked very young as she began to speak. “We were married in Paris, just days after my sixteenth birthday. There was a banquet following the ceremony, held in the grand home of Papa’s sister, Claudette de Reyne. I was so happy, truly. I remember the countless flickering candles, immense platters of delicious food—” Danielle broke off at the sight of her son’s hooded eyelids drooping slightly. “Chéri, I shall rap you with my fan if you dare to doze!”

  He blinked. “Then kindly pare your story down to its essence. I am exhausted. All I want to do is sleep.”

  “You are such a man.”

  “Agreed,” came his cool response.

  “D’accord, I shall be brief. You see, in the warmest flush of my joy, one of the guests approached me. I can still remember that I was eating a particularly delicious sweetmeat when my English cousin, Humphrey, whispered that he wished to meet with me alone to present a special gift from the Rayne branch of the family. I suggested that Étienne should be there, too, but he insisted on privacy.”

  “How odd,” Jean-Philippe remarked. “Am I about to find out why you have never wanted to visit my Rayne cousins in England?”

  “You might say so.” Danielle sighed. “I was feeling expansive with joy, so I excused myself and met Humphrey in an antechamber. Even when we were children, my cousin was not engaging, for he enjoyed disparaging the French. He liked to spit when the subject of France was mentioned! Papa told me once that he thought the English Raynes had been searching always for a mysterious treasure, but instead of riches, they received ill fortune.”

  “Maman, this is all deeply fascinating, but what is the connection to the blight on our vineyards?”

  “Humphrey’s wedding gift is the connection.” Danielle leaned over a long, shallow, wooden chest riddled with worm-holes. Using both hands, she pried the lid open. The iron hinges groaned as a musty scent permeated the air. “Here is the so-called present that I have kept hidden away for twenty-five years.”

  Jean-Philippe came forward out of his chair. “What the devil is it?” He reached out with sun-darkened fingers to push aside a swath of linen, uncovering the object in the box.

  “Humphrey called it a gladius,” she whispered.

  “A Roman sword. It must be very old.” Jean-Philippe touched the weapon’s tapered, double-edged blade. The hilt, which appeared to be ivory, was decorated with narrow bronze ribbons. Upon closer inspection, he saw a Latin inscription etched into the blade. Most of the letters were too worn or crusted with oxidation to read and the blade itself was darkened with the passage of centuries. “Very impressive, but I still do not understand why your cousin possessed a Roman gladius, or why he would give it to you.”

  “I only know what Humphrey told me, mon cher. He said it had been passed down through the Rayne family since ancient times, along with a legend promising that, if the inscription could be translated it would lead to a treasure. It seemed however, that the gladius was lost for more than a century, until the garden at Rayne Hall in London was being replanted in 1700. When an old yew tree was removed, they found this box containing the sword buried under the roots.” Danielle gave a little shrug. “The newly-discovered gladius, however, brought no treasure. Over the years, two of Humphrey’s most valuable ships disappeared completely during voyages to India, and most of Rayne family in England died prematurely due to illness or accidents. Soon, only Sir Humphrey and his wife remained.”

  “I think I can guess what the next act in this story will be,” Jean-Philippe remarked with a trace of sarcasm.

  “Yes, it now seems that Humphrey only brought the gladius to get it away from his own home, and to bring ill fortune to us in France. I should have been more suspicious when he presented the thing to me, grandly proclaiming that Étienne and I should have a turn owning the relic, so that we might enjoy great prosperity in our marriage.”

  “Yet you accepted it all the same?”

  “It was such a busy day and I was very happy! Besides, my bridegroom appeared at that moment and had no patience for Humphrey or his gift. Papa did later enlighten us about the Rayne family curse, but Étienne laughed at such a notion. The gladius was packed away with my other possessions that we brought to t
he château and I forgot all about it…until this summer.”

  Jean-Philippe shaded his eyes against the thin beam of sunlight that streamed through the arrow-slit window. His head was beginning to hurt. “And what happened then?”

  “Your sister Brigitte was returning to convent school in Tours and I thought I might send one of my own blankets with her, one that my nurse wove when I was young. The two of us came up here to look through my trunks and I happened to open the box with the sword for the first time in twenty-five years.”

  He could see the shadow that passed over her face. “And?”

  “The very next day,” Danielle said in a hushed voice, “we noticed the blight. There were ominous, dark clouds over the vineyards. At midnight, Brigitte fell down the tower steps and struck her head. We were unable to rouse her until the following evening!” Leaning closer, tears in her eyes, she whispered, “It could have been so much worse. She could have been killed.”

  “Maman, you have always been so level-headed. I can’t believe that you truly believe a curse is to blame for what is surely just bad luck.”

  “You sound just like your father.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You don’t need to believe in the spell to do my bidding. If you love me, you will agree.”