I learned on a Caribbean-bound frigate that the Royal Navy has a toast for each night of the week. Saturday’s is: “To sweethearts and wives—may they never meet.”
Now they had.
My arm dropped from the waist of Catherine Marceau as if chopped.
“You didn’t lose time finding a female companion, Ethan,” my deceased wife said. Except that Astiza wasn’t dead, apparently, and in fact had accomplished the impossible by waiting for me in France with the son I’d left behind in England. I’ve always enjoyed interesting women, but the one I married is eight degrees more interesting than I can ever keep up with. Somehow she’d achieved resurrection, reunion with her child, magical transport, and then helped in my rescue by attacking the French from the other side.
By the geraniums of Thomas Jefferson, I hadn’t even managed dry clothing.
My heart lurched from bereavement to embarrassment, my guilt at Astiza’s drowning replaced with guilt at flirting with Catherine Marceau. I was astonished, reprieved, and defensive, all in an instant. “She’s not a woman, she’s a spy,” I stuttered, my mouth running ahead of my confusion. “Not much of a swimmer, but a genuine comtesse.”
“You couldn’t find a male confederate?”
“Sidney Smith thought we’d make a team. And we didn’t know you were alive.” How had this miracle happened? I’ve yet to summon clever phrasing for momentous occasions and keep a notebook full of things I should have said, had I the wit to think of them. I mentally vowed to jot down a few more for this surprise, once I had the leisure to think of something intelligent.
“I’m not about to let you run off by yourself again,” Astiza said. “You get in trouble every time you do. If we’re going to be married, we need to have the habit of staying together, Ethan, and devoting our attentions to each other, not highborn espionage agents.” She looked at the comtesse with a mixture of skepticism, amusement, and pity. “He would exasperate you, I promise.”
“This is your wife?” Catherine asked me.
“Apparently so.” I gave Astiza a good squint, just in case I was faced with an imposter, but she has a Greek Egyptian beauty not commonly found in Normandy. “My bride has a habit of surprising me.”
Catherine drew herself up. “I can assure you, madame, that I was doing my best to deflect his attention. Our partnership was one of temporary expedience. His manners, after all, are American.”
“I entirely believe you, and apologize for any forwardness my husband has exhibited,” Astiza replied like a diplomat.
“He has the enthusiasm of a billy goat, though his heart means well.”
“The shamelessness of a politician,” the comtesse judged.
“The anxiety of a treasure hunter,” Astiza countered.
“The longing of a lottery player.”
“The wanderlust of a minstrel.”
“The grace of a plowman.”
“Naughty and opportunistic, but with the earnestness of a schoolboy.”
I tried to interrupt but couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“Thus I am relieved to deliver him to you, madame,” Catherine summed up. “He has élan, but like most men he is in need of great reform.”
“I have returned to do just that, and in my trying to do so, he is teaching me patience.” Astiza turned to me. “And exactly why are we in France again, Ethan?”
I was flustered, not to mention muddy, hungry, cold, and tired. I cleared my throat. “To avenge your death. Didn’t I see you drown in a hurricane?” I had a distinct recollection of watching her be carried off in a great green wave, a memory that had given me nightmares ever since. I’d hoped she hadn’t succumbed to the tide, but as weeks turned to months, my yearning had become thin fog.
“I almost drowned, but I struck and caught your diving bell. It must have been washed off the wrecked ship and floated because it trapped air when falling into the Caribbean. I swam into it, caught my breath, and suspended myself by its straps.”
“The devil you did! How smart of me to build it.”
“By the time the atmosphere was stale, I’d recovered enough to swim. I spied a wreckage of hatch and mast, dragged myself aboard, tied myself on with its tangle of rope, and drifted for three days. I eventually was rescued by a French merchantman and spent weeks recovering on Saint-Lucia.”
“Harry and I were already on our way back across the Atlantic.”
“The French authorities made inquiries, and when reports came that you’d sailed for England with our son, they released me to follow. By the time I arrived, you’d