{"product_id":"queen-of-swords-isbn-9780553582789","title":"Queen of Swords","description":"It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Luke’s wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet’s rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they’d hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke’s son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo claim the child, Hannah, Luke, and Jennet must journey first to Pensacola. There they learn a great deal about the family that has the baby. The Poiterins are a very rich, very powerful Creole family, totally without scruple. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew Orleans is a city on the brink of war, a city where prejudice thrives and where Hannah, half Mohawk, must tread softly. Careful plans are made as the Bonners set out to find and reclaim young Nathaniel Bonner. Plans that go terribly awry, isolating them from each other in a dangerous city at the worst of times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSure that all is lost, and sick unto death, Hannah finds herself in the care of a family and a friend from her past, Dr. Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-d’Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannah’s life, but Dr. Savard’s half brother who offers her real hope. Jean-Benoit Savard, the great-grandson of French settlers, slaves, and Choctaw and Seminole Indians, is the one man who knows the city well enough to engineer the miracle that will reunite the Bonners and send them home to Lake in the Clouds. With Ben Savard’s guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleans’s population and from Andrew Jackson’s army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last major battle of the War of 1812.\u003cb\u003eSara Donati\u003c\/b\u003e is the pen name of Rosina Lippi, a former academic and tenured university professor. Since 2000 she has been writing fiction full-time, haunting the intersection where history and storytelling meet, wallowing in nineteenth-century newspapers, magazines, street maps, and academic historical research. She is the internationally bestselling author of the Wilderness series (\u003ci\u003eInto the Wilderness\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDawn on a Distant Shore\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLake in the Clouds\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFire Along the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eQueen of Swords\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Endless Forest\u003c\/i\u003e) as well as \u003ci\u003eThe Gilded Hour\u003c\/i\u003e, the first in a new series following the descendants of characters from the Wilderness series. She lives between the Cascades and Puget Sound with her husband, daughter, Jimmy Dean (a Havanese), and Max and Bella (the cats).\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eL'Ile de Lamantins\u003cbr\u003eFrench Antilles\u003cbr\u003eAugust 1814\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe island, beautiful and treacherous, drew in the love-struck and rewarded  them with razor-sharp coral reefs, murderous breakwaters, and cliffs that no  man sane man would attempt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKit Wyndham was sane. Out of his depth, perhaps, but Major Christian Pelham  Wyndham of the King's Rangers was in command of all his senses, while Luke  Scott was not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Major?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lieutenant hovered like a maiden aunt, stopping just short of wringing  his hands. If given permission to speak, Hodge would say out loud what he  had said too many times already: that they had no business here; that what  Scott intended was madness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHodge was wrong about one thing: They did have business here, and crucial  business at that. The only kind of business that could have forged this  strange alliance between himself and the Scotts: They were after the same  prey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA fat moon hung in a clear night sky, sending the shadows of masts and  rigging out to dance on the water. On the rail his own hands were drained of  color, corpse gray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe turned to assure his lieutenant that he would have no part in this  night's insanity. Let Scott take his band of mercenaries and storm Priest's  Town, and good luck to them one and all. Kit Wyndham had made a promise, and  he would keep it: Now that their quarry was in sight, he would step back and  let Scott lead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust behind Lieutenant Hodge stood Hannah Scott, dressed in men's breeches  and a leather jerkin over a rough shirt, her person hung about with weapons:  a rifle on her back, pistols, a knife in a beaded sheath on a broad belt.  She could heal or kill; he had seen her conjure miracles and blasphemies  with equal ease. No mortal woman, he had called her to her face, and she had  not corrected him with words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe moonlight was kind to her, as the sun was kind. In the year since they  had made their uneasy alliance he had seen her every day, and still the  sight of her was startling. By the standards of Wyndham's own kind, Luke  Scott's Mohawk half sister could not be called beautiful. Her skin was too  dark, her hair too black, her mouth too generous for pale English blood.  Below deep-set eyes the bosses of her cheeks cast shadows. Most damning of  all, the expression in those eyes was far and away too intelligent. If her  skin were as pale as cream, her mind would have isolated her; Englishmen did  not know what to do with such a woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven at this moment she knew exactly what he was thinking, the excuses he  had been ready to offer, the rationalizations. If he voiced them she would  simply tilt her head and look at him. She would call him no names, but he  would hear them anyway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Major?\" Lieutenant Hodge's voice rose and wavered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said, \"Fetch my weapons.\" And: \"Miss Scott, please tell your brother I  will be joining the rescue party.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this, for a woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe men liked to speculate, when Luke Scott was out of their hearing, how  much money had been spent on this year long crusade, by the woman's kinfolk  and the Crown. Scott wanted his wife back; none of the men doubted that for  a minute. He wasn't the kind of man who would let himself be robbed, not  Luke Scott. But it seemed that there was more at stake, something nobody was  talking about. The fact that Wyndham had been sent after Degre at the same  time made that clear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo expense had been spared. First there was the Isis, the great merchantman  sitting idle in the waters off Kingston. She was too clumsy a ship for the  kind of work they had to do in the islands, and so Scott had purchased the  schooner Patience as thoughtlessly as another man might put down coin for  bread and ale. The crew was well paid and the provisions—meat and biscuit  and ale and rum—were generous. Beyond the material things, the Earl of  Carryck and the Scotts had put down a fortune in pursuit of information.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKit Wyndham stood back and watched the Scotts contrive. Their money was of  less interest to him; he was born to wealth and had been raised among people  who knew how to spend it. His family had been cultivating those skills for  generations; his mother and sisters were experts. When Scott spent money he  bought results. Fast ships, good men, names whispered in dark corners, maps  drawn with a bit of charcoal on a tabletop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScott's men were expert soldiers, utterly silent, ruthless to a fault, loyal  unto death. Part of that was generosity with coin, but not the biggest part.  Kit had known men like these when he was in Spain under Wellington.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow was not the time to think of Spain. He put those images out of his head  and concentrated on the back of the man in front of him, called Dieppe.  Scott's most important find: a small, quick, wiry man, his skin the deep  true black of the enslaved African.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust last month Scott had found Dieppe in St. Croix and bought him for more  than he was worth. Then he offered the African his freedom in return for one  night's work. It was Dieppe who knew the reefs that built a fortress around  this island. Without him they would need an army to take it, and no doubt  the lady would die before they could get to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNight birds called, and their voices echoed off the water as the longboat  wound its way through a swamp crowded by an army of mangrove trees. A  sinuous tail as broad around as a man's waist flicked in the moonlight, and  Wyndham touched the long knife at his side. He had seen an alligator twenty  feet long rip the leg off a man with a jerk of his head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDieppe led them onto land so saturated with water that to stand still was to  invite disaster. They followed one by one: Scott, his sister, then the  others made a long coiling snake with Dieppe as the head. Dieppe and Scott  and some of the other men carried machetes; Wyndham had his short sword.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor two hours they walked through the damp heat of the swamp in the wake of  the swinging blades. Tiny gnats gathered at nostrils and the corners of lips  and eyes, and Wyndham wiped them away with the back of his hand, thinking of  the ointment he had been offered and turned down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lagoons, then, as they had been told: long commas of water silvered by  the moonlight. The men broke into a trot until they came to the edge of the  forest, where they stopped for five minutes while Dieppe and Scott spoke,  heads bent together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe swamps were bad, but these forests were worse. Wyndham concentrated on  putting one foot in front of the other and not losing sight of the man in  front of him. Something screamed, and the hairs on the back of his neck  rose. This dark and fragrant place could hardly be more different from  Spain's hot exposed plains and rocky hills, but his blood pounded here as it  had there, and would spill the same bright color.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen they came out of the forest Wyndham touched his pistols and his sword  lightly, and looking up, caught Hannah Scott's gaze on him. He had seen her  kill, but she knew nothing of him in the field, except the stories told  behind his back. Most of them were perfectly true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe cove was small, well protected from the winds, and unguarded. Looking  down on it they saw two ships–Degre's \u003ci\u003eGrasshopper\u003c\/i\u003e, and another unknown to  them. If Scott had sailed the Patience into the cove and tried to walk up  the path that had been cut into the cliff face, then perhaps one of the men  sleeping with an empty bottle cradled between his legs might have woke to  sound the alarm. As it was, they died quietly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScott sent half the men to deal with the ships, and the rest of them went  into the settlement called Priest's Town. It turned out to be nothing more  than a warren of shacks set up off the ground, most of them empty. Two old  mulatto women lived in the smallest of them with their goats and swine. They  seemed neither surprised to be roused by strange soldiers in the middle of  the night, nor worried about their lives. That was another talent of  Scott's: he could dispense calm as easily as coin. People trusted him, even  when they should not. He could be kind, if it furthered his cause; but  ruthlessness came to him just as easily. He would have gone far in the army.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe raiders turned their attention to the largest of the shacks. Directly in  the middle, the largest room's outer wall was made of a series of doors, all  open to the weather. A rail hung from the sagging porch like a broken arm.  Lanterns swayed from blackened posts, some of them dead, others guttering  and spewing black smoke. The inside of the house was crowded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScott's men moved like a company who had fought together in a dozen  campaigns, silently, easily, joined by invisible threads just tense enough  to keep them aware of each other. Kit tested the weight of his rifle, as  familiar to him as any part of his body. The bayonet clicked into place. It  caught what light there was and winked at him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey waited for the guide, ten minutes, twenty, and then Dieppe came back,  sweat covered, trembling. Scott asked him a question in rapid French, and  got a nod in answer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A child? Did you see an infant?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eNon\u003c\/i\u003e.\" Sure of himself, of what he hadn't seen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the first time tonight, Wyndham saw Scott hesitate. No doubt he had been  hoping to find the woman and her child together. If there was a child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAgain he felt Hannah Scott's gaze on him, as if she were reading his  thoughts, and answering them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was an argument they had had too many times: whether or not the  information they had about the woman's condition was to be trusted. Scott  believed it was true; Wyndham was doubtful. The old woman who had told them  that the lady they were after was heavy with child might simply have been  looking for more coin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a few minutes they would know. Scott sent some of the men around to the  back, and gave them orders to wait for his signal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWyndham saw the room for a split second before the battle started. Tables  cluttered with dice and cards and cups, a long bar on the far wall, and men  who had been enjoying themselves. A dozen of them, dirtier and rougher than  many, but still just men burned by sun and wind and erratic fortune.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe one man who concerned them most sat at a large table in the corner, his  dark head thrown back in laughter. It had been more than a year since  Wyndham had last seen the false priest, but he recognized Degre. And on the  other side of the room, sitting behind a small table with cards laid out  before her, the woman. She was much changed, thinner and drawn and her eyes  shadowed, burning with fever, or anger long held in check. Her belly was  flat. If she had been with child, she was no longer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt took less than a second to see all that, and then his rifle found its  target and things happened very fast, and all at once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were very few things that Jennet Huntar could be sure of, but one of  them was this: For as long as she lived, she would dream of palm trees.  Spindle-fingered against topaz skies or storm clouds, dancing against bloody  sunsets and bloodier sunrises, always beckoning: They would be with her  forever. Right now she could look up and see them against the sky as the  night leached away, if she just lifted her head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut she was at work, and it was the work that kept her wits intact. She had  a little table of her own, and two stools. On the table she dealt out her  cards for anyone who could pay the price.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen there were few men interested in the cards she laid them out for  herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Hangman. The Tower. The Knave of Swords.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTonight her steadiest, most devoted customer was drinking at the bar. He was  called Moore, one of Thibodoux's men off the Badger. When the old Irishman  was here, he spent half his coin on drink, and the other half he gave to  hear her read him the cards. The other men spent money on the women in the  back rooms, but Moore was content to sit and look at what he could not have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTonight he waited until the moon had set and he was so full of liquor that  he would fall off his chair if Jennet leaned forward to prod him with one  finger. And yet he was not so drunk that he forgot what he wanted from her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe sat with filthy fingers laced into his long, tobacco-stained beard. The  low forehead was remarkable for its deep reddish color, set off by a thick  twisting white scar in the shape of a cross. His mouth made a perfectly  round circle in the middle of his beard, and his tongue flickered when he  talked, snakelike.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTell me, Lady Jennet, when will I get me a good wife?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was the question he always asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoore was no better and no worse than the other men who drifted through this  place. Always hungry: for drink and release and excitement, for sleep, and  beyond all those things, for advantage. Hungry and not particularly worried  about how he came by what he needed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not tonight, Mr. Moore. But perhaps sometime soon. Let us look.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe took her time. Moore would not complain. It was mostly what he was  paying for, the right to sit close enough to imagine the texture of the skin  he could not see, would never see. She was the daughter and sister of an  earl; surely her skin must be as soft and white as milk. Many of the men who  came here would have delighted to quench their curiosity by taking her apart  like a crab, cracking open what she tried to hold back. But she was Degre's  pet creature, and they must keep their distance unless it was to sit across  a table and hand over coin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs long as he came no closer and kept his hands to himself, Jennet was  content to take Moore's money, and sometimes, when he had drunk enough, the  one thing she really wanted from him.","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300114911461,"sku":"NP9780553582789","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553582789.jpg?v=1767735277","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/queen-of-swords-isbn-9780553582789","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}