Chapter 1

Frances Carter stood at the water's edge, the dark wool of her cloak melting into the night. The tide had not come in yet, though its distant warning whispered in her ears. It would come, soon, chasing her farther up the frigid sand. She glanced once over her shoulder at the gentle slope of dune, the dry prickles of dead grass sticking straight up like sparse hairs on an old man's head.

Nothing moved. Frances clutched the edges of her cloak in her gloved hand, winding the fabric over her bare fingers. There were no lights approaching, no lanterns, no footsteps or hoofbeats. The quiet had begun to settle, louder than the crash and the frenzied, frantic voices that faded away to nothing. She knew better than to hope Father and Ewan had decided to let this wreck be.

Moonlight shone down on the water, illuminating the small specks of white that rolled ever forward. Liquid fingers grasped for purchase on the sand, bringing with them an offering of wet green weed. Frances felt a small tug in her heart at the sight of that. The seaweed had been a favorite toy when they had been children. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering how she had once run down the beach with bare feet, Mateo behind her, great necklaces of seaweed strung down to her hem.

"I am the queen of the ocean," she whispered into the night air, and stretched out a hand to the ghost of her phantom playmate. Ashamed, she drew her hand back, curling her fingers into her palm until her nails bit into the skin. She looked about, her heart fluttering. There was no use in playing, and Mateo would never run with her again.

Even the gulls that had accompanied her once on her royal processions had left. Still, there was no time, no room for such nonsense when more important matters were at hand. It was the waiting that was the worst part of it, this time spent in dark and silence. When Mateo was there, it had been almost bearable, as they clung to each other, making up stories of grand adventures to cover the fearsome reality. He was her rock, her lifeline, and the sea took him like it took everything else.

With a quiet sigh that ruffled the edge of her draped hood, Frances lifted her skirts and navigated a path to the bottom of the dune. She chided herself even as her hand smoothed the place where she would sit and wait.

Dusting sand from her skirt was an odd thing to do. Sand was nothing but dust. It was impossible to wipe a thing from itself. That was one of the facts of life. It was part of nature, of God's design. Still, the gesture had come naturally, though a frozen dune could not be farther removed from the embroidered cushion she had left behind.

Even so, it would serve her purpose. She settled onto the ground, taking care to keep a good measure of cloak and skirt and petticoat beneath her. She drew her knees to her chest and arranged the rest of her clothes about her like a tent. From instinct, her shoulders hunched, her chin tucked. It was warmer that way, and she could still see the water.

It rolled and lapped at the shore. Sometimes, it left nothing. Sometimes it brought the seaweed, wet and slick and dotted with fat pods of seed. Other things came once in a while; driftwood and starfish and other bits of debris that held her interest for mere seconds before she was reminded of her true purpose.

Once it had brought a Spanish sailor who married the innkeeper's daughter and made a black-eyed boy who thought Frances set the moon in the sky. It took both father and son away sixteen summers later, when the Spaniard could take the cold of England no longer, and took his wife and child home.

The sea was a harsh mistress, her father had told her, and a fickle one. The gifts one tide brought in might be snatched away by another. Frances had thought she understood what he meant then. It had prompted her to haunt the beach for days, hoarding the treasures the ocean had only meant to lend. Only later did she know, when Mateo was big enough to wade out with the men to make their fearsome harvest. When he did not come back, no matter how long she sat and watched and waited, then she knew. The tide could take more than things away with it. It could take love.

She still kept a small wooden box under her bed, filled with things from her hoarding days; the storeroom of the queen of the ocean. Gifts Mateo had brought her, things she had found but not had time to give him yet.

The ocean needed no queen, nor king, but she and Mateo had crowned each other, and formed a world of their own in the caves and the waves. The sea did what it would, how it would. Frances envied it that. There was no one to tell the wide, wild ocean where it might go, or when it might come out or in. None but God could tell the waves to break over the rocks, swelling and spilling blue and green before foaming white If the tide came at appointed times, it was because that was what it pleased. There was no other reason.

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