A clock struck twelve-fifteen. “Time to be off,” the Kestrel murmured without raising his head. He spoke in the Gascon French they were using in their guise of a peddler family.
“How do we know they made it out on time?” Cordelia asked.
“We have to assume they did,” the Kestrel said.
Harry flicked the cart reins to set the donkey in motion. Cordelia climbed onto the seat beside him. He cast a surprised glance at her.
“We’re supposed to look like a devoted couple,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ve been well coached. I won’t give us away.” She tucked her arm through his. “I like seeing what your work is like.”
“It’s generally less agreeable than this.” Harry cast a glance back at the Kestrel. “I envy him.”
“ ‘Envy’?”
“Serving no master, choosing whom to help, doing what he thinks is right.”
She leaned her head against Harry’s arm. “You do what you think is right. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you.”
“I’m flattered. But if I were that independent I’d have been court-martialed long since.”
As they neared the gates, Cordelia caught sight of a quartet of soldiers, pulled up to the side of the road in the shade of a stand of trees.
“Right on schedule,” Harry murmured. She felt his gaze on her.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I know what to do.” She let her shawl slither down on her shoulders and tugged her laced bodice lower. Not so different from interrogating Edmond Talleyrand.
Harry pulled the cart up at the guard post. A thickset man in a sergeant’s uniform approached the cart. Cordelia felt his gaze linger on her. She shifted her position on the seat, affording him a glimpse of her ankle beneath her calico skirt and linen petticoat.
“Papers?” the sergeant asked Harry, his gaze still on Cordelia’s ankle.
Harry pulled out the creased papers the Kestrel had supplied. The sergeant tore his gaze away from Cordelia’s ankle long enough to glance through them. “These are water spotted.”
“Rosewater,” Harry muttered. “My wife knocked it over on them. Can’t keep her things from spilling over the dressing table.”
“I could if I had one of my own.” Cordelia looked at the sergeant from beneath her eyelashes. She hoped the Gascon accent would mask the fact that she wasn’t a native French speaker. Her French wasn’t as good as Harry’s, but thanks to her émigrée governess it was better than that of most Englishwomen.
The sergeant sniffed the papers, which had indeed been soaked in rosewater, in just the right place to blur the forged signature.
“All the same, you’d best get out of the cart. Let me have a look.”
“Damnation,” Harry said. “We come through here every—”
“
Chéri
.” Cordelia put a hand on his arm. “Don’t make things worse. And don’t alarm your mother.”
“Maman’s made of tougher stuff than that. Aren’t you?” Harry looked back at the Kestrel.
The Kestrel set down his knitting, cast a baleful glance at the sergeant, and clambered to his feet. “Give me a hand, young man,” he said to the sergeant, who was extending a hand to Cordelia. “And stop ogling my daughter-in-law.”
The sergeant handed Cordelia down from the cart. Cordelia kicked up her skirt to afford a glimpse of the garters on her white cotton stockings as she slid to the ground. The sergeant managed to brush his hand against the side of her left breast in the process of assisting her and then turned with a grimace to assist the Kestrel. Harry glared at him in character.
“Don’t be stupid,” Cordelia muttered to him in a stage whisper. “You’ll get us taken in.”
The sergeant jerked his head at two of his men to go through the cart, while he patted each of them down. His hands lingered on Cordelia. It was no worse than the wandering hands of undergraduates in a Mayfair ballroom, but Cordelia thought Harry’s glare was not entirely playacting now.
“What’s this?” One of the soldiers held up a bottle from beneath the floorboards.
“Water,” Harry said.
The sergeant sniffed the bottle, took a swig, and gave an appreciative grunt. “No, it’s all right, I won’t confiscate it. If you were selling it you’d have more bottles.”
“Nothing else,” another of the soldiers said a few minutes later. Which was as it should be, for the cart did indeed contain nothing more than their supposed peddlers’ wares.
“Well?” Harry demanded. “Can we go?”
The sergeant glanced in the cart, glanced at them again, then inclined his head. He handed Cordelia back up onto the box and managed to get his hand on her right breast this time.
“Pulled a thread, you have,” the Kestrel said, picking up his knitting.
Harry snapped the reins, the cart wheels groaned, and they rattled forwards, through the gates of Paris.
Cordelia leaned against Harry’s shoulder. The solid warmth of his flesh felt singularly reassuring. “We made it,” she said at last.
“We’d probably have made it without having to get out of the cart if the sergeant hadn’t wanted to get a better look at your legs.”
“But you have to admit it left him thoroughly befuddled. If he’s asked about us, I’m all he’ll remember.”
“Very true. I’m just sorry you had to go through being mauled.”
She shrugged. “It’s not the first time. Oh dear, that is—”
He lifted a brow. “I’m difficult to shock.”
“I’m glad flirtation has a productive use.”
“You’re a natural at this.” His mouth twisted in a dry smile. “I mean espionage.”
She looked up at him. “Did you ever—”
“I’m hardly the sort to whom seduction comes easily.”
“But there’s very little you can’t do when you put your mind to it. In the service of Crown and country.” Her voice was playful, but the images that flashed into her mind were distinctly unsettling.
“You’ve heard me rail against Crown and country often enough.”
“But I know just how loyal you are.”
Harry fixed his gaze on the donkey’s back. “I fear there are few deceptions I’ve failed to put into practice in the course of my work.”
Cordelia swallowed. Hard. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less, dearest.”
O’Roarke put down his spyglass. “Good. They’re safely away. That took a bit longer than anticipated, but I think that might be due to Lady Cordelia’s powers of distraction.”
He tucked the spyglass back into his coat. They waited another five minutes, then touched their heels to their horses and galloped from beneath the shelter of the stand of trees and down the main road to the gates.
“Have you seen a peddler’s cart?” Malcolm demanded of the sergeant who stood guard, pulling up on the reins of his horse and making his breath sound labored.
“Peddler’s cart?” the sergeant repeated.
“Yes, man. The peddler would have had his wife with him. And his mother.”
The sergeant cast a glance about, as though already fearing he had made a mistake. “Er . . . yes, sir. It passed this way not ten minutes past.”
“Damnation.” Malcolm cast a glance over his shoulder at his three companions. “We’ve just missed them.” He gathered up the reins.
“Sir,” the sergeant said, “what—”
“That old woman is wanted for questioning by Fouché.”
The sergeant blinked. “What would Fouché want with—”
“It’s a disguise, you fool,” O’Roarke said. “Open the gates. Quickly, man. We’ve already lost precious time.”
“You heard the captain.” The sergeant jerked his head at his men, perhaps eager to avoid questions about his detailed examination of the fugitives he had allowed to escape. “Open the gates. Be quick about it.”
Two soldiers ran to comply. Malcolm, O’Roarke, Simon, and St. Gilles galloped through and out of the environs of Paris.
They had passed the first hurdle.
Gabrielle glanced out the inn window. “This does seem loweringly tame compared to what everyone else is doing.”
“Waiting can be the hardest part,” David Mallinson said. “And without us to meet them they’d be able to make it no further than this inn.”
The two of them and Gui were in a first-floor private parlor of this inn along the road to Calais. The clothing and papers that would take Paul St. Gilles and Juliette Dubretton and their children out of France were stowed in a false compartment beneath the wicker hamper on the back of their barouche, presently in the inn’s stable. No one had thought to question the fashionable aristocratic party, all easily recognizable and plainly bent on pleasure.
Gabrielle smiled at David. She’d always thought he had a kind heart, but she hadn’t realized quite how much until now. Such a pity she couldn’t find a man like him or Rupert who was interested in her. They were both much finer men than Antoine Rivère had been.
Gui paced across the room and poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle on the pier table between the windows. “That doesn’t make the waiting easier.”
Gabrielle bit her lip. “Don’t. I can’t help but worry—”
“I’m sorry, Gaby.” Gui crossed to her side and gripped her shoulder. “But in his position Rupert would be the safest of any of them if they’re discovered. Except perhaps Malcolm.”
“I would have said so a few days ago,” Gabrielle said, looking up at her brother. Her pretend brother. No, she couldn’t stop thinking of him as a brother. “But now I’m not at all sure Lord Dewhurst would come to his rescue.”
“He would.” Gui held the glass out to her. “He’d want to save the family from the scandal if nothing else.”
Gabrielle took a swallow of wine, deeper than she intended, and coughed. “There is that.”
Gui squeezed her shoulder. When she made to hand the glass back to him, he shook his head and curled her fingers round the glass. She took another fortifying sip. “You must be worried about Mr. Tanner,” she said to David.
“I—” He opened his mouth as though to protest, then said simply, “Yes.”
She sensed that single word was an admission of trust. She looked into his eyes and smiled. An answering smile broke across David’s reserved face.
Gui wandered back to the windows and picked up a fresh glass. “If—Good God.” He froze in the midst of uncorking the bottle of wine, gaze fastened on the view outside the window.
“What?” Gabrielle sprang to her feet and ran to his side, prepared for armed soldiers or her husband in irons. Instead she saw a chaise drawn up in the inn yard. An ostler had hurried forwards to see to the horses. A man in a top hat and blue coat who must have descended from the carriage was speaking with the ostler. Then he turned towards the inn. “Dear God,” Gabrielle breathed.
“What?” David hurried to her side.
Gabrielle reached for Gui’s hand and squeezed it hard. “My father-in-law.”
“What the devil is Dewhurst doing here?” David watched Dewhurst stride towards the inn.
Gabrielle swallowed. “Suppose he’s learned that Rupert—”
“There’s no proof of that.” David touched her arm. “It could just be a coincidence.”
“Well, whatever it is, we need a plan of action,” Gui said. “We have a fugitive arriving at any moment whom Dewhurst will recognize.”
“Do we have any laudanum?” Gabrielle asked. She was only in part joking.
“Whether it’s a coincidence or not,” David said, “that’s the way to play it.”
“With laudanum?” Gui asked.
“As a coincidence.”
Gabrielle and David hurried out the door onto the landing. In the hall below, Gabrielle could hear her father-in-law’s decisive accents and nearly native French. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but she caught something about “dark-haired man.” Dear God, was he trying to describe St. Gilles? But from her one glimpse of him at an exhibition at the Louvre she wouldn’t have called St. Gilles dark haired.
“Lord Dewhurst!” She gathered up the jaconet folds of her skirt and and ran down the newel staircase. “We saw your carriage through the windows. What a surprise!”
“Gabrielle.” Relief flashed across Dewhurst’s face as he stared up at her. “Thank God.”
Gabrielle nearly skidded on the stairs, caught herself on the railing, and ran down to her father-in-law’s side. “Were you looking for me?”
“For Gui.” Dewhurst caught her hands in a hard grip. “Is he with you?”
“Yes, he’s just upstairs.” Relief that Dewhurst seemed to know nothing of St. Gilles warred with confusion. “He came with Lord Worsley and me.”
Dewhurst squeezed his eyes shut. “God be praised.” He released Gabrielle’s hands and ran up the stairs, pushing past David without acknowledgment.
Gabrielle exchanged a look of confusion with David and ran back up the stairs after Rupert’s father, aware of a confused look from the serving maid and groom in the hall below.
She reached the landing as Dewhurst stepped over the threshold into their private parlor. “Gui. Thank God I’ve found you. You must come back to Paris immediately.”
“Sir.” Gui’s footsteps sounded on the floorboards, concern sharp in his voice. “Is something the matter? Is it my uncle? Or my aunt?”
Gabrielle reached the open door to see Dewhurst stride across the room and seize Gui by the shoulders.
“Of course it’s your uncle and aunt,” he said. “Can you imagine they wouldn’t be distressed to the breaking point by such a letter?”
Gui jerked away from Dewhurst’s hold. “That’s my affair, sir. Not yours.”
“What letter?” Gabrielle demanded.
Dewhurst whirled towards her. “This is a private matter, Gabrielle.”
“Private.” Gui gave a harsh laugh. “It’s more her affair than yours, sir.”
He pulled away from Dewhurst and walked towards Gabrielle. David, who had followed her into the room, made to withdraw. “No, you’d best stay as well, Worsley,” Gui said. “There’s no point in making it a secret. That was the sum of the letter I left for my uncle and aunt.”
“For God’s sake—,” Dewhurst said.
“I’m not going back to Paris with you,” Gui said, ignoring Dewhurst and moving towards Gabrielle. “It’s time this farce came to an end. Perhaps I should have said that to Oncle Jacques and Tante Amélie in person, but I fear I was too much of a coward. I left them a letter telling them I am not the son of Georges Laclos and can no longer go on trespassing on their hospitality. Easier for all of us to make a clean break.”