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“You think not? And if the royalists come to power?”

“Bah! That fat old man? He can’t even rule those parasites at Hartwell.”

Wishing she had her maid’s certainty, Céline fell silent. She didn’t want to think of her future across the English Channel, not when she felt as if she had missed the present somewhere along the way . . . not while she felt so adrift.

With a mental shake, she smiled at Valentine. “And you, do you have any regrets leaving England?”

The Frenchwoman didn’t hesitate. “That foggy island full of ignorant
bêtes
?
Certainement pas!
”

When they stopped at one of the posting houses, the postilion came up to her. “Are you up to riding through to Dover?”

She felt weary to the bone, and the prospect of jostling along on the rutted road for several more hours held little appeal, but Gaspard had urged her to push on.

“Yes, we must continue our journey.”

Hours later, exhausted and dusty, Rees entered the village of Sittingbourne. As he followed the boy who came out to take his horse, he exchanged some pleasantries as he had at each stop, then handed him an extra coin with the question about a post chaise carrying a fine lady.

“A half hour or so ago,” he replied promptly. “Changed horses and stopped for dinner then went on.”

It wouldn’t be long now. He had time for a quick meal in the taproom. He needed to keep up his strength.

He changed horses in Canterbury. Between tolls, tips, and arranging for the stabling of his horse, his expenses began to mount. Thankfully,
he had recently been paid his wages. Lady Wexham had also added an extra amount, ignoring his protests, as compensation, she told him with a droll look in her golden eyes, for getting shot.

By the time Rees arrived at the last tollgate before Dover, he was hunched over his saddle in exhaustion. It was nearing midnight, but the sky had only just become fully dark a short while ago. He eyed the inn beside the tollgate with longing, wishing for nothing better than a bed to fall upon.

Instead, he dismounted and rang the bell to alert the toll guard.

As soon as the gate was opened, he pushed on, pausing only at the top of the hill overlooking the port. A few streetlights twinkled in the distance below him. He had ridden this road many years before on one of his leaves during his time in the navy.

He knew Lady Wexham had not broken her journey along the way. So, she was somewhere down there in one of Dover’s six inns. Because it was wartime, the city didn’t receive as many travelers as it had been accustomed to in peacetime. With the blockade, almost all traffic from the Continent had ceased.

He decided to head for the center of town and find an inn near the harbor. With a weary sigh, he nudged his horse forward, having to pick his way along the dark, rutted road.

He ended up at the Golden Lion. After seeing his horse stabled, he resisted the urge to lie on the inviting bed in the room he was shown. He made his way back down the stairs. The taproom still held a few drowsy patrons—some sailors, a couple of soldiers in uniform, and a local citizen or two.

The port was a garrison town as well as the headquarters for the preventives, the branch of customs officers in charge of patrolling the coastline. The worry that had been hovering under the surface throughout his journey, which had driven him onward despite weakness and fatigue, grew as he realized the risk Lady Wexham was taking if indeed she was leaving from Dover. And if Gaspard had left her, she and Valentine had no male escort.

She was in a town with a military barracks in the medieval castle on the cliffs to the north and another newly constructed barracks on the cliffs to the south. The harbor was filled with customhouse cutters and man-of-war ships.

She might as well have entered a pit of vipers. What was she thinking? She could have gone to a smaller village farther down the coast and had a better chance of getting across the Channel.

Rees left the inn and walked down the narrow, crooked streets toward the waterfront. A mist had risen and the few street lamps cast a glow but did little to illuminate beyond their small sphere.

It was a dark night. He had to find where Lady Wexham was staying. Would she lodge or leave tonight? It all depended on the tide, unless she was not sailing across. He knew some smugglers rowed the twenty miles in the “guinea boats,” carrying the gold needed by Napoleon to finance his war—gold in exchange for the tons of goods smuggled across from the Continent, from hogsheads of brandy to bolts of lace and silk.

Rees heard the lapping of water against the beach before he arrived at the enclosed harbor. Very little was visible on the water, only a scarce light here and there marking the cabin of a vessel farther out in the bay.

He turned back and made his way to the most prominent hotel on the waterfront, the Ship Inn.

A clerk was dozing at the front desk. Rees slapped his hands on the desktop, causing the clerk to jump.

“Yes!” The man blinked groggily.

“Good evening. I have an urgent message for Lady Wexham. Is she a guest here?”

The man rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Lady Wexham? No one here by that name.”

“A lady traveling with her abigail, a Frenchwoman.

The man shook his head. “No, no Frenchies here tonight.”

Rees took a step back. “I must have been mistaken in my information.
This is where she usually stays when in Dover. Pardon my disturbing your slumber. Good evening, sir.”

Leaving the man staring at him openmouthed with another yawn, Rees backed out of the inn. Well, she wasn’t at the most likely hotel for a lady of quality. Where could she be? Would it be better to wait until morning to make his inquiries? But she could be gone by then.

And if she wasn’t? What did he hope to do if he found her? His brain too muddled with weariness to know what to do, he stood a moment in the silent street, debating.

Dear Lord, show me where she is. I’ve come this far . . . and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do. All I know is I want to see her again. I need to know she is all right.

After praying some moments more, he felt a calm in his spirit. Slowly, he turned around and headed for his own inn. If Lady Wexham departed in the night, he must trust to God to take care of her.

If she were still here in the morning, he must trust that the Lord would show him where she was.

Rees fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and didn’t arise until midmorning. He panicked when he saw how high the sun was in the sky, but he remembered his prayer of the night before. After a hearty breakfast, he emerged and began his hunt.

The day was a fine one, a light breeze blowing off the Channel—good for sailing across to France. He frowned at the sight of navy frigates, customs cutters, and a few English merchant ships filling the harbor.

He walked the length of the wharf, down the ropewalk to North Pier and all the way around the harbor to the other end to South Pier, two jetties protecting the harbor. Where would Lady Wexham find passage across the Channel? Two French persons would arouse immediate suspicion.

His next step was to inquire at every inn. Most likely she had gone to a smaller fishing village farther down the coast.

Smugglers would do anything for the right price.

He went methodically to each hostelry, choosing the most frequented and closest to the harbor first. After a brief refreshment at the inn, he braced himself to continue his search. If Lady Wexham was in Dover, he didn’t think it would take too long to locate the party of two travelers, one of them with a noticeable French accent.

It was at the third inn that he stopped short on the threshold at the sound of a masculine French accent ahead of him.

“Yes, I am to meet a lady here. She is French by birth but sports an English title. Has she booked her room yet?”

“No, sir. No French lady here.”

Rees drew back, recognizing Monsieur de la Roche from Hartwell House.

Rees exited the inn and crossed the street, wrapping his cloak more securely around himself. He found the alcove of another doorway where he could watch the Frenchman.

So, de la Roche was on Lady Wexham’s trail as well. Rees waited until he came back out. He walked away and entered the next inn, one Rees had been to. Would the Frenchman discover that someone else had been inquiring after Lady Wexham?

Rees had to find her first.

He finally located her at the last inn, the smallest, meanest one on the western end of town. There was no one by Lady Wexham’s name, but there was a guest, a lady by the name of Mrs. Avery, accompanied by a French maid.

He also inquired about the tide and was told it would be going out around two that night.

He spent most of the evening in the taproom, listening to the conversation around him. At one point, someone asked him what his business in Dover was. He replied that he was there to meet someone from one of the packet boats from Holland. They seemed to accept that.

Once it neared midnight, Rees armed himself and headed to the
small inn. He posted himself in a nearby alcove where he could remain hidden and watch the entrance.

He hadn’t been there more than half an hour when the two cloaked women exited. Even though their figures were hidden from him, he was sure the two were Lady Wexham and Valentine. They carried only a small valise each. Had their trunks been part of the ruse?

They kept to the shadows, heading west.

As Rees waited a moment to give them a lead, another shadow disengaged itself from a narrow alley and followed after them.

De la Roche. So, he, too, had located Lady Wexham.

Without thinking, Rees drew out his pistol and crept up behind the Frenchman.

Giving him no chance to react, Rees swung the butt with all his force against his head. De la Roche fell.

Rees dragged his body back down the dark alley.

Having nothing to bind him, Rees brought de la Roche to the end of the alley and left him in a garden shed, securing the door behind him.

Then he ran back out into the main street.

Afraid of being detected, he forced his steps to slow, guessing the two women were headed to Shakespeare Beach, a shingle beach just outside the town limits, the only possible location for a small craft to land. The road split, the higher road leading up to the cliffs just beneath the military garrison. Despite the cool sea air, he broke out in a sweat thinking of the risk they were taking—meeting a smuggler’s boat right under the eyes of the sentinels above.

Leaving the last street lamps behind, Rees decided on the higher path. He’d spent much of the afternoon exploring the various roads leading out of town both east and west.

Refreshed from a good night’s sleep, he was alert, every nerve on edge. His muscles still ached from his hard ride yesterday, but thankfully his wound was dry.

He arrived at the cliff overlooking the beach on the southwestern
outskirts of the harbor and positioned himself flat on his belly just below the garrison.

The night was pitch black. He could not even make out his hand in front of him, could only hear the endless crashing and sucking sound of the surf on the pebbly beach below.

This cliff was low in comparison to the other, white-chalk cliffs distinguishing Dover. He had not seen the two figures again since leaving the inn. He could only guess they were down below on the beach.

Céline would need to be far from the coast by dawn. If they were spotted by a customhouse cutter . . . he didn’t want to think of that.

Suddenly, he saw a small, blue flash. It lasted only an instant, then blackness enveloped everything once again. He could have imagined it, but he didn’t think so. He knew what it was. The flash of a flintlock pistol without a barrel, an oft-used signal to alert smugglers on land that a boat was offshore ready to unload its cargo. Rees had spent enough time in the navy in the Channel patrolling for ships to know all the ways of smugglers.

He glanced over his shoulder. Would the sentries along the high ridge have spotted the flash? And if they did, what could he do?

He could only pray.

Training his eyes on the darkness below, he endeavored to make out a return signal from the beach. But he saw nothing. Likely they had a covered lantern, being so close to the garrison, whose light would only be visible an equally short time seaward.

Was that the sound of a boat scraping against the shingle beach? The tide was going out. He thought he made out the sound of footsteps upon the small pebbles, but it was lost in the sound of the incessant waves.

Then a thud like that of an oar against wood.

He kept glancing upward toward the Western Heights to the garrison for any sentries, who could quickly come down to his level by way of a special set of spiral stairs built inside a shaft leading to the road
he was on. From there it would be a quick path down to the beach. If he had not stopped de la Roche, how easy it would have been for him to alert the soldiers.

His lips moved silently, continuing to pray.

But he heard no shouts, just the sloughing of the surf in and out upon the shore. He strained, thinking he heard the footsteps of a sentry on the ramparts above him, but only the sound of the waves came to him, one after the other in unbroken succession.

Many moments later, the emptiness in his heart told him Céline was gone. He gazed across the blackness, knowing on the other side of a narrow strait lay France. In about five hours, she would be there if their small boat was not detected by an English vessel.

From what he’d heard around the taproom earlier in the evening, the guinea boat rowers were swifter than the sails of the revenue men.

After a long while, Rees got to his knees, feeling stiff and cold. Slowly, he rose to his feet.

He didn’t return to his inn. Instead, he walked back to the harbor and stood gazing across the water. As the sun made its way over the horizon, it promised to be another beautiful day. The breaking light cast a white, sparkling swathe over the silvery water. A milky mist lay over the farthest horizons, obscuring the coast of France.