‘You can’t stay in here,’ she said.

‘You would not turn me out, would you?’

‘But it is unseemly.’

‘You should have thought of that before you stowed away.’

‘Yes, but I did not think…’

‘That is your trouble, Miss Giradet, you do not think. I recall you promised to be good if I brought you.’

‘Good, yes. Wanton, no.’

‘Touché!’ He laughed.

‘You could have told him I was not your wife.’

‘I could, but then he would have drawn his own conclusions, to your detriment. Besides, I could see the advantages…’

‘I’ll wager you could.’

‘Do not be so waspish. Let me finish. If we pretend to be man and wife you will, as a British citizen by way of marriage, be safe from arrest even if it is discovered who you really are—or were before you married me. You will be able to go out and about openly. Otherwise you will have to stay in hiding. You may not care for your reputation, but I certainly care for mine.’

‘So what happens tonight?’ she asked.

AUTHOR NOTE

If you have been following the fortunes of The Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club series you will recognise the name Drymore. Captain James Drymore, later Lord Drymore, was the instigator of the club in THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADY, the first book of the series (short-listed for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Love Story of the Year award). The Commodore in this story is his son, carrying on the tradition of the Gentlemen and rescuing damsels in distress—this time the daughter of a French count in Revolutionary France, where the Gentlemen are a thorn in the side of Robespierre. Naturally, she doesn’t make it easy for him. Sir John Challon, Lady Drymore’s father, appeared in the first book as a follower of the Young Pretender, who was forced into exile in France, but here he plays a part in the rescue and is reunited with his daughter.

I hope you enjoy reading it.

About the Author

Born in Singapore, MARY NICHOLS came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown-up children, and four grandchildren.

Previous novels by the same author:

 RAGS-TO-RICHES BRIDE

 THE EARL AND THE HOYDEN

 CLAIMING THE ASHBROOKE HEIR

 (part of The Secret Baby Bargain)

 HONOURABLE DOCTOR, IMPROPER ARRANGEMENT

 THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADY*

 THE VISCOUNT’S UNCONVENTIONAL BRIDE*

 LORD PORTMAN’S TROUBLESOME WIFE*

 SIR ASHLEY’S METTLESOME MATCH*

 WINNING THE WAR HERO’S HEART

 THE CAPTAIN’S KIDNAPPED BEAUTY*

*The Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club mini-series

And available through Mills & Boon ® Historical eBooks:

 WITH VICTORIA’S BLESSING

 (part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

In the Commodore’s Hands

Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Early summer, 1792

Lisette could see the crowd from her bedroom window, marching towards the château, pulling a tumbril containing a tree decorated with flowers and ribbons in red, white and blue, and although they were singing and laughing and banging drums, she did not think they were coming in a spirit of friendship. Since the King had been forced by the National Assembly to accept the new constitution, the peasantry seemed to think they were no longer required to pay taxes and they were insisting that the seigneurs, among them her own father the Comte, should remit those already paid, not only for this year, nor even for the period since the beginning of the Revolution, but for many years previously. Naturally her father had refused. He had his own taxes to pay and many of the privileges he had enjoyed before the Revolution had been abolished. Times were hard for everyone.

She left the window and hurried downstairs to alert her father, who was working on papers in his library, though he could not have failed to hear the noise. ‘Go out of the back way and fetch help from the maréchaussée,’ she urged him. ‘I’ll try to delay them.’

‘I will not be driven from my home by a mob,’ he said and set his jaw in a rigid line of obstinacy. ‘And I will not give in to demands.’

Comte Gervais Giradet was a third-generation aristocrat. His grandfather had become very rich through colonial trade and bought his title and lands in the village of Villarive close by Honfleur in Normandy for 60,000 livres, an enormous sum, enough to keep two hundred working families alive for a whole year. The village was part of the Giradet estate. It had a village green with a fountain from which the women drew their water, one church, two inns, a leather worker who made the harnesses for the horses and the shoes for the villagers, a blacksmith and a vendor of comestibles and candles, although most of the shopping was done in Honfleur. The village showed no sign of prosperity—except, perhaps, the surrounding apple orchards which provided most of the inhabitants with their living and the Comte with his wealth, though that was declining.

Until the Revolution Gervais had lived quietly in his château, an autocratic but benign seigneur, minding his own business farming and growing apples to be made into cider and Calvados, and not interfering in anyone else’s. Now everything was in turmoil. The aristocrats were the people’s enemy. Hundreds of them had already fled the country, mainly to go to England.

‘But you cannot stand up to a mob like that, Papa,’ Lisette protested. ‘They will lynch you.’

‘Do not be so foolish, Lisette; they will not harm me. I shall speak to them. After all, we are all equal now—or so they say.’

The crowd had reached the courtyard and had set up the tree in the middle of it. There was a traditional belief that if a May Tree was put up in the lord’s courtyard and hung with small sacks of grain and chicken feathers, the peasants were telling their seigneur they thought his dues excessive and if it was kept standing for a year and a day, they would be free of their dues to him. Lately the May Tree had become the Liberty Tree and now it symbolised the freedom given to the people by the new Constitution and their contempt of the lords of the manor.

They were calling on the Comte to show himself and Lisette repeated her plea that he should leave. ‘You can come back when they have gone away again.’

He smiled, adjusted the lace frills of his shirt sleeves and straightened his shoulders to go and meet them. On the way out he passed a gilded mirror and stopped to straighten his wig and give a tweak to his neckcloth, settling the diamond pin more securely in its folds. Then he nodded to a footman who opened the door for him.

His appearance at the top of the steps seemed to inflame the mob. They all began shouting at once. ‘Give us back what is due to us,’ one man yelled. ‘You have been bleeding us dry for years, you and the rest of your aristocratic friends. You are rich and we are poor and that situation has been denounced by the new government. Even King Louis thinks it is wrong. The rich can afford to pay, we can’t…’

‘I have to pay taxes too.’ The Comte attempted to make himself heard, but they were in no mood to listen.

‘You have no right to our taxes.’ The speaker was a big man, dressed in a faded black suit and wearing the red cap of the Revolutionaries. Lisette knew him as Henri Canard, a lawyer and ardent Revolutionary who led the local peasants, rousing them from their apathy to take part in demonstrations against the nobility. ‘You have no title to the land you hold.’

‘I certainly have. My grandfather bought it…’

‘Obtained by trickery,’ Canard said, taking a step or two towards the Comte, his dark eyes gleaming, a threat in every gesture. ‘We demand restitution.’

‘I cannot pay what I do not have.’

‘Then we’ll take what we want in kind,’ someone yelled. ‘I’ll have that diamond pin in your cravat.’

‘And I’ll have the silk cravat,’ cried another.

‘I think we should lock him in prison until he pays,’ added a third. ‘See how he likes prison fare. No more fat pigeons until he pays what he owes.’

‘À bas les aristos! Down with all aristocrats!’ This became a growing chorus and they milled round Gervais and began pulling at his fine clothes. Lisette ran to intervene, but was pushed roughly aside. Having divested him of everything except his breeches and shirt, they put him in the tumbril while others entered the house and began gathering items they thought they could use or sell and piling them into the cart alongside the Comte. Some went into the cellars and emerged carrying bottles of Calvados, still more invaded the pigeon loft and wrung the necks of several birds before the remainder flew off to safety. Lisette watched in horror as they set off again, taking her father with them. One of the crowd was even wearing his wig and laughing at his own cleverness.

She ran after them, pulling on Henri Canard’s arm. ‘Let him go,’ she cried. ‘He is an old man and has done you no harm. You can keep the other things, just let him go.’

‘He needs to be taught that the old order is gone,’ the man retorted, shaking off her hand. ‘We are all equal now. If prison is good enough for those of us who cannot pay our taxes, it is good enough for him who will not.’

She continued to run alongside him. ‘What are you charging him with?’

The big man laughed. ‘Withholding what belongs to the people, plotting against the State, hiding a refactory priest. I am sure we can find something.’ The National Assembly had confiscated all Church property and stripped the clergy of their rights, requiring them to sign an oath of loyalty to the new regime. Those who did so were allowed to remain at their posts and paid a stipend by the state, making them virtually civil servants. Those who refused were not allowed to practise; they could not say mass or officiate at funerals, baptisms or weddings. They either fled the country or went into hiding and practised secretly. The Comte was known to have sheltered one of these until recently when the poor man had died—of a broken heart, so her father maintained.

‘And you would do that to an innocent old man?’

‘Innocent, bah! Now out of the way, before we put you in the cart along with him.’

She fell back and the crowd passed her and bore her father away. She needed help and the only person she could think of was her twin brother, Michel. He was an equerry at the court of King Louis. If Louis ordered the mob to release her father, they would surely obey.

She returned to the château and set the servants clearing up the mess, then made preparations to leave for Paris. Hortense, her faithful duenna, packed a small portmanteau and Georges, their coachman, prepared the travelling carriage and harnessed the horses. She would travel faster without a large entourage, but Georges insisted two of the grooms should ride alongside, armed with pistols. It was not going to be an easy journey and would take at least three days.

Lisette had always been close to her brother. There had been no families of equal status close by as they grew up, no children with whom they could associate, so they had spent all their time in each other’s company, especially when their mother died. Their father had been too immersed in his grief to pay attention to them and it was Michel, miserable himself, who had tried to comfort her.

Physically they were very alike, though she was an inch or two shorter than her brother, and good living at court had made him heavier. They both had fair hair and grey-blue eyes. She was unusually strong, probably due to the rough games she played with Michel when they were children, and because she had taken over her mother’s role in the household she was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Michel laughingly called her bossy and perhaps she was. She had tried, in her rather confused way, to take the place of her mother and her brother in her father’s life and feared she had failed on both counts.

She was convinced that was the reason for her single state at the age of twenty-five. Five years before Papa had taken her to Paris and introduced her to any number of eligible young men, but nothing had come of it. Perhaps she was too particular, perhaps reluctant to give up the independence she was used to, or perhaps, as she later suspected, they were put off by her unfashionably lean figure and self-sufficiency. They had come home again with Papa grumbling he had wasted his money and she might as well have married Maurice Chasseur in the first place.

Maurice Chasseur lived in Honfleur and his parents had earlier talked to her papa about a possible match, but when the young man was approached after they returned from Paris, he flatly refused to co-operate, saying she was too hoydenish, more boy than girl, and he was not at all surprised none of the Parisian eligibles had wanted to take her on, not even for a fortune. The remark had come to her through a servant in his father’s household who had relayed it to Hortense.

‘He is simply annoyed because your papa hoped to do better for you and, when nothing came of it, went back to him and he didn’t like the idea of being second-best,’ her maid had told her by way of comfort. But it had hurt far more than she cared to admit and left her firmly convinced she was unmarriageable. It had become even more imperative to maintain her life at the Château Giradet and hang on to whatever privileges that still remained.

She was not an ardent royalist; she deplored the extravagance of the King and his court, the secret whisperings of scandal, the way favours could be bought and sold and the courtiers indifference to the suffering of the poor, made worse by the Revolution that should have eased it. Neither did she like the way the country was being run, the summary justice and injustice, the constant edicts that confused rather than enlightened. Surely, she thought, there must be a middle way, something like the English system where King George ruled in a democracy, though it was said he was mad.

The countryside they passed through was showing signs of poverty and neglect. The fields were not tended as well as they once had been, the livestock grazing on the meadows was thin. Everywhere had an overgrown, neglected air and the people who watched the carriage pass were poorly clad. Some looked on with the dull eyes of dejection, others were angry and spat at the coach as it passed. Lisette was thankful for their escort, especially when they stopped each night at posting inns.

Paris, when they reached it three days later, was seething with discontent. Everywhere—in the crowded narrow alleys, in the wider main streets, in the squares and public buildings—noisy crowds gathered, sporting red caps or wearing a red, white and blue cockade in their hats. The carriage made slow progress, being frequently stopped and searched on its way to the Tuileries Palace, where the King held court. He had been forced to leave his preferred home at Versailles by a mob of women who thought he should be with his people in the capital where they could keep an eye on him. Lisette was thankful when the carriage drew up in the main courtyard of the palace and she was able to go in search of her brother, followed by the rather nervous Hortense.

There was an air of agitation mixed with despondency in the demeanour of those she encountered as she hurried through the maze of corridors to reach Michel’s apartment. People were either hurrying from one place to another or huddled in groups, whispering. They stopped their chatter as she approached and watched her pass without speaking. No one challenged her.

She was admitted to the apartment by Michel’s valet, Auguste, who invited her to be seated and went off to tell his master she was there. The room, not one being in the front of the building where the public were admitted, was shabby. Whether that was a sign of the times she could not tell.

‘Lisette, what are you doing here?’ Michel demanded, emerging from his bedchamber in nothing but breeches and a silk shirt, followed by Auguste with a fancifully embroidered waistcoat into the sleeves of which he was endeavouring to put his master’s arms. ‘I am about to attend the King. And where is Papa?’

‘Papa has been seized by a mob and taken to the prison at Honfleur.’

‘Mon Dieu! Whatever for?’

‘For refusing to remit the taxes he has collected over the years. They seemed to think they had the King’s blessing to demand them back. They stole pictures and plates and bottles of Calvados and wrung the necks of some pigeons as well.’

‘That’s ridiculous, the King would never sanction that. He is not in a position to sanction anything. Since his failed attempt to flee the country, he is no more a free subject than our father.’

Lisette’s heart sank. ‘I was hoping for his intervention.’

‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’ Auguste had succeeded in putting on the waistcoat and tying his master’s cravat and was now in the bedroom fetching his wig and coat.

‘What are we going to do, then? I can’t leave Papa to rot in gaol, can I?’

‘You could ask the Citizen Deputy for Honfleur to intervene. Let him earn his keep.’

‘I did that on my way here. He refused on the grounds that justice must run its course. Is there no one in this benighted country that can do anything but rant and rave?’

Michel was thoughtful for a moment. ‘You could try Sir John Challon.’

‘Sir John! What can he do?’

‘He’s English, he might know someone in authority in England who could be persuaded to help, especially since our dear mama was English.’

Sir John Challon was a neighbour and lifelong friend of her father’s. He had been a firm supporter of the exiled King James of England and came to France shortly after the abortive uprising of the Jacobites.

‘But he’s an old man, older even than Papa.’

‘What is that to the point if he can summon others to our aid?’

‘Then I must return home.’

‘Yes, you must, Paris is not safe for you. The outcry against the aristocracy is becoming more vociferous. It does not look good for any of us.’

‘But what about you?’

‘I stay by my sovereign’s side. It is my privilege and my duty.’ He was fully dressed now in a blue-satin coat with a cutaway skirt, wide revers and silver buttons. His formal white wig was firmly on his head and his high-heeled shoes put extra inches on his height. He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Go now, sister dear, and God go with you. Let me know how you fare with the Englishman.’

Lisette returned to Villarive more dejected than ever. Her beloved papa was in prison and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. She felt somehow that she had failed him, that she ought to have been able to do more. The château when she reached it already had a neglected, unlived-in air. That once-great house was no longer a home and it took all her self-control not to burst into tears.

‘We will go and see Sir John tomorrow,’ she told Hortense as they unpacked. ‘He is our last hope.’

John James Drymore, known to friends and family as Jay, rode into the stable yard at Falsham Hall at the side of his ten-year-old son, Edward. Behind them rode Anne, who at eight, promised to become the image of her dead mother. He liked to take them with him when he rode round the estate; it was good for Edward to learn that with wealth and property came responsibility and Anne must learn the gracious demeanour which was the mark of a true lady.

Jay adored his children, nothing was too good for them, and he loved his home, but just lately he had begun to feel unsettled. It might have been the threat of war with Russia which had made the government increase the size of the navy and, as a naval man, he felt he ought to be involved instead of resting on his laurels in the quiet Norfolk countryside. Or it might have been the calamitous events in France, which had everyone worried whether such a thing could happen in England.

He handed his white stallion to the care of a groom and left the children looking after their own ponies and went indoors. The house was not large, but solidly built, with spacious lofty rooms downstairs and deep windows which let in the sun. The furniture was, like the house, solid and useful. The wide stairs were made of oak and led to half-a-dozen bedrooms on the first floor and servants’ quarters above them. The household was perfectly managed by his housekeeper, Mrs Armistead, and a small army of servants; he was not necessary for its smooth running.

The children were another matter. Since their mother’s death three years before, he had made a point of spending as much time as he could with them. It was a time he valued, but was it enough to keep his mind and body occupied?

He had hardly divested himself of his riding clothes and dressed in a plain suit of fawn silk when he heard the sound of carriage wheels on the drive below his window. He looked out to see his father’s travelling carriage pulling to a stop outside the front door. He slipped his feet into buckled shoes and ran lightly down the stairs, just as a footman admitted his parents.

‘Mama, Papa, I did not expect you. Is something wrong at Highbeck?’

‘No, all is well there,’ Lord Drymore said. ‘We have come on another matter.’

‘Then come and sit down and I will have refreshments brought in.’ He turned to give the order to the waiting footman before leading the way into the withdrawing room. His parents settled on a sofa and he seated himself opposite them. ‘Now, what’s afoot that brings you over here without warning? Not that I am not pleased to see you, you know you are welcome at any time.’

‘As you are at Blackfen Manor,’ his father added.

‘We have had a letter from my father,’ his mother put in. ‘He hasn’t written to me since poor Mama passed away and then it was only a letter of condolence, but now it seems he is wishing to leave France.’

‘I can hardly blame him for that,’ Jay said. ‘Is he asking if he might be pardoned?’

Amy laughed. ‘I rather think he is taking that for granted. What he is asking is a little more complicated. He has a friend, the Comte Giradet, who has been thrown into prison by the mob for not giving in to their demands and his daughter is distraught that he might lose his life. He requests help from us in securing his friend’s release and getting all three out of France.’

‘He has apparently heard that others have been helped in that way by some Englishmen,’ James added with a laugh. ‘It seems the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s fame has spread to the Continent.’

‘I thought you were going to wind up the Society,’ Jay said. ‘After all, you are none of you as young as you were when you started it. How long ago was that?’

‘It was just after you were born in ’54. And you are right, it has had its day, but recently Harry Portman and some of the younger ones have kept its spirit of adventure alive. They have been over to Paris to help those being persecuted by the new regime to escape, but Harry’s wife has finally persuaded him to retire after the narrow squeak they had when they were there the last time.’

‘Lord Portman knew Grandmother Challon well, did he not?’

‘Yes, they trod the boards together.’

‘Did he ever meet my grandfather?’

‘Once, I believe. I recall he had little sympathy for him.’

‘He is my father, after all,’ his mother put in. ‘And I think he should be helped to come home. I am sure no one thinks he is a threat to the monarchy now.’

‘Then your visit is to ask me to go to France.’

‘Would you?’ Amy’s voice was a plea which was hard to resist. ‘The children can come and stay with us while you are gone.’

‘You can take the Lady Amy,’ James added. ‘It will save having to take the Dover packet and you can sail directly to Honfleur.’

Lord Drymore had never quite abandoned his love of the sea and had bought the yacht to sail up and down the coast and make an occasional trip to France before the troubles began. Jay and his siblings had also used her to take their children on pleasure trips, so the vessel was always kept seaworthy and the crew on call. She was moored at King’s Lynn, only a day’s ride away.

While servants came in with the refreshments and his mother took over the serving of them, Jay considered the proposal. It might very well furnish the antidote to his ennui and he had a curiosity to meet the grandfather after whom he was named and who had been exiled in disgrace the year he had been born. ‘What do you know of this Comte Giradet?’

‘Nothing but what Sir John tells us in his letter,’ his father answered. ‘He is a third-generation seigneur who has always treated his people well. His estate is at Villarive, not far from Honfleur. He is a widower whose home is managed by his unmarried daughter. There is a son, too, who is in the service of King Louis.’

‘Can he not help?’

‘Apparently not. The King himself is virtually under house arrest.’

‘The people of France are becoming more lawless every day,’ Amy said. ‘We cannot leave Papa to their mercies.’ She was naturally thinking more of her father than the unfortunate Comte and his daughter. ‘He is an old man and should be enjoying his declining years in the bosom of his family. I am sure that old misdemeanour is long forgotten.’

‘Of course I will go.’ He did not need to think twice about it. His parents had always stood by him, even when he had gone against their advice and made himself the subject of gossip; he would do anything for them. ‘Shall you take the children back with you now?’

‘Yes, if it is convenient. Where are they?’

‘I left them grooming their ponies.’ He rang a bell on a table at his side and a footman appeared almost at once. ‘Fetch the children here, if you please,’ he said. ‘Then tell Cook there will be two extra for luncheon and after that, send Thomas to me.’

‘Will you take Thomas with you?’ his mother asked.

Jay laughed. ‘I think not. He will be forever worrying me about the cut of my coat and tweaking my neckcloth. I can valet myself. I would rather take Sam Roker if you can spare him.’

‘Of course, if he agrees,’ James said. ‘He will be an ideal choice.’

Having made his decision, the preparations went ahead at lightning speed. Jay, when in the navy, had always been used to packing up at a moment’s notice, and it was as if he were back in the service as he issued his orders and explained to the children that he was going away, but they were to stay at Blackfen Manor in his absence. They took this news without a qualm. To them, being spoilt by Lord and Lady Drymore and playing with the cousins who also frequently visited the Manor was a great treat, and they happily set off with Miss Corton, their governess, in their grandparents’ coach in the early afternoon.

Jay had finished his preparations and was instructing Mrs Armistead and his steward about carrying on in his absence, an instruction they did not need, having done it countless times before, when Sam Roker arrived, sent by James.

‘Did my father explain why I need you?’ Jay asked after they had greeted each other.

‘Yes, sir. We’re to fetch Sir John Challon and his friends out of the hands of those froggies. Not that I—’ He stopped suddenly.

Jay smiled, realising the old retainer was about to commit an indiscretion and say what he really thought of Sir John. ‘Will you come?’

‘Try keeping me away.’ Sam had been in the navy with Lord Drymore when he was a sea captain and had served him ever since, both in an unspecified domestic capacity and as an associate member of the Society for the Discovery and Apprehending of Criminals, popularly known as the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club. He had known Jay all his life and was allowed a familiarity others would not have dared.

‘And Susan doesn’t mind?’

‘Susan does as she’s told,’ Sam said firmly. ‘’Sides, she’d do anything to please her ladyship, as you well know, so we go with her blessing.’

‘Good,’ Jay said. ‘We sail on the Lady Amy on tomorrow’s tide. Can you be ready?

‘I am ready now, Commodore.’

‘You can forget the formality of address, Sam. I do not think an English naval officer will be welcome in France at this time. I shall go as a private citizen on a visit to my grandfather and you will simply be my servant, Sam Dogsbody.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘It is an age since I went on an adventure for the Gentlemen and longer still since I set foot in France.’

‘This isn’t being done at the behest of the Gentlemen,’ Jay said. ‘It is a personal errand.’

‘I know, sir, I know. Let us hope we are in time.’

‘Amen to that,’ Jay said fervently.

Sir John lived in a small villa on the outskirts of Honfleur, a picturesque port on the south bank of the Seine estuary. It had once been a transit point for trade from Rouen to England, but the blockade imposed by Britain had put a stop to that. Perhaps that was why Sir John had chosen to live there; in the early days of his exile it had offered a tenuous link with home. He was an old man and English to boot, but because the locals were unsure what the attitude of the new government was with regard to aliens, he had so far been left unmolested.

Lisette had known him all her life and now felt as if he were her only friend and ally, and though he had not promised he could help free her father, he had written to his daughter and son-in-law on her behalf. ‘I think it is about time I went home myself,’ he had told her. ‘France is a cauldron about to boil over.’

She had called on him almost every day to ask if he had had a reply and each time she had received the same answer. ‘Not yet. It takes time, my dear. The wind and tide might not be favourable for the mail packet and my son-in-law might be from home. You must be patient.’

‘How can I be patient with Papa locked up? They would not let me see him when I took fresh clothes for him. They inspected them minutely in case I had hidden something in them.’

‘And had you?’

‘Only a note to say I was trying my best to have him released. It caused some hilarity when the guards found it. If only I could rely on the servants, we might storm the prison and set him free, but they have been drifting away one by one. Of the men, only two of the seven indoor servants are still with me and only the housekeeper and Hortense of the sixteen women. Georges, our coachman, is still with me and still loyal, but as for the rest…’ She shrugged. ‘They are afraid…’ Her voice faded.

‘And what would you do if you could set your father free?’ he asked her now. ‘You could not take him home, they would come for him again and you too.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There you are, then, we must await help.’

‘How do you know there will be help?’ She was beginning to give up hope and his complacent attitude was making her tetchy.

Before he could respond, a servant knocked and entered. ‘There is a man at the door who says he is from England,’ he said. ‘Shall I admit him?’

‘Anyone from England is welcome,’ Sir John told him. ‘Did he give you his name?’

‘He said it was John Drymore, Sir John.’

Sir John suddenly became animated. ‘Then don’t stand there, man, go and show him in at once.’

The man who entered the withdrawing room was exceedingly tall and well built, dressed in a cut-back dark-blue coat, white breeches and stockings and a lighter blue waistcoat. His sun-bleached hair was tied back with a ribbon and he carried a chapeau-bras beneath his arm.

‘John!’ Sir John rose to greet him, a huge smile of pleasure on his face. ‘We meet at last.’

The newcomer was about to sweep him a bow, but found himself being embraced instead. He disentangled himself with a smile. ‘It is good to meet you, too, Grandfather, but I am known in the family as Jay.’

‘I never thought your father would send you to our aid.’ Sir John paused in his exuberance. ‘You have come to our aid?’

‘I am at your service, sir.’

Sir John suddenly remembered Lisette, who had been silently watching them, studying the man who had entered. He certainly had an imposing figure and was handsome in a rugged kind of way. He reminded her of Sir John before his hair had turned snow-white. ‘Lisette, my dear, this is my grandson, Commodore John Drymore. John, this is Mademoiselle Lisette Giradet.’

Jay gave Lisette a sweeping bow. ‘A votre service, mademoiselle.’

She noticed he had deep blue eyes which raked her from head to foot, as if sizing up the trouble she might cause him. That intense, cool gaze unnerved her a little and she would have been her haughtiest self in any other circumstances, but as she did not intend to be any trouble if he were prepared to help her father, she afforded him a deep curtsy. ‘Commodore.’

‘Let us not be formal,’ Jay said, offering his hand to help her to rise. ‘I left the navy three years ago and British naval officers are not exactly welcome in France at the moment. Plain monsieur will do.’

Sir John ordered a meal to be prepared and invited Lisette to join them. ‘For we have much to discuss,’ he said.

Lisette could still feel the pressure of a warm, dry hand on hers, though it had lasted no more than a second or two, but pulled herself together to accept.

‘We will be informal,’ Sir John said as they ate. ‘You two must deal well together if we are to achieve our aim.’ He looked from one to the other, smiling. ‘Lisette has been like a grandchild to me, Jay, and has, in part, made up for the fact that I could not be with my own grandchildren.’

‘God willing you will soon make their acquaintance,’ Jay said.

‘Remind me, Jay, how many are there?’

‘Four,’ Jay said. ‘But I am sure Mama has written to tell you of them. I have two sisters, Amelia and Charlotte, both married, and a younger brother, Harry, who is a first lieutenant in the navy. And you have six great-grandchildren, but we must not bore Mademoiselle Giradet with family matters and I need to hear from her the details of her father’s arrest and imprisonment.’

Lisette had been taught English by her mother. It was one of the reasons she and Sir John dealt so well together; she afforded him some light conversation in his own language and made him feel a little less homesick. The account she gave of the circumstances in which her father had been hauled off in the tumbril to the gaol in Honfleur was spoken in faultless English. ‘I have been frequently to the prison to take delicacies and clothing for my father,’ she said. ‘They would not let me see him and I am not at all sure the things were given to him. I have tried reasoning with the Public Prosecutor and appealed to our local deputy on the National Assembly, but they will do nothing. Michel, my brother, who is in the service of King Louis, says he cannot help either. Since His Majesty’s abortive attempt to flee the country last year, he is a virtual prisoner himself and being watched all the time. Michel is determined to remain at his side.’

Jay had heard of the King’s attempt to leave the country, but it was not his main concern at the moment. ‘What is the charge against the Comte?’

‘So far there has been no formal charge, but nowadays they don’t seem to need one. It only takes someone to denounce him as an enemy of the Revolution and he is condemned.’

‘Has someone denounced him?’

‘I believe Henri Canard has done so. He is a lawyer and the leader of the local peasantry.’

‘What has he against your father?’

‘Apart from the fact that Papa is an aristo, you mean? Nothing that I know of, but he is an ambitious man and all too ready to use the grievances of the poor for his own ends.’

‘It sounds as if you do not think your father will be released as a result of a lawful trial.’

‘We are sure of it,’ Sir John broke in.

‘Then what you are asking is that we break him out of prison and spirit him away.’

‘Do you think you can?’ Lisette asked. It was a great deal to ask and she was not sure she should ask it, but there was no one else to help them.

‘I cannot tell until I have investigated further. If it can be done, I will endeavour to do it, but we will need a careful plan.’

‘You are welcome to stay here, that goes without saying,’ Sir John said. ‘How have you arrived?’

‘I used my father’s yacht, the Lady Amy. It is moored just off the coast. When the Comte is free we can all go aboard and sail for England.’

‘You make it sound easy,’ Lisette said.

‘That part of it is. It is the getting of him out of gaol which might try our ingenuity.’

Lisette, who was well aware of that, gave a deep sigh and pushed her plate away from her, half the food untouched, though Sir John’s cook was a good one. ‘What do you propose to do?’

‘Knowing the layout of the prison would be a good start,’ Jay said. ‘And the number and routine of the guards. I think tomorrow I will pay it a visit.’

‘Under what pretext?’ his grandfather asked.

Jay was thoughtful for a moment. ‘I am a wine merchant and have bought cider and Calvados to take to England and have some to spare, that is if you can provide me with a few bottles, mademoiselle,’ he added.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘A few bottles of Calvados is a small price to pay for my father’s liberty, but I have to tell you I have tried that already. The guards take what I bring, but do nothing for Papa. I think I am become a great jest to them.’

‘Then they have a strange sense of humour,’ he said gallantly, raising his glass to her.

He had all the hallmarks of a chivalrous gentleman, his manners were irreproachable, he smiled a great deal, but it was a smile that did not reach his eyes. Underneath his cheerful demeanour, she sensed a wariness, a kind of distrust she had done nothing to bring about that she knew of. Had he been coerced into what to him was an unwanted errand because his grandfather wished to leave France and his mother was anxious to have him back in the bosom of his family? Was the fact that her dear father was part of the deal abhorrent to him? Or had he simply taken an aversion to her? Well, she did not care! So long as he helped them, she would be polite but distant.

‘I will have a case of Calvados ready tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘And a carriage to convey us to the prison in Honfleur.’

‘You wish to accompany me?’ Jay asked in surprise.

‘Naturally I do. If you think of a way of freeing my father, I want to be the first to hear of it and do my part to bring it about.’

‘You would be wiser to stay at home and wait.’

‘I am quite hopeless when it comes to waiting,’ she said, laughing. ‘Sir John will tell you that. Patience was left out when the angels decided on my virtues.’

‘Which I do not doubt are many,’ Jay said with that same gallantry he had displayed before. She wondered how he could say all the right things, yet his cold eyes told another story. ‘If you insist on coming, then so be it, I only ask that you stay in the carriage some distance away while I reconnoitre. It is not a good idea for the prison authorities to know we are acquainted with one another.’

She did not think they were acquainted at all; it would take more than a conversation over supper to get to know him, to tear down the barrier of ice he seemed to have built around himself. She surprised herself by wondering what he would be like if he were to let a little warmth into his soul. ‘I will do as you suggest,’ she said meekly.

There was a pause in the conversation while the cloth was removed and several dishes of fruit and sweet tartlets brought in to conclude the meal. When it was resumed, Jay seemed to set aside the business of freeing the Comte and enquired about the latest news from Paris.

‘It was in turmoil when I was there,’ Lisette said. ‘And so dirty and dismal. Everyone is worried what the King’s supporters will do next and since the death of Mirabeau, the most moderate of the Revolutionaries and the most popular, there is no telling what the mob might do.’

‘I met Mirabeau when he came to England,’ Jay said. ‘He seemed anxious to learn about our British democracy.’

‘Yes, that is what he advocated for France, but I do not know how much support he had. He maintained that for a government to succeed it must be strong, but to be strong it must have the support of the people, that was why he was so well liked, in spite of his dubious past. Now…’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows? The political clubs like the Jacobins, the Girondins and the Cordeliers are becoming more influential and extreme. The people are being encouraged to turn their hatred on to the nobility, whether they deserve it or no.’

‘Then the sooner we have you and your father out of France, the better,’ Jay said.

The evening broke up after that and Jay offered to escort Lisette home, which was only a few minutes’ walk away.

Chapter Two

The night was balmy with a slight breeze that did no more than ruffle Lisette’s shawl and it was so still they could hear the distant sound of the sea breaking on the pebbles of the river estuary less than a couple of kilometres away. Above them a new moon hung on its back and the stars made a pincushion of the dark sky.

This peaceful country lane gave no hint of what was going on in Paris, the main seat of all the troubles, where the parks had been given over to making arms and uniforms for the army in the war against Austria, where Revolutionaries in red caps manned the barricades at every entrance to the city and stopped people going in and out to search them for contraband or for aristos taking money and valuables out of the country, which was strictly prohibited. They could expect no mercy.

She was thankful that Monsieur Drymore had had the foresight to bring his yacht to Normandy and they would not have to brave the mob to leave the country by the usual route from Paris to Calais. Even so, they still had to overcome the guards at the prison and spirit her father safely to the vessel. For that she needed the enigmatic man at her side.

At last he was constrained by politeness to break the silence. ‘You speak excellent English, mademoiselle.’

‘My mother was English. My father met her on a visit to London in ’64 and they fell in love on sight. Her parents disapproved. You see, she came from an old aristocratic family and, in their eyes, he was only the grandson of a merchant who thought he could buy his way into the nobility and French nobility at that, which hardly counted.’

‘But they married anyway.’

‘Yes. She came to live with Papa in France and never went home again. She rarely spoke of her family. She told us Papa and Michel and I were all she wanted and needed, but sometimes I wonder if she was simply accepting what could not be helped and would have liked to be reunited with her parents. It was not to be. She died of a fever she caught when travelling with Papa in India.’

‘I am sorry to hear that. Please accept my condolences.’

‘Thank you. But I should warn you, it has left my father bitter against the English and he will feel mortified to have been rescued by one of them.’

‘But he is my grandfather’s friend, is he not?’

‘Oh, yes, but Sir John has lived in France so long, he is almost French.’

‘I do not think he regards himself in that way. He is anxious to return to his homeland.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It is Papa who will be exiled, if we go to England. Their roles will be reversed.’

‘The Comte will not refuse to go, will he? I will not force him if he does not wish it.’

‘Let us see what he says when we have set him free, but I do not think he will argue. For all his defiance, he is a frightened man. And so is your grandfather, or I miss my guess.’

‘What about you?’ he asked softly. ‘Are you afraid?’

‘I would be a liar if I said I was not, but for Papa’s sake, I will try to be strong.’

‘Methinks you have already shown that you are,’ he said. ‘But there is a difference between being strong and being foolhardy. I beg you to remember that.’ He spoke so earnestly she turned to look at him in surprise, but he was looking straight ahead and she could read nothing from his profile.

‘Indeed I will. But tell me about yourself. I know only what little Sir John has told me. Are you married?’

‘I was once. My wife died.’

‘I am sorry, not for a moment would I add to your grief.’

‘It was over three years ago. An accident while I was away at sea.’

‘And have you not thought to marry again?’

He looked sharply at her, then turned away again. ‘No. Once is enough. I would not put myself or my children through that again.’

‘You have children?’

‘Yes, Edward is ten and Anne is eight. They are staying with my parents while I am away and making mischief with their cousins, I do not doubt.’ His voice softened when speaking of his children, which made her realise this seemingly cold man must have a heart.

‘Your parents being the daughter and son-in-law of Sir John?’

‘Yes.’

‘It must be lovely to have so large a family,’ she said, a little wistfully. ‘I only have Papa and Michel.’

‘Perhaps we could find your English relations for you.’

‘I doubt they would accept me. They never once wrote to Mama.’

‘But it was all so long ago. My mother is longing to be reunited with Sir John, so why not you and your grandparents?’

‘Let us wait and see, shall we?’ she said.

They had entered the gates of the château. In the light of a torch set in front of the door they could see the Liberty Tree casting a long shadow across the gravel of the drive. Its leaves had fallen and were scattered on the ground, but the decorations still hung there. ‘What is that?’ he asked.

She explained it to him. ‘I dare not have it taken down,’ she added. ‘It will only inflame the mob further and I do not want to make it more difficult for my father.’

‘Or be arrested yourself,’ he added.

‘No.’

They reached the door, which was flung open by Hortense. ‘Lissie, I have been so worried about you. You have been so long gone. I should not have let you go alone. Anything could have happened to you.’ She glared at Jay as if her anxiety were all his fault.

‘I have been perfectly safe with Sir John and Monsieur Drymore,’ Lisette said. ‘We have been talking of ways and means to free my father.’ She turned to Jay. ‘Hortense is my maid and she worries about me. I thank you for your escort, monsieur. I bid you bonsoir until tomorrow.’

She held out her hand to him; he took it and bowed over it. ‘Your servant, mademoiselle. I will be here at ten o’clock.’

He turned and left them. He did not look back, but heard the door shut behind him. The flame in the torch flickered and died, leaving the drive and the ghostly tree in darkness.

Striding along the country road back towards Honfleur, he mused about the task he had been set and the woman who asked it of him. She was not what he would call womanly; she was too tall and thin for a start, her features a little too sharp, but her blue-grey eyes revealed intelligence and a stubbornness which might cause problems. He smiled to himself, anticipating squalls. So be it, he was used to squalls and having his commands obeyed.

But could you issue commands to a woman? He knew from sad experience how difficult that could be. Marianne had objected to simple requests, to pleas to think of her children, to consider the consequences of her wilfulness, by simply laughing and going her own way, with tragic results. When she died, it was left to him to tell Edward and Anne, who had loved their mother and knew nothing of the secret and not-so-secret life she led. Naturally he could not say anything of that and they had been broken-hearted at her loss.

Comforting the children and pretending all had been well between him and their mother had been difficult and accomplished only with an effort of will that left him dour and uncompromising—he would not put them or himself through such an experience again. Lisette Giradet had brought the memories back with her questioning and he had found himself resenting it. He shook his ill humour from him; better to concentrate on the task in hand.

Instead of going back to his grandfather’s villa, he went to one of the town’s hostelries where he had arranged to meet Sam. It was a squalid place, low-ceilinged and dingy, but it had the advantage of being very close to the prison. Sam, who had spent the day exploring, was already there, sitting in a corner with two men in the blue uniform of the National Guard, who were apparently enjoying his hospitality. They had several empty bottles in front of them and were drinking cider from tumblers.

‘Ah, here is my friend, James Smith,’ Sam said in excruciating French, using the alias they had decided upon. ‘Jimmy, this is Monsieur Bullard and Monsieur Cartel.’

Jay shook their hands and sat down, pulling a tumbler towards him and pouring himself some cider. He took a mouthful, made a face of distaste and spat it out on the floor. ‘No better than vinegar,’ he said. ‘Sam, my friend, couldn’t you find anything better than this to give our friends?’

‘’Tis all this Godforsaken place had,’ Sam said in English, then added under his breath, ‘They are prison guards.’

‘What did you say?’ Bullard demanded. He was the bigger of the two men and he had a very red face and broken teeth. ‘Speak French, why don’t you.’

‘I am afraid my friend’s language skills are not up to it,’ Jay explained. ‘But I will translate. He is sorry that the Black Horse does not have anything better to offer you.’

‘It is good enough. Who are you to find fault with our cider? And how did two Englishmen come to be here?’

Jay laughed. ‘Trade, my friends, trade. I buy good Calvados to take home.’

‘Smugglers,’ Cartel said, laughing. ‘Even in these times it still goes on.’

‘Yes, more so in these times, when legitimate trade is difficult,’ Jay agreed. ‘How else are we to drink the good French brandy we are accustomed to? But I will not be taking any of this rotgut back home. I can get much better at the Château Giradet.’

‘Château Giradet! Why there?’

‘I am told it makes the best Calvados in the area and Comte Giradet will sell it to me cheap.’

‘What do you know of Comte Giradet?’

‘Nothing. He was from home when I called there. I spoke to his daughter, who told me he was locked up.’

‘Locked up!’ Both Frenchmen laughed uproariously. ‘Yes, he’s locked up and like to hang when Henri Canard has done with him.’

‘Not before I have had time to deal with him, I hope,’ Jay said. ‘His daughter is disinclined to sell to me without the Comte’s consent. She did let me have a couple of cases, but what good is that to my thirsty friends in England?’

‘When he is convicted his goods and chattels will be forfeit,’ Bullard said.

‘Then I must act before that. Tell me, who is in charge at the gaol?’

‘We are,’ Bullard said.

‘Then I have struck lucky.’ He looked round and called out to the landlord to bring Calvados to replace the cider. ‘You will let me see him, will you not?’

‘Hold hard, there,’ Cartel said. ‘What’s in it for us?’

‘Money, good sound louis d’or, not that new paper money.’

They gasped at this. The gold coins had been withdrawn in favour of the paper assignat, and they could not legitimately spend them, although there were always people who would take them. Cartel looked at Bullard and back at Jay. ‘It might be done.’

‘When are you on duty again?’

‘Tomorrow, all day,’ Bullard said.

‘Then I will come in the morning.’ He left his drink untouched and stood up. ‘Are you coming, Sam?’

‘No, I think I’ll enjoy the company a little longer,’ Sam said, winking at him.

Jay left him, glad to be out in the fresh air again and, making sure he was not followed, returned to his grandfather’s villa.

He found Sir John in his parlour waiting for him. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.

‘How did what go?’ Jay Was still thinking of the gaolers.

‘Your conversation with Lisette. Was anything decided?’

‘No. Until I have been to the gaol and seen what we are up against, I can formulate no plan. I have, however, made the acquaintance of two of the gaolers. They think I am a smuggler.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘But then, I suppose I am, although it is not brandy I’ll be smuggling, but people. If the Comte agrees to come, that is. According to Mademoiselle Giradet, he is no lover of the English.’

‘You cannot set him free simply to go home or even to go anywhere else in France. He will be picked up again in no time.’

‘I know. I am relying on mademoiselle to persuade him that he will be welcome in England. There are already hundreds of French émigrés making new lives for themselves there, they will not be alone.’

‘Lisette is a lovely girl, not the most handsome, it is true, but she is a good daughter and she and the Comte have been good friends to me, exiled as I am.’

‘How did that happen?’ Jay asked. ‘My parents never speak of it.’

‘No, they would not.’ Sir John laughed. ‘I am the black sheep of the family. I dared to side with the Pretender and voluntarily left the country shortly after the ’45 rebellion, but when the Young Pretender went to England to try to drum up support I went with him. It was a foolhardy thing to do and the only reason I escaped was because your father and Sam Roker helped me, and that on condition I never showed my face in England again.’

‘Sam Roker? You know Sam?’

‘Yes. He is the one who saw me safely on board ship.’ He chuckled. ‘Mind you, he had to knock James out to do it.’

‘Why?’

‘James was in King George’s navy and helping a fugitive would have gone ill for him had it become known. He was only prepared to do it for the great love he had for Amy, but Roker stopped him.’

‘Yes, he is a good man, a trusted retainer. I have brought him with me.’

‘I fancy he has no great affection for me.’

‘Perhaps not, but he will do anything for my parents.’

‘Your parents, they are happy together, are they?’

‘Very. Mama is one in a million and my father adores her.’

‘It has not been an easy exile,’ Sir John went on. ‘I settled here in Honfleur because so many English merchants used to use the port and I could learn a little of what was happening at home. Now, with the blockade, that doesn’t happen and I grow more homesick.’

Jay detected a wistful note in the older man’s voice and realised how hard life must have been in France when everyone he loved was in England. No wonder he had been glad of Lisette’s friendship. ‘Mademoiselle Giradet told me her mother was English.’

‘Yes. She was a Wentworth, daughter of Earl Wentworth.’ He looked up as a startled gasp escaped from Jay’s lips. ‘You know the family?’

‘I know of them.’ Jay pulled himself together. ‘Go on.’

‘The Earl was furious when she told him she wanted to marry Gervais and live in France. They cut her off without a penny, hoping it would make her change her mind, but Louise was made of sterner stuff.’ He chuckled. ‘In any case, money was not a problem because Gervais was as rich as Croesus. What he found so hard to bear, and he told me this many, many times, was that she was cut off from a family she had loved, particularly her mother, and though she never complained he knew she felt it deeply. We had that in common.’

‘And what about her daughter? Does she feel it too?’ The revelation that the woman he had come to rescue was related to the Wentworths had shocked him to the core. He felt again the fury that had engulfed him on coming home from a long voyage to find his wife absent and children alone with their governess. Miss Corton had said her mistress had been gone some days, but she did not know where she was.

‘The children have been told she is taking a little holiday with friends,’ she had said. It had been left to his mother to tell him the truth.

‘I believe she has gone to live with Gerald Wentworth at his home in Hertfordshire,’ she had said. ‘They seem not to mind the scandal.’

How Wentworth had seduced his wife he did not know, but the man could not be allowed to go unchallenged. His mother had advised against it, telling him to let sleeping dogs lie, but he had been so furious, he would not listen. The duel had been fought in the grounds of Wentworth Castle, the choice of his opponent and a poor one for him because his adversary’s friends and family were there. Nevertheless he was the better swordsman and no one interfered until he was standing over the disarmed Wentworth, sword raised to deliver the fatal blow. He found he could not do it and had walked away in disgust, with the man’s threats ringing in his ears.

The gossip had raged for months; a man did not fight a duel and then refuse to deliver the coup de grâce when it was within his power. Many laughed at him, others said he was in hiding, fearing Wentworth’s revenge for the humiliation, for it was humiliating to lose and be spared simply because one’s opponent did not have the stomach to finish it.

None of that was Mademoiselle Giradet’s fault, he scolded himself, and ought to have no bearing on the task he had been set. Once he had accomplished it, they need never meet again.

‘Lisette?’ his grandfather said, in answer to his question. ‘A little, perhaps. I can only guess. Like her mother, she does not complain.’

‘What about her brother? What can you tell me of him?’

‘He is Lisette’s twin and has been in the service of King Louis ever since he finished his education, first as a page and then a gentleman of the bedchamber. I believe it took money and influence on Gervais’s part to obtain the post for him. After all, they are not the old nobility. It was an unselfish act on the Comte’s part; he was devoted to his son and hated parting from him, but he wanted him to make his way at court and encouraged him to go. Michel is loyal to the King and, according to Lisette, would not dream of deserting him. She worries about him, but is convinced the King will be able to protect him.’

‘Do you believe that?’

Sir John shrugged. ‘Who knows? The King embraced the new constitution and that pleased the people, but then he chose to try to flee, no doubt to drum up foreign support, and that sent his popularity plummeting. He might just as well be in prison himself. I suppose while the legislature is divided on what to do about him, he is safe enough and that goes for Michel too.’

‘So mademoiselle is content to leave him behind?’

‘I think it will be hard for her, she and her brother were close as children, but her first concern at the moment is to free her father.’

‘Then we must do what we can to bring that about.’

‘What would you like me to do?’

‘Nothing at the moment, except to put your affairs in order and gather together whatever you want to take to England, but bear in mind we cannot accommodate large or heavy items; everything will have to be carried aboard the Lady Amy and we must not attract undue attention. I shall tell Mademoiselle Giradet the same thing.’

‘You mean I am to be welcomed back?’

‘That is Mama’s wish.’

‘And it is mine. I will do anything to be reunited with my daughter. You may count on me.’

Lisette was ready for Jay the next morning, with the horses already harnessed to the carriage. She suspected she had been allowed to keep the equipage simply because no one had thought to take it from her. And the peasantry would not know what to do with it if they had it. Riding about in a carriage would be far too ostentatious and would bring down opprobrium on their heads. It was fashionable to be poor and dirty even if you were not. In deference to this and so she did not stand out in the crowd, she had donned the plainest gown she could find, a deep-blue cambric over which she had tied a scarf in the bright red of the Revolution. Unwilling to don the Phrygian cap with its Revolutionary cockade, she chose to go bare-headed, tying her thick blonde locks back with a red ribbon.

She met Jay in the vestibule when Hortense admitted him to the house. All the servants except Hortense and Georges had abandoned her. She dipped her knee in answer to his sweeping bow. ‘Good morning, monsieur. I am ready. And there is a case of our best Calvados in the boot. I hope that will be sufficient.’

‘It will do for the moment.’ He handed her into the carriage and climbed in beside her. ‘We may need more later.’

They settled in their seats for the short ride to Honfleur. ‘I have met two of the gaolers already,’ he told her. ‘They think I am a smuggler and buying brandy from the Comte to take out of the country. For a bribe, they will let me speak to him.’

‘The bribe being brandy?’

‘And money.’

‘How much money?’

He shrugged. ‘I have yet to discover their price.’

‘And then they will free Papa?’

‘Nothing was said of that. I am simply being allowed to speak to him.’

‘Oh.’ There was dejection in her voice. Why she had expected more of him, she did not know. To pay large sums simply to speak to him and leave him where he was did not sound like a good deal to her. ‘What happens after you have spoken to him?’

‘I have not yet decided. It all depends on what I discover.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing for the moment. I do not want those gaolers to think we are in league with one another, it will make them suspicious. I suggest you do a little shopping after I have left you and then go home and wait to hear from me.’

‘Wait! Is that all? I am in such a ferment, waiting will be purgatory. Surely I can be of use?’

‘Later, perhaps. You will need money in England, so when you go home, collect up your most valuable items, gold and silver, all your jewellery, nothing too big, and pack it ready. And make sure the horses are fresh. We may need to move swiftly when we do.’

‘I will do that. We will not leave Hortense behind, will we?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Not if you do not overload the coach and she can be ready at a moment’s notice.’

‘We will both be ready.’

They had arrived at the end of the street where the prison stood and he called to Georges to stop the coach. ‘I will leave you here,’ he told Lisette. ‘Go and do your shopping, buy food as if you were going to be at home for the immediate future.’ He took the case of brandy from the boot and the carriage pulled away again, leaving a thoughtful Lisette to continue into the centre of the town.

Jay carried the brandy into the prison and deposited it on the desk in front of Bullard who was busy writing in a ledger. He looked up at the sound of the bottles clinking. ‘Ah, the Englishman.’

‘I said I would come. We made a bargain.’

‘Let us see the colour of your money first.’

Jay produced six louis d’or from his pocket and put them on the table where they gleamed golden in a shaft of sunlight coming through a dusty window. Before leaving London, he had obtained them from his bank, which had been taking them from émigrés in exchange for sovereigns. He guessed the banker was only too pleased to reverse the process. To these men, they represented undreamed-of wealth.

Bullard picked one up and bit into it, then he called Cartel and the other man on duty. ‘Seems he’s as good as his word,’ he told them, indicating Jay. ‘Do we let him have a few words with the prisoner?’

‘Can’t see it will do any harm,’ Cartel said, gazing hungrily at the money. ‘Philippe can take him through.’

‘I’ll have my share afore I do,’ the third man insisted, picking up two of the coins and stowing them in his waistcoat pocket. Then he beckoned Jay to follow him.

The prison was not large and contained only half-a-dozen cells. No doubt before the Revolution there was comparatively little crime in the town, but now it was full of political prisoners crammed together in squalor. Jay, who considered himself used to poor living conditions from his time in the navy, found himself wrinkling his nose at the smell.

The guard stopped outside one cell and shouted, ‘Citoyen Giradet, you are wanted.’

Nothing happened immediately and then there was a movement among the inmates who parted to allow a frail old man to make his way slowly to the bars. Jay was shocked by his appearance. He was filthy and in rags, his white hair a tangled mass. He had obviously not shaved since his arrest and his beard was lank. It was clear to Jay that he would be too frail to run, or even walk, and that getting him out and away was going to be more difficult than he had imagined.

‘Who are you?’ the old man croaked.

‘My name is James Smith. I am from England.’

‘Never heard of you. What do you want?’

‘I want to buy Calvados, but your daughter will not sell it to me without your consent.’

The old man’s tired eyes lit up. ‘You have spoken to my daughter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she well? They have not harmed her?’

‘She is unharmed and looking after everything until you can be reunited. But what about the brandy?’

‘Merde, is that all you can think of, you English, money and your stiff-necked pride?’

‘You know nothing of my pride,’ Jay snapped. ‘But I do have money to exchange for Calvados.’

‘Louis d’or at that,’ the gaoler said with a grin, which told Jay quite plainly that any money handed to the old man would be taken from him.

‘My daughter can do as she pleases and she knows it, so why come here to bother me?’ Gervais paused, peering up at Jay. ‘Unless you have a message from her.’

‘Only that she is doing her best.’

‘That’s enough,’ the gaoler put in. ‘You have the permission you wanted, the interview is at an end.’ He put his filthy hand on Jay’s sleeve.

Jay shrugged him off. ‘You do not need to manhandle me, man. I am leaving.’ He turned back to the Comte. ‘I will tell your daughter she may deal with me with your blessing, shall I?’

If the Comte understood what he was trying to say, he gave no indication of it. ‘You leave my daughter alone, do you hear me? I won’t have her going off with any damned Englishman.’

Jay laughed softly and followed the gaoler back to the office where the other two were already making inroads into the brandy. ‘Is that one of the richest men in Honfleur?’ he asked, jerking his head back towards the cells. ‘He is a sorry specimen if he is.’

‘He will be even sorrier before long,’ Bullard said. ‘His crimes are so great Henri Canard is having him indicted in Paris. We shan’t have the pleasure of seeing him hang. He will lose his head to that new contraption they call a guillotine. I haven’t seen it at work, but they do say the head lives on minutes after it has been severed from the body.’

‘When will he go?’ Jay asked, trying not to show his disgust at the casual way the man had spoken. ‘I hope it will not be before I have made my deal with the Comte’s daughter and taken delivery of the merchandise.’

‘We have to wait for the summons from Paris. Henri Canard has gone himself to get the necessary papers for his transportation.’

‘Then I will do my deal as soon as may be and hasten my own departure.’ He produced three more gold coins and put them on the table. ‘For your co-operation,’ he said and left them.

He strode back to his grandfather’s villa in a pensive mood. The Comte was barely more than skin and bone and much older than he had imagined. He had assumed that he had fathered Lisette in his twenties and, as she was surely no more than twenty-five or six, then her father would be in his fifties. But he was seventy if he was a day, about the same age as his grandfather. Sir John was hale and hearty, but the Comte looked as though a blow from a feather would knock him over. Had he been like that before he was thrown into prison or had prison itself aged him? How on earth was he to get two old men and a young lady out of France and on a boat to England without one or the other of them collapsing on him?

He found both Sam and Lisette with his grandfather. ‘I thought I told you to go home and wait,’ he said.

‘I did not choose to. I knew you would come back here and I wanted to hear what went on.’

Jay threw himself into a chair. ‘Nothing went on. I paid the dues and had a few words with the Comte.’

‘What did he say?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Did you tell him we were going to try to get him out?’

‘No, of course I did not. We had an audience.’

‘Then it was a waste of time.’

‘Not at all. I established that he is going to be sent to Paris for trial. Henri Canard is too impatient to wait for the summons and has gone to fetch it himself.’

‘Oh, no! We are lost. We will never get him out of a Paris prison.’

Jay heard the distress in her voice and found himself wanting to reach out to comfort her. The feeling was so alien to him, he was taken aback. He could not allow her to penetrate his reserve—sympathetic to her plight he might be, but that was all it was. Nothing would be achieved by becoming soft. He pulled himself together. ‘Pray, do not distress yourself, mademoiselle. If I have my way, he will never reach Paris. He will not leave Normandy, except on the Lady Amy.’

‘You have a plan to break him out before they come for him?’ Sam queried, his eyes lighting up.

‘I do not think breaking him out is a good idea,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There are other ways, but I need more information. I need to know how the Comte is likely to be transported and when.’ He turned to Sam. ‘Do you think you can continue your comradeship with those gaolers?’

Sam laughed. ‘It is a good thing that my understanding of French is a deal better than my speaking of it, then. And I can hold my drink better than most.’

Jay turned to Lisette. ‘Now, mademoiselle, I will escort you home. You have still to make yourself ready as I suggested and keeping your horses out late is not going to help if we have the call tomorrow morning.’

‘I do not need your escort,’ she said haughtily, standing up and shaking out her skirt.

‘I beg to differ. I will see you safely home and I will repeat my instructions to your maid, then I may be sure they will be obeyed.’

Lisette did not answer, but marched out of the room, head held high. He shrugged and smiled at the other two men and went after her.

They had almost completed the journey in silence when she spoke. ‘Do you think it will happen tomorrow?’

Her voice was conciliatory and he smiled in the darkness of the coach. For all her defiance, she was a frightened girl and needed someone to lean on. Well, she could lean on him, that was why he was there, but only for as long as it took to get her, her father and his grandfather to safety. He was doing it because his mother had asked it of him and for no other reason.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But we must not be caught unprepared.’

‘I will be ready,’ she said quietly.

He almost regretted his defeat of her. He did not like to see her spirit broken, but it was necessary if they were to succeed. ‘Good.’

The coach stopped, he jumped out and held out his hand to help her alight. She took his hand and stepped down. ‘You wish to speak to Hortense, monsieur?’

He smiled. ‘Do I need to?’

‘No. I will tell her what you have said and Georges will make sure the horses are ready.’

‘Then I will bid you goodnight.’ He lifted her hand to his lips, then strode away.

Chapter Three

Lisette went indoors. The strain of the last few weeks and especially today had exhausted her. She trusted Sir John, and as Sir John trusted his grandson, she had no choice but to do so too. Jay Drymore was obviously a man used to command and today he had been especially cool and practical, but she wondered how good he was at dealing with the French people whose mood was volatile and bloodthirsty. If anything went wrong with the rescue attempt, his gaolers would not hesitate to kill Papa and the rescuers too. Did the Commodore realise that? Louis d’or would not save them.

She found Hortense anxiously waiting for her. ‘Lissie, where have you been all day? I expected you home hours ago. It is not fair of you to worry me so. I do believe that Englishman has you in thrall.’

Lisette flung herself down on a sofa. ‘That’s nonsense. He has come to rescue Papa and it is natural that we need to talk. It is no more than that. Besides, I have not been with him all day. We parted before we reached the prison.’

‘I’m glad he had the sense not to take you to that dreadful place with him, but where have you been?’

‘I went to the market and bought food and listened to the gossip. The Assembly has taken away all the King’s power and there is talk of putting him on trial.’

Hortense gasped. ‘Surely they will never do such a wicked thing.’

‘Who knows? And they say Marie Antoinette is plotting with the Austrians.’

‘I would not put that past her. What else?’

‘I heard Henri Canard is going to stand for the legislature at the next elections. His hatred of the nobility is spreading to everyone. I shall be glad to leave, but we have to free Papa first. I went to visit Sir John on the way home. Monsieur Drymore joined us after he had been to the prison. He said there is talk of Papa being moved to Paris for a trial. I think he has a plan to waylay the guards, but he would not tell me the details.’

‘Why not?’

Lisette shrugged. ‘I do not think he trusts me.’

‘Then he is an arrogant fool.’

‘No, Hortense, he may be arrogant, that is an Englishman’s way, I think, but he is not a fool. He bade me be ready to move at a moment’s notice. You may come too, if you wish it. I know it will be a great upheaval for you, so I will not insist.’

‘Naturally I will come. Do you think I will let you go without me?’

‘Thank you, Hortense. I am so tired, I am going to bed and you must do so too, but tomorrow morning, we must pack.’ She rose and together they climbed the stairs where Hortense helped her mistress to bed and then went to her own chamber.

In spite of her tiredness Lisette could not sleep. She found herself going over and over everything she and the Commodore had said to each other, every nuance, every meaningful look, every curt response, every compliment he had paid her, every censure too. None of it helped her to understand him. She had to take him as she found him, a complex individual who was charming one minute and annoying the next. But none of that mattered if he saved her father.

Her thoughts strayed to visions of the rescue. She imagined the vehicle conveying her father to Paris being held up by Jay and his servant at gunpoint, of shots being fired, of people being wounded, perhaps the guards, perhaps the rescuers, perhaps her father. She saw them fighting their way to her coach and driving hell for leather to the coast, pursued on all sides. She saw the yacht rocking on the sea, out of reach, and their pursuers on their heels. And supposing they were all caught, what then? It did not bear thinking about. Surely there was another way.

She had fallen asleep at last, to wake in the morning bleary-eyed and with a bad headache. Hortense gave her a tisane and made her eat some breakfast, after which she felt well enough to pack a few clothes and toiletries in two portmanteaux, then Lisette found a velvet bag and scooped all her jewels into it: necklaces, ear drops, bracelets and tiaras, some she had inherited from her mother, some her father had bought for her. She knew the French authorities would not take kindly to her taking them out of the country, so she hid them securely in the stuffing of one of the cushions in the carriage.

She had a little money in the house, most of it assignats which would be worthless in England, but there was money and stocks held at the bank in Honfleur and she needed those too. ‘I’m going into Honfleur,’ she told Hortense. ‘I need to draw money out of the bank.’

‘Do you think that is a good idea, Lissie? It will surely indicate that you are planning to flee and put the authorities on their guard.’

‘Monsieur Gascon has been the family banker for years and years, he will not betray me.’

‘You cannot be sure of that. Everyone is afraid to have secrets nowadays.’

‘I shall say I wish to use the money to pay a lawyer to defend my father and he insists on being paid in cash.’

‘If you must, but I am afraid it will not please the Englishman.’

‘I think it will please him very much,’ Lisette said stubbornly. ‘It means I can pay him for his trouble and we will be able to live independently in England and not have to rely on charity.’

‘Shall I ask Georges to put the horses to the carriage?’

‘No. I have been told they must be kept fresh and ready to go at a moment’s notice. I will walk. Besides, a walk will help to clear my head.’

‘Then I shall come too.’

Lisette did not object to that and they set off, both wearing plain gowns, bright red shawls and red ribbons in their hair. It was difficult to tell who was servant and who mistress except that Hortense was carrying a shopping basket. The maid deplored the necessity, but if it was the only way to keep her darling safe, then it had to be. They met a few people on the road, but no one exchanged a greeting, nor even a smile.

At the bank, Hortense waited in the vestibule while Lisette went into the bank manager’s inner sanctum to make her request.

‘My dear mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘I cannot release your father’s money to you. It is in his name and only he can withdraw it.’

‘But he is in prison.’

‘Yes, I had heard.’

‘I need it for his defence and that could be costly. Lawyers seem to be able to charge whatever they like these days.’

‘If you could visit the Comte and obtain written authorisation from him, then I would be happy to oblige you.’

‘They will not let me see him.’

‘Then I am sorry.’

‘I thought you were my friend,’ she said, disappointed and angry. ‘You are as bad as all the others. You have done well out of Papa over the years, is that not worth something?’

He looked distressed, but could only repeat, ‘I am sorry. I dare not.’ He paused, then went on. ‘You have a little money of your own your mother left you. You can certainly have that.’

‘Then please let me have it in gold coin, louis d’or or ecus, not assignat.’

‘I don’t know…’ He hesitated.

‘Please, at least do this for me.’

‘Very well.’ He went to a safe and unlocked it, then counted out the equivalent of a thousand livres which he put into a pouch and handed to her. ‘Let us hope you are not robbed of it before you can use it.’

She put it in the pocket of her skirt and tied the red scarf round her waist like a belt with its ends hanging down to disguise the bulk of the pouch, then she bade him good day and left.

‘What now?’ Hortense asked after she had told her what had happened. ‘Home again?’

She did not answer because they had emerged on to the street just as a black carriage bowled past. ‘That’s Henri Canard back from Paris,’ she said, catching a glimpse of the man sitting in it. ‘Come on.’ She started to hurry after it.

‘Where are you going?’ Hortense, being plumper and not so nimble as Lisette, was breathlessly trying to keep up with her.

‘To speak to him. He might free Papa for a price.’

‘You know he won’t. He will have you in custody as soon as you blink and then what good will you be to your papa? Leave it to the Englishman.’

‘No. I want to avoid bloodshed if I can and what Monsieur Drymore is planning could very well be violent.’

The carriage had gone out of sight, but Lisette knew where the lawyer lived and set off in that direction.

Canard’s house was a substantial one in the middle of the town. The carriage had gone by the time they reached it, but Lisette did not doubt her quarry was inside. Pausing only to catch her breath, she strode up to the door and knocked.

Canard himself answered it. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand, as if he had been studying them. ‘Well, well, well, Citoyenne Giradet. And what do you want?’

Lisette prepared to humble herself. ‘Please, Monsieur Canard, will you not relent and set my father free? He has not harmed you or the Revolution. He is an old man content to live quietly on his estate, no trouble to anyone. Please let me have him back.’

She had said all this before and it moved him no more than it had the first time. His lip curled in a sneer. ‘He is an enemy of the Revolution, plotting counter-revolution. His estate will be forfeit when he is sentenced.’

‘But he is innocent.’

‘That is for others to decide and you may be sure the verdict will be guilty.’

‘Then what will happen to me? I have no other home and cannot manage without him. I will give you money…’

He laughed. ‘Oh, dear me, bribing an official is most certainly against the law.’

‘I didn’t mean it as a bribe.’ She backtracked quickly. ‘I meant to pay for his defence.’

‘He has no defence. I suggest you find a husband among the good citizens of this town and settle down in humble domesticity. Your father is going to be taken to Paris for trial.’

‘Paris?’ She feigned surprise. ‘Why?’

‘His crimes are so great he is to have a public trial in the Palais de Justice.’

‘When?’ she asked.

‘Soon.’

‘But I must know when. I must be there to support him. I must find someone to defend him.’

‘He will leave here tomorrow morning at dawn. And do not think about trying to set him free because he will be under armed escort.’

‘I cannot do that, as you must know, Monsieur Canard, there is no one to help me. My servants have all deserted me.’

He laughed and shut the door in her face. She turned back to Hortense, who had been standing behind her quaking with fear all through the exchange, but far from being subdued there was a light of triumph in Lisette’s eyes. ‘Good, now we call on Sir John.’

Sir John, Jay and Sam were in conference, sitting over glasses of exceptionally good wine in Sir John’s withdrawing room. Jay and his grandfather were dressed as the gentlemen they were, but Sam’s appearance was repellent. He was wearing the short trousers of the proletariat, worn-down shoes, a cotton shirt and a bright red waistcoat, all filthy. His hair was a tangle and he was unshaven. He was also a little under the weather, having spent most of the night carousing.

‘The guards confirmed that the Comte was to be moved,’ he told them, leaving his wine untouched. ‘But they did not know exactly when. They are waiting for the summons from Paris. Apparently Henri Canard was too impatient for it to come by the mail and went off to Paris to fetch it in person. He has not returned, at least he had not returned by the time I left about dawn.’

‘Then we must watch out for him,’ Jay said. ‘Well done, Sam.’

‘I will have hot water taken upstairs for you to wash and change out of that disgusting garb,’ Sir John said. He rang a bell at his side and when a servant appeared, gave the necessary order.

‘Oh, and another thing I learned,’ Sam went on. ‘Henri Canard has a grudge against the Comte. Bullard was unclear about the details, but it goes back generations. It has something to do with the Comte’s grandfather and his own grandfather and he is bent on revenge.’

‘Then the arrest of the Comte is not political,’ Jay said thoughtfully. ‘It is a vendetta. Have you any idea how it started, Grandfather?’

‘No. I knew Gervais’s father, but not his grandfather. He had died before I came to France. I do know that his grandfather had purchased the estate and the title. You can—or could—do that sort of thing in France. Perhaps the people resented that, though why Canard would be bothered about it, I do not know.’

The servant returned to say that Sam’s bath was ready and that Mademoiselle Giradet had arrived.

All three rose as Lisette entered the room followed by Hortense. They bowed. Sam muttered, ‘Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,’ and hurried from the room.

‘Lisette, please sit down,’ Sir John said, indicating a sofa. ‘Would you like some wine? Or coffee, perhaps?’

‘You have coffee?’ she asked in surprise, knowing the import of coffee and other luxuries from abroad had been banned.

‘Jay brought it with him from England.’

‘Then I would like a dish of coffee, please.’ She sat down and Hortense found a chair by the window where she could look out on to the garden.

Jay studied Lisette while Sir John summoned the servant to order the beverage. The plain clothes she wore were far from chic, but she wore them with a certain elegance which could not disguise her aristocratic bearing. And today she seemed to glow with an inner fire. When he had left her the previous evening, she had been tired and dejected, but now there was a tautness about her, like a coiled spring ready to fly off. Something had happened to bring that about.

‘What can I do for you?’ Sir John asked her. ‘I am afraid we have no more news.’

‘But I have news for you,’ she said. ‘Henri Canard is back and my father is to be taken to Paris early tomorrow morning under armed escort.’

‘Tomorrow!’ Sir John echoed, indicating to his servant to put the coffee pot and dishes down on a table and leave them. ‘We do not have much time.’

‘How did you learn this?’ Jay asked, as Sir John poured the coffee, which, for those who had been deprived of it, smelled delicious. ‘It could be idle rumour.’

‘It is not. I learned it from Henri Canard himself not half an hour since.’ She paused to drink coffee, making Jay think she was deliberately trying his patience. ‘I was in town when he returned and decided I had nothing to lose by asking him once again if he would have my father released, and in the course of the conversation he told me it was out of his hands and Papa was being sent to Paris tomorrow. He waved the papers in my face when he said it.’

Jay was filled with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. For the moment the annoyance won. ‘You could have ruined everything,’ he said. ‘You could have put him on his guard.’

‘I am sure I did not,’ she retorted. ‘He laughed in my face, knowing how helpless I am. Hortense will vouch for that, won’t you, Hortense?’

‘Yes, to be sure, he was triumphant, the evil man.’

‘Then we do not have a moment to lose,’ Jay said, determined not to bend. ‘I asked you to pack, mademoiselle, and have the carriage ready. I suggest you go home and do that.’

‘I have packed two portmanteaux and they are already in the boot of the carriage and my jewels hidden in the cushions and I have been to the bank and drawn out all my money in gold coin. Monsieur Gascon would not let me have Papa’s money without authorisation from him.’

‘Good God, woman!’ Jay exclaimed, really angry now. He wished she was a man; a man he could command, could punish if he was disobeyed, but a woman was another matter entirely. She was as headstrong as Marianne had been and probably as devious. ‘Is there no end to your foolishness? Now half the town will know there is something afoot to rescue the Comte. It will make the task doubly difficult, even impossible.’

She had to defend herself. ‘Why should anyone know? The bank manager will say nothing, he dare not. What he did was illegal. He is supposed to use all gold coin for the benefit of the state.’

‘Jay, calm yourself,’ Sir John said. ‘We are in possession of information we did not have before, let us be thankful for that and make our plans accordingly.’

Sam entered the room dressed in a brown-frieze coat and breeches, his newly washed hair springing into dark curls. Jay turned to him, laughing. ‘You look halfway decent now, my friend. Sit down while I tell you the latest news.’ To Lisette he said, ‘Mademoiselle, I am sorry if I spoke harshly. You have done well. Go home now and bring your carriage here after dark tonight. We shall need two vehicles to carry out our plans, one to convey you, your maid and Sir John directly to the Lady Amy as soon as it is light enough to see, the other to bring me, Mr Roker and the Comte. Sam, you will go and make sure Lieutenant Sandford knows he has to have the ship’s boat on the shore ready to push off the minute mademoiselle and Sir John arrive, then it is to come back for us. If we do not arrive within two hours, he is not to wait, but sail for England.’

‘Without you and Papa?’ Lisette queried, as Sam hurried off on his errand.

‘Yes. If a bid to free your father fails, you will certainly not be safe in France.’

‘But I cannot, will not, leave without him.’

‘Lisette, Jay will bring him to you,’ Sir John said. ‘Please do not make difficulties.’

‘You cannot be sure of that.’

‘Nothing is sure,’ Jay told her. ‘But rest assured, if we do not come, then the chances are we have perished in the attempt.’ He smiled to reassure her. ‘And believe me, I have no plans to depart this life just yet.’

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked in a quiet voice.

‘Free your father. When and how, I shall decide when Sam has returned from his errand.’

‘I will have beds made up for you and your maid,’ Sir John said. ‘At least you will be able to have a few hours’ rest before your journey.’

She finished her coffee and took her leave. Everything was in the hands of the Englishman now and she was not at all sure how she felt about that. She supposed his coolness was an asset in a sticky situation, but she wished he would show just a little warmth. At this moment, she would have given anything for a hug, someone’s arms about her to make her feel loved and safe. Good heavens! Whatever was she thinking of?

Jay watched her go. He could not help feeling sorry for her. She must be worried to death and it had been unkind of him to be so brusque with her when all she wanted to do was help. He sincerely hoped that the visit to Henri Canard was the last of such efforts and that she would do exactly as he told her from now on.

He turned to his grandfather. ‘You will look after her and make sure she does nothing foolish, won’t you? Watching out for her at the same time as trying to deal with her father and the guards is more than I wish to contemplate.’

‘Of course I will. She is like a granddaughter to me and if anything should happen to her father, I will be all she has.’

‘She has a brother and relatives in England.’

‘You can hardly count on them. Earl Wentworth banished her mother and, though he is long dead, I have no reason to think his heirs will welcome the daughter. As for Michel, he will share his monarch’s fate, whatever that might be.’

‘Are they alike, Michel and Lisette?’

‘To look at, yes, like peas in a pod, but I am not sure if they are temperamentally. I do not know the boy as well as I do Lisette. He has not often been home to see his father and sister since he went to court and when he has, I have not always seen him.’

‘The Comte is much older than I imagined he would be. There must have been a big age difference between him and his wife.’

‘Yes, that was another reason why her family were so against the marriage. He was a bachelor nearer fifty than forty and she was young and lovely and could take her pick of the London eligibles.’

‘There must have been a strong attraction between them for her to choose him above others. Were they happy together?’

‘Indeed, yes. They adored each other. She kept him young, but the poor man aged suddenly when she died, as if half of him had died too. It is only Lisette who has kept him going for all these years.’

‘He was in a sorry state when I saw him, filthy, unshaven, very thin and weak. I did not say anything to Mademoiselle Giradet for fear of upsetting her, but I hope he is strong enough to transfer from one coach to another.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘I will tell you when Sam comes back. Have you finished putting your affairs in order?’

Sir John laughed. ‘I have always been an exile, always hoping that I might return to England one day, and in over thirty years I have not put down strong roots. all I have of any worth—my family—is already in England. I have packed a few clothes and paid all the servants off—generously, I may add—and they will scatter after I have left. I have told the coachman he may keep the carriage and horses after I am safely aboard the yacht and he tells me he thinks he will use it to set up a hire business in another town.’ He smiled. ‘He will not wish to stay here for fear of being associated with our little adventure.’

‘No, I can see he would not.’

‘You cannot know how much this means to me, Jay. The prospect of going back to England, and not as a renegade but one of the family, fills me with happy anticipation.’

Jay smiled. ‘We have a few hurdles to overcome before that happens. The next twenty-four hours are crucial.’

‘I know, but I do not doubt you can do it.’

‘I pray I may be worthy of your trust.’ He stood up. ‘I think I’ll take a stroll round the town until Sam comes back. It might give me some ideas. If mademoiselle returns while I’m gone, try to reassure her.’

The town was quiet. The trade it had once done had faded to almost nothing and the people were suffering. It was strange that they did not seem to blame the new regime for this, but the King and his nobility. He did not doubt he was not the only smuggler; so far as he could tell there was a lively trade in forbidden goods in and out. The authorities did nothing about that, being more concerned with putting people like Comte Giradet in gaol.

He studied the layout of the town and watched its inhabitants. Most were in the garb of the Revolution, though some were a little better dressed. And there were a few blue-uniformed National Guard patrolling the streets on foot. Occasionally they searched someone’s shopping basket, and arrested one old man because he had real tobacco in his pocket. Jay did not see the National Guard as a great threat to his plans—the maréchaussée

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