by Jayne Davis
Alex could almost see the moment Brevare realised what he had done.
“I, er… I asked the innkeeper last night how far it was to Granville,” he said, his gaze darting around the group before dropping to his boots. “Perrault may have overheard.”
“Pierre, could they have found out in Granville that we might be coming here?”
Pierre shrugged. “Many people know about the smuggling. It is possible.”
Alex swore. “What else did you say, Brevare?”
“N…nothing!” Brevare stammered.
Damned liar!
Alex pulled his pistol out of his pocket again. “Do you know how we will get home from here?”
Brevare’s face turned ashen. Good; the fool had enough sense to be afraid. “There… there will be a boat—”
The click as Alex cocked the pistol was loud. He put it close to Brevare’s temple, his hand almost trembling with the desire to pull the trigger.
“The name of this boat?”
“I don’t know.” Sweat beaded on Brevare’s forehead. “I… I only know there is a boat.” He swallowed hard. “I said nothing about a boat to Perrault.”
“Or to anyone else?”
“No, really, I did not!”
Alex was so furious with the man’s stupidity that he didn’t know whether to trust his own judgement. He glanced first at Phoebe, her face white and eyes wide, then at Pierre.
“I… I think he’s telling the truth,” Phoebe said.
Pierre nodded. Alex reluctantly released the catch on the pistol and put it back in his pocket. Brevare was more use alive than dead; he might lead them to the traitor in the Foreign Office.
“Very well. Brevare, go to the coach and make sure those women are sorting out one bag each.”
Brevare’s gaze flicked from Alex to Phoebe, then he turned abruptly and set off along the path, almost running.
Phoebe watched Brevare leave, her pulse gradually slowing. She had really thought Westbrook was going to shoot him in front of her. Westbrook’s jaw was still set, but the whiteness around his mouth was fading. She saw his chest rise as he took a deep breath before turning to face the three of them.
“We need to decide what to do next,” he said, his voice calmer. “I was expecting to leave about now in any case, so Trasker should have had the Lily ready for a few days. The usual arrangement is to meet in Granville. He knows this pick-up point, but not when we were to be here.”
Pierre shook his head. “There’ll be soldiers in Granville, too, looking for you. And we’re known in the town.” His gesture took in his brother as well. “Someone there must have told them about our inn, so they will be looking for us too.”
“I’ll go then,” Westbrook said. “When is high tide?”
“An hour or so before midnight, or thereabouts,” Henri said. “A few hours either side is good enough at Granville.”
Westbrook nodded.
“You’ll be rather conspicuous,” Phoebe pointed out, before he could say anything else.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately? Your eye…” Not to mention the other bruises. “Perrault only needs to have told them to look out for a man with a black eye.”
Westbrook swore. “Brevare’s useless, even if he didn’t intend to betray us,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “Gwen would be as recognisable as you,” he said to Pierre.
To Phoebe, the solution was clear. Her stomach knotted at the idea, but there seemed to be no other option.
“And it’s too dangerous to send a woman,” Westbrook finished.
He was looking at Pierre, not her. Unaccountably annoyed, her hesitation dissipated. She had no wish to put herself in danger, but surely it was more dangerous for Westbrook—dangerous for all of them, not only him.
“I could go,” she said.
Three faces turned towards her, Westbrook frowning. “No,” he said, shaking his head.
Pierre looked her up and down, and raised one brow. “Why not?”
“If Perrault has given the authorities detailed descriptions, she’ll be just as recognisable as me,” Westbrook objected.
“I can hide my hair—you cannot hide your face. Not without looking like a highwayman.”
Westbrook opened his mouth and then closed it again. He nodded, but the set of his lips showed he wasn’t happy with the idea.
A thought struck her: there was something that might rule out her involvement as well. “Will Perrault be there?”
Westbrook frowned, but eventually shook his head. “He may be in the vicinity somewhere, but I can’t see an officer using him for anything other than identifying us if we are caught.” His lips curled, but the smile was humourless. “With any luck, when we are not caught, he’ll be in trouble for wasting the time of the authorities.”
A part of her was sorry not to have an excuse, but she couldn’t change her mind now. “What will I have to do in Granville?”
“I’ll take you into the town,” Westbrook said. “What we do there depends on whether they have soldiers on the look-out, and where Trasker and the crew are. You might need to go into a tavern to find them.” He looked into her eyes, his expression grim. “They won’t be the kinds of places we’ve been staying at. Much rougher.”
Phoebe took a deep breath. “Do we have a choice?”
“No.” He held her gaze. “But Phoebe, you’re playing with fire.”
“Not playing.”
“No, not playing. And it’s your choice to make.” He paused, and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Thank you. You have an hour or so—we don’t want to get there until after dark. Try to get some rest. We’ll go and see to the horses.” A jerk of his head included the Dumonts.
Phoebe watched him walk off into the trees before going into the hut. The interior was dim, but she made out the girl Sophie sitting holding the baby.
“Coffee,” Madame Dumont said, taking a battered pot from the fire. She poured some of the brew into a cup, and handed it to Phoebe. “I’m Gwen,” she added.
“Thank you, Gwen,” Phoebe said. “I’m Phoebe.”
“We didn’t have time to pack much,” Gwen went on, seeming glad to have someone to talk to. “Had to leave in a hurry, see? Still, it will be good to be back home where I can understand properly what folks are saying.”
Gwen had taken her coat and bonnet off, and brown curls escaped from beneath her cap. Her plumpness was due to her being well on the way to her third child.
Perrault would have described a redhead, not a pregnant brunette.
“Gwen, did you bring any spare gowns?”
Alex ignored Brevare and the two women as they passed in the woods, and went on to help the Dumont brothers with the horses. He found a couple of buckets in the boot of the coach and helped Henri fill them at a nearby stream for the carriage horses to drink.
“We ride those two to Paris?” Henri asked, jerking his head towards the two saddled horses Pierre was leading towards the stream.
“Not all the way. Until it is safe to use the diligence.” Travelling on horseback would allow them to dodge into fields or woods to avoid any soldiers they encountered, but after that they would attract less attention on the public coaches than as travellers needing to rest their mounts at regular intervals.
“The Lily? If there are soldiers?”
He’d been thinking about that. Another decoy? “You and I will build a signal fire a mile north of here. I’ll get Trasker to drop a boat off here but sail the Lily closer to the fire before signalling.”
Henri nodded. “The soldiers will head for the fire, yes.”
It was by no means foolproof, but it could divert any attention for long enough to get Phoebe… get the whole party away safely.
The sun was setting as they returned to the hut. Gwen handed them fresh coffee, and the Dumont brothers sat down to drink it. The comtesse and Hélène huddled in one corner, their faces sullen, but Phoebe wasn’t there. He found her on the sh
eltered side of the hut, out of the wind, a brown dress visible beneath her coat. The garment hung baggily on her—an even worse fit than the dresses she’d been wearing before. She had a bundle slung around her shoulders and, apart from a few escaped curls, her hair was completely hidden under her cap.
“You need—” He looked again. The curls were brown—she’d done something to her eyebrows, too.
Her eyes crinkled with amusement. “Gwen’s,” she explained. “If I have brown hair on display, no-one will even wonder if I have red hair.”
“Good thinking.” The possibility would never have occurred to him. “Ready to go?”
She sobered, her chin lifting. “Yes.”
They picked their way carefully along the path, the gathering dusk masking tree roots and rocks. Alex checked the harnesses and hitched the saddled horses to the back of the coach before helping Phoebe onto the box and settling himself next to her.
The sky was almost dark, but a gibbous moon hung on the horizon and gave enough light for Alex to follow the road south towards Granville without using the lanterns.
“Why the coach?” Phoebe asked as they regained the road and turned south.
“Too easy to find if we leave it here,” Alex said. “We’re going to abandon it in a field outside Granville. If someone does spot it, it should mean that anyone looking for us will waste time searching the town.”
“And we ride back on the horses?”
“Yes. Henri and I will need them later as well.” He caught the sudden turn of her head in the edge of his vision. “A diversion for when the Lily picks you up, if needed, then we’ll use them for the start of our trip to Paris. That’s the best place to begin a search for Brevare’s family.”
She didn’t reply immediately. He wondered what she was thinking, but the light was too dim to work out her expression.
“Tell me what I need to do,” she said at last.
“The idea is that you hold onto the real message until you can give it to the Earl of Marstone. When Brevare asks you for it—and he will—hand over the decoy if he threatens you.”
Phoebe nodded. “I will. But if he doesn’t…?”
“Tell him you are to give it to the Earl of Marstone at the Foreign Office. With any luck, he’ll introduce you to his controller pretending to be Marstone, and you give him the decoy.”
“I take a good look at him?”
“Yes. See Marstone first—the real one, that is—and he’ll help to keep you safe.” He explained the details and she repeated the main points back to him, word perfect. If only the others he’d worked with in the past had been as quick to understand.
Alex drove the coach into a field on the edge of Granville, stopping behind a high hedge. Phoebe helped him to unhitch the horses, both of them fumbling with the unfamiliar buckles in the dim light. Alex turned the coach horses loose and left the saddled horses tied to a tree.
Leading the way into the town, he kept to the shadows, skirting the old town wall until they came to the harbour. The smell of salt-laden air and dead fish was strong here, and the slap of ropes against masts and spars joined the splash of waves on the harbour walls. A few seagulls still called in the dark.
Alex stopped in the shadow of a building, cursing under his breath as he scanned the scene. Twenty or more boats were moored against the quay, some quite large, and a few more bobbed at anchor a little further out. Moonlight reflecting from the water turned them into inky silhouettes. A few had a light shining from a cabin; most were dark.
“Which one’s the Lily?” Phoebe asked quietly.
“She’ll be one of the larger ones, and against the quay, I hope, but I can’t tell from here. We need to get closer. Best to check she’s here before we try to find Trasker.”
They crept along a bit further, then Phoebe put out a hand. Following her pointing finger, he saw four soldiers spaced out along the quay. As he watched, one of them challenged a man walking towards the boats. He was allowed to go on his way, but Alex didn’t want to risk such an encounter.
“Damn.”
“You can’t spot the Lily from here?”
“No.”
He felt, rather than heard, Phoebe fumbling in her coat, then she pulled out a little pot and unscrewed the lid.
“What’s that?” Alex whispered.
“Face paint. I stole it from my aunt’s box and mixed a little mud in. Turn around.”
“What for?”
“It won’t hide your black eye in good light, but it should stop it being so obvious out here.” Her lips twitched. “You’re lucky it’s not perfumed.”
“Oh, if you insist,” he said, seeing the sense of it. He took the pot and smeared a liberal dose of the stuff under his eye before putting the little pot into his pocket.
She gazed at his face, inspecting his work before using a finger to rub the cream in, her fingers gentle. The intimacy of the act made his breath catch. Finally, she nodded in satisfaction.
Returning his attention to the soldiers on the quay, he turned over possibilities in his mind. He was not dressed as a fisherman would be; what believable excuse could he give for walking here?
Beside him, Phoebe was rearranging her clothing, whispering an apology as her elbow jabbed him in the arm. Turning, he saw she had removed the bundle from her back and was pushing something up under her skirts.
“What—?” Alex asked.
“Shh. You’ll see.”
Standing up straight, she shook out her skirts, leaving a distinct bulge at the front. Ah—the ill-fitting gown belonged to Gwen, who was expecting her next child. Phoebe’s coat was unfastened; she cupped one hand beneath the bump, looking for all the world as if she were only a couple of months from her time.
“They’re not looking for a pregnant woman,” Phoebe whispered. “If you take my arm, we’re merely a married couple taking the air. Less suspicious than skulking along in the shadows.”
It was a good idea—certainly better than anything he could have come up with. Escorting her onto the quay was no more dangerous than bringing her to Granville to find Trasker in a tavern, and he’d had to accept that.
He nodded and held out his arm. She rested her hand on it and they stepped onto the quay, Phoebe on the side nearer the water so he could look at the boats while pretending his attention was on her.
Phoebe set a slow pace, waddling as if she were struggling with the weight of a pregnancy. Alex scanned the boats as they passed them, but none looked familiar. As they approached the first soldier, Phoebe leaned more heavily on him. Suppressing a surge of unease as the soldier took a step in their direction, he bent his head closer to hers.
“Feeling a little better, cherie?” Alex asked, aware of her hand tense on his arm. The soldier took another step closer. Alex looked him in the face and gave what he hoped would pass for a courteous nod before returning his attention to Phoebe.
She stopped and arched her back, pressing one hand into it and turning so her bump would be clearly visible. “The exercise is helping. Let us walk up to the end.”
Her voice was loud enough for the soldier to hear. His eyes moved from her face down to the bump in her gown, then he lost interest and resumed his pacing. Alex’s shoulders relaxed as he heard Phoebe release a breath, and he patted her hand as she returned it to his arm.
The shape of one of the boats beyond the second soldier looked familiar, but he’d need to be closer to be sure it was the Lily. Keeping a wary eye on the soldier, he was prepared to repeat their previous performance, but the man nodded at them without interest and waved them on.
It was Trasker’s boat; light spilling from the cabin of the vessel moored ahead of it was enough to make out the name along her bow. He walked on until they were in earshot of the third man before addressing Phoebe.
“You are cold, cherie. We should go back.”
They retraced their steps, turning into a side street and slipping into a deep shadow.
Chapter 16
Once they were out o
f sight of the men on the quay Phoebe leaned against the wall, eyes closed, and took a few deep breaths. Her knees felt wobbly. She had managed to carry off their little act, but she suspected a harder task lay ahead.
“You did well,” Westbrook said quietly. “The Lily is there—no lights, though. They’ll have left someone on board, but most of them will be in a tavern.”
“Do you know which one?”
“There are a couple of favourites,” he said. “If we’re lucky we might be able to hear which one Trasker’s in. He’s rather… loud.”
“How is it that an English boat and crew are safe here?” Phoebe kept her voice low as they walked along the street, one hand on his arm, the other still supporting the bump in her dress.
“They may not be for long. But smuggling makes money for the local people—they won’t be in too much hurry to let that go.”
Turning into another alley, Phoebe heard tavern sounds getting louder as they moved—voices, someone singing off key, and an argument beginning.
A shaft of light spilled onto the street as the tavern door opened, and a crowd of men surged out of the door. Westbrook stopped and pushed her gently but firmly until she stood with her back to the wall. He leaned towards her with his hands on the stones, one each side of her head.
“What—?”
“Shhh.” His face was turned away, watching the men. In the darkness, she could make out only the glimmer of light on his eyes and the hard line of his mouth. Then he leaned closer and put his head down next to hers.
“Don’t move,” he said softly, his breath tickling her ear and sending a warm shiver through her. The men’s voices were getting closer, some calling unfamiliar words. Westbrook leaned closer still, his body pressing her into the wall, squashing the bundle of Gwen’s petticoats and shawls uncomfortably between them. Realising what he was pretending to do, heat burned in her face as she briefly wondered what it would be like if he really wanted to kiss her. After a brief hesitation, she reached up to put one hand around his neck.
The men were walking, staggering, in their direction. Now that Phoebe could understand what they were saying, her flush deepened. Westbrook raised his head and told them to find their own light-skirt in language equally as crude, and the men lost interest and staggered on.
