The Tide Watchers

by Lisa Chaplin

  The three men threw down the spent pistols, and as one picked up the loaded Brown Bess rifles. With a quick double boom, the ball shots hit the burning wood; the gunpowder exploded. With a massive creak and a thud, the center of the burning gates burst open in a hole big enough to run through.

  They threw off their cloaks in case they caught fire and raced through the gates past a small crowd of panicking men scrambling over the living and dead littering the small courtyard.

  The vision would haunt Duncan’s dreams later. For now, he had to find Lisbeth.

  Alec pointed. “Stairs past the inner courtyard.” Pulling their pistols, they ran into the fortress and up the narrow stone stairs, worn and slippery with age. As they reached the second story Duncan felt a presence and snarled, “If you want to live, come out now.”

  From a recess a one-armed man stepped out, a man barely Duncan’s age, looking sad and resigned. “You’ve come for the girl?”

  Narrow-eyed, Duncan nodded.

  “I’ll take you to her. Please don’t kill what remains of the men. I am—was—the lieutenant here before we were taken over. The men will listen to me when I misdirect them.”

  Outnumbered and almost out of weapons, Duncan didn’t dare ignore this particular miracle. “Why would you help us?”

  The man stared at each of them in turn, seeming bemused.

  “The girl,” Duncan growled. “Where is she?”

  The man shook himself. “Bonaparte’s man has my wife and children. He forced me to take part in a plot to bring her here, but she . . . was kind.” He led the way up worn stone stairs to the top story. “Be gone from France before sunrise.” It seemed he couldn’t stop staring at them, one face to the other. “She has—you, also, or one of you—has been accused of murder.”

  Duncan snarled, “What did he do to her?”

  The man hesitated. “The colonel questioned her for hours. She’s due to be transferred to the first consul at Villa Pont-de-Briques before sunrise. When the gates exploded, the colonel ran out, but the other man—”

  “The man that took over the fort—is he Bonaparte’s man?” Duncan asked sharply. The man nodded. “Describe him.”

  “He has blond hair and dresses well, but his face has recent scarring, and he walks with a cane. He’d just entered the room to question the lady when the explosions happened.”

  “It’s Delacorte,” Cal muttered. “I shot him two months ago.”

  With a small cry Lisbeth stumbled down the stairs. Alain Delacorte was right behind her, holding a pistol to her head.

  AS LISBETH STOPPED, SHE saw the commander rock back on his heels and take in the situation. She also saw the two men behind him. One of them subtly tipped his head at the one-armed man, but the one-armed man looked to Alain with a servile expression. “Monsieur, what shall I do?”

  “Get half a dozen men and bring them here. These people are English spies, to be taken to Lord Bonaparte at Pont-de-Briques before sunrise.”

  “Oui, monsieur, it shall be done.” The one-armed man turned and vanished.

  “So which of you recently played the part of Gaston Borchonne in Abbeville, and which of you played the Jacobin and shot me?” Alain purred. When none of the men answered, the smile in his voice only grew. “I saw two of you in the rowboat. Information about two look-alike British spies has gone to all the relevant places. Now it will be three. Come, you might as well speak, gentlemen—you are surrounded, you know. It was a brave but misguided attempt to rescue my beloved wife. You ought to have left her, really. Now you’ll all be tried for the murder of several gendarmes. The murder of police is a very serious matter.”

  “So is forgery, the poisoning of a clergyman, and the abduction of a baronet’s daughter.” The commander’s face was hard. “These are international crimes the king would interest himself in. M. Fouché would likely disavow knowledge of you, and the first consul would frown upon your acts in these delicate times. Do you dare to risk taking us to him?”

  “Perhaps not alive,” Alain replied, still smiling.

  “I left proof of your misadventures with Lord Grenville a few weeks ago. The papers are to be sent to M. Fouché and the first consul should any of us be taken or killed, even by seeming accident,” the commander’s other brother added. He had old scars, which proved he wasn’t the brother she’d met before. “I have the receipt of the standing order, if you’re interested in taking a glance. It includes the lass there.” From his pocket, he brought out an oilskin packet.

  Alain didn’t reach for the packet. “Go,” he snarled, and all but threw Lisbeth at them. As the commander leaped forward to catch her, she heard the banging of Alain’s cane heading back up the stairs.

  The commander’s hood fell back with the force of catching her. His hair was matted, his face unshaven, eyes hollow. “Did he hurt you?”

  Overwhelmed, Lisbeth shook her head. She could hardly believe he was here. “I am well.”

  He frowned, peering at her. “They hit you. There’s blood there.” His finger trailed over the lump at the side of her head with a tenderness she’d never known.

  “It will heal,” she whispered. She saw the one-armed man stride out from a side door on the landing, and she froze.

  “The path is clear. The blond man has left the fort. I thank the Lord I did not have to hit him,” he whispered. “Go, and fast. He sent information to Lord Bonaparte about the lady’s capture some time ago. Soldiers are coming to take her to Pont-de-Briques. I cannot stop that.”

  The commander put her down. “Can you run?” He didn’t wait for her answer but led her downstairs, holding her hand. They reached the base of the fort, and she turned her gaze from the dead and dying. Still wondering how the commander knew M. Mareschal. And for how long.

  They ran out and up the beach, over the hill and around the curve to the wilder places. Every moment she expected to hear the explosion of pistols or rifles. The thought of ball shot in her back, or Alain capturing her, gave her the impetus to run harder.

  “How long will it take you to pack your things?” the commander panted, running beside her. “We have to be gone by dawn.”

  “I knew my mission would end soon. I packed days ago.” Lisbeth felt unexpected sadness at the thought of leaving her life of the past seven weeks, being treated as an intelligent equal; Fulton quietly changing the world on the fringe of war, and because he valued her as a team member, helping with the mundane chores.

  Then she remembered his proposal; she’d promised to answer him within the week. “Where’s Fulton? They knew who he was. I think they want his inventions.”

  “He’s well, and packing. We all leave France tonight, inventions included.”

  She stopped so suddenly the commander, still holding her hand, stumbled. The others paused. “I won’t leave France without my son.”

  The brother she’d met in the coach weeks ago spoke. “When I commit to a mission, lass, I don’t give up. When I see you safe, I’ll return to Eaucourt. Delacorte has the house surrounded—I think the ship’s mole informed him of my presence—but I have a plan.”

  The scarred brother she hadn’t met said, “I swear we will bring your son to you.”

  Half a dozen men came down the hill. “Sir, is Miss Sunderland well?” Lieutenant Flynn sounded anxious.

  “She is. Return to the house,” he called back. “Go with them, Alec. Fulton will need help.” The scarred brother nodded and ran with his men for the house. It was only when they were gone that the commander spoke again, far quieter. “Cal, you need to return to Eaucourt. We’ll take you by sea. It’s too dangerous by land, with the posters. I’ll need you to send semaphores on what we discussed tonight.”

  “Aye, lad, consider it done. And, lass, your son will be with you soon.” Cal turned and ran past the house to the stable.

  Holding her by the arm, the commander moved in his brothers’ wake.

  Stumbling along beside him, she said, “I will not leave my son.”

  “You
can’t stay in France any longer,” he said, through heaving breaths.

  She glared at him. “I will not leave my son.”

  “If you stay here, Edmond will be motherless. Delacorte will see you beheaded.”

  Lisbeth stepped back and stumbled on a tussock. “Put me down,” she protested as he picked her up. “The colonel threatened Edmond with death if I didn’t betray you all!”

  He turned on her. “Did you betray us?” he asked fiercely.

  “Did you betray me?” she snapped back. “Will you sacrifice my son to save England?”

  “No.”

  Strange, how she believed the brief, furious answer. Weak or stupid to always want to believe him—but then, who else did she have? Lisbeth frowned. “Don’t you see? If I leave France, Alain can say I deserted Edmond. No court in the land would give him to me!”

  “None will anyway with your reputation,” he snarled, running uphill so hard she bounced in his arms. She pummeled his chest to get him to put her down. “Think like the operative I’ve trained you to be! Delacorte would have done that the day we left Abbeville. The only way to rescue Edmond now is to steal him—and everyone in the town knows you. Why do you think Delacorte ruined you and came after you now? If he can’t kill you, it’s obvious we have to make him think he’s chased you out of France for good before his vigilance will relax. Then Cal can put his plan into action.”

  Startled, she stopped punching him. “That’s sensible,” she conceded. “But—”

  “I understand,” he said through gasps. “He’s your son. It feels as if you’re deserting him.”

  She nodded, closer to real tears now than she’d been through any part of the colonel’s inquisition. “What if it’s the only way to save Edmond, as well as saving your life?” He looked behind for a moment before running even faster, but one leg dragged a little.

  He must be in pain again. She couldn’t answer him; but how could she doubt him after all he’d done tonight? “All right,” she said slowly. “I will trust you with my baby’s life.”

  “Delicately put,” he returned with some wryness, and she flushed. “I’m not offended, Lisbeth. But you have to leave France tonight. Trust Cal and Alec to save the boy—they’ve saved us both, more than once.”

  He was telling the truth; she knew it, but she couldn’t relent. “I want to know what you meant by what you said to Alain before, about the forgeries and other things.”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re safe on board ship. And you’ll tell me everything you said in interrogation.” He was limping now, but ran harder, outrunning her inquisition more than the soldiers chasing them.

  BY THE TIME THEY arrived at the house, carts and sailors were everywhere, having come from Duncan’s ship with half a dozen of the biggest lifeboats it had. The half-repaired Nautilus was heading to Audresselles with a dozen men to row it to sea on a boat they called a launch. Papillon had already been taken from its mooring north of Audresselles Beach to the ship on the second-largest boat. Alec and Cal hopped on the attic cart, joining Fulton and another man.

  It seemed Duncan was from a family of Scots. It felt surreal. He was so quintessentially English. So alone.

  “My dear.” Fulton grasped Lisbeth’s hands in his, eyes worried. “They hurt you! I am so sorry my inattention led to this. I thought we were safe here.”

  “No time,” the commander said briefly, forcing their hands apart. “Go, make certain my men left nothing behind you need.”

  She ran inside and up the stairs.

  Within ten minutes, Lisbeth’s bags had gone, holding her clothes and intimate necessities. She stepped over the back threshold and climbed on the last wagon. No point in locking the door when they’d only break it down.

  Duncan—it seemed it was his name, his brothers used it freely—clucked his tongue. The horses began pulling the cart, but before they’d gone a mile, lights flared in the distance. Bobbing torches were coming up the hill from Ambleteuse. “Grab a sack and mount a horse.”

  Leaving the load behind, she grabbed a sack and ran to the horse. Duncan was already unhitching them from the wagon. He passed her a knife. “Cut line.”

  She sawed through the rope, pocketed the knife, and mounted as fast as she could.

  “Gallop,” he said tersely.

  They turned off onto the uninhabitable land, cutting straight across the scrubby sand hills heading northwest. Her beast was a carthorse; a slow clop was its normal pace—but she saw light touching the eastern hills, panicked, and smacked the horse’s rump to force it into a gallop.

  Gradually—too slow, the lights and sounds were gaining—the broken sand cliffs of Audresselles came into view, the terrain hardening to ancient flat rock and sand. The whining horses’ breaths steamed, streaming back in the Channel wind. Daylight stood defiant on the eastern hills, on the edge of the clouds, surly iron gray. The wind whipped her hair around her face and into her eyes, dragging icy tears down her cheeks. Even her gloved fingers were numb. Her nose felt likely to fall off.

  The last rowboat was a deeper shadow on the churning water, moving northwest to sea. Duncan halted the trembling horse and gave two short, piercing whistles.

  The boat came about, heading for shore.

  The deep boom of musket shots split the air; ball shot screamed past them, and the sweating horses whinnied and reared. Duncan snatched Lisbeth’s reins, grabbed her by the waist, and swung her off. “Run!”

  She stumbled down the rocky path, across the sand, and into near-freezing water. She gasped as the cold hit her thighs, but then another shot hit the water beside her and she waded faster. The moment she reached the rowboat two sailors hauled her up by her arms. “We’ve got you, miss.”

  Another boom came, and water splashed up. “Turn tail!” Duncan yelled as he threw himself up and over. Shots came thicker as the men jumped around. Duncan took another oar and passed one to Lisbeth. Against the incoming tide, they all rowed for their lives.

  CHAPTER 38

  English Channel (English Waters)

  October 30, 1802

  THIS IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. The moment I put foot on English soil your admirals will confiscate my work and force me to work for them. I refuse to leave this ship!”

  Sitting at his nailed-down desk in the commander’s quarters of the ship, Duncan fiddled with a quill. Fulton wasn’t backing down—and unfortunately for all Duncan’s arguments, he knew the American was right. One of the Admiralty would seize Fulton’s work in the name of peace, and he’d never give it back. If some clever Johnny replicated the inventions, it would be the admiral sitting pretty on the profits, cheerfully ignoring its inventor’s rights.

  “Fulton has the right of it, Duncan,” Alec said, with a meaningful look.

  “Well, you choose a safe port! Boney controls all of ’em in northern Europe, and he’d steal everything just as fast, and take the profits,” Duncan snapped.

  Fulton snarled, “I’d prefer my work to be in the hands of a republican than a royalist!”

  Good humor restored with the naive remark, Duncan smiled politely. If Boney had been the best thing to happen to France in decades, his overweening ambition would see him crowning himself sooner or later. If Fulton couldn’t see it, Duncan wasn’t about to burst his bubble. “I fear he’d take more than your inventions. Once they were with the Ministry of Science, I doubt he’d leave you alive. Are you willing to give your life for the glorious Republic of France?”

  Fury and dislike burned in Fulton’s eyes. “How do I know the whole scenario yesterday wasn’t a setup by you to seize my inventions? I didn’t see any danger.”

  In the stunned silence, Lisbeth said from her seat by the fire, “I was hit on the head, dragged to the fort, and interrogated for hours. My husband held a pistol to my head. Do you think I’d willingly go through all that, just to gain a boat . . . or do you think I’m lying?”

  Fulton, Duncan, Cal, and Alec all swung around to Lisbeth, sitting in a wing chair by the fire. She kept the s
carred side of her face in the shadows, but that only highlighted the lump on the other side of her head, the delicacy of her pale face. As she sat quietly in a corner, they’d forgotten she was there.

  Voice and hands shaking, gaze on her lap—the trauma was clear. A flash of remorse came and went, lost in admiration. Almost any other woman would be in nervous prostration with all she’d been through, but she was here, doing her duty.

  His mobile face filling with guilt and shame, Fulton crossed the length of the commander’s cabin to her. “My dear, of course I don’t. You are the one honest person in all this.”

  In a low voice, shaking, Lisbeth murmured, “For a while, I thought the same as you. I thought he’d deserted me. I wondered if the whole thing was set up. But they saved my life. They bombed the fort. They stopped him from killing me. It was real, Mr. Fulton.”

  He patted her hand, but she withdrew it. His hand hovered awkwardly above her lap before he stood. “Why did yesterday occur? Where were all of you when Lisbeth was taken?”

  It was a good question. Lisbeth looked up, met Duncan’s look, hers uncertain, her trust a rope frayed with overuse. She deserved to know where he’d been.

  Mentioning his promise to Fulton weeks ago would only leave her feeling more betrayed. Duncan chose his words with care. “You know why we came to Ambleteuse in the first place.”

  “October twenty-ninth,” she said, slowly, frowning. “The colonel at the fort said there had been an attempt on Napoleon’s life yesterday.”

  A stifled sound came from Fulton, still standing beside Lisbeth, giving himself rights Duncan doubted Lisbeth had offered. The battleground still existed weeks after his withdrawal. “Did he survive?”

  “Aye,” Cal said when Duncan didn’t answer. “The conspirators disappeared a few days ago. Only one remained to make the attempt, which is why it failed.”

  The shadowy figure who’d been silent since entering the room finally spoke. “I was sent to scarper the attempt without giving away my loyalties.”