“That makes me very happy. Now, let us enjoy the days we have left as we travel together, and we will not speak of this again.”
Later, in bed in the room in Rochefort they had taken for a few nights while the arrangements to sell the cargo were made, she held the amulet in her hand and looked at it by candlelight. It was a strange thing, ugly and beautiful at the same time. Could it really protect her?
People of her faith wore crosses or medallions of their favourite saints for protection. It was not something she had ever done, mainly because she had spent most of her life in a country where it was unwise to advertise her faith. She remembered her mother’s rosary, how precious it had been to her, doubly so after Alex had rescued it from the fire for her, for it had reminded her of two of the people she had loved most in the world. That was lost to her forever. But she had this strange little carving to remind her of Paul and Elizabeth, who had become true friends, and of Raymond and Rosalie, who loved her, and who she had come to care deeply for as well.
And I will need all the protection I can get in the next weeks, she told herself. It can do no harm to wear it. She smiled and tucked it back inside her nightdress. Then she lay down and went to sleep almost immediately, relishing the feeling of being out of danger.
It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one she would not enjoy for long.
* * *
Calais, France, February 1748
As Beth walked around the Courgain district of Calais, she realised she had a problem. Well, in fact she had a lot of problems, but only one that was immediate.
She couldn’t remember the full name of the tavern that Gabriel Foley stayed in when engaged in smuggling operations in France. This was because it had only been mentioned to her once, and that in passing, by Duncan, some four years ago. She had racked her brain all night after arriving in Calais and taking a room in a mid-range area of town, one where she was unlikely to encounter any wealthy travellers of her acquaintance from her time as Lady Elizabeth Peters, but equally one where she was unlikely to be robbed and murdered the second she walked out of the door.
The tavern she was looking for had the word ‘cat’ in it; that was all she remembered. She had asked the hotel concierge if he knew of such a tavern, and he had replied that he knew of several, and asked why she wanted to know.
She could hardly say that she wanted to meet a notorious leader of a gang of smugglers to enquire about passage to England, so she told him that she’d been advised it was an excellent place to eat, but she could not remember the colour of the cat in question.
The concierge had informed her that there were several inns with the word ‘cat’ in them, but none of the ones he knew of were particularly fine eating establishments, and the three that were in the fisherman’s quarter would not be safe for a young lady to frequent, no matter how fine the cuisine. He had helpfully recommended a number of excellent eating establishments in the direct vicinity of the hotel though, with the result that she was at least possessed of a full stomach as she entered the area he had told her was unsafe, the one she thought Gabriel most likely to be found in.
Three taverns.
She was dressed poorly, in a rough shapeless woollen dress and a shawl which she had wrapped round her head and shoulders against the cold, and to hide her face as much as possible. In her pocket she had a few sols, and in her shoe a couple of livres in case she needed to bribe a tavern keeper.
The first one she came upon was ‘Le Chat Bleu’, as proclaimed by a rusty sign hanging outside. She took a breath, braced herself and went through the door. Although it was only just twilight, the place was doing a good trade and was full of what, by the smell, were indeed fishermen, confirming that she was definitely in the right area, at least.
Not the right inn though, by the looks of it. There was a considerable lull in the conversation as she marched belligerently into the room, scanning it as though looking for a familiar face, which was exactly what she was doing.
“Can I help you?” the landlord asked.
“Yes. If that lazy drunken pig of a husband of mine is here, you can tell him if he isn’t home by the time the clock strikes the hour, he can find another place to sleep tonight.”
“You are not from these parts,” he said, recognising that she had an accent, but not that she was English. All the nights spent listening carefully to Raymond and Rosalie’s accents were hopefully about to pay off.
“No. We came in from Martinique a couple of months ago,” she said. “Thought he could be a great sugar planter, the fool. All he got was swamp fever. Jacques Fernier, about so high,” she raised her hand a few inches above her head, “thin, cross-eyed, ugly bastard. Black hair.” She peered into the corners of the room, frowning.
“I don’t know anyone of that description, Madame Fernier,” the man said, which was not really surprising, as Beth had made it up on the spot. “But if such a man comes in, I’ll tell him what you said.”
Back in the street, she heaved a sigh of relief. Neither the landlord nor any of the customers appeared to doubt either her story or her accent. It was a good start. Unfortunately none of the customers resembled either Gabriel Foley or any of the accomplices she remembered. One down. Of course he might not be in Calais at all. In fact he was more likely to be in England. She had not seen or heard of him in over two years. He might have acquired new associates, stopped smuggling, be in prison, or dead.
She would not think like that. She had all evening. Her story had been believed and could be used in every tavern in Calais, if necessary. If Foley was not to be found, then she would seek another way to cross the Channel. She continued walking around the narrow cobbled streets of the Courgain quarter. Periodically she would enter an inn that had nothing to do with cats, thinking that Foley might have changed his tavern of choice, and that at the least it would give her practice in being an aggrieved wife.
After visiting Le Chat Noir and Le Chat Rouge with no success, her spirits fell. But as she had nothing better to do with her evening than walk round freezing, refuse-littered streets looking for a fictional husband, she decided to make her way back to her room by another way.
She almost missed it. The only reason she didn’t was because as she was walking past the ramshackle building someone struck a light in an upstairs window, causing her to look up and in doing so see the rusty sign stuck to the wall. It was in the shape of a heraldic device, the centre containing a vaguely oval shape which had once been a seated cat. Beth knew that because the tail, curled round the bottom of the oval shape, was distinctly feline. Underneath was painted in faded yellow lettering ‘Le Chat D’Or’.
There was nothing even vaguely golden about either the building or the sign. But then she remembered the unremarkable building in Blackheath where she had last seen Gabriel Foley, and took heart. Lifting the latch of the wooden door, she pushed it open and walked in.
She was greeted by an L-shaped room. To her right was a long wooden table littered with glasses and bottles, flanked by benches, on one of which lay a man, fast asleep and snoring. The other bench held a seated man who seemed to be as comatose as his companion, his head pillowed on his arms on the table. The only illumination came from a couple of candles on the table, which had been pushed into the accumulated wax drippings of many other candles to keep them upright, along with one on the bar, which was on the other side of the table. Directly ahead at the end of the L shape was a wooden staircase, the first few steps of which were visible, the rest shrouded in darkness.
Near the steps were half a dozen men, who stopped whatever they’d been doing to stare at her. This was clearly not a place in which the fictional Jacques Fernier would drink. It was, however, the place in which a beak-nosed man was, the same man who had opened the door to Beth and Maggie in England over two years previously. Beth’s spirits soared, and she walked towards the group of men.
One of them, a youngish man who shared the cross-eyes of the fictitious Jacques, moved forward to intercept her.
Ignoring him, she addressed the beak-nosed man.
“I need to speak to your leader,” she said in French. “Is he here?” The man took a step forward, but then the cross-eyed man moved, blocking her view of the man she’d spoken to.
“I said, you’re not welcome here,” he repeated in a more threatening tone.
“Yes, I heard you,” Beth replied dismissively. “Please tell your leader that Mrs Abernathy wishes to see him, urgently.”
The beak-nosed man’s gaze drifted to the top of the stairs, and with that she knew that Gabriel Foley was indeed in the building.
“Show your face please, madame,” he asked politely.
Beth unwrapped the shawl from her head, the cross-eyed man gasped with admiration, and the beak-nosed man nodded slightly and took a step toward the stairs.
“What do you want with Mr Foley?” Cross-eyes asked. “Won’t I do, instead?” Beth made to move past him, but he put one hand on her shoulder to stop her, the other reaching down between her legs, grasping a fistful of skirt and cupping round her private parts.
“I ain’t had a woman this week,” he said, his fingers fumbling for better purchase through the thin woollen material. Then he froze as he felt the knife against his neck.
“How unfortunate for you,” Beth said icily in English. “And if you don’t remove both your hands from my person right now, you will never have another woman in your life, which promises to be extremely short. Please tell your leader—” She stopped as in her periphery vision she saw the man who had been leaning over the table moving towards her. Her free hand dipped in her pocket and then as fast as lightning, she threw. There came a squawk of pain and the figure moved out of her sight.
She calculated quickly. She could still hear the man on the bench snoring, and she would hear if anyone else came into the inn. So the only danger was from the man she had just wounded with her second knife. All the other occupants of the room were in sight apart from the beak-nosed man, who had disappeared whilst she was preoccupied with the cross-eyed man and who she assumed had gone upstairs. She palmed her third knife, ready to use it if she had to.
The cross-eyed man had acquiesced to her demand and was no longer touching her. He made to step away from the knife at his throat, but she pressed it up under his chin and he froze again.
“I don’t know how important this man is to you, but if you want him to stay alive, none of you will move,” she said.
“His importance depends on whether he has a good explanation for assaulting a young woman who has come asking to see me, without first finding out whether she was under my protection,” came a deep voice from the top of the stairs. A pair of strong legs encased in fine woollen breeches and cream stockings came into view, followed by the broad chest and thick arms of Gabriel Foley. “Put the knife away, please, Mrs Abernathy.”
Beth removed the blade from the chin of her assailant and replaced it in her pocket.
“Now,” Gabriel said, “do you have a good explanation, Michael?”
“She didn’t mention you by name, Mr Foley!” Michael said. “I didn’t know that she knew you! I just thought she was some whore looking for business!”
Gabriel nodded thoughtfully, and looked to Beth.
“I didn’t use your name, because I didn’t know if it would compromise you in any way to do so,” Beth explained. “I recognised the face of your man there,” she pointed to the beak-nosed man, who had come back down the stairs and resumed his position with the others, “and asked to see his leader, hoping that it would be you. If it hadn’t been, I had a plausible reason ready.”
“I see. So then, Michael, can you explain why, if you thought this lady to be a common whore, you saw fit to divulge my name to her for her to spread around the streets of Calais along with the pox. No disrespect intended, Mrs Abernathy.”
“None taken, sir,” Beth replied, highly amused.
Michael flushed red.
“I…er…I…” he stammered.
“Let me help you,” Gabriel said conversationally. “You seem to have two choices. One: you have no respect for women who ask to see me and may therefore be my friends, and by extension have no respect for me. Two: you think it reasonable to give my name to any random person who walks into the room, therefore risking the arrest and execution of all of us. Which is it?”
There was a ghastly silence, while Michael’s complexion changed from scarlet to white.
“You seem to have lost your tongue,” Gabriel said when the silence seemed set to go on forever. “No matter. I don’t really need an answer.”
Michael started to smile, his face showing utmost relief, and then Gabriel’s right arm moved forward and the smile froze. The young man’s eyes widened and then became glassy as he fell to the ground. Gabriel looked down at him briefly, then bent and wiped his bloody knife on the man’s shirt. He stood up and smiled at Beth, who, with a considerable and hopefully invisible effort of will, smiled back.
“Get rid of him,” he said to the room in general, then gestured to Beth to precede him up the stairs. She walked towards the steps, then turned back to look at the man who had moved behind her, who was holding a reddened cloth over his face.
“Are you badly injured?” she asked. “I’m sorry, but when I saw you move I couldn’t take the chance that you weren’t going to hit me.”
“No,” the man said hurriedly, his voice muffled by the cloth. “It’s only a flesh wound. I’ll be fine.”
She turned back and went up the steps, noticing that Gabriel had paused to exchange a few words with the beak-nosed man before following her.
“Second door on the right,” he said quietly. She opened the door and went in, noting with pleasure that, unlike the main room downstairs, which had been as cold as the street, this room was warmly lit by a brazier burning in one corner. There was a table with two chairs under the window and a mattress with some blankets in another corner. She heard the door close behind her and turned to see Gabriel standing with his back to it, the pistol in his hand pointed at her heart.
“I mean no offence, Mrs Abernathy, but having just heard of your ability with knives, I’d be obliged if you would take yours out of your pocket very slowly and hand it to me,” he said.
Understandable. She obeyed him, and he took it from her. The pistol didn’t move.
“Do you have any more about your person?” he asked. On seeing her hesitate, he spoke again. “I will say now that I mean you no harm, and although I have no idea why you have come to see me, or in fact how you knew I could be found here, I will endeavour to assist you in whatever business you have, within reason. If you are honest with me, I will be with you.”
In a moment, he had accepted two more knives from her, then he invited her to sit down and poured two glasses of brandy, handing one to her before sitting in the vacant chair.
“Before we discuss your reason for being here, may I ask if you intended to kill the man, or merely wound him as you did when you threw the knife?” he asked.
“I intended to warn him not to come any closer by throwing the knife past his nose. But I only saw him from the corner of my eye and had to keep my gaze on Michael, so my aim was inaccurate,” Beth said.
Gabriel whistled softly and admiringly between his teeth.
“Is he badly hurt?” she asked.
“No. You have taken a small slice off his nose, that’s all. Remarkable. You are clearly not a lady to be trifled with, Mrs Abernathy.”
“No more are you, Mr Foley.”
He smiled and raised his glass to hers.
“Now, I assume that you have dyed your hair to that hideous colour because you wish your identity to remain a secret. Firstly, I must ask you the question which concerns me most closely, however, being of a somewhat selfish character. How did you know where to find me?”
“I didn’t, really. A long time ago one of my husband’s friends was trying to c
ontact you. When he came back, unsuccessful, he told me that it was because you were in Calais, and mentioned the name of the tavern you frequented. I was the only person he mentioned it to,” she added. “I thought it of no importance at the time, and when it became of importance I could only remember that the tavern bore the name of some sort of cat. I have spent the evening going to every possible colour of cat inn, hoping to see someone I recognised. I had no idea whether you were even in the country. I just hoped you might be.”
Gabriel nodded.
“So, you are in luck. I am here. What is it you’d like me to assist you with?”
“Before I tell you, can I ask if you have seen Mr Abernathy recently?” she asked. She tried to keep the eagerness from her voice, but his change of expression told her that she hadn’t completely succeeded in doing so.
“I regret to say that the last meeting I had with anyone of your acquaintance was when you yourself came with your cook to warn me. The payment for the arms was made, and since then I have had no dealings with your husband at all.”
“Would you tell me if you had?” she asked.
Gabriel laughed, a rich, deep, infectious laugh.
“If I had, Mrs Abernathy, I would have asked you why you wished to know, but as I haven’t, I can tell you the truth immediately.”
“Then I do wish to ask you for help, sir. I need to travel to England, secretly. I can pay you for your assistance,” she said.
He waved his hand in dismissal, but she didn’t know of what.
“I assume then that you intend to look for your husband. Does he want you to look for him?”
“If he is alive, I’m sure he does,” she said. “I mean to find out if he is alive or dead.”
“And you came to France because you thought him to be here?”
“No.” She hesitated for a minute, thinking of how to tell him enough to make him help her, but not enough to allow him to identify her, and through that, Alex. If you are honest with me, I will be with you.
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