The Spymaster's Lady

Sixteen

THE HOVEL FRONTED THE BEACH. AN OVERTURNED fishing boat flanked its door. Leblanc ignored the sobs that came through the wood shutters from inside, ignored also the girl child, held between two burly dragoons, snarling and fighting. His attention was all for the man kneeling at his feet.

“When did she leave?” he demanded.

“With the fishing fleet. At dawn.” The fisherman’s voice slurred through a cut and bleeding lip. “In the boat of the English smugglers.”

“Where do they go? What is their home port?”

“Who can say? They have many safe harbors, up and down the coast. They—”

Leblanc’s riding crop slashed the man’s face, sudden as a snake, and left a line of blood. “Where?”

“Dover. They go to Dover.” Panting, the fisherman bowed his head.

“Dover, you say?” Leblanc moved his gaze to where the girl was stretched, wriggling, between the soldiers. “Be very sure.”

“It is their place, so they have always said. I do not know if they tell me the truth. They are English.”

“It is you who must tell the truth.” Leblanc studied him another minute. “Henri!”

Henri appeared at the doorway, tucking his shirt into his trousers. “There’s nothing in the house, just some clothes she left behind. That’s all.”

“No papers?”

“None.”

Leblanc went white around the mouth. Abruptly he turned and stalked back to where the horses waited. He took reins from the trooper standing at attention. “She can see. She’s made a fool of us all.” He mounted. “Come.”

“What do you want done with these?”

Leblanc stepped into a soldier’s cupped hands and swung into the saddle. He looked from father to young daughter, and to the house where a woman wept. Then he smiled. “We will reward them, of course.” He pulled out coins and tossed them. “They have been helpful. See that the other villagers know of this.” His horse kicked up sand. The dragoons rode across the coins, following him.

The fisherman watched them out of sight.

“You told them.” His daughter collapsed to the ground, crying, now that the troopers were gone.

“Someone would have told them, in the end, after they hurt more women.” He stooped like an old man and began to gather up the coins, running his fingers into the sand to find any buried deep by hooves. “Help me with this. Your eyes are better than mine.”

“You betrayed Annique.”

“Do you think she would expect us to fight him?” He did not meet her eyes. “It was what she told me to do, if that man should come here. She made me promise.”

“If he finds her—”

“He will not.” He brushed dirt off the coins and put them into his pocket and turned to the house. “Stay here and look for the money. I must go to your mother.” He stopped at the doorway. “He will not find Annique. She is the Fox Cub. And she made me promise.”