What if Anthony is wrong?

Charlie couldn’t purge the question from her mind. Her ears roared as she crossed through town on Anthony’s arm, as brazen as could be. She thought they should be hiding, skulking from shadow to shadow. Instead, he and Mama seemed bent on taking their time, each carrying a valise and strolling as if on an afternoon jaunt through Hyde Park. They carried on a low conversation as they walked, in French. Panic gripped Charlie the longer they walked like this. She spotted a French soldier down the street. Anthony didn’t alter his pace.

Charlie struggled to focus on sorting out the translation to the conversation. She only understood snippets of Anthony’s explanation of how he knew these people. They were smugglers whom he’d caught en route to England but hadn’t prosecuted. He claimed that his enemies were French soldiers, not civilians.

That may be true, but she had to wonder what these French smugglers thought of him. They knew him for a British captain in the Royal Navy. If they decided to alert the authorities, Charlie would have no hope of finding Papa. She didn’t want to contemplate what other ills would befall her.

As they entered the next street, out of sight of the French soldier, Anthony quickened his step. He must be worried about being found out, as well. Charlie matched his pace without complaint.

When they reached the house in question, he dropped his arm. “Stay behind me,” he whispered. “And as tempting as it might be, let me do the talking.”

Charlie glared at his broad shoulders as he rapped on the door.

After a moment, it opened to reveal a short woman nearing fifty, rounder on the bottom than on top. “Madame Estreux,” Anthony greeted her in French, “may we come in?”

“Gray! What a surprise. Oh yes, of course, come in and rest your feet.” She darted a glance up and down the street, wary, as she ushered them inside.

The moment the door was shut, they switched to English. Madame Estreux had an accent, but her vocabulary seemed much improved from Anthony’s and Charlie’s abilities. While the older woman greeted Anthony warmly and tried to extract information from him regarding their impromptu visit, Charlie sidled closer to Mama.

“What should we tell her? The same thing we were set to tell Madame Renault?”

Mama hesitated. “We prepared to stay with Madame Renault for days, perhaps longer than a week. We can’t hazard staying with a stranger for that long.”

“But what about Papa?” Charlie glanced at Anthony and the smuggler as he begged for shelter during the day, promising to leave come nightfall. However warmly the woman had greeted him, she seemed reluctant to offer him sanctuary.

Mama whispered, “We’ll have to find him on our own, another way.”

“I’ll go out and search with you.”

Mama shook her head. “No, Charlie. You’re too conspicuous, and your French isn’t what it might be. I’ve been trained for such a thing. I’ll discover what I can, and if I catch wind of your father anywhere, we’ll plan accordingly.”

Warily, Charlie glanced at Madame Estreux and Anthony, who now spoke more quietly. His back was turned to them, muffling the conversation further.

What are they whispering about? Charlie didn’t speak the words out loud. She didn’t know what her concerns were precisely, but she didn’t trust the smuggler.

“Let me handle this,” Mama said.

When she strode up to the whispering pair, they seemed to have reached some kind of truce. Charlie followed hesitantly as Mama spoke in fluent French. “Forgive the intrusion, Madame. We were set to stay with a friend, but it appears she no longer lives in this town. My daughter is an Englishwoman and speaks limited French like her father. Her father, the scoundrel, is on the run from the authorities, and we chased him here. He stole the money for my daughter’s wedding when he left. Without it, her fiancé won’t have her. I beg you, he must be here. We must find him before it is too late.” She leaned closer, putting a hand on Madame Estreux’s arm. “Do you have children? Wouldn’t you go to any lengths for them?”

The smuggler nodded. She sighed. “I have a room in the cellar where she and Gray can wait for nightfall, but you cannot stay long.”

Charlie had never realized that Mama was such an accomplished liar. She didn’t know whether Anthony had alluded to some of the truth, but if he had, Mama’s tale mirrored the truth closely enough in order for Madame Estreux to believe them. She even seemed a bit sympathetic, and she and Mama entered a tête-à-tête and spoke in low, rapid French.

Anthony glanced between Charlie and Mama, clearly curious, but he didn’t interfere. In fact, he didn’t even speak a word. He stood there with military posture and pretended to be a fixture of the foyer.

By the time Mama was done talking, Madame Estreux had promised the help of her family in looking for Charlie’s father. She beckoned Charlie and Anthony closer. “Come, mes amis. I’ll show you to the cellar. Once we’ve returned this evening, we’ll let you out again. Does anyone need to use the chamber pot before you go in?”

Charlie did as Mama asked and didn’t speak out of turn. She didn’t draw attention to herself as she found herself shut in a cramped room behind the wall of the smuggler’s cellar. As Madame Estreux shut the hidden door, closing Charlie and Anthony in together, Charlie held her breath.

If she wanted to find Papa, she didn’t have a choice but to trust these people. Even so, she couldn’t help but wonder if it would be Madame Estreux who next opened the door, or if it would be an enemy soldier.

* * *

Madame Estreux’s hidden storage room smelled of dust and stale air. The compartment, no more than two feet wide, ran the length of the room. Bottles of liquor and other smuggled goods lined the far end, packed in crates for easy travel. Gray and Miss Vale nestled hip-to-hip near the door, squashed together without space for him to stretch his legs unless he stood. It was bound to be a long afternoon.

He waited to the count of fifty before he used the tinderbox he’d been given to light a candle. Once the glow settled across them, he laid the candle atop the nearest crate. He tried not to think about Miss Vale—no, he might as well think of her as Charlie now, given their intimate accommodations. Eradicating her from his mind proved impossible when she was pressed so near to him.

They met each other’s gazes. The memory of their kiss flared to life. He looked away and cleared his throat. “I don’t,” he said into the silence, his voice a bit hoarse.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Squander the opportunity for adventure.” Her words from earlier, in the dinghy, haunted him. It was impossible that he had changed that much. If he had, it was for the better.

“No?” Charlie lifted her chin, her voice a bit breathless. “Tell me something you’ve done, then. A place you’ve been.”

“I went to the Caribbean as a midshipman. We were chasing a small, fast cutter who had been dogging our ships. The Ghost, we called her, because she’d come up swift and silent in fog or early morning and hammer off a few gun rounds before we’d even see her to retaliate.”

To his surprise, Charlie looked fascinated. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them, leaning forward. “Were you ever under attack by this ghost?”

“She wasn’t a real ghost, but a wood and metal ship. One of several the French were employing at the time, all identical and all made with the same design. Come in silently, shoot, and get out before the ship under attack could retaliate. The ship I was assigned to at the time, the Frontrunner, wasn’t one of those under attack. We were assigned the capture or destruction of these ghost ships attacking us, along with a few others. We managed to corner most of them, but one of the enemy captains broke off and sailed fast for the Americas. The Frontrunner was one of our faster vessels at the time, and my captain thought we could catch them.”

“Did you?” She laid her chin on her knee, still engrossed.

He’d had women fawn over him for his pedigree and his rank, but she seemed genuinely interested in the story. He grinned as he remembered the time. He’d been eighteen, still young and a bit brash, quick to run into danger.

“We did,” he told her. “It took weeks of thinking we’d lost sight of them for good and then, on a calm day, finding them again on the horizon. When we reached the islands, we had to contend with other hazards—local authorities who didn’t care for our interference and who might have been bribed by the French, pirates, unfamiliar waters with reefs and rocks we might run aground on. Finally, we cornered them between us and a reef, no place to turn, and came up upon them swift and silent like they’d done with our ships.”

“What happened?”

“We boarded in the dead of night. The moon was full, giving us enough light that we didn’t have to light a lamp. I was young then and supposed to stay aboard the ship to keep us ready to sail.” He smirked. “It drove me mad to have to stay behind while the other officers got all the fun. But if I hadn’t been on deck, we might have lost a lot of men. Amid the gunshots and clang of steel, everybody shouting… it was chaos. I was trying to keep an eye on the seamen still aboard, and monitor the fighting as well, when I noticed one of the lifeboats being lowered to sea. The captain was on board! I gave command to the other midshipman waiting with me and jumped off the ship, landing on the lifeboat to corner the captain. When faced with the mouth of my pistol, he decided to obey and ordered his crew to surrender to us. We came back heroes. I was punished along the way home for abandoning my post—given grunt work, mostly—but soon after I was promoted to mate, so I must have impressed someone with my act of bravery.”

He’d told the story to women before. Most sighed or exclaimed over how he could have been killed! Charlie lifted an eyebrow. “You said this took place in the Caribbean?”

He nodded.

“Did you get to see any of the cities there?”

“We stopped for enough food and fresh water to last us until we returned home, but I had to stay on the ship.”

She shook her head. “Then that’s war. That’s not adventure.”

Caught off guard, he laughed. Had she just discounted the single most reckless act of bravery on his part as not adventurous? He didn’t understand this woman at all. But for once, she wasn’t accusing, so he played along and asked, “What constitutes adventure then, Miss Vale?”

“Charlie.” She made a face. “Stop calling me that. We aren’t in a ballroom. My sister is married to your brother. We’re family.”

Perhaps, in the loosest sense, they were. But he had never met her before in his life, and the thoughts conjured by her close proximity were not at all the familial kind. He licked his lips and repeated, “What constitutes adventure, Charlie?”

She beamed, her smile a bit smug to have him listen to her for once. Tucking her legs to one side, she leaned closer to him. “Adventure is seeing new places! You can’t claim to have been to the Caribbean Isles, not truly, when you didn’t step foot off the ship.”

“We’re locked in a smuggler’s secret cellar. Is that what you consider adventure?”

Her expression fell. “It wasn’t precisely what I envisioned when I came along—”

“Then why didn’t you argue to go along with your mother?” He would have considered it daft, perhaps even foolhardy, but he had been surprised when she’d so willingly decided to hide away. The Charlie Vale with whom he was acquainted was far too brazen to hide.

Charlie pulled her knees to her chest once more. “We aren’t here so I might see new cities and seek adventure. We’re here to find Papa. If Mama thinks I might hinder that… ” She made a face. “I should have studied my French harder. I’m not much of the studying type.”

“Neither am I. Most of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned by doing, not by reading.”

A smile pulled at her lips as she teased, “Apparently, not by seeing, either, if you’re always confined to a ship.”

His attention dropped to the curve of her mouth. Once more, the memory of kissing her surged. He licked his lips and leaned forward. They were utterly alone. Unlike the last time, when someone might have happened upon them, for the moment they had hours yet to while away in each other’s company. That time would be much more pleasant if she were using it to kiss him instead of berate him. She’d come to life in his arms, further proving that she was no demure lady.

He shouldn’t give in to his desire for her. He had more honor in him than to use her to slake his lust simply because he found her beautiful—at least, he did whenever she wasn’t hounding him. Right now, with her lust for adventure still glimmering in her eyes and her lips slightly parted, common sense fled, and he leaned closer. Would her lips feel as soft as they looked?

He almost found out.