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The coach-and-six had carried Rodrick from Paris at a pace calculated to kill either the horses, the postilions, or everyone's remaining goodwill. By the time Rochefort lay only a few miles ahead, the team was blowing hard, and one of the postilions had begun muttering darkly about English noblemen. Rodrick decided the final stretch would be faster on Brutus.

The Friesian immediately disproved this by kicking the coachman into a ditch.

Rodrick swung into the saddle while the coachman cursed them. Brutus flattened his ears.

"Listen to me, you ill-tempered bastard. If you ever intend to see Louise again, you will fly the rest of this road like bloody Pegasus."

One ear turned toward him. So much for the animal missing action. Rodrick had spent the better part of a week defending Brutus's reputation, when apparently the wretched beast had been pining after Louise with all the discretion of a rejected tenor.

Rodrick drove his heels in, and Brutus launched forward. If horse and rider were both making complete fools of themselves over the same woman, there was no reason to discuss it further.

The road's surface turned from packed earth to broken stone. Rodrick's heart hammered so hard it had to be striking his ribs instead of pumping blood. The horse's hooves hit the hard ground, foam flinging from the bit. Each impact climbed Rodrick's bones, striking through his teeth, but he welcomed the pain. Pain meant movement. Movement meant fewer opportunities to imagine what awaited him in Rochefort.

He might pray. Rodrick knew several prayers. Unfortunately, after a career spent lying, blackmailing, and occasionally murdering his way through Europe, appealing to Providence now seemed rather like arriving at a gentleman's supper after robbing his house and asking whether there was still a place laid.

Perhaps God was magnanimous about such things. Good Christ. He was galloping across France toward the only love of his life while worrying about celestial etiquette. Either the French sun had cooked his brain, or his father owed him a posthumous apology for hiring Father Matthieu.

Brutus threw his head hard enough to wrench the reins through Rodrick's damp gloves, then bit down on the bit with an audible clack. The bastard was still running, but he wanted it formally recorded that he objected to the entire enterprise. Rodrick sympathized. He too had spent fifteen years performing beyond reasonable expectations and had forgiven absolutely no one for it.

The gates of Rochefort rose ahead. A sentry stepped forward, musket upright, took in the black stallion coming at speed and the man riding him with two pistols and a saber, then demonstrated excellent judgment by moving aside.

Rodrick drove Brutus into streets so straight they looked ruled onto the earth. Houses crowded the road, shutters drawn against the glare, green paint curling from the wood. The entire town smelled of departure.

Where were the damned docks? His breaths came shorter, as though Rochefort had somehow economized on air. Rodrick followed the smell of water. Fewer walls. More sky. Nothing left to postpone the answer.

Then the street ended.

The Charente spread before him, dark water shouldering toward the sea.

Rodrick hauled on the reins, and Brutus stumbled to a halt, flanks heaving beneath him.

Launches crowded the quay, ropes groaning, oars striking wood while men hauled cargo and shouted orders. Beyond them the river widened toward the ocean, and sails moved against the glare.

Rodrick swung down. "Stay."

The Friesian tossed his head, one hoof striking the stones, but he stayed.

Rodrick crossed the quay. His legs felt unreliable beneath him, his heart beating too fast. Each breath scraped in shallow pulls.

He caught a porter by the arm. "The Bellerophon. Where?"

His voice came out rough enough that the man pointed at once.

The British ship sailed down the Charente, the current taking it toward the ocean as surely as the Styx took everyone to hell.

Too late.

Cold flooded through Rodrick's overheated body. His hands went numb, then his arms, then his knees simply lost their strength. The quay rose beneath him, and he made no attempt to prevent the meeting.

Of course she had gone. Saint Helena. Napoleon. Her father. Not the Emperor who rearranged borders and collected kingdoms like gaming counters. A father. Louise had crossed Europe for that word before she had ever crossed it for the man.

Rodrick pressed his hand against the stones and found his fingers shaking. He had always possessed a family and therefore had treated the fact with the carelessness of a man born rich enough never to examine the price of bread. A father who expected much and said little. A mother who loved him. Charlotte, even through twenty years of grief, because death had not erased the knowledge that she had once been his.

Louise had possessed none of that.

What a stupid bastard Rodrick had been. Louise had grown up a refugee. Four girls in a cold city that did not particularly want them, and she had made herself into the one who protected the others because someone had to, and she had decided it would be her. She had given loyalty to a father she had never met because the letter told her who she was, and she had organized her entire life around the telling.

And she had come to him. And Rodrick had closed his door on her face.