“Capital idea, Charles.” Tony swept a deep bow to Miss Caulfield and departed.

She said, “You count earls and naval commanders among your close friends, Captain?”

“ ‘Friend’ loosely employed in the case of Bedwyr.”

“That, at least, is obvious. I have no intention of accepting his assistance in traveling to Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux.”

“That is probably wise.” If there were a horse or mule to be spared in town, he would send a message to the chateau and have a carriage sent for her. As soon as Miles had finished packing, he must see to it.

She studied him for a moment longer, the flush still high in her cheeks. “Good night, Captain.”

He watched her follow the innkeeper up the stairs, her back as straight as any duchess’s. He had no doubt that the young ladies she trained for society were among the fortunate few.

THE INN SAT at the far end of town at the edge of a stretch of beach bordered by a grove of shrubs and mottled plantane trees. Monsieur Gripon gave her a bedchamber the size of a closet at the head of the stairs from which Arabella heard every footstep and uttered word of every guest in the crowded hotel as they passed by her door. It seemed that having the acquaintance of both an English nobleman and a captain in the Royal Navy did not ensure a poor woman an enviable bedchamber in a French inn. The bed linens were thin and worn, the mattress a straw pallet, and the posts and headboard eaten through with tiny holes by some hungry resident.

It required little to soothe herself with the reminder that in two nights’ time she would be sleeping in a castle.

For now she stared out the window at the black waves breaking on the beach where two hours earlier the sun had disappeared in a blaze of fire into the inlet. From this distance and the safety of land, the water seemed dramatic and powerful, but no longer frightening. Even its scent, mingled with comforting aromas of the meal served earlier in the inn’s dining room below, seemed less wild and ferocious.

Her stomach growled. If the passage of other guests traveling up and down the stairs did not keep her awake all night, her empty belly would. But she hadn’t enough to pay for the room and dinner.

Captain Andrew would purchase dinner for her if she asked. Then she would owe him a debt and he would expect payment from her in return. They usually did. She had rarely met a man who did not look at her as though she were a thing to be cajoled, commanded, or purchased. Or despised. Like the man her sisters called Papa.

She believed the Reverend Martin Caulfield to be a good man, sincere in his intentions and affectionate in his subdued, scholarly way. He admired Eleanor’s modesty and was proud of her fine mind. And Ravenna’s interests in every beast and bird in the village amused him; he imagined her an amateur naturalist of sorts. But he had never cared for his middle adoptive daughter. Once, when she was very young and disturbed him at his work, he scolded her, telling her that her vanity drove her to disrespect him.

But as she grew older she had seen something else in his eyes when he looked at her. Disappointment. Disgust.

Then, on her fourteenth birthday, he discovered her talking with the blacksmith’s son. A strapping lad, he had brought her a bouquet of flowers plucked from a garden, and she laughed at how he escaped the gardener’s notice. The Reverend found her there, grabbed her wrist and dragged her home. He called her immodest and read to her the story of Jezebel from scripture. He told her he had long suspected their mother was a woman of ill repute. Who else but a red-haired harlot would send her children away from her as she had? Arabella must fight against that tendency in her blood, for the good of her sisters’ reputations and for the good of her soul.

After that she ceased seeking his approval or affection. She sought instead to educate herself so that she could find her mother and prove him wrong. Eleanor’s prolonged illness made it possible. Instead of her elder sister, Arabella went off to school with the funds he had saved, and learned there what she must to enable her to forge her destiny—and to someday, hopefully, find the man who had sent for his daughters across the ocean to claim them as his own.

Now her fingertips stole to the linen wrapped about her head. She remembered her mother’s hair well, all silken and bright in the tropical sun.

Her own was wretchedly dirty. And her scalp itched. She could not meet Princess Jacqueline looking like a nun. But if she put down her hair without washing it, she would look worse.

Taking up the stub of tallow candle Monsieur Gripon had given her, she left her chamber and climbed down the four narrow flights of stairs to the parlor. The hour was late already. She peered into the corridor leading to the back of the inn. A woman marched toward her, her cheeks ruddy, hair trussed, and black silk skirts starched.

“I’m Madame Gripon.” She spoke like the downstairs maid in the town house of Arabella’s last employer. “Cat got your tongue, miss?”

“I desire a bath.” Arabella adopted her best upper servant hauteur. “I should like hot water sent to my bedchamber immediately.”

“Well, we’re all high and mighty now that we’ve got the eye of his lordship, aren’t we, then?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The woman set her fists on her hips and looked her over again. She shook her head. “Seeing as he’s not paying the bills, though, I don’t suppose I’ll be able to serve you that bath after all.”

“You will indeed.”

The woman laid her palm out flat before Arabella. “That’ll be two louis.”

“Two . . . ? But that is robbery.”

The fist went back to the hip with a rustle of expensive fabric. “Two louis is the price of a bath in my hotel, miss. If you haven’t got it, then I haven’t got the hot water.”

“Then bring me cold water and I will make do with that.”

The palm jutted out again. “That’ll be three pennies, miss.”

Arabella pressed down on her irritation. “Good night, madam.” She walked as calmly up the steps as she could, the candle quivering in her hand.

When she entered her room, she set down the candle, tore the dirty linen wrap off of her matted hair and threw it onto the bed. Her hair fell in a thick, lusterless clump to her waist, her stomach accompanying with a mighty howl. Frustration and helplessness and exhaustion and sheer yawning hunger overcame her. She dropped her face into her hands.

Nothing came. No sobs. No tears. Not even a drop of moisture.

It never did. She was as dry in her heart as she’d been since the day after she received her first caning at the foundling home. Switch in hand, the Mistress of the House laughed at her, and Arabella had vowed aloud to the woman and to God that she would never again weep.

She went to the window, threw open the shutter and stared out at the black sea. Below in the stable, the horses that she was not permitted to hire because a saint had previous claim to them nickered softly.

Her stomach clenched with nerves—the tingling sort she used to get when she was about to do something she knew the Reverend would dislike—the sort she hadn’t felt in years, since she had become a respectable, responsible, professional, and highly sought-after caretaker of young ladies of breeding.

She stared down at the stable. No lamp or torch lit the outbuilding, and no other house was within sight of it. Earlier she had watched the stable hand close the door behind him and walk off toward the center of town. There was no one within.

She had spent her childhood in the countryside with a sister enamored of farm animals. Where mules and horses bedded down for the night, there would be water.

She could not. If she were discovered . . .

She doused the candle and lay upon the bed in the dark. But she remained awake, submerged in the violent music of the surf, the sea air damp and salty on her skin. She felt grimy all over, sticky from her journey and not a woman that a prince would ever consider.