“You wish to find your brother, but you travel alone, without protection,” he said slowly as he watched Miss Mead eat, his stomach rumbling. “I wish to return to England, but find myself…short. In coin.”

  He waited. Surely she would understand his meaning?

  Miss Mead looked up. “And?”

  “I suggest I help you look for your brother for the next…oh, say, the next month.”

  She frowned. “Help me?”

  He nodded as the chatter of French grew around them. “You are unprotected, Miss Mead, and fain would I permit you to continue unchaperoned.”

  “And you would help me for nothing?” Miss Mead said with an arched eyebrow.

  A lurch in his stomach made Hugh wince, and it was not a rush of hunger. “No. You would pay my passage home, back to England, at the end of the month. It’s a fair bargain.”

  It was the only bargain he could make, Hugh knew, and his heart was in his mouth as he watched her consider it.

  Miss Mead had to agree. She simply had to.

  She had as much to gain from the suggestion as he did, Hugh reasoned silently. She would benefit from a man about the place. He could ask questions she could not, go into gaming hells or brothels where she would not.

  He glanced once more at the determined Miss Mead. Well. Probably not.

  And within a month, he’d be home. Back to where his money was, Hugh thought. Oh, if he’d gotten a note to his butler—but even if he had, the money would have been stolen the moment the letter appeared at the French docks. Confiscating English coin was a specialty of theirs.

  Miss Mead was examining him with great suspicion. “You are a stranger to me. Why should I trust you?”

  Hugh almost laughed. If she knew he was a duke, she would probably trust him on the spot. It was a tempting thought, but then he would have to reveal his real name, his full name.

  Hugh Shardlow, Duke of Martock.

  And the moment she heard “Martock,” he knew precisely what would happen. She would lean away, make an excuse, and rush from him.

  “Do you have any better offers?” he said aloud, gesturing around the inn.

  For a moment, just a moment, Miss Mead grinned. Then her face straightened. “No, I suppose not. Why do you want to return to England so badly—why are you here at all?”

  Ah. Hugh had rather hoped that question would not arise, but he had been daft to think he could ignore it completely.

  Well, he would simply have to fall back on the same old tricks all Martocks used, he thought bitterly. He would have to lie.

  “I came to France to help with the war effort, though I did not enlist,” he said quietly. “I wish to return to England because…because my sister is due to be confined at any moment, and I am the only family she has.”

  It was well-pitched, Hugh immediately saw with a twist of his heart. The moment he spoke, Miss Mead’s eyes misted and she reached across the table and took his hand.

  “Sisters. Sisters are important. She must miss you,” she murmured.

  Self-loathing filled his heart. How could he lie to a woman like this, a woman who was risking her life to save a sibling? And here he was, lying about a sibling who did not exist, gaining her trust, all to save his own skin.

  But her sympathy would be his salvation. And the guilt he felt now would be nothing to the relief he would feel once back on English shores.

  “So we are agreed?” he said aloud, pushing away all concerns.

  Hugh watched Miss Mead consider. Her eyes darted and she bit her lip. His heart beat faster and faster—

  “Agreed,” Miss Mead said unexpectedly. “You will help me search for my brother for a month, and then I will send you back to England.”

  Hugh blinked. “What do you mean send me back? Will you not accompany me?”

  It was a heady thought. The two of them, sharing a cabin on a shifting ocean—

  “Only if I have found my brother,” Miss Mead said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So, where do we start?”

  Jubilation was rushing through Hugh’s body. He had done it—and without having to lift a finger to clean a tankard or peel a potato. In a month, he would be back on English shores, all without having to spend a penny.

  “We start,” Hugh said firmly, catching the eye of the innkeeper, “by ordering me a bowl of stew.”

  Chapter Four

  October 1, 1810

  A very sudden, horrible, wet awakening was not precisely what Mr. Shardlow had in mind for the next morning, but he received it nevertheless.

  “Ye gods!”

  With a great sense of satisfaction, Beth poured a sudden rush of freezing water over him as he slumbered in the room she had purchased for him in the inn.

  Beth tried not to smile. It was cruel, really, but it was also a kindness. They needed to get moving, and the man simply wouldn’t wake up. After a while, it was simply easier to fall back into the childhood trick she once played on Matthew.

  Mr. Shardlow blinked desperately as water dripped down his nose.

  Beth stifled a laugh. It was cruel, and if she’d been afforded any joy since she had landed here in France, perhaps this would not have been quite so funny. As it was…

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

  Mr. Shardlow shook his head, spraying water across the room. Beth took a step back and dropped the wooden bucket to the floor. It made a very satisfying clunk.

  Finally, she was getting somewhere. After days spent wandering about the place, trying desperately to find her brother, she finally had an ally. Of sorts.

  “Good morning?” Mr. Shardlow repeated, shivering as the cold water sank into his skin. “You call this a good morning—being awoken from the depths of dreams by—”

  “You were absolutely impossible to awaken; I was running out of ideas on what to do,” said Beth in a matter-of-fact tone, as though waking up men was an occupational hazard. “What would you have me do?”

  Mr. Shardlow blinked again as he watched her walk over to the window. “You could have poked me.”

  Beth tried hard not to roll her eyes. Did the man think she was a complete fool? That she had never woken anyone up in her life? That she had no idea there were any options between walking into the room of a sleeping man and dousing him with water?

  “I did,” she said sharply. “I prodded, I’ll have you know. I shouted your name.”

  “And I…I didn’t wake up?”

  “Not in the slightest,” said Beth, twitching the curtain an inch and peering out the window. “I was of half a mind to merely drag you out of your bed—”

  Mr. Shardlow snorted. Well, perhaps Beth didn’t look the type who could lift him, let alone drag him—though she was almost sure she could. Gravity would have helped.

  “You wouldn’t have dared.”

  She turned to meet his gaze and a flush of heat rushed through her stomach. He really was a most disconcerting man. “Oh, wouldn’t I?”

  Beth had spoken boldly, but in this moment, she did not feel bold. Here she was, standing in a room alone with a man. A bedchamber, no less. A man who exuded masculinity in the same way a cat exuded dominance.

  He was bewildering. He made her feel…strange. Not unpleasant, certainly, but being around him made her feel as though her feet didn’t know where they were going.

  She was tired, that was all. Determined to find her brother. And they couldn’t loiter.

  “Well, come on, get up,” Beth said briskly, opening up the curtains with a flourish.

  Mr. Shardlow winced. “Too bright.”

  “It’s only going to get brighter,” she shot back. “And you know what that means?”

  The man stared. He really was very damp, Beth saw with a flicker of glee. There was something about doing precisely what ladies were not supposed to do. Something that warmed one’s spirits that she probably shouldn’t enjoy. Nancy would certainly not approve, Beth thought with a stifled laugh. Which was probably why she was so enjoying it.

  “What does it mean?” Mr. Shardlow groaned, sitting up.

  “It means the day is upon us, and we are late,” Beth stated.

  There was a strange sort of determined force in her words that surprised even her.

  She couldn’t just give up, could she? After fighting with her sister to get here in the first place—after the terror they’d shared, experiencing a fight with the Glasshand Gang…

  Everything had been to find Matthew and bring him safely home. Just because she hadn’t succeeded in two weeks did not mean she would not succeed. And now she had a man on her side.

  Not that she needed a man, Beth thought hastily. They were usually a hindrance more than a help, from what she could tell, and this one seemed particularly slow.

  But the point was, there were certain places he could go that she…well, not wouldn’t. But it would be more difficult. Beth knew she would march into a brothel and drag her brother out by the ear if that was where she found him. She’d just prefer not to.

  “Late?” Mr. Shardlow said eagerly, pushing himself up further in the bed. “Late for what?”

  Beth stared. Had he lost his wits? “Why, looking for my brother, of course—were you listening to a thing I said last night?”

  Mr. Shardlow opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

  Beth rolled her eyes. There was no point in attempting to hide her irritation; this wasn’t a friend of her family or an acquaintance of her own. There was no possibility she would associate with such a man back in England, and there was no ton here to watch them, presume an attachment, and gossip about an impending marriage.

  No, for the first time in her life, Beth thought with relish, she could say what she thought, when she thought it, to whoever she wanted.

  Being here in France was perturbing. It was upsetting to think that her brother may be injured somewhere, unable to send a message, unaided by anyone.

  But she could not deny that being here was very…freeing. “Are you not up yet?”

  Mr. Shardlow groaned. “I am soaking wet, woman, rudely awoken and still trying to get my bearings. I am not a morning person!”

  Which was an understatement. Beth hadn’t been sure that, without the bucket of water so kindly provided by the innkeeper, she could have woken him up if she had tried. The man had been utterly dead to the world—for a horrible moment she had thought he actually had died. His breathing had been so…so shallow.

  Well, enough of that. They had to get moving. Every moment wasted here was a moment Matthew was waiting for her.

  “I thought you may wish for a change of clothes.”

  Mr. Shardlow’s head shot up. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing now?”

  “Other than the fact that you’re soaking wet?”

  His jaw tightened. “You were the one who—”

  “It also stinks, I am afraid to say,” Beth said with a grin, meeting his eye boldly and thanking God Nancy wasn’t here. “If we are going to continue like this, you’ll have to change.”

  Mr. Shardlow took a deep breath, but for some reason, said nothing.

  Beth waited for him to speak. He was a proud man; she had seen that when he had first accosted her. Mr. Shardlow had not considered for a moment that she may not actually wish to be helped. Oh no, he just strode in and did what men do all the time. Assume.

  Yet there was something about him…perhaps something about the way he held himself. If Beth did not know better, she would have said he was wealthy. He was certainly accustomed to everyone listening to him.

  But what was a wealthy Englishman doing in the French countryside penniless?

  “And are we going to visit a tailor before we begin our brother hunt?” Mr. Shardlow asked sarcastically, pulling at his shirt that stuck to his chest.

  Beth parted her lips to reply, but in that instant, her gaze dropped to the very shirt he was finding so uncomfortable. Her eyes widened. No sound emitted from her.

  Oh. Oh goodness.

  Well, that was a consequence she had not considered. Pouring a bucket of water over the man to awaken him had certainly done the trick, but it had done more. It had made Mr. Shardlow’s shirt completely transparent.

  Beth swallowed. She had never—every ridge and line of his muscles, and a hint of the dark hair which trailed down, were visible. Mr. Shardlow looked as though he had been carved from marble. He was magnificent. How did a man hide all…all that under such a scruffy shirt and waistcoat?

  Then Beth realized what she was doing. She was gawping, practically drooling, at the sight of what was essentially a naked man! And the worst of it was, he knew it!

  Beth stepped back. “I—”

  Mr. Shardlow rose at the same instant. “I need dry clothes—”

  “They’re on the chair. I bought them from the innkeeper last night,” said Beth, averting her eyes and reaching for the door. “I thought something incognito—”

  “Fine, right, whatever,” muttered Mr. Shardlow, striding to the chair.

  Beth did not wait to see what he thought of the clothes. She slipped out of the bedchamber, which she had paid for, and swiftly shut the door.

  And leaned against it.

  Oh, goodness. That was…odd. Something had warmed in her for a moment she had never felt before. It was almost as though—

  Beth swallowed. She was not here to find rascals attractive. That was what Mr. Shardlow was, wasn’t he?

  She could tell by the glint in his eye. The way he swiftly accepted her offer—the man had nothing. What was a man like that doing in France? What did she think she had been doing, staring at his chest like that, like a common harlot?

  Just for a moment, Beth closed her eyes. She was not going to fall under his charm, or spell, or whatever it was he was going to try on her, she vowed. She was here for her brother, that was all. She would return to England with Matthew, suffer Nancy’s outrage that she had gone at all, and that was it.

  She could return to her perfectly normal, perfectly dull, life.

  There was sudden movement behind her. Just in time, Beth opened her eyes and stepped away from the door as it opened.

  “Will this do?” Mr. Shardlow said gruffly.

  Beth nodded without casting a look over the man. What did she care whether he looked good or not? That wasn’t what she was here for.

  “Breakfast,” she said aloud, turning away and walking along the corridor to the stairs.

  He followed close behind her. Beth did not need to look to see him. She could feel his presence, her neck prickling at his gaze.

  “I hope it’s better than that stew,” he said as they sat at a table in a corner.

  Beth could not help but snort. “You had three bowlfuls of that last night!”

  “You would be astonished what a person will do when they are desperate,” Mr. Shardlow said darkly. “Or starving.”

  Beth swallowed her sarcastic retort. Not because it would be unseemly, as her sister would have said—but because there was a strange look in the man’s eyes.

  Almost as though he had known precisely what he was talking about.

  The man’s mood did not improve when two bowls of steaming hot porridge was laid before them.

  “Is this it?” Mr. Shardlow snapped, nudging his bowl.

  Beth glared. “What, warm porridge, with what appears to be a spoonful of honey? You object to honest, warm, and most of all, free food?”

  Her emphasis on the word “free” caused a shot of what appeared to be embarrassment to rush across the man’s face.

  “You like this stuff?” Mr. Shardlow asked curtly, though with less fire.

  Heat rushed to Beth’s cheeks. Like it? It had never been a matter of liking it all those years when there had been no money for anything else. Porridge was cheap, easy to cook, hot, and filling. There’d been a winter when Nancy’s meager earnings had stretched to porridge.

  Porridge—morning, noon, and night.

  One soon learned to hate such a meal. But that did not mean she was ungrateful. She knew her sister had done her best.

  Keeping her eyes on Mr. Shardlow and wishing to goodness the man wasn’t so handsome—it was most distracting—Beth dipped a spoon in her bowl and raised it to her lips.

  “Delicious,” she said after swallowing her mouthful.

  Then her cheeks burned all the more. Mr. Shardlow had certainly paid attention—perhaps too much attention. His gaze was still fixed on her lips in a most disturbing way. What was the man playing at?

  “Mr. Shardlow?”

  “I beg your pardon?” He blinked and met her gaze.

  Beth tried to smile, though it was difficult. He was a liability, this one. “My brother.”

  “What of him?” he asked, taking a mouthful of porridge.

  What—what of him? It was all she could do to keep ire away. Beth forced herself to hesitate, just for a moment, before she spoke. It would not do to antagonize the man. Not after she had paid for two meals, a bed for the night, and new clothes.

  No, he owed her. And she would collect.

  “My brother, as I told you last night, is missing,” Beth said calmly. At least, as calmly as she could muster. “He was last seen injured, but has not been seen since.”

  She waited.

  Mr. Shardlow shrugged. “So?”

  “For goodness sake, man, the bargain was that you help me find my brother!” Beth snapped, hating how swiftly her voice rose. Lowering it yet imbuing every word with anger, she continued. “That was the price for me helping you out of the country, a country, may I add, which is getting more dangerous by the day. You cannot return. You need my help.”

  “I need your coin,” Mr. Shardlow shot back, leaning in his chair with a wry expression. “You don’t think I could just take that purse from you and make my own way?”

  Beth’s heart went cold. Well, that was one option. She had hoped, of course, never to meet with such an unsavory man who would even consider that, but—

  “Peace, I would never harm you,” said Mr. Shardlow, and Beth was astonished to find gentleness in his voice she had not heard before. “But you are vulnerable, Elizabeth—”