Quill dropped into the other chair. “Not plotting perhaps, but beginning to wonder. If this so-called assassin will not act, perhaps we should force his hand.”

  She could not like the sound of that. “Too dangerous. We could lose you.”

  “Or catch him,” he pointed out. “You, Hugh, Alex, and James have done a fairly thorough job of keeping me hemmed in. He can’t get close. If we pretend to relax our guard a little, he might be emboldened to strike.”

  That’s what she feared. “Pretend to relax our guard?” she asked. “So, we actually would continue to protect you, then.”

  He edged forward on his seat as if prepared to make his case. “We have several options. Alex could come up to the house stealthily. Hugh could leave and circle back. You and I could ride on the Downs or walk along the shore, alone.”

  She shook her head. “No to the latter two. That leaves you open to a shot from a long gun.”

  “Few have the skills to use such a weapon to advantage here,” he argued.

  “You cannot be sure of that. Who knows who Napoleon sent?”

  “We will never know if you four keep smothering me.”

  She sighed. “I regret you feel smothered, Quill. But I promised to keep you safe, and that is what I shall do.”

  “Very well,” he said.

  Ree eyed him. “You capitulated far too easily.”

  Once more his brows went up. “You explain, rather passionately I might add, why my idea is a poor one, then complain when I agree?”

  “Because I doubt you think it is a poor idea. You intend to go ahead with this plan behind my back.”

  “It’s quite possible you’re right.”

  Oh! “Quillan St. Claire,” she started.

  Hugh pushed through the door with a tray in his hands. Ree sent Quill a glare and sat back in her seat. He took the cups from his bosun and handed her one. She knew immediately something was wrong, but she said nothing.

  “Thank you,” he told Hugh. “I don’t suppose there’s any of the duck left for dinner.”

  “Not enough for company,” he said, sliding a look toward Ree.

  “I believe Mademoiselle Fortier will be leaving right after she finishes her chocolate.”

  Ree smiled at Hugh. “Captain St. Claire is being fanciful today, Hugh. Feel free to take a walk or a nap if you like. I will watch over the captain until you return. We can see how your sword skills are progressing then.”

  His brows gathered, but he nodded. “Yes, mam’selle,” he said dutifully before heading for the kitchen.

  “Stubborn,” Quill said as he lifted his cup.

  “Takes one to know one,” Ree replied, lifting hers as well. The same smell that had assaulted her nose when Quill had handed her the cup now met her in force. She took a cautious sip, then pushed the cup away from her to stare into the deep brown liquid. “This is hot chocolate?”

  “It is,” he said. “I know it’s too bitter for some.”

  “Bitterness is not the issue,” she said. “This is far too thick, it has been overcooked to the point of burning, and I catch no hint of vanilla or cinnamon.”

  “Cinnamon?” He sounded more intrigued than surprised.

  Ree rose. “Give me a moment. I will show you the meaning of hot chocolate.” She headed for the kitchen.

  Hugh was reaching for the rear door. He met her gaze and sagged. “I knew you’d change your mind.”

  “Not in the slightest,” she assured him. “But before you go, would you point me to what you use to make the chocolate? I believe the captain might want another cup.”

  He grumbled under his breath, but he showed her his canister of ground cocoa beans and a long, slender silver chocolate pot. She was pleased to see the three-legged vessel had its own molinet stuck through the hinged lid for stirring.

  “And the sugar and spices?” she asked as he edged toward the door again. Through the window, she caught sight of Darnell, the Peverell groundskeeper. He must be on his half day off too.

  As if Hugh knew he was keeping his friend waiting, he frowned even harder, but he pointed her to a cupboard along one wall.

  When he was out the door, Ree called Quill into the kitchen.

  He came to lean his hip against the worktable. “Did you seek my company or were you hoping to keep a closer eye on me?”

  “Both,” she teased, opening the canister. “Would you make sure the hearth is warm?”

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I have survived on Hugh’s hot chocolate for several years now.”

  “Survived,” she said, carrying the chocolate pot to the sink and popping the lid. “I would like you to do more than survive, mon cher capitaine.”

  With a salute to her, he pushed off from the table and went to stir up the coals.

  He returned to watch her measure the ground beans into the water. Then she went to the cupboard and located sugar, a cinnamon stick, a bottle of flavor of vanilla, and another that held ground cloves by the smell of them. She combined the sugar and spices with the ground beans in the pot, gave the mixture a stir, removed the molinet, and set the pot carefully on the shelf inside the hearth.

  “Just a little while until it melts,” she promised, returning to the table.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked.

  “We French love our chocolatière,” she told him, locating two cups and strainers from the shelves near the sink and bringing them to his side as she talked. “My mother taught me the art when I was a girl. I made it for my father and his friends when we came to London. They used to tease me that I should open my own chocolate house. I thought the English preferred tea.”

  “Tea or coffee during the day,” he acknowledged. “Chocolate for breakfast or in the evening. There were chocolate houses in Spain where we made port. I couldn’t forget the taste.”

  “I hear the Spanish use peppers,” she said, measuring out the vanilla.

  He shuddered. “Not in anything I’ve ever imbibed.”

  So, he liked it sweet. Perhaps she should have used more sugar!

  The rattle of the lid told her the pot had come to a boil. She used the pads hanging from a hook to remove it from the heat and brought it to the table where she set about whisking in the vanilla. Finally, she took the long wood handle of the pot and poured the drink into the two cups, pleased by the richly colored stream.

  “There,” she said. “Try this.”

  He lifted one of the cups and took a cautious sip. Then he blinked and took another. “Ree, this is excellent.”

  Warmth swept through her, better than any hot chocolate she’d ever made. “Merci beaucoup.”

  “I see what you mean about the vanilla and the cinnamon.” He couldn’t seem to stop drinking long enough to say more than a sentence or two. “Outstanding. Teach Hugh how to do this.”

  Ever the commander. She laughed. “Very well.”

  They returned to the sitting room in the meantime and talked over their chocolate, about the places he’d seen in the Navy, about the places she’d lived following the comte with her father. Funny that neither of them could remember a true home before coming to Grace-by-the-Sea.

  Still, it seemed only moments before Hugh returned to cook dinner.

  As she had promised, Ree showed him how she made chocolate after she’d watched him practice with the sword.

  “Seems a whole lot of bother,” he said when she finished, but he drank the whole cup she gave him.

  “You should have some time off tomorrow too,” she told him as she helped him clean up. “Captain St. Claire will be coming to tea with me at Castle How.”

  He glanced her way as he put the chocolate pot in the sink to soak. “Good thing you’re not really engaged, or you’d be thinking twice about that.”

  She paused as she toweled dry the cups she and Quill had used. “Why? Is there some animosity between Quill and the earl?”

  “Not the earl, his wife,” Hugh said, rolling up his sleeves. “She was sweet on the captain, and he sent her packing. She married the earl instead.”

  Well, that was news. Something tightened inside her, as if the chocolate had not gone down as smoothly as she’d thought. She could not be jealous. As Hugh said, she wasn’t really engaged, and the new countess was probably happily married. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her.

  And Quill.

  ~~~

  Quill caught himself pacing the sitting room after Ree had left. There was an itch between his shoulder blades, a restlessness in his legs, and it took him a moment to realize why. Dove Cottage had always been secluded. He’d chosen it for that very reason. But it had never felt empty until she had filled it with her presence.

  And her wonderful, amazing hot chocolate.

  Hugh attempted a version that night.

  “Well?” he demanded from the door of the kitchen after Quill had taken his first sip.

  “Close,” Quill allowed. “Keep trying.”

  Hugh stomped back into the kitchen.

  And Quill couldn’t tell him that what was likely missing was essence of Ree. He went to sleep thinking of the warm goodness.

  And her.

  He kept himself busy Tuesday morning determining the particulars for their next run. Then Hugh walked him into the village so Quill could retrieve Ree for their tea at Castle How. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to greet the earl so soon after the revelations from Julian Mayes. If the solicitor was right, Quill was the illegitimate half-brother of Drake, Earl of Howland, and they would have been sired within months of each other. It wasn’t the sort of thing most men wanted to learn about their fathers. Yet, did Quill have a right to keep the matter to himself?

  “Still no sign of Mr. Smith,” Ree said as they passed the opening to Lavender Lane on the way along Castle Walk. Young Charlie Lawrence, loitering on the corner, raised a hand in greeting.

  “Or this assassin,” Quill pointed out as they started their climb to the Castle. “I begin to think we were wrong about them both.”

  The frown she sent him told him she doubted that.

  She stopped as they came up onto the headland to stare at the white stone building with its rounded turrets at each corner. “Do the knights still hold tournaments here?” she asked as Quill motioned her across the swath of lawn to the ring of trees.

  “It may look like an ancient castle, but it was built more recently as a hunting lodge,” he told her, leading her through the trees for the front.

  A footman let them in. Ree’s gaze swept about the wide great hall with its massive stone fireplace flanked by statues of Grecian water bearers. Quill had seen the stone ladies any number of times, until the earl had moved his family in permanently. Before that, Castle How had stood empty for months out of the year, with only an occasional visit from cleaning maids or an inspection by James. Easy for Quill and his men to use the caverns beneath as a landing place and spirit cargo and passengers out through the Castle. The new earl had agreed to Quill’s request to continue using the caves, but the way French boats kept popping up had made the Peverell pier the more logical choice.

  Jonas, the Howland butler, stepped forward to greet them, then led them toward the withdrawing room on the left. With his dark hair and haughty gaze, he looked more like Quill than Quill resembled any Howland.

  In fact, with those sharp features and light blond hair, Drake, Earl of Howland, looked enough like James for the two to pass as brothers. He was sitting on the sofa in the withdrawing room off the great hall, his wife beside him and his mother on a tall-backed chair near the hearth. The smile on Rosemary’s face said that marriage agreed with her. She had never been a woman obsessed with fashion, but her dark blond hair was arranged in curls around her face and her gown boasted a few bows for a change. Of course, any lady would likely look informally dressed beside the dowager countess, whose silver hair was piled up high and whose black gown was bedecked with silver net and jet beads.

  “Captain St. Claire and Mademoiselle Fortier,” the butler intoned.

  Quill offered a bow, and Ree dipped a curtsey even as the earl rose.

  “My lord, my ladies, an honor to be invited to join you,” she said, straightening as the butler backed from the room.

  “We are delighted to have you both with us,” the dowager countess assured them. She motioned Ree and Quill toward a brace of chairs across from her, and the earl resumed his seat.

  “Your voice is very fine, Mademoiselle Fortier,” the older countess seemed compelled to admit. “A shame you will have to give up the stage when you marry.”

  “I would never consider marriage to so fine a man as the captain a sacrifice,” Ree said with a besotted look toward Quill.

  “Nor would I prevent the world from hearing the pleasure of your singing, my dear,” he assured her.

  The earl and Rosemary exchanged glances. Had James confided the true nature of Quill’s engagement? Or did the look indicate they understood how love could make one generous?

  A footman came bearing the tea tray, and the dowager countess set about pouring into the elegant violet-patterned cups. Conversation turned easily to the ancient creatures Rosemary and Miranda, the earl’s daughter from his first marriage, were unearthing from the cliffs below the Castle.

  “Enough Amon’s horn to carpet the drive to the village and back with the curly creatures,” Rosemary told Ree. “Nothing nearly as exciting as our crocodile yet, but we have hopes. Miranda unearthed what appears to be the foot of something large.”

  “A crocodile!” Ree marveled. “In the cliff?”

  “Perhaps you should show her,” the earl encouraged.

  “It is rather impressive,” the countess allowed. “If one appreciates bones.”

  There was nothing for it but that they all go look.

  The earl had devoted several rooms off the great hall for a museum of sorts, available by appointment through the spa. Rosemary was delighted to give Ree a thorough tour, with the dowager countess sweeping along.

  Quill stepped in front of the earl to keep him from following. “Perhaps I might have a moment, my lord?”

  He nodded, motioning him to one side of the wide corridor. “Is it about the boat?”

  “No,” Quill admitted. “Though I take it no one has come for it.”

  He shook his head. “We keep watch at every turning of the tide, but it remains untouched. And you’ve had no more threats against you personally, I trust.”

  “None whatsoever.” He couldn’t quite keep the frustration from his voice. “But that’s not why I asked to speak with you. James has been looking into a matter for me, and the answer affects you as well.”

  “Oh?” he asked with a frown.

  How could he tell the fellow? “Were you close to your father?” he tried.

  The frown grew. “Moderately so, though James would tell you we discovered things after he died that surprised us both. I take it you’ve learned something else. Has James confirmed that he was in league with the smugglers working for Napoleon?”

  “No, though we both suspect as much.” Quill raised his head. “I was a foundling, my lord. I never knew my father. But there is mounting evidence that you and I may share the same bloodlines.”

  He washed white. “My father?”

  Quill spread his hands. “Illegitimately, of course. He paid for me to attend Eton and arranged for me to join the Navy. A man doesn’t do that for a foundling without reason.”

  “And my father would have had to have a very good reason,” he said. “He wasn’t much for charity.” He looked Quill up and down, as if trying to find any similarity in their features, their physiques. “So you are saying we are half-brothers.”

  “So it seems,” Quill allowed. “Can you sit with that?”

  A slow smile spread across his angular features. “Can I sit with that? You’re one of the most celebrated, admired people in Grace-by-the-Sea. The question is, can you sit with the fact that you are related to me?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rosemary, Countess of Howland, clearly loved her bones more than she had ever loved Quillan St. Claire. She waxed eloquent as she led Ree along glass cases in which reposed age-blackened skeletons and rock-hardened shells.

  “An excellent specimen,” she said of the craggy monster with the heavy jaw that appeared to leer at Ree. “Even the British Museum doesn’t have one so complete.”

  Still, she just as clearly loved her husband to an even greater extent. Ree had seen the looks that passed between them, the way his hand sought hers, how her body leaned closer to his as if drawing strength from his proximity.

  Funny how she’d been behaving the same way with Quill lately, and she could not quite convince herself it was an act. Sometimes, when Quill looked at her, she began to wonder whether it was an act to him either.

  So, why had he taken the earl aside and stayed so long in the corridor to talk alone?

  She did not have an opportunity to ask until they started back for the village. The countesses had been fervent in their farewells, insisting that she and Quill return another time, perhaps for dinner. It was rather gratifying.

  She said as much as they began their descent on the switchback path that ran down from the headland to Castle Walk.

  “They like us,” she told Quill.

  “Of course they like us,” he said. “We have done our best to be likeable.”

  “This is more,” she insisted as they made the first turn and the cove came into view, sparkling in the late afternoon sun. “The younger Lady Howland seemed genuinely interested in knowing more about me and quite willing to share her pastimes. And the earl seemed happy to talk to you.”

  She glanced at him to find a smile playing about his lips.

  “Surprisingly so,” he agreed.

  “What did you two talk about in the corridor?” she asked.

  “Watch that rock there,” he said, directing her around a piece of limestone that stuck up in the path. “The pitch of this portion can make it tricky.”

  Tricky enough that he had not answered her question. She waited until the path evened out a little.