Free Daughter of the God-King by Anne Cleeland Page B

“I will escort you ladies within, if you don’t mind.”
    “Of course,” said Hattie, who then added with an amused sidelong glance, “I am counting on you to stand the ready, on account of my reticule having been unaccountably stolen.”
    “Say no more, Miss Blackhouse,” the other assured her in a wooden voice as he handed her down. “I shall be honored.”
    “Have Robbie pay you back,” she suggested.
    “No need.”
    “You are very kind.” I shouldn’t bait him, she thought, but I cannot allow him to believe I am as stupid as he thinks.
    Once within the shop’s interior, Hattie sized up the two women within and approached the younger. “We will need blacks, I’m afraid,” Hattie explained in French, and began walking to the back of the shop where, in the time-honored tradition of draper’s shops, there were rolls of all variety of fabrics, stacked high on tables and shelves.
    The girl assumed a sympathetic expression, her pretty mouth drawn down. “ Quel d o mmage , mademoiselle.”
    “That’s as may be,” replied Hattie, who walked behind the stacks and straight toward the back door—she thought it best to strike quickly, whilst her keeper was carefully viewing the street out the front window. “Say nothing,” she whispered to the surprised girl with a smile. “I go to meet my sweetheart, and mon oncle disapproves.”
    “Ah! Oui , mademoiselle,” the girl answered, and lingered behind the stacks, looking self-conscious, as she watched them slip out the door.
    “Quickly, Bing; we’ll find a hackney on the next street up; I’m afraid we will have to lie on the floor for a time.”
    “Certainly,” said Bing, and gamely lifted her skirts with both hands.

Chapter 10
    And so in two days’ time Hattie stood on the deck of the Sophia , holding her hat on her head with one hand with her face turned into the wind, thrilled to feel the ship skimming along the water. The trip across the Channel from Southampton had been her first sea voyage—her first voyage of any kind, truly—and she had enjoyed it immensely. “It is so glorious, Bing—small wonder sailors never want to come home from the sea.”
    Bing, however, was pale of lip. “I believe I must go and lay abed, Hathor.”
    Hattie turned to her usually steady companion with concern. “Are you ill, Bing? Allow me to assist you.”
    But her doughty companion was embarrassed by such a show of weakness and refused all offers of aid. “There is no need, Hathor; it has been my experience that a short nap and a citrus drop will set me to rights.” In dignified retreat, she then made her way down the companionway stairs to their cabin.
    Turning her face back into the breeze, Hattie listened to the hissing of the water as it sloughed off the hull and breathed in lungfuls of sharp, tangy air as she leaned against the ship’s railing. They were headed to open sea and the water became rougher, the ship dipping in the troughs more dramatically as she closed her eyes and licked the salt spray from her lips—glorious, she thought, removing her hat so that she could feel the sun on her face—she definitely did not have her mother’s aversion to the sun. They had laid low, both on the trip to Le Havre and then at the inn, staying indoors and out of sight in the event the British or the Baron or even the mysterious Comte tracked them down, but in the end the ship was away with none the wiser, and Hattie celebrated having the sun once again on her face and the exultation of having outfoxed her pursuers. Indeed, her only regret was that there would be no further opportunities for post-midnight tête-a-têtes with Monsieur Berry, but she consoled herself with the sure knowledge that he would turn up again, if for no other reason than to plague her about the stupid strongbox, which was apparently of great interest to everyone still left alive in all this.
    “Mademoiselle.”
    She would know his voice anywhere, and in utter astonishment she jerked her