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reassuring smile.
    A tear ran down Dinks’s once beautiful face. After a decade of service to the deBeaus, she had allowed her trim, svelte lines to expand into a more fulsome figure. “Oh, no.” She tentatively touched Cora’s arm. “What did that rat-bastard do to our little mite?”
    Danforth cleared his throat. “She’ll be fine, Dinks.”
    Cora’s thin, trembling hand slid over Dinks’s larger one. “Don’t fret, dear Dinks.”
    Guy’s vision blurred. Leave it to Cora to try to comfort others at a time like this.
    “We have only a few hours to make the coast,” Danforth cut in. “We need our horses.”
    “They’re safe, m’lord,” Bingham answered with a slight bow of deference. “The black and chestnut were restless and wouldn’t calm down, so Jack took them to the creek bed not far from here. The mare you brought is tied up with our horses just beyond the tree line.”
    Guy clapped the older man on the shoulder. “Thank you, Bingham.”
    Red faced, the coachman glanced at his mistress and mumbled, “Miss Cora would have my hide if I neglected my duties.”
    Guy looked back toward Valère’s chateau. Apprehension crawled beneath his skin. Instead of escaping with one prisoner, they now had four innocents to get to safety. Given the exact set of circumstances, he would have made the same decision, yet leaving their original target behind scraped against his conscience.
    Cora drew his gaze for the hundredth time. The fact that Somerton had sent him and Danforth here to retrieve a female spy, and the only female in Valère’s dungeon happened to be Cora, struck him as entirely too coincidental. However, he found it hard to reconcile his childhood friend with the elusive Raven, known for her ability to seduce secrets from the most reticent of French agents.
    As he watched, Cora’s eyelids finally gave up their exhausted battle and lowered shut. Guy released a relieved breath and shut out the mystery of Cora’s imprisonment. God willing, she would sleep through the grueling ride back to the coast.
    A hound bayed in the distance.
    Everyone froze; no one breathed.
    Another howl rent the air.
    Then another.
    Dammit. Men they could elude for a time, but trained dogs would lead Valère right to this misfit group. “To the horses,” Guy quietly ordered.
    They scrambled toward the three horses tied up nearby. Once Guy was seated, Danforth lifted Cora up into his arms.
    She stirred, tensed. “What’s wrong?”
    Guy accepted a wrap from Dinks and draped it around Cora. His heart pounded, but he spoke with calm reassurance. “Nothing, sweetheart. But we have a hard ride ahead of us.”
    The hounds bayed again, and her fingers dug into his shoulder. She buried her face in his neck. “I’m ready.”
    Guy glanced back to make sure the others had mounted and then kicked his steed into a fury of swirling leaves and flying dirt.

Four
    A few days later, Cora found herself ensconced in Somerton’s library at his spacious London town house. She sat in the corner of the soft leather sofa with a kerseymere lap rug over her legs and a pretty lemon-colored shawl draped around her shoulders.
    The bandage covering her right eye was still an annoyance, but she had finally become accustomed to viewing the world through her one-eyed perspective. Although she was looking forward to removing the bandage in a few days, she wasn’t anxious to reveal her disfigurement. Her hair would grow back, and the burns and bruises would heal, but the scar would remain forever etched upon her face—a constant reminder of her imprudent arrogance.
    Peering around the familiar room, she adjusted the sling securing her left arm to her chest and ignored the three large men strategically stationed around her. She could feel their curious stares and imagined she could hear the interrogating questions lining up in their heads.
    Although she had prepared herself for this meeting, she had no wish to begin. Pulling in a calming breath, she