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hear above the heavy tramp of her heart, but only a few distant voices filtered up to her. She had no idea whether or not it was Henri who had taken St. Ives away, which direction her husband had traveled, or when he’d be back. She could only hope that her younger brother would waylay the baron if he hadn’t already, while God directed her feet to safety.
    Cracking the door, she peeked into the long, dark hall before slipping outside. Shadows alerted her to heavy furniture arranged along the left wall, but she couldn’t carry a candle, and without one, she feared she’d become lost.
    Laughter tinkled on the air, rising from the ballroom below as Jeannette tried to decide the best way to get out. She’d visited Hawthorne House for the first time only that morning. She knew nothing of its mazelike corridors. But heading down the stairs she had climbed with Agatha wasn’t a possibility. She had to find another way out.
    And she could. In a grand house such as this, double entrances into almost every room facilitated the servants’ movements; she was bound to find an exit. Besides that, the lateness of the hour boded well. St. Ives employed many servants and had hired more to help with the ball. Most of the belowstairs help would be too preoccupied with cleaning up or seeing to the remaining guests to notice a plainly dressed woman who could easily be one of their own.
    Stuffing her hair up under the crushed bonnet that had been crammed into the pocket of her skirt, she moved cautiously through the darkness. The floor beneath her creaked, the noise stretching her nerves taut, but she didn’t slow. Seconds mattered, fractions of seconds...
    If only she could slip outside, the thick trees surrounding the baron’s mansion would hide her. But not for long. She had to get to London and to Lord Darby before her new husband found her.
    The corridors of Hawthorne House twisted and turned past so many rooms, Jeannette lost count. Eventually she found the back stairs and headed down into a large, hot kitchen. Pans clanged as a tired-looking slavey washed dishes. A tall man dressed in livery flung orders at several young women busy stacking plates in a cupboard he waited to lock. The pungent smell of onions and roast duck permeated everything, along with the gentler aroma of the baked goods lining a deal table.
    Jeannette blended with the bustle as she passed through the pantry, pushing aside baskets of turnips, potatoes, and sacks of wheat to find the back door.
    Freedom hit her with the first icy blast of the wind. Then silence engulfed her, along with a thick, cloaking mist that didn’t permit so much as the moon’s light to penetrate. She half-expected someone to cry out her name, for the entire house to descend upon her. But there was only the fog. And though its fingers were as cool and impersonal as the baron’s own, she gladly accepted its embrace as she ran quietly into the night.

Chapter 3

    By the time Jeannette stumbled into Plymouth, the fog had turned into thin wispy tentacles mixed with rain. The five- or six-mile walk in the damp, chilly night had been grueling. Every carriage that had rumbled by on the road to town had sent her fleeing into the brush for cover, leaving her scratched and bruised by thorny branches, and her slippers ruined, worn through and caked with mud.
    Concentrating on the sound of the rain splashing into puddles, she tried to ignore the scurrying of unseen animals, the presence of which set her teeth on edge. Even when her lungs began to burn and her skirts became sodden and heavy, she pressed on, wondering where to go now that the village rose like a dark giant climbing out of the sea.
    Several minutes later, Jeannette wiped drops of rain from her face with her sleeve as she passed through the narrow, cobbled streets. Would she have to spend the entire night without shelter? Plymouth was one of His Majesty’s great naval bases and often in the news, but she’d never visited the city