I have seen him. Spoken to him. Researched him. And, yes, I have shed tears for him. I’d hardly be a writer if I did not feel the tragedy of his passing. A dashing young man, dedicated to an idealistic cause, betrayed by his allies, shot in the back by cowards wearing uniforms they did not deserve.

I have the chance to save that man. The chance to avert the hand of fate and fend off the Reaper’s scythe. The chance to protect someone I have come to care about.

Come to care about?

I’ve seen an echo of his death. I do not know him at all. It’s a very pretty story, but stories like his rarely have more than a drop of truth in them. I have been well aware that, in real life, that man whose death I grieve could be a scoundrel and a thief. A proper pirate, which is a far cry from those I romanticize in my books.

I do not know the real Nicolas Dupuis. I never even knew his name. If he is so determined to die, what is that to me?

I could tell myself that . . . if he had not already shown himself to be exactly what I imagined. Idealistic. Passionate about his cause. A man who does good with his life and is about to be murdered for it, and I cannot allow that. I will not.

I do not catch up to Nicolas quickly, but I have time. It is a five-mile walk, and I am able to move briskly in trousers. The boots are another matter. The ones I found seem to belong to a boy—William’s father, perhaps? They are still a little large, and so I have doubled up the stockings, which seems to help with any chafing. It does mean that my feet grow very warm, very quickly. By the time I’m closing in on Hood’s Lane, my poor soles are screaming for respite. I only pick up my pace, as if to show them that such complaining will not be tolerated.

When I first set out, I told myself I had time because it was still daylight, and I know Nicolas is ambushed walking down a dark road. Yet I have only gone a couple of miles when I realize the sun is sinking behind the cloud cover. Also, those clouds grow steadily darker themselves, and the air crackles from an impending storm.

By the time I reach Hood’s Lane, I am squinting to see my surroundings through the gloom and holding tight to my cap, lest it fly off in the gathering wind. I finally make out the signpost ahead. It’s a decrepit stick of a thing, suitable for a rather decrepit country lane. It does not, of course, say Hood’s Lane. That will come later, after this eighteenth-century Robin Hood dies here. But, if I have anything to say about it, it will never bear that moniker.

A tiny voice inside me whispers that I should have seen Nicolas by now. I know this route well, and I have walked as quickly as one can walk for five miles straight. Surely, he would not be traveling at the same pace.