The boat caught the current of the outgoing tide, and the shore receded. Tommie’s teeth were chattering by the time he agreed to return to their stateroom, and Matilda was chilled to the bone. The steward came around to ask if they’d like tea, coffee, brandy, or hot chocolate.

Tommie asked for hot chocolate, while Matilda declined any refreshment. The motion of the ship did not agree with her, and they would not see Dover for hours.

“What in blazing perdition do you mean she’s already departed?” Tremont kept his voice down, though it was a very near thing.

“She and the boy left not an hour ago,” the desk clerk said. “With all their luggage.” He was an older fellow, balding, and skinny. His coat was shiny with age and his gloves less than pristine. “Be you her husband, sir?”

“I am.” Harry spoke up from Tremont’s elbow. “And I am very curious to know where my wife has got off to. Curious enough to summon the authorities if she’s bolted with my son.”

“Shut your lying mouth,” Tremont growled.

“You won’t get anywhere with the likes of him,” Harry said, jerking his chin in the clerk’s direction. “He can’t be bribed, but he can be bullied. I know the type.”

The clerk drew himself up. “If you was a proper husband to the lady, she’d have no reason to bolt, would she?”

“Precisely,” Tremont said, “but I am not her husband, and I am most concerned for her and the child. This fellow”—he jerked a thumb toward Harry—“has no idea where she’s gone. She is not on the manifest for the Portsmouth packet, and her only relative—an auntie—gave us reason to doubt the Portsmouth itinerary in the first place.”

The morning had been busy, starting with a raid on Lambeth Palace and progressing to an invasion of Aunt Portia’s breakfast parlor. Tremont had press-ganged Harry into joining the affray, because he hadn’t time to tarry in Knightsbridge playing skittles with a swindler.

Moreover, Harry deserved to know the result of Tremont’s consultation with Mr. Delancey regarding the niceties of ecclesiastical law pertaining to voidable marriages.

Portia had been unforthcoming in every regard, except that when Tremont asked for an address in Philadelphia where he could send any correspondence for Matilda, Portia had replied that she had no acquaintances in Philadelphia who might be prevailed upon to hold Matilda’s mail.

Philadelphia had been a ruse, which left only the entire rest of the world for Tremont to search.

“What other packets depart from the nearby piers?” he asked.

The clerk sent a dubious glace toward Harry.

“I mean the woman no harm,” Harry muttered. “But she’s leaving England under a serious misapprehension.”