“I’ll tell me brother. You’re for Dover, sir?”

“On the fastest horses I can find.”

“You’ll want to go to the Jolly Bullock, sir. They handle a lot of expresses for the captains and crew. Fastest nags this side of the Thames, and the grooms will tell you where to make the next change. You tie a red kerchief to the horse’s right rein, and the tollkeepers will wave you through if you toss ’em a few pence for their trouble.”

Harry looked fascinated by this recitation.

“Shores, you have been a godsend. Thank you for keeping a sharp eye, and I meant what I said about looking up the old crew. Bring your brother and anybody else you happen across who served with us.”

“You were the godsend, sir. Took us a while to realize that, but Waterloo isn’t a day we’ll ever forget. The Jolly Bullock is two streets up that lane, and you tell ’em Shores sent ya.”

“I’ll do that.”

An ornate coach pulled up to the foot of the inn’s steps. Shores tugged his cap and jaunted down the steps. “Best of luck, sir.”

Harry watched as the coach disgorged two women, clearly mother and daughter, both dressed in the first stare of fashion. “What was that all about?”

“That was about Waterloo and doing the right thing. You are going to do the right thing now too, Merchant.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“That is who you are. I must away to Dover, but you must stay put until I can retrieve Matilda and get her free of you.”

Harry shifted so his back was to anybody coming up the steps. “Staying put is not my forte, Tremont.”

“How well we know that, but you’re about to turn over a new and better leaf.”

The ladies swept past, and Harry turned again so his back was to the door of the inn. “I’ve tried turning over new leaves. Matilda was supposed to be a new leaf. Oxford, Dublin… I’ve littered my path with new leaves, and they always wilt.”

“Do you know where Matilda has gone, Harry?”

Harry’s expression turned bleak. “Dover, and from thence… God knows, so you’d best be on that fast horse and leave me to be about my business.”

“Matilda is going someplace you can never plague her,” Tremont said. “Someplace she can turn over a new leaf and go about it properly. She is going to Paris.”

The elegant coach rolled around to the side of the inn, where the porters and footmen would deal with the luggage out of sight of the inn’s guests.

“I did not plague her,” Harry bit out. “I rescued her from scandal and ruin.”