He hugged his horse and buried his face against Copenhagen’s velvet neck as loud, hooting sobs filled the small parlor.

“The crossing should be swift,” the maid said, collecting Matilda’s soup bowl. “Winter weather can make for choppy currents, but you do get to Calais in good time. You’ll be in France before dawn, young fellow.”

This assurance inspired Tommie to greater volumes of misery.

And for Matilda, to be free, to be away, to be on French soil and know the parting was complete… She longed to close the door on her hopes with that much finality. To lose herself in the simple business of survival as she had when Harry had abandoned her.

Thomas the Vexatious would likely fall asleep before they’d been underway for an hour, though he hadn’t slept for the entire journey down from London. Matilda put a hand on his shoulder, prepared to reason and wheedle and bargain, but he jerked away from her hand.

“Don’t touch me! I hate you!”

“He doesn’t mean it,” the maid said, setting an apple cobbler before Matilda. “Overly tired, he is. The little ones don’t always travel so well, do they?”

Matilda was half tempted to deal with Tommie severely. A day of patience and placating him had resulted only in this spectacular tantrum, and they had quite a distance yet to travel.

“Thomas, look at me.” Or so help me, you will wish you had. Papa’s voice again, as he slapped a birch rod slowly against his palm.

Matilda was assailed by an old, old memory, of being squashed beside her father on a stage coach journey to London. She’d been about Tommie’s age, and she’d had to use the necessary, but hadn’t known how to communicate that need to her father.

She’d wet herself and got a smack and a protracted scolding for her stupidity. All the while Papa had been berating her, and the stink of her incontinence had risen from her clothes, she’d thought, I hate you. I hate you, you stupid, selfish, angry old man. I will always hate you.

And if she hadn’t quite loathed Papa from that day forward, neither had she respected him.

“France can wait,” she said to the maid as Tommie’s wailing subsided into brokenhearted whimpers. “You are right. My son is exhausted.” The proprietress had also reminded Matilda of the same obvious fact. “Might we have a room for the night?”

“The wind could die in the morning, missus. You could be stuck here for days.”

“Then the wind dies, but my child will be well rested. I have asked too much of an otherwise very good little boy, and the last thing I need or want is for him to take sick because he’s been overtaxed.”