“I have very good hearing,” Madame Howard said. “Madame need only call out, and I will wield an iron poker on his lordship’s handsome head and throw his body into the sea for the sharks.” She made a shooing motion toward the door.

Those threats—or promises—inspired a faint smile from Matilda. “No need for dire measures, Madame. His lordship is the quintessential gentleman under all circumstances.”

Tremont processed with Matilda down the corridor before Madame took a swipe at him for practice.

“I like her,” Matilda said. “She’s fierce and kind, and I like her. Tommie does not want to go to France, and for that matter, neither do I, but what are you doing here, and how did you find me? If Harry is dead, I will try to mourn his passing, but that will be uphill work.”

He ushered her into a toasty parlor done up in red, white, and blue. A bow window overlooked the sea, and the setting moon spread streamers of gold over the dark water.

Matilda had planned to sail across that expanse, never to be seen again by the man who loved her to distraction.

“Let’s sit, shall we?” he said. “My guess is that Madame Howard will have very good brandy, if you’d like some.”

“Will you join me?”

“I’d best not. I’ve ridden seventy miles through winter weather on horses whose sole redeeming qualities were speed and stamina. Some of them were carnivores, all of them had miserable gaits, and two were prepared to commit homicide, so fiercely did they hold to the conviction that they must return to London. A nightcap might lay me low.”

Matilda subsided onto the blue sofa and took up a matching blue pillow embroidered with gold fleur-de-lis. “And yet, despite the perils of the journey, you are here.”

He poured her a generous portion from a decanter on the sideboard and brought it to her. “May I sit beside you?”

She accepted the drink. She did not pat the place next to her on the sofa. “Tell me about Harry. He’s mixed up in this somehow, isn’t he?”

Tremont shifted a wing chair such that it faced the sofa rather than the sea. “He’s not Harry Merridew. He’s Harrell Merchant, scion of a respected Quaker trading family from Bristol. He’s probably quite wealthy, if—in a singular irony—he hasn’t been declared dead.”

Matilda sipped her brandy. “Then I am Mrs. Matilda Merchant?”

“You need not be Mrs. Anybody. I consulted in some detail with Mr. Michael Delancey, who has a thorough grasp of ecclesiastical law. You and Harry were married by special license, and that license was sorely defective. Harry lied about his name, he lied about belonging to a Church of England congregation, and through marriage to you, he got his hands on much of your dower property.”