Five months after he had left England, Alex stood on board ship, smiling into a cold, dank wind blowing off the English coastline. There is nothing as bone-shakingly chilly as a rainy coastal breeze, and yet there is nothing that smells so heartwarmingly English either, he thought. Slowly the rain-stained cluster of pubs that marked the London wharf came into view as their boat meandered up the Thames. Lighted windows winked and disappeared through the sheets of rain that were dashing to the shore. Lucien appeared at his side, tightly bundled against the storm.

Alex cast an affectionate arm around his shoulders. “We made it!” he shouted against the strained creaking of the small ship as it jarringly came into port. Instantly stevedores began trotting up and down, carrying boxes of wine out to the dock.

“Gently!” Alex shouted, his voice booming over the noise of slanting, falling rain. One of the seamen looked up, startled, but the stevedores paid no attention, nimbly finding their way over the piles of cargo, winches, ropes, and garbage that festooned the dock.

“They pay you no mind,” Lucien chuckled. “They know their work.”

“I’m not worried they will drop a box,” Alex said. “But if they shake the port, it will have to settle for two years—and I could use a drink at this moment.”

Lucien turned and gathered his sister Brigitte into his arms. “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me in the cabin?” he scolded. Alex could just see glowing, bright strands of hair peeking out from beneath Brigitte’s hood. He had become very fond of Lucien’s courageous little sister over the past few months. She was finally losing her white strained look and beginning to take on the normal air of a mischievous thirteen-year-old.

“I wanted to see England,” she said in her marked French accent. “It is my new home, no?”

Alex put his arm lightly around her shoulder and they stood together, the three of them, watching the last of the cargo being taken off the ship. Alex knew to the bottom of his soul that he would never be more proud of anything he did in his life than he was of his trip into France. The fact that this effervescent, lovely girl was alive was due in part to him; from what Brigitte had told them, the milliner was being asked more and more questions about his supposed “niece.” It was only a matter of time before Brigitte would have been brought before the gendarmes for questioning.

Alex gestured toward the shore. “Your new home lies before you. Shall we disembark?”

“Daphne will be waiting for us,” Lucien said to his sister.

“Do you think Daphne stayed in London after the season ended?” Alex asked curiously. “Won’t she have retired to the country?”

“Oh, no,” Lucien said with calm, absolute certainty. “She would never leave London under the circumstances.”