She turned to him and placed her hand on his arm. “I do hope you care for yourself while we are home. Rest, Simon. Go to a ball. Visit Penelope.”

He nodded. “It’s Franny.”

“Is it?” she asked.

“Her name is Franny.”

She frowned. “Find yourself a nice Penelope.”

He shook his head and grinned. “What, precisely, is wrong with Franny?”

She waved her hands. “Penelope just has such a nice ring to it. Penelope. See?”

They pulled deep into a copse of trees where members of their league waited. Lord Andrew Hastings and two others started opening coffins and helping the five members of the de Molier family climb out, legs shaking beneath them, onto the soft earth beside the cart.

Moonlight lit the area immediately around them, and a path to their front led down a hill to the edge of water, visible only to the keen eye.

Scarlet breathed out in satisfaction.

Stepping forward to the group, Lord Hastings said, “Come with us, please.” He held his arm out for the young lady, the de Molier’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Suzanne, to take. She smiled weakly up at him, her blonde curls softly bouncing on her shoulders, and allowed his escort down the small path toward a waiting jolly boat.

The smell of damp earth, welcome after the pungent odors of Paris, mixed with the salt of the sea. Twilight had grown dark, the trees above them merely shadows against the starlit sky. But the sound of low waves, lapping against a boat, directed their footsteps.

Scarlet slapped her reins, shouting to her donkey. The cart pulled away from the group as if she were returning to Paris, but she left the donkey tied to a tree and circled back by foot.

Nimble fingers worked through her change of apparel. Bless her modiste for the modifications she had made to Scarlet’s various costumes. Scarlet had hidden a satchel in the hole of a tree, and she was now closer to the group than any realized as she retrieved it.

Suzanne’s voice carried to her. “So she works for the Pimpernel, then? I do wish we could have thanked her, even though she is a bit frightening to gaze upon.”

Scarlet peered through the trees.

Andrew patted Suzanne’s hand still on his arm. “The Pimpernel and his accomplices wish to remain anonymous. We function with the utmost secrecy and hope you will help us maintain it.”

Suzanne nodded vigorously, and her father, a portly gentleman with graying hair, responded, “We will never speak of it. Please express to the wonderful man how grateful we are.”

“To think we could have been beheaded by morning.” The Comtesse de Molier lost her composure to tears. “Bless him. Oh, bless the man.”

The comte pulled her into his arms.