Muttering under her breath, Lotti began to rummage through her rucksack. Was there anything, anything, which didn’t look as if it had been pulled from a jumble pile? And why did it matter? Must she really dress up, pretend, play respectable for a housekeeper? This wasn’t what she had run away for! Dimly, she was aware of Federico barking, of Elsie joining him, of Ben shouting … She heard a boat engine rumble then go quiet, footsteps approaching and then the dogs barking louder, a grumpy voice saying, “Well, Federico, well, Elsie, it’s good to see you again,” and Ben sort of gasping and laughing, and at last she looked up and squealed because it was Frank, returned from Belgium.

“It was something you said, Charlie,” Frank explained, after Lotti had hugged him and Ben had shaken his hand and Sam and Henri and Clara had been introduced. “After I saw my brother’s grave, I got thinking. See, Jack always wanted a dog. And I thought about payment. I never did feel quite right about our deal. So I came looking for you and”—he rummaged in the inside pocket of his jacket—“I thought I’d give this back and ask if I couldn’t have one of them puppies instead.”

And into Lotti’s hand he dropped the ring that had been in Théophile’s family since before the Revolution …

Albert Skinner missed the arrivals of Lotti and Henri and Frank for the most prosaic of reasons. He’d been watching out for the Sparrowhawk all day without moving, and he was absolutely bursting for the bathroom. He returned to his window just in time to see Lotti fling her arms round Frank.

Albert should have run, gone charging out of the hotel to snatch Lotti, waving an arrest warrant. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off the young man with the scarred face and tattered clothes standing with his hand on Ben’s shoulder, looking considerably older than twenty but alive, more than alive, actually smiling …

Was this Sam Langton?

And could his own boy, his son, one day smile like that again?

A motorbike revved, breaking the spell. Albert’s eyes flicked toward it and he swore softly. The driver in his helmet was almost unrecognizable, but there was no mistaking the eye patch. So Captain de Beauchesne was part of this too, was he? Albert chastised himself, realizing how the captain had fooled him in Paris. But now Lotti was climbing onto the back of the motorbike, and Albert shook himself.

He had come to France to do a job. He had disliked Hubert Netherbury since their first encounter, when Lotti’s uncle had ordered him to fetch Federico, and his dislike had grown with each of their subsequent exchanges. But his job wasn’t to like people, it was to uphold the law, which in this case meant ensuring the safety of an absconded minor.