The English Heiress by Roberta Gellis

still “much younger” and he often spoke to him as if he were a boy. “I do not know how I let you drag me into this argument again. All I wanted to do was to tell you that my trips will be less frequent. I will try to leave word when I expect to be back—”
    “No, don’t do that. It would be dangerous for you. In any case there will be fewer passengers unless you sail to German ports. France isn’t a safe haven these days.”
    Pierre sighed. “Idiots! If they did not like their king, did they have to make so much fuss to curb him or be rid of him?”
    “Their king? You’re a Frenchman also, Pierre.”
    “Not I!” Pierre exclaimed. “I am a Breton. I use their language, as I sometimes use yours, for convenience in business. But I am not French.”
    That time Roger did not smile. The Scots felt the same way and had tried to make the point stick with bloody results more than once. The Welsh too, persistently regarded themselves as a separate people, although they had been tied to England for many hundreds of years. This was no joking matter, Roger realized, even though Pierre had never spoken of it before, and Roger valued Pierre’s friendship too much to make a jest of deep feelings, no matter how impractical.
    “As to the German ports,” Pierre continued, going back to the concrete question, “I am not ready yet to use them, although I may be forced to. Sacred Heaven, I have already been forced to sell several catches of fish because I could not find cargo. I will end up as I started—a fisherman! It is not only France that has gone mad. Belgium is in an uproar too, what with the French troops marching in and the Austrians and Prussians driving the French out. I have not even been able to pick up any lace.” He sighed again “I cannot deny that your message was most welcome I can use a passenger. Where does he want to go?”
    “It is I,” Roger replied with a smile, “and I’m not perfectly sure where l want to go.”
    “You! No, my friend. Do not tell me that you are fleeing your government, and as we said before, this is no time for pleasure tour of France.”
    “You’re quite right,” Roger agreed. “I will not be touring for pleasure, and my quarrel isn’t with my government but with yours—sorry, I mean that of the French.”
    “There is precious little government in France right now,” Pierre remarked.
    “I’m aware.” It was Roger who sighed this time. Then he grinned. “For a man of my profession, there’s much to be said for a strong, corrupt central government. It used to be necessary for my agent only to drop a word into the ear, and an appropriate bribe into the hand, of the right man to find someone or release a prisoner. Now I must go myself.”
    It was apparent that Pierre was about to protest. Roger forestalled him by describing the entire problem and his father’s attitude. Having heard him out, Pierre shook his head with a jaundiced expression.
    “In the words of your local people, that is a fine cock-and-bull story.”
    “I swear every word is true,” Roger insisted.
    “Oh, I believe that this Henry de Conyers is missing,” Pierre replied, “and I believe that your father wishes him to be found or to have good evidence that he is dead, but that you must go… My friend, you have been too long quiet and assisting others to escape the results of ‘raising the devil’. Is that how you say it? Now you wish to raise the devil yourself. No, do not shake your head at me. I know you too long and too well to believe your mouth. I look into your eyes and I see what I see. Only for that reason do I take you—because I know if I do not, you will go anyway. But it is dangerous, my friend, very dangerous, what you wish to do.”
    * * * * *
    The same evening that Roger St. Eyre landed in France, Leonie de Conyers began her attempt to jolt her father out of the passive despair that had enveloped him since the death of his wife and son. She began simply enough by announcing