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light tug, the stiffness of her body melted like warm wax before a brassier. Her lips—as full of voluptuous promise as her brows were of stern disapproval—parted slightly in astonishment. He saw the glint of her white teeth, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. Sweet clove-scented breath fanned his—
    “There he is!” The small, driver’s hatch flew open and Jacques looked down at them.
    The girl jerked back, wincing as she came to the end of her tethered tresses. Raine freed her. Damn Jacques.
    “Remember, speak only English,” Jacques hissed. “Wait until he is very near. He won’t want you to draw mention to him and I daresay his French is abominable.”
    He snapped the trapdoor shut. Raine looked at the girl. The odd light had leached the color from her skin.
    “A kiss for luck,
ma petite?”
    Her eyes grew round.
“Non,
Monsieur! I am but recently a—”
    “—and I am but recently free.” He clasped the back of her head and pulled her forward, crushing her petal-soft mouth beneath his. For just one heady instant her mouth was pliant and then she fought, pushing him away.
    “Get on with it,” Jacques called down.
    Raine angled his head in a courtly bow, reached past her, and opened the carriage door. “Madame, your debt is paid.” He jumped down to the street and without bothering to look back crossed toward
Le Rex Rouge.
    A tall man stood under a lantern hanging beside the door. He held his voluminous cape close to his body, warding off the stiffening wind. His expression was eager, his body tense.
    Raine slowed his pace, glancing about. Three men stood huddled together at the corner the building, rubbing their hands together above the sullen glow of a small brassier. At the end of the street, a driver slumped atop a closed landau, his ill-matched pair shifting in their traces. It was too quiet.
    The tall man stepped beneath the lantern. He’d a pale, cruel face.
    “Lambert?” he called out.
    “Yes,” Raine answered. He halted. Jacques had warned him to be discreet, yet the smuggler called his name loudly across a nearly deserted cul-de-sac.
    At the corner, one of the men lifted his head. Down the road the chaise door opened. The tall man nodded with evident pleasure, extending his hand, moving rapidly forward, his pale face—
    Pale.
    No seafarer had a face so pale.
    He’d been set up. He heard the woman’s voice call out behind him. “It’s a trap! Run!”
    The advice was unnecessary. He was already running.
     
    The girl watched the tall figure of the nameless young man sprint past the soldiers tumbling from the carriage and be swallowed by the night. From his position atop the carriage “Jacques,” also known as Jamie Craigg and more currently “La Bête,” cursed roundly, whipping up the horses and heading for the docks.
    Once he got over his anger, Jacques would see she’d not only done the right thing, but the best thing. Soon the soldiers from the docks would join their fellows in chasing down the man they thought was
La Bête,
the most notorious smuggler to ever make mock of the French authorities. For the first time in a fortnight the docks would be relatively free of troops. The real
La Bête
could thus, in relative safety, load important cargo before heading back to his native Scotland.
    The “cargo” touched her fingertips to her bruised lips. She had never been kissed before. Never known an unrelated man’s touch. His had been the first. A tall, hard Englishman with sherry-colored eyes, sprung from a fetid jail. He would not have liked his fate had she really been Madame Noir, of that she was certain. Then why did she feel so guilty?
    The honesty the Sisters at Sacré Coeur had demanded of her provided a quick answer. She was no better than Madame Noir. She’d simply put the young man to a different use.
    She bowed her head and offered a short prayer that he find his way to freedom. Yet, even as she finished her prayer and crossed herself, guilty at having used another