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rest, until we arrive at the coast. A pity your fine English uniform was ruined. Does a ship passage cost a terrible amount of money? There are twenty-two gold coins in the Comte ’s purse, but I don’t know what English coins are worth.”
    “More than twenty? We should be able to hire our own small boat, Lisette, with that much money. One that can take us across the Channel to Dover in a few hours. Will you feel safe from the Comte then?”
    “Oh, yes, I will. And then I will be English. And then you will take me to your family and they will shower me with kisses for bringing their prodigal home safe to them. I will be the heroine, Rian,” she said, snuggling against him. “I like that.”
    It was so easy to smile when Lisette was being silly. So easy to forget anything else when she slid her hand onto his belly, then trailed her fingers lower, teasing him, arousing him, taking him out of this world and into one where he was still whole….

CHAPTER THREE
    “L ORINGA , YOU FRIGHTENED ME !”
    “Nothing frightens you, devil’s child. If you fail when you leave us, it will be that lack of respect for fear’s warnings that will be your destruction. But you are wise to fear me while you are here.”
    Lisette watched as her father’s constant companion, the self-proclaimed Voodoo priestess, plodded across the carpet and sat down heavily, glared at her in the candlelight.
    “Don’t be silly. I don’t fear you,” Lisette protested as she continued to pack a small portmanteau, hastily shoving in the few bits of simple clothing she had carefully chosen for her journey. “I should have said that you startled me. That is all, Loringa. Because I don’t believe in you.”
    “You say you eat only from the common pot,” Loringa reminded her, smiling, the gap between her front teeth seemingly growing wider by the day. “You believe.”
    “I believe you are capable of drawing up potions, poisons. I believe that it’s you who keeps my own papa chewing on those strange leaves, so that he rarely eats, he rarely sleeps. I believe you are evil pretending to do good. But none of that makes you a priestess.”
    “I am Dahomey. Your maman, she was born in New Orleans, she understood the power of the Voodoo. She entrusted your life to me, remember? Voodoo is powerful. And I am the most powerful of the powerful. I saved that boy, didn’t I? Nobody but me. He was as good as dead when he was brought here.”
    Lisette didn’t have an answer for any of that, so she continued her packing, sweeping her brushes and a hand mirror from the dresser and tossing both on the bed.
    “Not those, servant girl, ” Loringa scolded. “A teacher’s daughter, an orphan working as a lowly servant, does not have pretty silver brushes.”
    “I’ll simply tell him I stole them.”
    “And that will explain away the initials carved on their backs?”
    L. M. B. Lisette Marguerite Beatty.
    Lisette replaced the brushes and mirror without further comment. She supposed she should have thought about that herself. Truth be told, the woman really did unnerve her. Still, the brushes and mirror had been her papa ’s first gift to her. She longed to take them with her, have something of him to look at, to remember why she was doing what she would do.
    After Loringa left, she’d pack them. The old woman worried too much.
    “Don’t you have something else to do, Loringa? Sticking pins in one of those strange dolls, saying your rosary while you burn feathers and stroke that ugly fat snake of yours? If the nuns knew what goes on here, they’d be telling me to run back to them before lightning strikes from the sky, cleaving this house—and your head—in two.”
    The old woman sat back in the chair and laughed, the sound rich and full, belying her years. “You mock me because you do not understand. I have the power. Your papa, he knows this, and is grateful. Who do you think keeps him safe all these years?”
    “So you say,” Lisette grumbled, closing