Page 70 of The Boxing Baroness

“Er, I’ll go with you. I need to see to something, too,” Guy said. At Cecile’s raised eyebrows he amended, “I mean something else.”

The two hurried off and Marianne turned her back on Staunton and propped her elbows up on the railing.

Rather than leave, as a normal human would, he leaned beside her, so close their shoulders brushed. “It’s going to be a long journey if we are constantly at daggers drawn.”

“Maybe you should turn around in Calais and go back home, Your Grace.”

He turned to her, but she stared straight ahead, the endless water soothing her jangling nerves.

“The night before last I spoke to a man who’d been a footman in Strickland’s house in Chatham. He was there the same time you were.”

“So?”

“He said he was with you and Strickland when you picked up a French gentleman down by the docks and drove with the man to Deal.”

Marianne turned to him. “What of it? The man was a French architect—an émigré by the name of Olivier Monet.” She had purposely blocked out memories of her time with Dominic, but she remembered the day—and journey—quite well.

They had been arguing. Well, she had been arguing and Dominic had been drinking. It was only a few short weeks after their supposed marriage and he had filled his Chatham house with people who’d worked for him at his version of her uncle’s circus, a business he’d started the year before, which he called The Caligula Club. The name was well-suited, as Dominic’s circus had murky undertones: his female fighters were harsh, beaten-down women who smelled strongly of gin. None of his boxers—male or female—wore mufflers, and the fights weren’t finished until there was only one person standing. She had also heard rumors about other, less savory events being held for select patrons: like a rat pit in which he didn’t only employ terriers, but children.

When she had confronted Dominic about what she’d heard, he had asked her to go for a ride in his carriage. She’d thought they were going to discuss her accusations. Instead, he had picked up Monet.

“I remember Monet,” she finally said to the duke, who’d waited patiently. A sour stew of fear and dread swirled in her belly as she recalled that day. “We collected him from a dilapidated house several streets off the harbor in Chatham.” She met his intent gaze. “Why are you asking about him?”

He reached into his pocket and extracted a letter. “Is this your handwriting?”

The envelope only bore two words: Robert Slattery.

“It looks like my handwriting.” She glanced from the letter to the duke.

“You know Robert Slattery?”

“I didn’t know him as such.” She chewed her lip as her mind raced. “And before you ask, yes, I knew that he owned a ship—the Defiant—that ran smuggled goods back and forth across the channel.”

The duke opened the letter. “Let me read it for you: ‘We’ve received the money. The package will be at the old rope warehouse on May 17th.’” He looked up at her. “Do you remember writing this?”

“No.” His eyes narrowed and she hastened to explain. “I’m not denying that I wrote it, but I don’t remember that specific letter.”

“This is a letter Strickland’s footman said he was sent to deliver a few days before you and Strickland drove the Frenchman to Deal.”

“What? That’s a lie. I didn’t—Wait,” she said. “If this man was paid to deliver it, then why did he still have it?”

“He said he managed to steal it back after the man read it.”

Marianne snorted at that. “How convenient.”

The duke frowned, but she could see he, too, thought the story rather flimsy.

Marianne pushed the thought aside. “What does all this mean? What are you getting at?”

“May seventeenth of last year was the day at least one of those escaped French prisoners was smuggled out of Deal, Miss Simpson.”

Marianne flung up her hands. “I swear on my life that I never sent a letter on May 17, 1814.”

“I’m sorry, but how can you be so sure?”

“I can be sure because the last time I wrote any of those letters—all of which were about smuggled goods, not people, by the way—was back when my uncle still lived in Deal, at least five years ago, when I was down from school visiting him on a holiday.”

* * *