Of course there wasn’t. Avers’ stomach rumbled.

Behind him, the sound of the carriage wheels turning on the wet cobbles indicated that the stable boy was helping the coachman to unhitch the horses.

“I have a room with a fire lit that you may have,” said the man, head nodding vigorously. “You must come in and dry yourself.”

That was more welcoming than Avers had so far experienced.

“And some drink you might rummage up?”

“Oh yes, yes, come in, come in.”

From no greeting to practically pushing him into the hostelry. This was an odd little man indeed. But by now the rain had seeped its way through the gaps in Avers’ clothing and that fire sounded very appealing.

They crossed a dimly lit and dirty floored passage into a taproom of sorts. A few men were dotted here and there. They glanced over at the newcomer and several whispered behind tankards to each other. What had he walked into? Avers thought of the blunderbuss beneath Hendricks’ seat on the carriage and wished he had it about his person right now.

At least the landlord had understood his request for a private room. He took Avers through this public space into another passageway and finally through a creaking door into a tiny, rudely furnished boxroom with a small dusty window set high in the wall.

“A candle perhaps?” Avers requested. “And what drink you have.”

“Oui.” The landlord bowed away, leaving Avers to take a seat on an uneven chair as the latch of the door fell into place with a resounding clunk.

It did not fill Avers with confidence. He was hard pressed not to imagine he’d just been locked in and was immensely relieved when the landlord returned with his requested candle and drink.

He was once again shut into the room, but this time felt less like the prisoner he had before. Passing an uncomfortable half-hour in what Avers was fairly sure was a storeroom and not a private parlour, he tried his best to drink the acidic ale he’d been served. He stomached it for the sake of his parched throat and was thankful that at the very least he’d determined their location from the landlord—a small hamlet called Buc.

When the coachman finally knocked on the door to tell him the rain had lifted, Avers was the most thankful man in all of France.

Hendricks went on ahead while Avers settled his bill. Leaving a third of his drink untouched, he paid what he was sure was an inflated sum to the innkeeper, and donned his cloak with gusto. Leaving the questionable establishment in his wake, Avers entered the courtyard once again, expecting to see Hendricks and the coach waiting.

He saw neither.

Looking right towards the yard entrance did not reveal the Tremaine vehicle or the smart greys waiting on the road. Just as he was about to turn back into the inn, the door slammed in his face. He tried the handle. Locked.

An involuntary shiver ran down his spine.

Releasing the door, all his misgivings coming to the fore of his mind, he slowly turned to face the deserted stableyard again. An unnatural silence greeted him.

Rain dripped from a broken gutter into a pile of sodden hay, the sound oddly muffled, but aside from that nothing stirred. The lack of human presence in a place which should have been bustling with activity fed the uneasy feeling in Avers’ gut.

He considered calling out for Hendricks, but thought better of it, checked by the feeling in his stomach. Instead, he headed to the stables to discover what had become of the missing greys, carriage and driver.

The cobbles and muck beneath his boots clicked and squelched alternately. The pattering from the gutter into the hay slowed. The abnormal quiet continued.

Arriving at the entrance to what passed as a stable he peered down the long passage formed by the lean-to tacked onto the side of the ramshackle inn. No natural light penetrated the interior passage which Avers assumed was home to several looseboxes for the horses that were regularly stabled at the inn. Thanks to the heavy rain clouds, the lack of any artificial light, and that dusk was now falling, Avers could make little out in the darkness.

He was debating whether to venture into the gloom in search of Hendricks or a sign of the horses when someone grabbed him roughly from behind.

Avers was thrust forward into the darkness, forcing him to stumble and flail to catch his balance. Just as he saved himself, a second set of hands reached out from the darkness to Avers’ left and pushed him into an empty loosebox. He was sent careening downwards, mercifully onto a freshly made bed of straw. Scrambling, Avers turned to face whoever was attacking him, his mind struggling to catch up with the sudden turn of events.

“Tell us what you know of the Comte de Vergelles,” a voice hissed through the darkness at the same moment a flint was struck and an oil lamp blazed into light.

The glow revealed three men, heavily garbed in greatcoats, faces half-obscured by mufflers. Each looked at Avers with the eagerness of a pack of hounds staring at a cornered fox.

Avers played for time, gaining his bearings and surveying his captors as he brushed several strands of straw from his cloak, which had become horribly tangled up around him. “I shall do no such thing, after being manhandled by strangers.”

His apparent nonchalance seemed to wrong-foot the men. There was a moment of hesitation. Avers thanked God that while he might be seriously shaken, he had an uncanny ability to present a calm front.

“You will do as we say,” repeated the man who had spoken before, this time in English. His accent was rough and common.

“What are you about—manhandling me in such a way? It’s not the done thing, not at all.” Avers was trying to make out their features, but the one who held the lamp must have seen him squinting for he raised it higher, dazzling him.

“You will tell us what you know about the Comte de Vergelles and his dealings.”

“The Comte de what?” Avers now sat cross-legged like a naughty schoolboy looking up at them.

“Don’t play games.” The third man came forward and levelled a pistol at Avers’ forehead. “Tell us what you know.”

For a moment, Avers’ words failed him. His breath came quick and shallow. The barrel of the gun looked as dark and ominous as the passageway of the stable had done.

“About this Comte fellow?”

Who were these men? And how on earth was Avers going to get out of this mess? Whatever the Comte was involved in was not over as Wakeford’s superiors might hope. It was very much still happening and very much still dangerous.

“You’re trying my patience,” said the man with the gun, his accent definitely provincial. “I suggest you stop doing that. We know you have dealings with the Comte. You will answer our questions in the name of the King.”

That brought Avers up short. The King?

“You’re working for Louis?”

“Oui—we work for His Majesty against all enemies, including those from within. Tell us what you know.”

What on earth? Avers’ mind sped back and forth over the last few weeks trying to work out how the French government might be involved in the Comte’s spy ring. More importantly, why had they targeted the faux Duke of Tremaine? And how had they known he’d be here?

“A dead English Duke means nothing to us,” hissed the man with the gun, pressing its cold barrel against Avers’ forehead.

“Are you sure? I imagine it’d be the devil of a thing to explain away if my body should show up in a backwards inn at Buc.”

“Perhaps the silly English lord stopped at the inn and got set upon by ruffians.”

The coldness of that barrel against his head brought a great deal of perspective. Suddenly the melancholy he’d felt since Miss Curshaw had thrown him over seemed like a colossal waste of time. Not only that, but what of those he’d leave behind—his dear Cousin Sophy and Aunt Goring? What about Wakeford and his papers? What about… Mademoiselle Cadeaux?

Mademoiselle Cadeaux… It had only been her, the Comte’s circle and Wakeford who knew of his departure from Paris. And would French agents really be willing to kill an English Duke?

Avers had an idea. A wild one. What if this wasn’t the French government at all, but rather the Comte’s men? No. Surely not. And yet…

What had Avers got to lose by testing his theory? He already had a gun to his head.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do your worst—for I have no idea what it is you think I should know—but I do know that I don’t know it.”