"Ohh, my child, I do not think anyone can help us," Lady Bellingham said, but she nonetheless sipped her sherry until she felt a bit more at peace with herself, and able to speak.

The others sat down about her, and waited patiently.

Finally the distraught lady was able to begin. "My husband," she began, "has two younger brothers. Caroline's father as you know is the rector of St. Anne's Church down at Bellinghamton. It is a modest living, but one that allowed him and his family to be comfortable. The youngest brother, Robert Bellingham, had the good fortune to marry a Frenchwoman. She was the only daughter of the Comte de Montroi, and he doted upon her. Consequently her dowry portion was very generous on the provision she and her husband remain in France. With nothing in England for him, Robert Bellingham saw no reason not to remain in his bride's homeland. So they were married. I remember going to France for the wedding. It was thirty-five years ago. We never even got to Paris, for Robert's wife, Marie-Claire, lived in Normandy." She stopped a moment to sip the remainder of her sherry, and then held out her little glass to the duke for more. He complied silently.

"A year after the marriage they had a little girl who was baptized Anne-Marie. Sadly there were no more children. Anne-Marie was married when she was eighteen to the Comte d'Aumont, a neighbor. She is some years your senior, Caroline, which is why you have never met. Robert and his family were quite content to be country folk as were Anne-Marie and her husband. They have never been to England, and Robert never returned after he married.

"When Anne-Marie was twenty her parents were killed in a carriage accident. The shock caused her to miscarry a child, but the following year she bore her husband a daughter, whom she named after her mama; and then two years later, a son, Jean, after her husband, and Robert, after her papa." Lady Bellingham swallowed down some more sherry, then continued.

"They lived happily for some years, but then fifteen months ago the Comte d'Aumont was caught up in the Reign of Terror, and guillotined. It was a terrible accident of fate that it ever happened. He was in Paris. An old friend had been detained by the Committee for Public Safety. Jean-Claude had gone to his aid. The comte was, you see, a Republican himself. He believed in the Revolution, but when he visited his friend in prison to see how he might help he, too, was arrested. It was so naive of him to have gone, but he truly trusted in reform, although how he could after the murders of King Louis and his wife I do not understand. He was a kind man, I am told." She sniffled into her handkerchief.

"Anne-Marie and her husband were very much like our own country people despite their aristocratic backgrounds. They were kind to their tenants, and when the harvest was bad they never demanded their rent, but rather helped to feed their people. They are loved in their village of St. Jean Baptiste. After her husband was killed we begged our niece to come to England where she and her children would be safe until this horror is over, however it ends; but Anne-Marie is all French despite her English father. Her little son Jean-Robert is now the Comte d'Aumont. His lands are all he has. Anne-Marie is afraid if she leaves those lands, they will be taken away from the family. So she has stayed, and now this!" Lady Bellingham broke into fulsome sobs again.

"What?" Allegra asked her gently. "What has happened?"

"Our niece is under house arrest. The local revolutionary authorities are threatening to take her children away from her!" wailed Lady Bellingham.

Now the Duke of Sedgwick found himself drawn into this tale of woe. He knelt before the distraught woman and said quietly, "How is it that you know this, Lady Bellingham? How has the information come to your attention and that of your husband?"

"My niece lives near the coast," Lady Bellingham explained. "One of her servants took Anne-Marie's letter to a cousin who is a fisherman. The fisherman brought it across the water, and gave it to a fish merchant he knows who was coming up to London, with instructions that the fishmonger would be rewarded if he delivered the letter to us immediately. Freddie gave him a whole guinea!"

"How long did it take for this letter to reach you?" the duke said. "Did your niece date her missive?"

"She wrote but five days ago," Lady Bellingham said. Then she turned her tearstained face to the duke. "Ohh, Quinton, you must help us! You must go and fetch Anne-Marie and her children from the dreadful people in France!"

"You said she would not come," Allegra reminded the older lady. "You said she didn't want her son to lose his inheritance."

"She will come now, child, I am certain of it. She sees the futility of trying to hold on to her son's estate. Whoever has sought to have her placed under house arrest and steal her children away means to destroy the d'Aumonts, and have what is theirs. Anne-Marie is helpless before such an enemy. She is a country wife and has no influence with the authorities." She burst into fulsome tears once again, her shoulders shaking with her grief.

Caroline rushed now to comfort her aunt while Allegra and her husband stepped aside.

"Why," Allegra asked her husband, "did she ask you to rescue her niece and her children, Quinton?"

"Three years ago when the terror began, Ocky, Dree, Marcus, and I rescued a friend in Paris. It began as a lark. We knew Harry was in Paris visiting distant cousins. Then came word he had been arrested with those cousins. He had managed to get word out of prison because he was English, and had the ready to pay bribes. His family was all atwitter, and didn't know how to proceed. His father kept blustering that the Froggies had no right to arrest an English citizen, but there was poor Harry incarcerated, and a tumbrel's ride away from Madame la Guillotine. So we sailed Marcus's yacht across the channel, rented horses, and rode up to Paris.

"There, with supreme arrogance so common to us English, we went to the prison and demanded to see the governor of the facility. Marcus and Dree had brought a little money, and Ocky had just gotten his allowance from his father for the term. We threw money around as if we actually possessed it, but for me. My French is said to be peerless, and so I did the talking when the governor of the prison appeared. I explained that Lord Harry Carew was a wayward but beloved cousin of the English king who had sent us to request his return. And all the while I talked I kept jiggling this velvet bag in my hand. It jingled quite convincingly. As we anticipated, the governor was greedy.

"He could," he said, "release the unimportant Anglais to us for a small price. No, said I. We wanted the Englishman and his relations unless, of course, they were criminals. The governor considered. Harry's relations, it turned out, were two elderly ladies. So the governor decided he would be generous if we were generous. The exchange was made. We promised to take the ladies home to collect their belongings and leave Paris before nightfall. The governor agreed, especially as we got the ladies to sign over their house near Notre Dame to him."

"Somuch for revolutionary ideals," Allegra noted dryly.

The duke laughed. "You can only imagine our surprise when we got to the old ladies' home and discovered that the Marquis and Marquise de Valency, along with their children, had been hiding in the cellars all that time! When Harry and his old cousins were arrested, the real prize was completely overlooked. Not knowing what else to do they had remained hidden in the house. We had passports for ourselves, Harry, and the old ladies, but how were we to get the de Valency family out of Paris with us?"

"And how did you?" Allegra inquired. She was fascinated by this tale, and would have never expected such heroism or daring-do from Quinton, although she did not think him a coward. How she wished he had been there to help her brother.

"The old ladies had a small coach, nothing however that you could hide anything in, and so we decided to take a baggage cart as well. We hid the marquise and her two youngest children in a small space beneath the cart bottom, and then we piled the luggage atop it. The marquis and his son we dressed as Parisian peasants. Their clothing was ragged and filthy. Only the marquis had wooden clogs on his feet. His son was barefooted. We made certain they were dirtied. Because they had been on the run for several months, they were not plump with good living any longer. Indeed they were quite thin and gaunt, which was fortunate for the deception.

"We took the chance that we could squeak the marquis and his son, who were driving the vehicles, by the authorities. When we got to the gates of Paris we showed our passports to the guards there. Then we explained that the drivers would be returning in a few days' time to Paris with the carriage and the cart. That because the old sisters, and their English relation, had to be out of Paris by nightfall there was no opportunity to get the proper papers for the drivers. They would remain if the authorities wanted them to do so, and we would drive, but then how would the carriage and the cart get back to Paris? We said the two ancient mademoiselles were giving the transport to their drivers as well as paying them in good French livres. This would mean the two citizens could earn a living when they returned to Paris.

"The guards at the gate hemmed and hawed for a few moments, and then having been slipped some silver coins, waved us through. It took us several days to reach the coast. A bit longer than if we had gone a direct route, but we traveled the back roads so we did not have to hide the marquise and her children beneath the boards of the baggage cart. Like the others, they were garbed poorly in case anyone saw us. We bought our food along the way and slept rough. We reached Marcus's yacht without delay, sold the carriage, the cart, and the horses to an innkeeper, and set sail for England." He paused, and then continued. "The four of us had such fun on that adventure that we returned to France several times after that to help friends, or relations of friends. That is why Lady Bellingham thinks I can save her niece, but I am not certain we can. She may have waited too long to ask for help, and the four of us have responsibilities now that we did not have then."