shoulders. “Any progress in finding a ship to take me across the Channel?”
“Not yet. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry, ma chère. I should never have asked it of you.”
“I will try, but in the meantime, this should help.” She extended the money from the sale of the jeweled salamander. He’d been right; it was worth a good deal.
He shook his head. “No, Miss Callaway. I cannot accept it, but thank you.”
The sound of distant men’s voices came from outside. Laura looked out a dormer window and saw figures with lanterns approaching—two in uniform and a third man. LaRoche?
“Shh. They’re coming!” She pressed a finger to her lips, then turned him by the shoulder. “Go out the back again. Run. Hide. If you are captured, you will be sent back to prison or even shot.”
His mouth tightened. “I don’t like to run like a frightened rabbit searching for a burrow to hide in.”
“I know,” she said. “But remember, if you are caught, you won’t get home to your brother.”
He winced, then sighed. “So be it. For Alan and his family, I will go.”
He started toward the stairs, then turned back. “I have to tell you something before I leave.”
“What is i—”
He pressed his lips to hers, silencing her with his mouth.
For a moment she stilled in surprise, then kissed him back, wishing it were not a kiss good-bye.
He broke away and smiled into her eyes. “That is what I had to tell you.”
She managed a wobbly grin. “I am glad to hear it.” Quickly sobering, she all but pushed him toward the stairs. “Now go.”
He slipped quietly down them and out the back door as two militia officers and LaRoche came through the front gate.
Laura paused where she stood. Alexander saying the word burrow belatedly gave her an idea of where he might hide. Grabbing her cape and gloves, she hurried out after him, catching up with him in the back garden.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Going with you. I know where you can hide, and you’ll need me to help you.”
She led the way up the track, past the abandoned drive.
“The ice cellar?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Too risky. My uncle and Eseld know about it. They might guess I would hide you there and tell the militia.”
They stayed in the shadows as much as possible, following a line of scrubby tamarisk bushes to the nearest dune. The wind gusted, stirring sand into their eyes as they went. Finally, the narrow track led them to St. Enodoc, the partially buried church.
Laura retrieved the rope from the sexton’s shed. Then they continued through the lych-gate into the churchyard. She scurried up the grassy mound and onto the roof, and Alexander followed.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
“Have you a better idea?”
“Just keep running?”
“Then how would I get word to you about a ship captain willing to take you across the Channel?”
“Good point. Very well. I’ll go down, but if they find me here it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“The officers are not local men. Let’s hope they don’t know about the hatch in the roof. It’s the only way in.”
As she had seen done every year since arriving in Cornwall, she secured a noose of rope around a Cornish cross on the mound and pried opened the hatch.
Tossing down the other end of the rope, she said, “God be with you.”
“And with you, ma chère.” He pressed another firm kiss to her mouth, then lowered himself, sliding down the rope into the chancel, his feet hitting the paving stones between the altar and rood screen.
“If anyone comes searching, hide behind something,” she called down, then added, “I wish I had thought to bring you something to eat.”
“I’ll manage. I have been eating well lately.”
“I will bring you something as soon as I can. As soon as it’s safe.”
“Thank you, Miss Callaway.”
She pulled up the rope, shut and secured the hatch, and hurried off the roof. If they caught her up there, it would surely give away his hiding place.
Instead of returning the rope to the shed, she hid it in the shadows between a nearby tomb chest and the church wall. She didn’t want to give his pursuers the means to enter the church themselves if by chance one of them knew of the hatch. Hopefully the militia officers had not recruited the local parish constable to aid in their search.
Hearing footsteps coming fast, she darted through the lych-gate and crept along the hawthorn hedge. She