"As Mr Shakespeare wrote,” said Emma: “Say, Chatillon, what would France with us?”

 She beamed at her own cleverness and took a sip of tea. Fanny tittered, Liza smirked, and Edith gave a condescending smile. Justine looked less happy, but then she was French, of course. A guest twice over in this parlour, still not quite at ease on English soil.

 Emma glanced towards their hostess, hoping she’d impressed her. And Nell smiled back indulgently, although she thought the jest was rather weak. She found the girl’s naivety endearing. It made her feel nostalgic for her own lost innocence.

 Or perhaps she’d been bewitched by Emma’s cleavage. Although Nell’s heart was spoken for, her body still had urges of its own.

 She gave no hint of it, of course. Her clear blue eyes were guileless, and her long blonde hair was tied in a tight bun. The unfamiliar corset squeezed her ribcage. Her skin felt strangely bare without its patina of grime.

 “Papa says the Frenchies are no threat to us,” said Liza. “They’re too busy chopping off each other’s heads.” She glanced at Justine. “Oh, I beg your pardon.” The doe-eyed former aristo had fled the country only months before.

 But Justine’s gaze was fixed on Nell. “You were there too,” she said in her strong accent. “You came home just in time, I think. What future for our country do you see?”

 Nell looked down at her teacup as if searching for an answer, avoiding Justine’s haunted stare. The other girls sat waiting eagerly. They understood that Nell had gone to see a revolution while they’d stayed at home with their embroidery.

 Nell thought of all the blood she’d seen; the blood she’d spilled herself. The stink of gunpowder and sweat. The outlaw life, with Terror at her heels. Another world – just the far side of the Channel. But the distance seemed enormous, like the great gulf separating Heaven from Hell.

 “Your people lit a lamp,” she said, “and set fire to the house. I hope that they can put it out, but the rest of us can only stand and watch.”

 “Afar off, like Saint Peter,” Emma chipped in perkily. The girl was such a wit, thought Nell. Perhaps a long, slow kiss would quieten her …

 A carriage clattered past outside, and Justine flinched and shifted nervously.

 “Some more tea, ladies?” Nell enquired. She rang a little bell. The tinkle carried through the house, but no-one answered it. Nell smile wryly to herself and rang again, more loudly. After a pause, the maid knocked on the door and sauntered in.

 She wore a dark dress, white apron and mobcap, and looked a little peeved at being disturbed. Liza had already noted her insouciance; it was amusing, in a shocking sort of way. The girl was French, which might explain her rudeness, but in Liza’s view she needed to be thrashed.

 “Some more tea, please, Martine,” Nell asked politely.

 “My pleasure, Miss,” Martine replied. Her accent emphasised her sulky tone.

 Her dark gaze flicked around the group of ladies. The farm girl in her jibbed at their complacent idleness. The one with russet hair looked disapproving. Martine imagined how she’d look as the guillotine sliced through her pretty neck.

 Like Nell, she wasn’t used to skirts and dresses, still less the comforts of a London house. It was months now since she’d held a gun or rapier. But Liza would have been struck dumb if she’d known how many girls Martine had killed.

 * * *

 “France is like a prison,” Martine murmured. “With executioners ruling it. But don’t you miss it, though?”

 Nell caught her eye in the dressing table mirror. The French girl’s face was thoughtful in the yellow candlelight. She’d unfastened Nell’s mane of hair and was slowly brushing it. Both girls were in their nightgowns, liberated from their crushing stays at last.

  “Tired of being a lady’s maid already?” Nell asked dryly. Martine just smiled, her fingers stroking in the brush’s wake. Her own long hair was chestnut dark, cascading to her shoulders. It couldn’t quite conceal the scar around her slender neck.

 A hangman’s noose had left that mark, the day that they first met. They’d been inseparable since then as they sought their fortune in rebellious France. Now they’d settled an old score and won a bag of silver, enough to flee the anarchy and rent this London house.

 “You know it’s just an act,” Nell went on quietly. “We don’t belong to their world, love.” She reached up to take hold of Martine’s arm.

 As far as her friends knew, she was the ward of a rich uncle, who always seemed to be away from home. In fact she was the daughter of a poor country parson, and a soldier had seduced her at sixteen. Since then she’d been a whore and then a brigand, which made her new life seem a trifle tame. And deep down, she was still her father’s daughter, who disapproved of  idleness and wealth.

 Martine shrugged. “I’m not sure where we do belong,” she said. “Chasing your fortune’s like chasing the wind – but if you catch it, what do you do then?”

 “Apart from eating well?” Nell said. “And not sleeping with one hand on your gun?”

 “And on a feather bed, at that,” Martine agreed, still brushing. Nell tipped her head back with a grin, then took the hint and drew the French girl round. Martine put the candle to one side and sat on the small table. Nell slid down onto her knees, as graceful as a child about to pray.

 She raised her eyes. “It’s high time you were waited on,” she said. Lifting Martine’s gown, she ducked her head under the hem. The French girl sighed and spread her legs in welcome.  Nell might appear pious, but she had a wicked tongue.

 * * *

 Walking through the market, in a sea of foreign voices, Martine smiled as she nursed the memory. These people neither knew nor cared that she and Nell were lovers. The heedless world through which she moved felt like a puppet show.

 The traders who made eyes at her had no idea how lethal she could be.

 She bought a loaf of bread and two plump pigeons, shrugging off the banter, which she barely understood. Nell had got some coarse words from her army. Martine had learned much coarser ones, but all in farmyard French.

 Nonetheless she threaded through the crowd with confidence. The knife concealed beneath her apron spoke all languages. As did the pocket pistol at the bottom of her basket. She might live in a nice house now, but old habits died hard.

 As she left the square, she heard the sound of hooves and wheels behind her. Instinctively she moved aside to let the carriage pass. The vehicle was plain, drawn by two horses. A lady peered out glumly at the streets of London town.

 It was Justine, the émigré who’d taken tea with Nell. She gave Martine a listless glance and recognition flickered in her eyes. A moment’s hesitation, then she called up to the coachman, and the vehicle came creaking to a halt.

 Martine approached it warily. She had mixed feelings about aristos. From childhood, she’d been taught to think of them as higher beings – until the world turned upside down, and peasants started killing them like pigs.

 Justine opened the coach door, still hesitant herself. Not used to speaking to the lower orders. But she and Martine were both exiles in a foreign country, which formed a bond of sorts between them both.

 “May I offer you a ride?” she asked, with a smile that looked forced. And yet her eyes betrayed a need to share her plight with someone else from France.

 Martine bobbed a careless little curtsey. “Milady, I’d be honoured.” She climbed up into the coach. Justine’s maid was sitting with her mistress. She gave Martine a snooty look as the coach was set in motion once again.

 Justine wore a bonnet and a cloak around her shoulders. The neckline of her dress revealed the tops of her firm breasts. Her maid was more demurely dressed, but she made Martine look dowdy. It was obvious that the girl despised an Englishwoman’s maid.

 “You met your mistress while she was in France?” Justine asked stiffly.

 “Yes, Milady,” Martine said, remembering the moment – Nell pulling down her muffler to reveal her winsome smile. The smog of mist and gunsmoke hanging heavily around her. “She had high hopes for the Revolution then,” Martine went on.

 Justine watched her carefully, trying to gauge where her own sympathies might lie. “There were hopes among we nobles too,” she said after a moment. “The world has to move forward, yes … but the Jacobins have turned it into Hell.”

 Martine dropped her gaze and made no comment, like the humble maid she was supposed to be. In truth, she had no loyalties to one side or the other. Revolution meant confusion. Chaos led to opportunity.

 The carriage turned a corner and the daylight was diminished by the looming houses of a narrow street. Justine’s eyes looked shiny in the dimness. Martine felt a twinge of sympathy. “Have you lost friends?” she said.

 It wasn’t her place to ask, of course. The young lady looked flustered. Her maid scowled at Martine, who met her eye unflinchingly. Justine sniffed. She seemed resigned to this new state of things, where a common maid could ask such brazen questions to her face.

 “I’ve lost most of the people from my salon,” she said dully. “The thinkers, wits and beauties … oh, that horrible contraption took them all.”

 Martine had seen the guillotine in action, albeit from a distance. The police had promised her a closer look. The prospect didn’t frighten her unduly. A reckless little part of her was curious to compare it with being hanged.

 A horse was coming down the street towards them; she could hear its hoofs against the cobbles. Justine’s maid produced a handkerchief. She gave it to her mistress, who dabbed primly at her eyes. The maid glanced through her window as the rider came abreast.

 Her face turned white as Martine watched. “Milady – no!” she squealed, and flung herself against Justine.

 A blunderbuss was fired into the coach.

 The blast of it stung Martine’s ears, but the buckshot charge just missed her. The gun held fourteen balls at least, and Justine’s maid was hit by half of those. At three-eighths of an inch, they bored neat holes into her body, but their weight gave them the brutal impact of a battering ram. She screamed as she was slammed against her mistress and spurts of blood erupted through her dress. Justine’s wail was mostly one of horror; she’d been hit as well, but barely realised it. The jolt of her maid’s body threw her back against her door and jarred it open, tipping her into the street.

A cloud of acrid smoke filled the interior of the coach. Martine coughed to clear her lungs. Her vision blurred with tears. She felt her heartbeat racing as she fumbled for the pistol that was tucked into the basket on her knees.

Crumpled on the cobbles, Justine tried to raise herself. The fall had left her shocked and numb, but pain lanced through her body as she moved. She bleated desperately. Someone was standing over her, a woman in a grey gown with a greatcoat over it. Justine heard the smooth rasp of a rapier being unsheathed. She struggled to make eye contact, convinced that this would stay the woman’s hand. But as she craned her neck, the sword point drove into her body, deflating her left lung before it pierced her pounding heart.

Justine bucked and gurgled in a spasm of agony. The woman jerked the rapier free. “The People’s justice, Citizen,” she said. Justine flopped onto the stones, her face becoming mask-like as the contents of her heart flowed thickly out.

On the far side of the coach, the rider lowered her blunderbuss. She too wore a man’s greatcoat and a black three-cornered hat. Two more girls had stopped the coach. One held onto the bridles. The other kept the driver covered with a saddle gun.

The smoke inside the coach was wafting through the open door. The rider drew a pistol from the holster by her leg. Dipping her head, she peered in through the window. Justine’s maid was sprawled like a rag doll across the seat. The rider batted smoke aside and checked for other travellers.

Martine fired a ball into her brow at point blank range.

She glimpsed the girl’s brown eyes go wide and then her head snapped backwards, as if Martine had punched her on the jaw. Brained, the rider’s body started toppling from the saddle as Martine dropped the empty gun and drew her hidden knife.

The woman with the rapier heard the unexpected shot. She turned towards the coach, and Martine sprang out through the doorway like a cat. They tumbled to the cobbles in a swirl of petticoats. The rapier clattered on the road. Its owner sobbed and clawed at Martine’s face. The fall had winded both of them, but Martine was on top. She raised the knife to strike – and froze, as recognition jolted her still more.

The woman underneath her wore a pair of spectacles. Her pale blue eyes blazed furiously. Martine had met that glare a year ago. The girl was a police agent from Paris. Small world, thought Martine, taking aim.

The butt of a carbine thumped against her skull.

Martine rolled over with a groan. Her mind felt disembodied, as if she really had been guillotined. Then a woman’s riding boot kicked hard against her ribcage. Martine squawked, half-blind with pain. The agent wriggled out from under her.

“Bitch,” said Claire and clambered up. Her face was pale, her dark brown hair awry. The girl with the carbine kicked the knife from Martine’s loosened grip. The other two still blocked the coach’s way.

Claire retrieved her rapier from the gutter. Her rather prim appearance made the blade seem out of place. But her bookish spectacles belied a revolutionary fervour. “I know this one,” she said. “A spy and soldier for the Whites.”

There was no-one on the narrow street. The smoke was still dispersing. Claire prodded Martine with her sword point. “Where’s your blonde confederate?” she snapped.

Martine glowered up at her, still nauseous from the butt-stroke. Claire jabbed her in the breast, and Martine winced and sucked her teeth against the pain. Then another voice spoke up: the girl holding the horses. “Begging your pardon, Miss – she’s maid to Mistress Taverner.”

She spoke in English, with a London accent. Martine looked round. The girl was staring at her with disdain. She had cropped fair hair, a grubby face and wore shabby boyish clothes. Martine didn’t recognise her. Maybe she’d become a bit too grand.

“They live two streets away from here,” the English girl went on. “Her mistress is a snot-nosed cow, and she’s blond-haired all right.”

Claire drew back and pursed her lips, half-lowering the rapier. It was clear that she was tempted. Martine waited, willing somebody to come. The girl with the carbine shifted. “Citizen … We’ll miss the tide.” Claire gave her a brooding look, then turned to the street girl.

“We must away,” she said in well-schooled English. “But if you cut that bitch’s throat, you’ll earn this piece of gold.” She fished a sovereign from her greatcoat pocket and tossed it to the ragged girl, who snatched it from the air.

The riding boot nudged Martine’s ribs again, and none too gently. “What about this one?” asked its owner. Clearly she was anxious to be gone.

“She comes with us,” said Claire. “I want her squeezed of all her secrets. And then the guillotine will have her pretty little head.”

The guttersnipe released the horses’ bridles and came towards the driver, who stared down uneasily. She sprang up without warning, seized his coattail and pulled him down off his high seat with a strength that was at odds with her small frame. He thumped against the cobbles and she pounced on top of him, driving a knife into his chest. The coachman kicked in agony and slumped.

Claire pulled an admiring face. “When England falls,” she murmured, “the new Republic will have need of servants such as you.”

The girl gave her an elfin grin and wiped her red blade clean. The agent with the carbine stooped, grasped Martine’s dress and pulled her to her feet. Martine swayed, and the stumpy gun was jabbed against her kidneys. She stumbled in Claire’s footsteps, leaving Justine sprawled beside the empty coach.

* * *

Nell had spent the last few hours at her writing table, scratching out her thoughts in ink and putting cloudy feelings into words. Not until she reckoned it was time to light a candle did she realise that Martine had not come home.

She hadn’t bothered getting dressed, and was still wearing her nightgown with a wrap around her shoulders, which were bare. Her hair was tied in a thick plait, the way Martine had left it. They’d breakfasted in bed together, not expecting visitors today.

It seemed like hours since Martine had gone out to buy supplies. Nell frowned and brushed the quill against her lips. The sky beyond the housetops had grown ashen, and the lamplighter was coming down the street.

This was London town, not revolutionary Paris. She knew Martine could look after herself. Nonetheless, she felt a dull foreboding, the same as any lover when the world slips out of true.

The house was hushed and filling up with shadows. She went to fetch a tinderbox before the gloom could seep into her heart. As she padded barefoot down the stairs, she heard a noise below her. A scraping from the scullery. Then silence once again.

She almost called Martine’s name, but something made the word catch in her throat. She listened for a moment, and then carried on descending, more cautiously with every step. Her heart had started thudding in her breast.

The noise had sounded like an opening window. She reached the hall and stopped again. The air was colder and she felt a draught. She wore no corset or chemise under the flimsy nightgown, and her nipples swelled and stiffened in response.

She could run to the door and scream, of course; but this was her house being broken into. Crossing the hall, she took a cane from the stand beside the coat tree. It was ebony, with a heavy silver head. She gripped it in both hands, then turned – and stiffened. A scruffy-looking girl had come out of the scullery.

Nell raised the cane defensively and felt her bosom heaving. The ragamuffin gave a flinty smile. The knife she held looked fit for gutting fishes; a woman’s belly wouldn’t trouble it. Fixing Nell with baleful eyes, she started prowling forward.

“You’re in my house,” Nell told her tightly.

“Gonna thrash us then, you stuck-up bitch?”

Nell feinted with the cane. The street girl danced back mockingly. “Your maid was just as ballsy … but she’s in the gutter now.”

Nell felt a pang of queasy dread. “What’s happened to Martine?” The girl just sneered and lunged at her. Nell lashed out with the cane and skittered back. The girl came stalking after her, still smiling. The knife probed for a weakness, like a serpent’s darting tongue.

“Hush, Miss,” the girl taunted her, “just let me cut your throat. You aristos are gonna get your necks sliced soon enough …”

Comprehension flickered on Nell’s face as she retreated. She thrust the cane out crosswise, as if blocking the next lunge. But then she pulled in opposite directions and the shaft came apart, unsheathing a long blade beneath the head. The ragamuffin’s eyes grew wide as the swordstick caught the twilight. She aimed a desperate slash at Nell, who side-stepped like a partner in a dance. Then the slender blade was thrust into the street girl’s midriff. Nell’s movement was still graceful, but her biceps rippled with the force of it.

The girl cried out and hunched around the impact. Nell dropped the swordstick’s hollow end and seized her flailing wrist. Baring her teeth, she drove the blade in deeper, closing with her victim till their bosoms almost touched. The guttersnipe mewed miserably. Nell kneed her in the crotch. The girl jerked forward, croaking, and Nell felt her cleavage speckled with hot blood.

She ripped the slim blade loose again and more blood splashed her nightgown. The girl slid downwards, plucking at Nell’s body as she slumped. Nell stood there, panting: knuckles white against the blade’s black handle. A murderous mortician had possessed it previously.

“I knew that would come in useful,” she said tightly, then used the point to prod the gasping girl. “What have you done with Martine?” she demanded.

The guttersnipe spat blood. “She’s on her way to France,” she grated. “The guilly-teen will have her head … and you’ll be next, you bitch …”

“Don’t hold your breath,” said Nell and drove the blade into her breast, transfixing it to puncture the girl’s heart. The body spasmed into a rag-doll looseness. Nell left the sword embedded there and scurried up the stairs in the half-dark. On the writing desk, her letter lay unfinished. She stared at it, then turned towards an old chest in the corner of the room. Kneeling down, she raised the lid on things she’d half forgotten. A soldier’s coat, a four-shot pistol, and an eighteen-inch steel bayonet.

* * *

“You’re wasting your time, girls,” said Martine. “I’m just an honest thief. I don’t take sides.”

“Citizens,” corrected Claire with steely satisfaction. “And you killed an agent of the people. That’s enough for Madame Guillotine.”

Martine glared sullenly at her. The Dover coach creaked onward. She was squeezed between two captors, and her hands were bound together at the wrist. Claire sat facing her, beside another of her agents. The latter had an ornate carbine sloped across her thigh.

“You should have stayed in France,” Martine continued. “The roast-beef-eaters don’t like trespassers.” She knew the driver and the guard were English. No doubt they’d been bribed handsomely: perhaps with gold, perhaps with warm French flesh.

She didn’t think that po-faced Claire had been part of the bargain, but the other three looked rather less strait-laced. The one with the carbine wore a low-necked gown under her greatcoat. The linen stock around her throat did little to conceal her firm-topped breasts.

“The Committee don’t believe we women have a part to play.” Claire’s tone was as disdainful as her face. “Maybe now they’ll change their minds. We need more than wives and mothers when our enemies are beating on the door.”

“I know what liberation means as well,” Martine said mildly. “But you really should have stayed at home. `Cos Nell won’t let you make it back again.”

Claire snorted. “You delude herself. Her throat’s already cut.” She took her glasses off to polish them. The coach rocked drunkenly, as if they were at sea already. Martine was pressed and jostled by the girls on either side.

Their progress slowed as they started up a gradient. Martine could hear the squish of mud beneath the hoofs and wheels. The pace became laborious, till the coach creaked to a standstill. “Sorry, ladies,” called the driver. “You’ll have to walk until we reach the top.”

Claire and the others pulled disgusted faces. The girl with the carbine curled her lip and peered out into the murky night. Reluctantly she swung open the coach door and dismounted, tugging up her skirts to keep them clear of the thick mud. Martine’s neighbours kept her pinned between them. One was a nose-in-the-air brunette, the other one an impish-looking blonde. The dark-haired girl was armed with a Versailles short-barrelled carbine. She slid her thumb around the cock. “Behave or you’ll be punished, bitch,” she said.

The countryside was wreathed in mist and as black as Hell with all its fires gone out. London lay ten miles behind, and the lonely road was like another world. The girl on the verge pushed up her hat and waited for the others. But then she heard the thud of hoof beats, galloping towards them through the dark.

The coach’s guard had heard them too. He was still perched on his box, and quickly took a blunderbuss from the case of weapons on the vehicle’s roof. He thumbed it to full cock and tucked the butt into his shoulder. A ghostly figure stirred the mist, and he felt his hackles rising. “Who goes there?”

“Is that the Dover Mail?” a voice called back out of the darkness. It had a lady’s crispness, but its tone was bolder than a taproom whore’s. The guard’s eyes widened in surprise, and then his mouth fell open. The spectral smudge approaching him became a nightgown worn by a blonde girl. As she urged her mount towards the coach, he saw her in more detail – the gown cinched in below her bust, and her bosom jogging with the horse’s gait. And over it she wore a soldier’s braided coat, unbuttoned. Her head was bare, her cheeks were flushed, and there was a gleam of purpose in her eyes.

Confused, he had begun to lower his weapon – but the sight of her expression made him level it again. Nell aimed and fired her Twigg pistol, still coming. The bullet struck him in the chest and pierced his greatcoat in a puff of smoke. He lurched but didn’t drop the gun, so she squeezed the second trigger. The shot broke the guard’s breastbone, and his body slumped halfway out of the box.

The girl who’d disembarked was on the far side of the coach. She cocked her gun and braced herself, while spectral gouts of smoke rose on the breeze. The horse had halted, out of sight. She heard it snort, hoofs squelching. She glimpsed Claire’s pale face in the coach. “Can you see her?” she hissed. Claire shook her head.

The agent raised her carbine to her shoulder, and started edging slowly round the coach. The thick mud slurped with every step. She smelled the stink of powder. The guard’s body hung motionless. She paused beneath him, listening to the hush. Then the horse came walking into view. She almost shot it. There was no-one in the saddle now. The girl shrank back against the coach’s rear.

As she prepared to swing around the corner, she realised her own skirts were rustling. Before she could react, Nell struck from underneath the stagecoach, thrusting her long bayonet between the French girl’s thighs. The agent squealed as she was penetrated. Nell gave the bayonet a twist, and the girl’s knees buckled like a broken doll’s. She slumped onto all fours, and Nell sprang out and flattened her, pressing her breasts against the mud as she drove the blade between her whalebone stays.

The passengers just heard a muffled thrashing. The agents exchanged glances, then peered out behind their firearms on each side. Martine sat quietly, although her eyes had started prickling. She’d known that Nell would come for her, even if the Devil tried to bar the way.

Outside, Nell retrieved the dead girl’s carbine and clambered up onto the rear box. The coachman turned and drew a heavy pistol from his greatcoat. She fired across the coach-roof, and the ball hit him below the shoulder blade. The impact burst a lung and threw him forward, blood spattering the team below, and the coach jerked as they strained against the brakes. 

Nell fumbled with the unfamiliar carbine. It had two barrels, one below the other. She realised they rotated and released the catch to turn them, then snapped the mechanism home as she peered over the side. The girls below had heard her: the blonde one was leaning out. Their eyes met and she ducked back in before Nell could take aim.

“She’s on the back,” the agent squeaked. Above her, Nell knelt upright and fired steeply down into the roof. The lead ball was distorted by its passage through the woodwork. It struck the blonde girl in the chest and punched a hole a sovereign could have filled. The agent jerked, her impish face a mask of stupefaction. A fleck of blood hit Martine’s cheek. The girl thrust out her pelvis, then collapsed.

“Knock her off her perch,” called Claire. Her voice was close to cracking. The snooty brunette raised her gun and fired into the ceiling of the coach. Martine tensed as she heard Nell cry out sharply. There was a ghastly pause, and then the dull splat of a body hitting mud.

“Bravo,” said Claire, “you got the bitch.” She raised her brass-framed pistol and craned out of the window while her fellow agent rammed a fresh load home. The flicker of the coach lamps showed a shape that lay unmoving. Claire squinted – then her eyes grew wide. It was the guard who’d been tipped from his perch.

Martine kicked out like a spring uncoiling. Her boots slammed into Claire’s behind and shoved her through the door. The agent pitched face first into the mud and grovelled feebly, while Martine sprang at the brunette and wrestled for her gun. They struggled like a pair of cats, although Martine was hindered by her hands being tied. The coach rocked on its springs. The agent thrust her carbine out and Martine was knocked backwards – but her grab for it had been a ruse. She’d pulled the brunette’s pistol from her coat. Slumping on the facing seat, she cocked it with her teeth and fired into the shocked girl’s midriff. “Awwgh!” the agent yelled, and then flopped down.

Martine breathed out and dropped the empty pistol, then clambered to her feet and looked outside. Claire was trying to crawl away, as slimy as a mudlark, but her spectacles were plastered and she couldn’t see a thing. Watching her, Martine began to gnaw at her tied wrists. Nell climbed down off the rear box, a sight in her blood-spattered, smoke-grimed gown.

She smiled a little wryly, in that English way of hers. Martine grinned back, still loosening her bonds. Nell looked round at Claire and drew the Twigg from her coat pocket. The right-hand cock snicked back under her thumb. The agent flinched and turned her head, pulling off her muddy glasses, her blue eyes staring from her filthy face.

Martine glanced at Nell and gave her head a little shake. She raised her voice. “I forgive you … Citizen. You can make off with the coach – if you can drive it.” Claire eyed the hulking vehicle with undisguised dismay. “Or you can stay,” Martine went on. “You speak good English, don’t you? Us French girls make good lady’s maids – and even better whores.”

Nell squelched through the mud to catch her horse’s bridle, and Martine followed, rubbing at her wrists. “Wait!” Claire bleated, floundering. “You can’t leave me out here!” She tried to rise, then slipped and flopped full-length.

Ignoring her, Nell reached into her pocket. “Here’s why I had to rush to catch the Mail.” She gave Martine the letter she’d been writing. The French girl took the folded page and pressed it to her lips.

Nell was teaching her to read by writing her love-letters. “I’ll treasure this one,” Martine said and tucked the billet-doux between her breasts.

Nell slid the ornate carbine down into the saddle scabbard. “So what now, love?” she murmured. “Do we go on as before?”

“You mean sip tea and sew – or pit our wits against the world?” There was a gleeful light in Martine’s eyes. Nell recognised the glow because she shared it. There was nothing in a lady’s life to match the thrill of what she’d done tonight.

She mounted and helped Martine up behind her. The French girl slid her arms around her waist. “France is a grave,” Nell warned, “and it still wants us.”

“So let’s go dance on it,” said Martine.

Behind them, whimpering, Claire slipped again.