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mirror, searching for traces of her powder but found nothing. He strode quickly to the bed where she put up her cheek to be kissed, a hand playfully tickling his thigh. “I must go.”
    â€œI hope you have your ship, Captain, but I hope she is not as pretty as me,” she sulked.
    Always needing compliments. “Nothing could equal your rigging,” he smiled, hiding the lie. She accepted his words at face value, no doubt reluctant to believe otherwise. Her pout softened into a smile to match his own.
    â€œGo quickly, before I refuse to let you leave.”
    â€œ Adieu ,” he said.
    Her smile disappeared as she shook her head. “Your French. That means goodbye. I prefer Au revoir , till I see you again.”
    â€œYes,” he said, closing the door behind him. His French wasn’t that bad. And he did not think she had missed the point.
    ***

    A young man in an American uniform rose from a chair to meet him as he strode into the lobby. The midshipman was stockily built, his long sideburns giving the impression of a wealthy farmer. Only his threadbare uniform and badly scuffed shoes destroyed the illusion. He looked only a few years junior to John Paul Jones’s own thirty years. An honest looking young man, Jones liked him instinctively. That hopefully he was the bearer of good news led him to ignore the scruffy uniform as he eyed him expectantly.
    â€œMidshipman Dale, sir, with a dispatch from the Minister of Marine.” He stood stiffly to attention, the package offered.
    The captain raised an eyebrow. “I may not be whoever you seek.”
    For a moment Dale looked flustered. “The dispatch is for Captain Jones, and you are he, sir. I have seen you in the office of the Commissioners, and every American sailor in France knows who you are, sir.”
    â€œI’m glad somebody does, even if it’s only the lower decks,” Jones mumbled. Dale frowned, but the captain brushed the remark aside. “Give me it.” He opened the canvas bag and used his thumbnail to split the wax seal imprinted with the Commissioners’ stamp. He skimmed the parchment quickly. It was there. Therese hadn’t lied after all. Her husband had been working on his behalf. And Franklin too. A ship. A ship. He refolded the sheet and pushed it back in the bag, then looked at the young officer who was watching him thoughtfully. “Midshipman Dale, you said?”
    Dale stiffened. “Yes, sir.”
    â€œWhat are your orders?”
    Dale’s eyes sought the canvas bag. “To await any reply you may care to send, sir.”
    Jones nodded. “Have you ever been to Le Havre ?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œNeither have I, and I hope it won’t be an experience we’ll regret.”
    â€œIs there any reply for the Commissioners, sir?”
    Jones smiled. “We won’t know that until we’ve been to Le Havre . We go to inspect a ship.”
    ***

    They journeyed beyond daylight and into the night, west from Paris as fast as the horses could pull the coach. The road was tiresome, deep mud of the previous winter baked by the July sun into ruts. The driver goaded the overworked team, his whiplash drawing dark streaks into the white lather flecked across their shoulders. Inside, on hard leather seats, the two American officers endured the jolting of stiff springs. Paul Jones thought back to when he had first boarded a ship at thirteen in his native Scotland and remembered wondering if he would ever grow used to the pitching and tossing of a rough sea. Now he appreciated that the motion of a ship was heaven compared to the rigors of land travel. They maintained a sporadic conversation, not too informally as befitted the difference in ranks, but mutual discomfort built a bridge between them. Even so, the tortured creaking of the coach coupled with the rattling of the wheels and the drumming of horses’ hooves on the pockmarked road proved too formidable an