She would have to be very careful when Ronec met Jack again. She could not imagine he would take kindly to sitting at the same table as the man who had threatened to chain him and Ronec would be equally unhappy.
‘I draw the line at murder in cold blood. The sooner he recovers, the quicker he will regain his memory and can be gone. Then we can continue in peace doing what we have to.’
‘Killing in cold blood?’ Andrey asked, smirking.
‘Avenging the deaths of good men and fighting for our country, as well you know.’
They clasped hands. She swept from the room without looking back. Instead of calling a servant to collect Jack’s papers, she went back herself. She folded the furs from the bed, holding them close to her face to breathe in the scent and wondering how much of the warm muskiness was the fur and how much was a trace of Jack’s own scent. She inspected the papers, which had been neatly stacked. As Jack had said, they were mainly scrawls, with the occasional attempt at capturing the shape of the rocks in the bay. The main part consisted of Jack’s name, written over and over in columns. The writing grew more confident as it moved down the sheet, finishing with a final flourish of a signature.
She took them back to her room and put them next to the cross on the table. She sat at the table and, chin in her hands, stared at this small collection of Jack’s possessions. Every moment she kept the cross’s existence from him, she was doing Jack a grave disservice, but she remembered the hatred in his eyes when he had faced her in her disguise.
She would return them when he joined her to dine in a day or two. For now, she looked forward to his company with a pleasure she had not anticipated for a long time.
Chapter Seven
For two days, Jack obeyed Madame Tanet’s orders to remain cloistered away. He was happy to do so, finding that the time of enforced rest gave him time to recuperate. His head gradually healed and his body felt stronger.
He slept a little less each day and was not so weary by nightfall. It was probably this reason that caused him to wake late in the night when the sound of voices pierced his dreams. It was dark outside and the air was cold and damp, and at first he was confused and thought he must be dreaming vividly of covert happenings. Something crashed and the voices grew louder. An irate female one caused his eyes to flick open.
He was not dreaming and the sounds were coming from the courtyard. Madame Tanet was among them. He looked from the window in time to see a huddle of black shadows slipping around the edge of the courtyard.
Bleiz Mor. It had to be him. Jack pulled on his tunic and heaved the door open. He took two steps before colliding with a man sitting on a low stool in the small space outside his doorway at the turn of the stairs. The door might not be locked, but he was being guarded.
‘What’s happening outside?’ he demanded.
The guard stood up and Jack realised he was quite an old man.
‘Let me pass.’
He tried to dodge round the guard, but the man was quick to spread his arms. ‘You must stay here. Madame told me to watch over you.’
‘Where is Madame Tanet?’ Jack demanded. ‘I want to speak with her.’
He hoped she was safe where Bleiz Mor could not reach her. He turned to go up the stairs that led to her rooms, but the man tugged him back with one hand and drew his sword with the other.
‘No one goes up there. Return to your room and I shall tell her you wish to see her.’
Reluctantly, Jack agreed. He left the door open, but the guard closed it with a meaningful look. Jack listened carefully. The footsteps went down, not up. He had not been imagining Madame Tanet was outside.
* * *
After a while she arrived, carrying a lantern and dressed in a flowing mantle that covered her from neck to feet.
‘Are you safe?’ Jack asked.
‘Why would I not be?’ she asked.
Her eyes grew watchful and he felt a rush of protectiveness. He wanted to hold her close and swear that everything would be all right. That whatever danger had caused her to cry out was over and he would protect her. His whole being urged him to keep her safe. If she gave any indication that she wanted him to hold her, he would not hesitate, but she just smoothed her hair down and pulled her collar tighter.
‘I heard shouting,’ he explained. ‘It woke me.’
‘Nothing is wrong,’ Madame Tanet said. ‘Some of the village men drank more than they should have done and decided to venture out to sea to fish at night.’
Her hair was loose and her face and neck were flushed. She glowed with vitality. If she had come from her bedroom, Jack would have assumed the brightness of her eyes and the tangle of her hair had been the result of lovemaking. Was the Sea Wolf her bedfellow? A stab of envy caught him unawares, forcing him to acknowledge how much he desired her himself.
‘Why were they inside the grounds?’
Madame Tanet stepped closer to him. She placed a hand on his arm and his blood began to race.
‘Jack, thank you for your consideration, but really there is no need.’ She looked up at him with an expression of clear-eyed innocence. ‘Everything has been dealt with. Go back to bed. You aren’t yet fully recovered. You need to rest.’
She yawned and rolled her head around, extending her elegant neck to reveal a creamy curve where the pink flush had started to fade.
‘I would like to go to bed, too.’
Jack suppressed a yawn. He was tired. He could no longer say how many of the voices and crashes he had dreamed and what was real. If Madame Tanet was not standing in front of him in what he assumed covered her nightclothes, he would have doubted he had heard her voice. He wondered if she was naked beneath her mantle, then wished he hadn’t speculated on that because the ferocious stirring between his legs caught him unawares. He didn’t know when last he had been aroused—certainly not since waking in the storeroom—but the thought of Madame Tanet naked made him hard immediately.
She ran her fingers through the tangled waves of hair, making an attempt to smooth it and causing the blackness to glint with scarlet in the glow of the lantern. Jack grew harder, his chest tightening and stopping his breath. His fingers itched to touch it, but a voice that had been hitherto buried deep urged him to hold back. A brief image of pale gold locks flashed through his mind. It caused him to stay his hand and killed his arousal. Was there a wife elsewhere waiting for him whose face was buried in his mind? Guilt consumed him. However much he desired Madame Tanet, he must not act on it until he knew the truth.
‘Sleep well,’ he said, stepping away from her.
Madame Tanet dipped her head. She went up the stairs to her own room, footsteps echoing in the silent stairwell. Jack followed her until she disappeared around the corner. Her long mantle trailed behind her and as she lifted it slightly he caught a glimpse of heel. Jack returned to his bed and was half-asleep as the thought came to him to wonder why she had taken the time to put on riding boots as well as her mantle.
* * *
Madame Tanet visited Jack the following morning, bringing a bowl of warm water and cloths. Jack let her place it on the table as he sat in the chair by the window, but when she dipped the cloth in the water he took it from her hand.
‘You are my hostess and the lady of the house,’ he said. ‘This is a job for a servant.’
She looked amused. ‘Don’t be foolish. Marie is still a little scared of your presence and there is no one else, unless you would prefer Andrey to nurse you. Besides, I’ve done much worse in my time.’
‘How so?’
‘I have two children. Once you have dealt with some of the messes they produce, a little blood is no great matter.’
She spoke jokingly, but her eyes flickered and her smile solidified like cooling wax. Jack had seen no evidence in the castle nor heard any childish voices. He felt a pang in his chest and wondered if he was a husband and father.
<
br /> ‘Tell me about your children,’ he said to distract himself from those thoughts.
‘Why do you want to know?’ She looked suspicious and he recalled she did not necessarily trust him. Did she believe he might be trying to trick her? It made him more eager to know.
‘I am just making conversation,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. Do you have boys or girls?’
He gave her what he hoped was a disarming yet sincere smile. She hesitated then spoke.
‘I have one of each. Maelle is my daughter. She is fifteen years now.’ Madame Tanet’s face closed with grief. ‘Her father did not live to meet her. Mael and I married when I was fifteen, but he died when I was eighteen and pregnant.’
Jack’s heart fluttered in sympathy. How sad to be left with a fatherless child so young. He tried to imagine an eighteen-year-old version of the woman before him but found it impossible. He wondered what she would have been like in the first flush of youth. Her features were sharp and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and lips suited her. He wondered whether she would have been beautiful, or if it was only now her eyes regarded the world with wisdom and she was surrounded by an air of stateliness that her character shone through.
‘And your son?’ he asked.
‘Fransez is eleven now.’
It did not take much skill with numbers to realise what she said did not make sense. She watched him work it out and a small smile edged on to her face, softening her features.
‘You’ve had more than one husband?’
‘That’s right. Yann, my second husband, was his father.’
Jack wondered how soon she had remarried after being widowed and how long since she had been widowed again.
‘I haven’t heard any children here.’
‘They aren’t here. Maelle is in a convent to the south of Brest. She chose that path in life. I can’t say I understand and such seclusion would be a torture for me, but her faith is sincere and she is happy.’
Madame Tanet shook her head wonderingly, as if contemplating the eccentricity of youth.
‘Fransez is... A young boy needs men around him to show him how to behave. I was fortunate enough to secure him a place in a great establishment far away from danger and war.’
Her eyes shone with pride as she spoke.
‘Don’t you miss them?’ Jack asked. ‘How could you bear to let them go?’
She pressed her lips together briefly until they went white.
‘Of course I miss them, but a mother knows her children are not hers to keep for ever. I want the best for them.’
She folded her arms and gave Jack a stern look. ‘You would not ask a man if he could bear to part from his children, would you, and yet men do so every day. Did you part from yours easily, if you have them?’
‘I don’t know that I do have any,’ Jack snapped.
An awkward silence hung in the air. Jack dropped his head down. His hair fell clumsily over his brow. Madame Tanet reached out and pushed the locks back behind his ears with gentle fingers. It was excitingly intimate and caused the breath to catch in Jack’s throat and his pulse to speed up.
‘You can clean the wound yourself if you prefer, but don’t refuse my help on some odd sense of propriety,’ Madame Tanet said gruffly.
Clearly, the conversation was over. She was talking sense, so Jack opened his hand and she took the cloth from his open palm. She unwound the bandage. It was less bloodstained than the previous ones had been. The gash was healing and the wound did not burn as angrily when the cold air touched it.
Jack probed with his fingers, feeling how it ran deep and long.
‘I think you’ll have a scar,’ Madame Tanet said regretfully.
Jack shrugged. ‘That doesn’t matter. It is the least of my concerns.’
He sat as still as he could while Madame Tanet began wiping away the crusted blood from around the wound. He found this harder than expected as she leaned forward to examine her work, bringing her face close to Jack’s. She caught his eye and momentarily held his gaze. She was remarkably beautiful, but in the way a hawk was, with an angular chin beneath the slash of a red mouth, high cheekbones and very dark brown eyes that were currently piercing him with her gaze.
Her sharp, dark eyes were beguilingly framed with thick lashes that curled upwards almost to her straight, black brows. The faint lines at the side of her eyes suited her and Jack wanted to trace his fingertips over them. The lines beside her mouth called out to be kissed. So did the lips themselves.
‘How does your head feel now?’ she asked briskly.
He reached his hand up to feel the bandage, grateful she had changed the subject. ‘Better than it was.’
Madame Tanet smiled. ‘I’ll bring fresh bandages tomorrow or send a servant if I cannot come myself. Promise you won’t frighten Marie next time—I’ve told her you aren’t to be feared.’
He frowned up at her balefully. ‘I did not intentionally before,’ he said, indignation tingeing his voice.
‘I know. The fault is hers, not yours. She’s always been a mouse.’
Madame Tanet took away the cloth. She stroked the good skin at the edge of Jack’s brow with her thumb, before running it down the side of his face. He couldn’t suppress the sigh that her touch induced and she drew her hand away hastily, looking down at the cloth in her hands.
‘Were you really scared for me last night?’ she asked.
‘I heard your voice and you sounded angry,’ Jack admitted. ‘I was worried for you. What had happened?’
‘The fishermen decided that it was too rough to sail. They came visiting in case my servants would give them sustenance.’
‘Drink, you mean,’ Jack said.
‘Exactly.’ Madame Tanet raised an eyebrow and her lips twisted into a grin. Jack smiled back and for a moment they were allies, sharing amusement. It gave him the first sense of belonging he’d felt in a long time.
‘You heard me because I was ordering the men to leave.’
‘Was the Sea Wolf here?’ he asked.
‘Why do you ask that?’ Madame Tanet looked startled.
Jack shook his head. It had been the first thought that sprang to mind. ‘I imagine that if there was trouble he would be involved. As long as you swear you were under no threat, I believe you.’
‘If I had been in any danger I have loyal servants who will not let me come to harm. But thank you. To hear you say that means a lot to me.’
She briefly placed her hand over his, but looked away. Jack turned his hand over so their palms were together. Where the mounds at the base of her fingers and thumb touched his, his skin felt intoxicatingly sensitive. She gave him a shy smile, then gently tugged her hand free, stood and dropped the cloth into the bowl.
‘I think you should leave the bandage off now, Jack. At least while you are awake. When you are sleeping it might be better to cover it in case you roll on to your front and cause the scab to split.
‘I don’t think that’s likely. I always sleep on my back,’ Jack said.
Her eyes flickered, the long lashes batting down and up rapidly. He felt his neck grow a little warm as he told her how he lay, especially as he couldn’t forget the misunderstanding where she thought he was inviting her to share the bed with him.
‘You should be fine in that case,’ Madame Tanet said. ‘However, if you discover otherwise, please try not to bleed on my coverlet.’
She crinkled her eyes to show she was at least partly joking and Jack laughed softly. He could see the bed now from the corner of his eye. He wondered what she looked like when sleep claimed her, whether she sprawled on her back with her hair loose about her or curled tight in a shape that a man could readily wind himself about. The thought of carrying her to the bed and discovering what lay beneath her gown was a tantalising notion, but he strongly doubted she would react fa
vourably. Besides, the same warning had risen in his breast as it had the night before. Something inside him was urging him to suppress all emotions and lusts and he didn’t know why.
He looked out of the window at the courtyard. It was busy, with more people than he had seen previously. Male servants were hefting boxes around and carrying scythes and long knives.
‘Where are they going?’ Jack asked.
Blanche peered out. She shrugged and gave Jack an airy smile.
‘There is nothing untoward happening. They are simply preparing to harvest buckwheat grown over winter to clear the ground for spring crops. It keeps the soil rich, I believe.’
‘Where I come from, most crops aren’t ready until much later,’ he remarked.
Madame Tanet gave him a look of surprise. ‘You can remember where you are from?’
Jack was silent as he delved into his mind. He had spoken without thinking and returned from his memory with an image of gentle hills. He described it to her.
‘I only wish I knew where this was.’
His throat tightened and he dropped his head. Madame Tanet put a hand on his shoulder.
‘You will, I’m sure of it. It is a good sign that you can even remember that.’
Jack raised his eyes to hers and found them full of compassion. They flickered and something in her expression hardened subtly.
‘When you are healed and can travel to England, more memories will surely return,’ she said.
‘I hope so,’ Jack agreed. He was only tolerated here, he reminded himself. He had no idea where to start looking or how he would make his way back to England.
Madame Tanet picked up the bowl. At the door, she turned back.
‘Would you feel well enough to join me downstairs tonight?’ she asked. ‘I have some other company—my cousin and the master of a neighbouring manor will be attending, along with some of the villagers. Your presence won’t be questioned.’
Uncovering the Merchant's Secret Page 8
