by Sophia James
He turned at that, a heavy frown on his forehead as he lifted the bag and gestured her to follow him.
The river was deep in parts and cold, but she walked doggedly on into the afternoon, pushing up and up into the hills until she felt a disconnection between her body and her mind.
‘I...think I need...to stop.’ It was the head injury, no doubt, and the loss of blood. She had never been unfit in her life and had traversed the Parisian streets for hours without tiring.
The vortex of darkness surprised her, coming through her vision without warning. One moment she could see and the next she could not, the same roaring in her ears as before. As she fell she reached out to try to hold something, long zigzagged waves broken into light.
* * *
He heard a noise behind him, just a quiet expelling of breath, and as he turned he saw Celeste fall softly into a leafy shrub, the branches catching at her body and holding her up. He reached her in a second, extracting her from the greenness and laying her down on the track. Her head had begun to bleed again and, grabbing Caroline Debussy’s bag, he shoved it beneath her feet, elevating them.
She came to after a few seconds, her eyes fluttering against the light and her hand rising from the dust.
‘I am...fine now.’ She struggled to sit up, but he held her down, his hand splayed across her middle.
‘If you get up too fast, it will happen again, believe me.’
‘This has happened...to you before?’
‘Twice. Once in Madeira with the sickness I told you of and another time in the north of Portugal.’
She nodded, wiping at her face with the dirty fall of sleeve. ‘If you give me a moment...’
She lay back and closed her eyes, her lashes long and dark against her cheeks. No boy had lashes like that, he thought to himself, and found the canister of water.
‘Here. This will help. Take a sip.’
She drank deeply, raising herself on one elbow. The bridge of her nose was badly swollen.
‘Can you breathe properly?’
‘Only through my mouth. I think my nose is broken.’
‘No, it’s only bruised. If it were broken, it would bleed more and hurt like hell, too.’
‘I hope...you are right.’ Her voice was small and flat, her eyes leached of the vivid colour that was so much a part of her.
‘I’ll carry you. We can’t stay here for long.’
She shook her head, but he had her up already, his hands under her knees and behind her back as he lifted her off the ground. She weighed so much less than he might have thought, the thinness of her body disguised by her rounded breasts and bottom.
* * *
His heartbeat was loud but slow as he walked on with her, no sign of fatigue or exhaustion showing anywhere on his body. She felt odd and disconnected, weak and cold. The blood loss, she supposed, and tried to rouse in herself the energy to walk, but couldn’t. She knew of no one else in the whole world who would have done this for her, picked her up and walked her to safety. For so many years she had been on her own, by herself, in a city that festered with greed and violence.
It was a wondrous discovery, this, and made more so because Summer was a man who knew some of the depths to which she had sunk and who had seen revenge in the blood on the sharp edge of her blade in the dungeons of Les Chevaliers.
He’d used the long length of his old habit to tie her to him, in a sling of sorts that was both ingenious and comfortable, and even an hour later he had barely broken into a sweat.
Still, the way was steep and the oncoming rain had begun to make it slippery, too.
‘I can walk if you let me down.’
He shook his head. ‘This way is faster. We need to be as far from the town as we can manage by the nightfall.’
‘You’d get further without me.’
He began to laugh. ‘Are you suggesting I abandon you here, Mademoiselle Fournier, in the middle of nowhere and bleeding?’
‘Anyone else would have long ago. They would have recognised that I was not worth the risk.’
‘Your friends must be a motley group, then, if that is indeed the case.’
She felt she should tell him that she had no friends and never had, but the confession was too sad and too pointed so she stayed silent. Even as a young girl she’d not held anyone truly close, save for Summer, she thought, for the few months at Langley.
* * *
When the light began to fade he finally stopped.
‘We’ll camp here until the first light of dawn and then move on. It’s a site that will let us see if anyone is coming from all directions.’
And it was as he said, the last light scouring steep hills and showing wide valleys in the distance.
‘We can’t make a fire, but at least the weather is clearing up and if we find shelter under the larger trees we should stay dry. How’s the head?’
‘It feels a bit better. The dizziness has eased, at least, and it doesn’t ache as much.’
‘If you eat, you will feel better still. Have some bread and cheese.’
He brought the food from yesterday’s meal out from the bag again. It was delicious.
Afterwards, Celeste lay down on the branches he had broken off to fashion as a bed under a huge tree. The sky had cleared and the first stars were out, the heavens endless and bright out here in the dark.
‘If I had not dropped my father’s journal, then maybe—’
‘No,’ he interrupted her. ‘They knew us anyway, the soldiers. I could see it in their eyes for the reports from Paris will have been sent far and wide.’
‘Would your friend Aurelian de la Tomber hear of this skirmish, do you imagine?’
‘He might and it is certainly a hope. Blois lies to the south on the Loire. If we can get there, I have good contacts and Lian knows of them, too. We could find new identity papers and travel again legally, which would make things so much safer.’
‘Are you always so optimistic?’
‘Certainly—after every setback I have always found a solution that is workable.’
‘How were you caught, then? In Spain?’
‘Unexpectedly and with a lot of good luck on the side of the French patrol that came across us. I lost a good friend in that skirmish, though.’
‘A friend?’ She wished to know more now that he was talking.
‘A patriot. Guillermo Garcia. A good man who did not deserve to die like that.’
This was said with a great feeling of loss. She could hear the grief in his words.
‘When Papa died I felt the same.’
‘You saw August die?’
‘In front of my eyes. A knife to the breast. The man who sunk it through his ribs was at least skilled so I doubt he felt it.’
‘What happened then? To you?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Her pupils were small black pinpoints of wrath and Shay knew she remembered just fine, the same way he could recall every second of Guillermo’s murder.
What he could not understand was how she had been allowed to live herself after it, for the layers of espionage were deep and secret in the underbelly of Napoleon’s empire.
Unless there had been another reason for her prolonged existence? A darker and more heinous truth began to stir in the back of his mind.
The marks around her wrist worried him, as did her reaction to the soldiers and to the two men at the village who had manhandled her.
Perhaps it was not just a loss of blood that had made her dizzy and disorientated? Even now as she bent to pick up another piece of bread, he could see her hands shake in the half-light. He lay down beside her and looked up at the sky, careful not to touch her.
‘Do you know the constellations?’ Anything to take both their minds off the death of her father was welcomed.
‘A few of them. Aquarius. Aries. Orion.’
‘There is Andromeda, the chained lady.’ He pointed and was glad as her gaze followed the direction. ‘She was tethered to a large roc
k and left out at sea to await the wrath of the great monster Cetus. But Perseus arrived on his winged sandals and, like a true champion, he went to her aid.’
‘Did he save her?’
‘Indeed, he did. The monster was turned to stone by the severed head of Medusa that he’d brought with him and Perseus claimed Andromeda as his beautiful bride and queen.’
‘From tragedy to farce.’
‘You think it so?’
‘No one ever escapes so easily. Who tied her up in the first place?’
‘Her jealous mother. She was reputed to be envious of her daughter’s good looks.’
‘Because once she herself had been the fairest in the land?’
He decided to play her at her own game. ‘You have the drift of it. No one likes losing what they were once fêted for and all families hold secrets that they would rather others not know of.’
‘Mama tried to kill me twice.’
The shock of such words spread through him and Shay measured his response.
‘Mary Elizabeth had always been weak. Not physically, but mentally.’
Her fingers found his as he spoke and wound in.
He struggled to find the right words. ‘I met her by the pond one snowy winter’s day and she was trying to save a kitten who had fallen into the water.’
‘Did she save it?’
‘No, but she tried. She was kind when she wasn’t sick.’
The small laugh heartened him. ‘Papa said that of her, too.’
‘People are never just one thing. They are usually a mix of good and bad.’
‘Even heroes?’
‘Especially them. The expectations of others can be exhausting and there are times that escape is the only way of keeping sane.’
‘Escape?’
‘My uncle wanted me to come home and help Jeremy. He hoped that I would take over some of the responsibility of Luxford, but I couldn’t find it in myself to do that. I feel like if I return, my brother will die sooner than he should because he will simply give up. I know I would.’
‘So you came to Europe and stayed. That was one of the reasons you came north to Paris, too?’
He nodded.
‘And now?’
‘I am living all these minutes for what they are and trying not to think of going back.’
* * *
She turned and her gaze met his. She was perfectly still as she looked at him. He traced the shape of her nose with his first finger and then the outline of her mouth. She had a small scar on the lid of her left eye under the brow that creased when she smiled and he ran the pad of his finger over it in silent question.
‘I fell against a wardrobe and split it open.’
‘You don’t strike me as a clumsy person.’
‘Being a wife blurred the lines. My marriage was one of convenience, though my husband, unfortunately, wished for more.’
‘He wanted love?’
‘And what is that in a city where each moment could be your last?’
‘Futile and impossible?’
Like here and now?
This thought made him falter, but he pushed it away and concentrated instead on the lingering want that burned inside him every time he touched her.
‘Why did you not run? Leave the city? Find safety when you had the chance after warning me?’
‘Have you ever wanted something so badly that it hurt to think about it?’
‘No.’
‘Then you are lucky.’
‘What was it you wanted?’
She smiled. ‘Make love to me, Summer, quietly and carefully and slowly. It will help me to forget.’
A single tear traced its way down her cheek from the corner of one eye and he wiped it away.
‘Please?’
This time when they came together it was different from anything that had come before. Sweeter. Slower. More real because she allowed him to see her shadows, crouched in the passion, hidden under lust.
Tonight she was not the dangerous Brigitte Guerin or the arrogant young Mademoiselle Celeste Fournier from Sussex or even the woman who had come to his bed that first night in Paris, hungry and demanding of body. Tonight in the darkness she was muted and mellow and deep and she was his in a way she had not been before.
Tonight he understood her pain because it was there in the kiss they shared. He also understood a sadness that was usually cloaked. He wished he might ask her of it, but knew that he would not.
Taking her in his arms, they watched each other as they made love, slowly and with a quiet gentleness that felt just right.
He didn’t hurry, but lingered in the moment, a deep contentment settling, for the gift of closeness and contentment was wrapped in an intimacy that was startling. Shay felt that he could see into her very soul just as she was probably seeing into his own.
They would turn for Nantes after they left the hills of this place and make for the coast. Celeste was right that his injury would prevent the longer journey to Spain. He would have to take his chances with the port of St Nazaire and hope that he could find a passage to England.
She would not follow him. He knew that as well.
His hands tightened across hers under the clearing sky, the stars bright in the oncoming darkness, and then he forgot to think altogether.
* * *
The port of Nantes was teeming with sailors and tradesmen and passengers. Fishermen were there, too, singing out their catch and hoping for buyers.
They’d come into the town yesterday after catching a barge down the Loire from Blois. It had been an easy journey compared to what had come before. They had slept together every night for almost three weeks under their new disguise of husband and wife. Shay could not remember a time in his life when he had felt so whole and happy.
Last night they had barely slept, holding each other in the darkness with a desperation that was indescribable.
‘Come with me, Celeste. To England.’
The small shake of her head had him turning.
‘Whatever secrets you keep are nothing to me. You will be safe there.’
He did not mention anything of love because he knew she would not want it.
‘One day you will be Viscount, Summer, and a lord. That is your destiny.’
‘Then come home with me and be my—’
* * *
She placed her fingers across his mouth to stop him saying more, to halt the words that she knew were impossible.
My mistress? My friend? My lover?
She was ruined for anything other than what she was. When he understood that, everything would be easier, but it was becoming more and more difficult to distance herself from the shard of hope that had lodged in her breast. She would never tell him what had happened to her after her father was taken.
Never.
The word sat in her heart like a stone.
Strengthening resolve, firming intentions. She was glad of it, with the feel of his skin beside her and the warmth of his body; magnets which drew her in a direction she could not go.
She had nothing to give him to remember her by, no sentimental piece of jewellery, no keepsake that spoke only of her. It was better this way. A clean break. Another life for him and for her. Memories that were not broken by yearnings. Nothing to tie them. No regrets.
Only a goodbye.
I love you.
The words were there inside her, desperate to be spoken.
I have loved you ever since I can remember. Always.
But she shook her head and remained silent because it was kinder for him and easier for them. Her muteness was the gift he would never know she had given him.
He had risen after this exchange, leaving her there in the bed above the water, and gone up on to the deck. She had not seen him again until the morning when they had disembarked and come into the town proper. He looked tired and tense and sad.
‘Lian will be here somewhere.’
‘How could he know we are here?’ She could not believe in suc
h a coincidence and the cold dread of it shivered across her.
‘Because it always pays to have more than one plan in place.’
Different contacts. Other webs. He never ceased to surprise her with the extent of his agents, even in a land that would kill him if the chance presented itself.
De la Tomber had also been there on the day of the Dubois murders. She remembered Guy telling her so.
The threads were twisting again and she hadn’t the means to stop it, save in the sacrifice of herself.
‘You look pale. What is it?’
‘Tiredness. You have kept me awake at night.’ The lightness in her tone was as carefree as she could make it and his smile lit the world.
‘That is one thing I shall not apologise for, Celeste.’
‘Good.’
‘You are leaving, aren’t you? Now?’
He never missed a beat, she thought. Not even one.
‘I am.’
‘To go where?’
‘Away. A long way away.’
‘From me.’
She could not quite voice the lie, so she nodded instead.
‘I see.’
Behind him, in the shadow of the town walls, she could see Nolan Legrand and Noah Muller, two of the right-hand men of Mattieu Benet. She knew that there would be others, too, somewhere close. She had spoken to the first two an hour ago when Summer had left her at the tavern and had gone to find Aurelian de la Tomber in order to ascertain which boat he might rely on for a passage to England. When she had met the Les Chevalier agents by the crossroads at the edge of the town, she had given them her troth.
‘Take me back to Paris and let the English Major go.’
‘Why should we do that?’
‘Because I killed Guy Bernard and must answer for it, and because it was Benet himself who ordered the death of the Dubois family. Felix Dubois had been his partner in a business and his death would see great sums of money being transferred back into Benet’s accounts. Politics was a cover for greed and one that Mattieu Benet has used many a time. He is out of control and a murderer and needs to be stopped.’
‘Liar.’
‘Ask Aurelian de la Tomber. He was there. Ask him what was known by Clarke’s men and the Ministry of War.’
Muller and Legrand had looked at each other, measuring the weight of the words she had thrown into the ring.
