by Sophia James
‘I’ll ring for tea. I think we both need it and afterwards the housekeeper will find you a room so that you might have a sleep. It will probably be a long night.’
She nodded, pleased at the way he had taken charge of everything since her mind was still ringing from her confession. Once, she had imagined she might never have survived such an admission. Now all she knew was the relief of it.
He had listened to her words as a man and an honourable one at that. She could have asked for no more and the discharge of culpability was empowering.
Her body was free again and only hers, no longer soiled and tarnished. The grace Summer had given astounded her. She wanted to cross the room and crawl back into his arms, the protection found there so very precious.
But she did not, of course. Tea was coming and so was Guy Bernard, and if Summer had any chance of defeating him, he’d need his mind on the job. Already she could see him thinking in that particular way of his, the spy who had outwitted all his enemies because of cleverness and sharp wits.
‘Unload the gun you brought and put it on the table there. Live bullets in a room this size are liable to hit things they are not meant to. Besides, people generally want to tell their story and he will be no exception. But for now, we will have a drink and rest for there are plenty of hours to wait.’
* * *
His housekeeper had taken Celeste to the yellow bedchamber, a room that overlooked the back garden and which caught the afternoon sun. Situated on the next floor up, Shay was glad of the distance between them. His body shook with outrage from all she had told him, the fury building until he could stand it no more.
Shutting his door, he drove his fist into the wall beside it, the scrim jagging against his skin and drawing blood and pain, and the sort of ache that finally broke through the blinding anger of what had happened to Celeste.
He drew back his arm and slammed it in again, this time a sob of anguish escaping with the crash and then he hit out a third time, the madness diminishing exponentially with such temper and passion as his more usual resourcefulness crept back in.
He didn’t want to break his fingers, he needed the damn things to confront Guy Bernard when he came. Leaning back against the wall, he slid down it, legs folded up, his mouth against his hand, sucking at the bruising and the split skin.
He felt worn out and drained. He felt het up and energised, too, if that was indeed possible. It was how Celeste had always made him feel as she rode upon the edge of danger in everything she did. She was unlike anyone else he’d ever met and that was saying something in his walk of life.
He would deal with Guy Bernard and take Celeste Fournier home to Luxford. He did not care what happened in the future or how difficult it all was. She was his. She always had been his and always would be.
He would protect her and cherish her and keep her safe. Nobody would ever hurt her again. He was willing to sacrifice everything to make certain that this happened.
And so I pretended that it was you until all I could see was your face and all I could feel was your body. Even when I screamed I imagined it was you.’
Celeste challenged him and made him furious. She’d offered him her body even after everything she had been through and filled him up completely with her own brand of passion. Her secrets were dark and heinous, but then so were many of his own, the shady deals of espionage wrought in blood and deceit. He’d killed people, too, under the banner of war and sometimes it had not been pretty.
She was exactly right for him. She made his blood beat faster when she came near and his heart swell with bursting pride.
In her he could only see the grace and the hope of survival. She was the rose that bloomed among the debris, determined, brave and true. The White Dove. James McPherson had the truth of it there.
He laid his hands finally upon his knees and wept for all that they both had lost.
Chapter Eleven
They waited together in the darkened room, not speaking, Celeste’s gun drawn against the window as they watched the night sky fade into darkness and the moon rise above the city.
This morning they had felt like strangers, but this evening they were more than that again. Stronger feelings were there, too, but he could not at the moment think about those.
He teased the silk of a scarf he had in his hands through his fingers, the strength of it reassuring. Every part of his body was honed and ready for action.
* * *
The sound came an hour later, small at first and then more loudly. Scraping and a footfall. Shay took in a breath and kept it there, not a single thing upon him moving. Still. Readied. Focused.
The shadow of a man and then the body with a blackened face turned to the room.
‘Stand very still.’
At Celeste’s voice the figure stopped immediately. ‘Now step in slowly and raise your arms.’
Guy Bernard stood there now in the light of the candle Shay had struck, beardless, thinner, a smile upon his face. His hands were devoid of weapons.
‘Major Shayborne,’ he said softly in French, ignoring Celeste altogether. ‘So all those rumours from Nantes were true?’
‘Rumours?’ He could not understand quite what Guy Bernard meant.
‘Be quiet, Guy.’ Celeste’s words showed the steel in her voice, but the Frenchman wasn’t listening.
‘You do not know of the sacrifice that she made for you?’
‘What the hell are you talking of?’
‘This.’ When he tipped his head Shay could see the scar of her knife’s work on his neck. ‘As well as her accusations against Benet. It was a pure exchange. Her life for yours. The things she had to say were more important than what might have come from your interrogation, I suspect, and she’d promised to go without fight to Paris if you were left alone to take safe passage back to England.’
Shay glanced briefly around at Celeste, sick with the realisation of the danger she had placed herself in for him. When she refused to meet his eyes he swore, for nothing with her was ever as he thought it and he could see the truth of Bernard’s words in her eyes. Sacrifice.
‘And now no doubt she is crawling into your bed with all her gifts, a woman who might see her best chance and take it.’
‘Enough.’
But Guy Bernard was not ready to cease, not by a long shot.
‘Perhaps it might be wise to ask her about some of her other secrets. They are certainly worth listening to.’
‘You speak of the soldiers who took her after her father’s murder? I want to thank you for your part in seeing to their demise. It was the honourable thing to do.’
That surprised him, a heavy frown on his face settling.
Shay took two steps towards him. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I want my wife back. I want her to return with me to France. It is her place, after all.’
‘An unlikely conclusion to our meeting.’
‘She owes me her life. She owes me for this.’ His hand again indicated the old wound at his throat. ‘We were never divorced in the law courts and any judge in France would back me up on that.’
‘You are delusional.’ Celeste pushed into the conversation now, no careful diplomacy in what she said.
‘Go back to France and never return to England.’ Shay spoke across them both. ‘That promise is the only way you will leave here alive and I allow it only because of the way you dealt with the soldiers.’
For a moment Shay thought he might go, indeed he made to, his body turning even as the knife was flung. Towards Celeste.
‘If I cannot have you, Brigitte, then this Englishman most certainly will not. I swear it.’
The blade hit her in the arm, spinning her off her chair and sending her tumbling to the floor, a bright splash of red on the rug. Then there was another blade in Bernard’s hands as he stepped towards her, his focus only on Celeste.
The scarf came around the Frenchman’s throat as Shay bore down upon him, the light thin silk unbreakable and solid. He ig
nored the heavy thumps against his back and twisted the fabric twice before jerking the neck up, a slight small pop telling him it was finished.
Bernard’s inert body fell to the floor, the reddened face frozen in a mask of death as Shay’s fingers checked the pulse just to make certain that he indeed did not live.
Celeste simply kneeled there in shock after pulling the knife from her injured arm, her face pale and breath shaky as he moved across to her.
‘It’s not a fatal wound. You’re not bleeding heavily.’
She shook her head hard. ‘It is my fault, all this, and you are the one to pay for it...again.’
She was breathing so fast now he could barely make sense of the words. It wasn’t the wounded arm that was upsetting her at all, but his part in the demise of Guy Bernard. He held her carefully up against him, his hand pressed down on the injury so that the slow seepage of red would cease altogether.
‘Life is never one thing, Celeste, and you of all people must know that. Bernard died for your safety and for your deliverance, and I would kill him again in a second. This had to happen in order for you to live and for me this is honourable.’
Such words seemed to reach her through the mist that was fogging her brain and her fingers came up to his face, tracing the line of his cheek, stopping just short of his lips. ‘You are beautiful, Summer, both inside and out.’
He began to smile, then kissed her forehead carefully. ‘You choose damn strange times to tell me things, Celeste. Or rather, not to tell me?’
‘Nantes?’ She picked up his meaning.
‘Is it true what Bernard said? Did you sell yourself there to allow me to go free?’
‘Yes.’
Already there were footsteps coming up the stairs and along the passageway, the noise of the contretemps attracting the attention of his staff. Within a second the door was opened, by Aurelian de la Tomber of all people, three of Shay’s servants standing behind him.
His friend’s eyes flickered over the carnage in the room. ‘I had come to tell you Bernard has been spotted in London, but I see you already knew that. Are you going to live, Miss Fournier?’
‘I am.’
‘Good. Shay has been like a wounded bear since you parted in Nantes. It is time to resolve the troubles between you.’
Calling his man forward, he instructed him to fetch a physician promptly and then he turned towards Celeste.
‘You were right in exposing Mattieu Benet, Mademoiselle Fournier, but I would like to give you my side of the story if I may...’
He waited until she nodded.
‘The Ministry of War already had him in their sights. He’d been known to be unscrupulous and we needed to find solid proof. It was why I was there at the scene of the murder. We had word he was after Felix Dubois and I knew he was planning to leave Paris. I tried to protect the children, but I couldn’t.’
Celeste was glad of his honesty, but she had some of her own also. ‘It was my fault, too. The documents that were found on them came from me. The courier I sometimes used also worked for Mattieu Benet and he made sure that they were implicated.’
A new voice was heard outside and a physician stepped into the room.
‘This man said I was to come immediately...’ He gestured to the servant at his side, but his words dwindled to nothing as he saw Guy Bernard’s body on the floor lying before them.
‘It seems there is nothing at all I can do for the gentleman, but perhaps the lady might need my ministrations?’
‘Thank you.’ Shay stood and lifted Celeste up in his arms, ignoring completely her protests to be put down.
Aurelian turned to go. ‘Then I shall retrieve my great-aunt, Shay. She has been in London visiting with her sister and you would be hard pressed to find two more proper Dowagers. Their presence in the house is important to protect the reputation of your young guest.’
Both he and Celeste looked over at him.
‘Unlike Paris, London prides itself on the rigorous upholding of manners and decorum. We should not let the city down. Tante Adalicia and her sister will be in residence within the hour. It is my gift to you both.’
With various servants looking on and the doctor nodding his head vigorously, Shay had no way of insisting otherwise. He could only walk behind the procession of doctor and servants with Celeste in his arms as they led the way to the yellow bedchamber on the second floor of the Luxford town house.
* * *
She was finally alone.
All the prodding and stitching and bandaging had finished, the elixirs given, the candles lit, and beside her bed, well protected against the autumn cold, the old great-aunt of Aurelian de la Tomber sat, black shawl around her shoulders and drinking a generous brandy.
Celeste could hardly believe what had happened. Guy Bernard was dead, never to trouble her again, and Summer seemed to be having no trouble at all in digesting the fact that he’d killed him. She had also told him that he was beautiful in a way that would leave him with no doubt at all that she wanted more.
Her frown deepened for he had not replied or given her any compliment back. Granted, her timing was probably off, but still...
She looked across at Aurelian de la Tomber’s aunt and smiled, a stretched parody of a smile, she supposed, because all she truly wanted was Summer here in her bed, here where she might touch him and kiss him and...
‘My sister and I are quite elderly, Miss Fournier, and our usual retiring hour is long since reached, so I will bid you a good night. We both sleep very well and deeply and I hope that you shall, too.’
Celeste was not quite sure what the old lady was telling her.
‘Viscount Luxford speaks French remarkably well for an Englishman. His accent is that of a perfect Parisian gentleman, though when my sister quizzed him on his time in Provence his speech took on the musicality of that part as well. A man of many talents, my dear. A good man.’
‘He is.’
‘Our chambers lie on the first floor to the very back of the house. Lian insisted that we take such rooms because of the many stairs. A most insistent man, my great-nephew. And wily, too. I sometimes wonder whether the darker arts might have been more his calling than the banking he is involved in. I said as much to his mother many times, but I doubt she ever told him.’
For a moment Celeste could not quite find her voice. ‘Thank you for coming so quickly and on such short notice, madame.’
‘Oh, it is my pleasure, Miss Fournier. Respectability has its uses, my dear, as does putting on a fine face. It is just as well that we were here to be of assistance.’
When she left, Celeste sat up. Her arm had been pulled into a sling, the cotton soft against her skin. A nightgown had been procured from somewhere, as had a night jacket and warm woollen slippers. A maid had combed her hair and tied it into a ribbon and she had been bathed in lilac water and rose oil, the soap of lavender adding its bit to the potpourri of toilettes.
All in all, she smelt like a flower shop, albeit an expensive one. It had been a very long time since she had felt so very pampered and coddled. Underneath all the shock she liked the feeling, although she knew on the morrow she would return to Langley.
It was over. Danger. The past. Retribution. She was safe. They were safe, she and Loring and Summer. The absolute relief of it all made her heart sing.
‘Please God, let him come.’
She whispered this under her breath and was mindful of the quietening of the house around her: the last footfalls of the servants, the clock on the mantel ringing out the early hour of morning, one plaintive note at a time.
Then the door handle moved and the door opened and Summerley Shayborne, Viscount Luxford, stood there, newly bathed himself, his necktie loose and without any sort of a jacket.
‘May I come in?’
She nodded and he walked forward, holding a candle that was almost burned down to the wick.
He stopped a little distance from the bed, placing the candle down at her level on the small bedside
table.
‘Is your arm feeling better?’
‘Much.’ She could barely say more.
‘Tell me about Nantes, Celeste. Let me hear the truth from you.’
‘You do not think Guy Bernard had the way of it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He did and he didn’t. He didn’t know that the only time I have ever felt honourable was when you were with me. He couldn’t know that if you had died I would have, too, because seeing you safe was all I had left.’
‘The agents of Les Chevaliers were at the port then and you spoke to them when I went to meet Aurelian?’
She nodded. ‘There were five of them and they had been waiting for a week. Two of the older men held great ambitions to replace Benet, so my allegations whet their appetites for a regime change.’
‘You knew that about them?’
‘I made it my business to.’
‘So you struck a deal with them? Your honesty for my safe passage?’
‘Well, it was a little more complicated than that. You were right out in the open and one of the agents was the finest marksmen in all of France. He would not have cared if others were in the way and got hurt and I knew that he hated Aurelian de la Tomber with a passion.’
‘So it was for both of us, then?’
‘I decided to implicate de la Tomber, too, for if I could not save him in Paris, then at least I might try in Nantes and I had seen him outside the Dubois home just before the children were killed.’
‘A fortunate happenstance?’
‘I thought so. I promised I would accompany the agents back to Paris of my own free will and give my accusations when I got there, but I also insisted that I retained my weapons at hand. If anyone touched me, I would kill myself. They made certain no one did, for arriving empty-handed in Paris would have invited sterner questions than each thought they might survive.’
‘And in Paris?’
‘Well, things went a bit awry there because Benet is wily and de la Tomber is clever. But I kept saying what I thought was true despite the opposition and within a day there was an inquiry.’
