Twenty-five
Ian rode beside the ponderous carriage in the fading moonlight. This new road to the west was barely more than a goat path. He empathized with Murdoch’s restless need to drive their mounts to the speed for which they were bred and bring this prolonged torment to an end.
But his desire to win the chalice had been surmounted by the challenge of capturing Chantal’s trust…and her heart.
Not that he knew anything of the emotion Other Worlders called love, but the physical bond of amacara had taught him to crave… more intimate rapport. He hungered to know more of her tender compassion and reluctant courage. Even though she understood nothing of him or his home, she didn’t shy from his demands but met him as if they were equals. She fascinated him.
Until Chantal, his responsibilities had always kept him distant from those he served. Perhaps the chalice was trying to show him the error of his ways.
So Ian let Murdoch wear himself out riding back and forth between their forward and rear guards while he waited for Chantal to wake.
He ought to be ashamed that he’d treated her so crudely in their lovemaking. He’d always treated women with respect, tried to learn their likes and dislikes so he could reward them with the appropriate gifts. He’d always taken time to bring them pleasure. Never had he taken one as roughly as he had Chantal — or with as much uncontrolled, elemental passion…and joy.
They’d come together in equal need — against walls and doors and on floors — and she hadn’t seemed to mind. He certainly hadn’t minded. Their passionate couplings had been far more mind opening and fulfilling than any of his more… cerebral seductions. Apparently, the internal connection between him and Chantal was more important than material surroundings. That alone taught him a great deal.
With the first light of dawn, he watched the youngest child stir inside the carriage while the others slept. Should he ever be fortunate enough to have children, he would need to learn more about them. Could he learn to love children as Chantal did?
Just as Marie began to prod her grief-stricken mother for attention, Chantal woke and lifted the child to her lap. Crooning, she settled Marie into a welcoming cuddle and, as if she felt Ian watching, glanced out her open window.
The humidity and heat had been building as they neared the coast, and the passengers had left the windows open to let in the cool night air. Ian drew closer so he could speak.
“How is your father?” He’d known when Alain chose to ride inside that the older man’s heart problem had worsened. Ian could only relieve the congestion around it, not cure it.
“He sleeps, but not well,” she said quietly. “I do not know if it is his health, or the pain of seeing his dreams broken.”
She kept her voice carefully neutral, for which Ian was grateful. She had no way of understanding the power of her voice when she could be told nothing of the advanced abilities of Aelynn’s inhabitants or her father’s origins. But she was at least heeding his warning. She apparently had much experience in wielding her enchanted voice in normal situations but had never had reason to explore the more dangerous extremes of her gifts.
“We have healers at home who will help him mend,” he said with confidence.
“We go where Pauline goes,” she reminded him.
And Pauline could not go to Aelynn. She and the children had no Aelynn blood, and the gods would not let them through the island’s barrier of invisibility. Ian could find no way around that.
“Ships sail both ways,” he said without arguing. “We can take him home, let him heal, then return wherever he wishes.” Ian prayed that by then Chantal would see the wisdom of staying with him. Perhaps, if they had a child of their own….
She nodded, as if she had decided to be as reasonable as he was — or as if she pacified a madman.
“You do understand that I can give you silks and featherbeds and pearls, and that it is only circumstances that have led me to be so crude?” He was anxious that she not consider him a barbarian. He had no experience in courting a lady of refinement, but he assumed wealth was one of those factors women considered in choosing mates.
“I do not understand anything at all these days,” she responded, pressing the child’s head to her breast. “Perhaps after we return to Le Havre, and things have settled down, I will understand better. You are not the only one who has behaved badly.”
She blushed as pink as the dawn’s light, and Ian regained his assurance that she did not despise him for their hasty couplings. “There is nothing bad or wrong in what we’ve done together. The gods have blessed our joining.” He reassured her as gently as he could. “You realize it’s not likely to be safe in Le Havre? And Murdoch and I cannot stay there. Our home is elsewhere.”
She searched his face and looked sorrowful. “I understand you cannot stay.”
He wanted to emphasize that she could not either, but Murdoch chose that moment to gallop back to them.
He brought his steed to an unnecessarily abrupt halt. “There is a village ahead. We can rest the animals and eat there. The chalice has nearly reached the coast. I think we should leave the women and children while we go after it.”
Ian did not need an interpreter for Chantal’s questioning look. How Murdoch knew the chalice’s location was not something he could tell her. She must trust his promise to explain later.
“All the horses need resting,” Chantal said from the window, in a tone that apparently pained Murdoch’s sensitive ears.
“We could trade them — ” Murdoch started to say.
“For nags too bony to be eaten?” Chantal finished with scorn.
Ian noted that Murdoch’s frustration matched his own of earlier. Nothing in this Other World could be accomplished with the swiftness to which they were accustomed. Even with the injuries he and Murdoch had sustained, they possessed the speed and stamina of horses. They could follow the chalice’s trail with their extra-perception and catch up to Pierre in hours. But they could not change Chantal’s world to suit themselves.
People and animals would have to be fed and rested.
“We could run — ” Murdoch started to suggest.
Ian rejected that idea with a shake of his head. “The chalice teases us. We only open the way for trouble if we allow it to goad us into haste. Your ambition still blinds you, LeDroit.”
In anger, Murdoch reeled his horse back toward town. “Don’t patronize me, prince,” he called as he rode off.
“There is nothing wrong with ambition,” Chantal objected, watching Murdoch ride away.
“Not when it is tempered with an awareness of the public good instead of selfish greed. That is a hard lesson to learn for someone who possesses nothing.”
“That is a hard lesson for people who have everything.” She slammed shut the window and turned her attention to her waking family.
Let her believe what she would. He did not need her approval — much.
* * *
Even though they were in town only long enough to eat and rest the horses, Ian insisted that Alain take a room and rest while he and Murdoch showed their passports to the local militia. Since her father seemed to fare better now that Ian looked after him, Chantal did not question his orders. Ian apparently had a bottomless pit of wealth, and she was sure the innkeeper would make good use of the coins.
But now it was time to leave, and her father would not wake.
“Papa?” She felt his forehead. His temperature seemed normal, but his breath rasped heavily in his lungs. She tried shaking him just a little, but his eyelids did not even stir. “Papa!”
Nothing.
With fear chilling her bones, Chantal fled down the stairs in search of Ian. Pauline was letting the children chase pigeons around the village green. Chantal hadn’t seen Murdoch since they’d arrived — didn’t want to see him. He frightened her in ways she did not understand. She didn’t know why Ian trusted him.
Far better than anyone else, Ian would know what to do. She found him in the stable
yard, checking over the mares, stroking the nervous creatures and talking to them as if they understood, while he examined their hooves.
He looked up before she even called to him. “What is it? Your father?”
She’d given up attempting to dress her hair and had merely pinned it at her nape. Strands blew free and brushed her face as she nodded. Her heart beat quickly. She felt flushed, and she did not know if it was fear for her father or proximity to Ian that did it. She could not even stand near him without embarrassing herself.
“Papa will not wake. We have to find a physician.”
“There is none here who will do more than bleed him.” Ian was already halfway across the yard and hurrying toward the inn. “We need to take him to my home. We have…physicians… there who can work miracles.”
Chantal hurried after him. “He’s never been ill a day in his life. Even when the fever struck Le Havre, he did not take to his bed.”
“He is a stubborn man, but his weaknesses are catching up with him. Distress will harm the constitution, break it down faster than any fever.” He took the stairs two at a time.
“But once we are in Le Havre, he will be fine, won’t he? He’ll have me and the horses and the children and…”
Ian halted and whirled on the stairs. “You can’t stay in France, Chantal. You have seen the riots in Paris. What do you think is happening now that the angry mob realizes your king ran away in order to wreak war on your new government? You have seen the obsessive suspicion of the militia; they track every citizen for fear of royal spies and arrest innocents like Pierre who disagree with them. This country is about to go up in flames. Pauline and Pierre are aristocrats. You and your father are wealthy and publicly supported the king. Even without Pauline’s involvement in the royal escape, you would be targets. Go, find your friend and the children. We must be on the road.”
“But Papa! He can’t travel like this.” She could not absorb or accept his predictions. He had no way of knowing these things any better than she did. Her father was a more immediate concern than “might be’s.”
“He will fare better with my people than here. My sister’s healing skills are better than mine, and there are still others better than she. Your father needs their help. Go! Now!”
He dashed up the steps, leaving her behind.
* * *
The children whined about being returned to the carriage. Pauline sank into sullen grief. Papa groaned and slumped against the cushions after Ian helped him in. The only one who seemed happy about their return to the road was Murdoch, who raced his steed ahead of them.
Chantal had the oddest notion that Ian somehow controlled Murdoch’s actions, or at least, the distance he could run. Each time, the angry man returned even angrier, with dark fires flashing behind eyelids he kept lowered to conceal his inner self. At least Ian had been able to wake her father.
Despite the disgruntled temperaments of his fellow travelers, Ian clenched his jaw and remained stoic. In the summer heat, he’d discarded his robes and frock coat and rode scandalously in shirt sleeves, breeches, and spotless boots, his hair bound and curling in a long tail down his back. And still, he looked every inch the noble prince.
Knowing the king’s brothers, Chantal thought Ian looked better than any royalty or nobility. He possessed dignity and wisdom and a kind of…leashed power…that the drunken, greedy, spoiled fops of the aristocracy could never acquire. Perhaps the Marquis de Lafayette and a few of his soldiers exhibited a similar moral fortitude, but she suspected Ian could manage soldiers more intelligently than Lafayette had done lately. And Ian could do it in monk’s robes or shirtsleeves without need of impressive uniforms.
Which meant she was in serious danger of falling head over heels in love with a man who would ultimately ignore her wishes. Men of power were dangerously arrogant in their beliefs, and Ian exhibited every sign of believing he knew best for everyone.
If he thought she was a woman like Pauline who needed someone to take care of her, he knew nothing at all. She might have been relatively frivolous, but she had not tended her home and loved ones all these years without learning to be strong.
So, as much as she might admire and desire Ian, as much as she would like to think he was the one man in a million who could be her match, she could not fall in love with him. She’d tucked her poor, shattered heart away long ago, and she had better sense than to open the box now. Her music would be her life, as before.
So she lifted her flute and taught the children to sing in harmony. The instrument would never replace her piano, but the flute was beautifully melodic, and she was grateful for the gift. She handed out the tarts she’d bought as prizes and began to rebuild the bubble of happiness she’d lost when she’d left Paris….
Until she heard the firing of muskets in the distance, and Ian spurred his horse into a gallop, shouting at their driver to hide the carriage in the woods.
Twenty-six
Binding her fear tightly inside her, Chantal pretended that musket fire, galloping horses, and lurching carriages were part of a pleasant summer’s day as the coach came to rest in a copse of woods.
“Open the lovely picnic basket and see what Cook has made for you,” Chantal told the terrified children as the driver climbed down to water the horses.
The carriage’s abrupt change in direction had scared them badly, and she was certain they could pick up on her fear and Pauline’s. Marie was already weeping, and Anton’s lower lip trembled. If her voice had any power at all, Chantal prayed it would soothe them. She sent Pauline a telling glance that brought her friend back from her own terror to the moment.
“I should think there are trees here you can climb,” Pauline exclaimed with false gaiety, following Chantal’s example. “It is gallant of Monsieur d’Olympe to find us such a lovely dining room.”
While the children sniffled and tried to decide if this was sufficient reassurance, Pauline mouthed a questioning, “Pierre?”
Chantal shrugged slightly, not knowing the answer. She recognized the countryside. They were nearing the coast. Chances were good that Murdoch and Ian had either found Pierre or encountered a swarm of soldiers. The shots did not indicate a peaceful resolution.
Papa opened his eyes and scowled. “With luck, our traveling companions have gone for good, and we can go home in peace.”
Chantal knew better. She felt it deep inside her, where Ian somehow resided. But she did not let his fury or her fear appear on her face…or in her voice. She had to mind her voice, just in case Ian was right, and she somehow revealed or affected too much with it.
She did not feel pain, but… the heat of battle? Why would she think that what she was feeling had anything to do with Ian? Except last time she’d felt his pain, he’d been badly wounded, and this time, she felt as if she were angry and fighting, when she wasn’t — which meant she was officially insane.
Ian had thought her voice useful. If she could help…
She desperately wanted to help, to be in charge of her own fate. She’d lost everything she’d owned while being cautious. She had little enough left to risk and no reason for caution any longer.
Her father watched her with suspicion, as if he knew something she didn’t and wasn’t very happy about it. She managed a polite smile. “I’d like to stretch my legs a little. I think I’ll take one of the mares for a ride. Shall I look for berry patches?”
Pauline and her father knew she was lying to protect the children, but she escaped the carriage before they could voice a protest. The mares weren’t saddled, but they were bridled. She’d been on horses since she was a toddler. If she rode without benefit of stirrups or appropriate habit, her skirts might drag the ground and kill her, but the horse wouldn’t. At least, in this heat, she was wearing a minimum of petticoats.
Trying not to show her fear, she shakily unfastened the leading strings on the last mare in the train. The driver hastened to her side. “There’s water for them just over the hill. I can lead them down myself
, madame. It’s dangerous for you to go alone.”
Chantal took a deep breath to prevent shouting her hysteria. If her voice had any influence at all, now was the time to use it prudently. She conjured her sweetest smile and most reassuring tone. “That is thoughtful of you. Pierre chose wisely when he hired you. But I am restless and would like to explore the countryside a little. Would you give me a boost up?”
She could see his internal struggle. Ian had said something about not being able to force people to go against their will, but the driver didn’t know her well and should have no strong inclinations one way or another if she chose to risk her silly life. She watched with interest as he obeyed her command, kneeling down to provide a stirrup with his hands so she could mount.
If she hadn’t used her persuasive voice on him, would he have been so obliging?
Steadying the nervous animal, stroking and talking to her, she gained the mare’s confidence, then led her into a polite walk back to the road.
In their flashy red and blue uniforms, the mercenaries that Murdoch had ordered to guard the rear galloped toward her, and she waited to direct them to the carriage. They seemed reluctant to follow her orders until she spoke to them in a commanding tone. Instantly, the armed and trained officers reined in and walked their horses down to the trees. If this kept up, nothing would ever amaze her again.
Her success in escaping her safe boundaries gave her courage.
Out of sight of the carriage, Chantal kicked her mount into a gallop.
The gunfire was muted with distance but still terrorized her. She’d seen blood running in the streets after soldiers fired on crowds, but it had never been the blood of anyone she knew.
Pierre and Ian were ahead. And fearsome Murdoch. And her childhood home.
She’d recognized the edge of the chalky plateau they’d entered some while back. If they still followed Pierre, he was returning to his parents’ estate, as expected. They were north of Le Havre, close to the coast and her maternal grandparent’s country house. The alabaster cliffs of Étretat were a mile or two to the north. She’d roamed these fields with Jean and Pauline when they were children, knew every dovecote and manor along the way.
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