She fell forward, her forehead touching the sand. “I forgive him.” Sobs tore from her chest until it ached. “God, I forgive Jean Paul for trying to kill me, for wanting me dead even now. Forgive me for waiting so long to do so.”
* * *
“I told you before. Three times before. I haven’t seen a girl like you describe, and the boy that came in during the storm hasn’t been back for his ticket.”
“You’re wrong.” Michel ground his teeth as he stared at the wiry clerk in the shipping office. He’d visited the man for the past four days, and every day the man gave the same answer. No one matching either Isabelle’s description or disguise had purchased passage. “Nothing would have stopped this person from boarding one of your ships.”
“You’re daft, citoyen.”
“Could she have snuck onto a boat without you knowing?”
The man smirked. “A wench sneaking onto a boat without the sailors noticing? Not likely.”
Something hot clenched in his gut. “What if the sailors didn’t tell you?”
The man’s eyes went cold, flat. “A single woman sneaks aboard a ship, I’m going to hear about it. Though I can’t comprehend why any woman would do such a thing. The sailors would use her up faster than—”
Michel growled and slapped his hands on the desk.
The man nearly toppled off his stool. “Uh, that is, I don’t think the sailors would be all that kind to a lone wench who snuck aboard.”
Michel rubbed the back of his neck. He’d spent the past four days scouring every passenger who waited to board a disembarking ship and had given Isabelle’s description to anyone who would listen.
But the answer was always the same. No one had seen her.
He spent his nights visiting the eating establishments and inns in Saint-Valery, but the answers he found in those places depressed him as much as the shipping clerk’s.
Jean Paul couldn’t have caught Isabelle. News of a duc’s daughter being captured would spread through this port town in an instant, and no one had seen soldiers since the day of the storm.
“You’re welcome to go out and ask the sailors if they saw her,” the clerk added.
Michel sunk his teeth into his tongue and beat back his urge to strangle the wiry man. He didn’t have time to speak to passengers today, or talk to innkeepers, sailors and publicans yet again. He had to go home. He’d told Narcise he’d be gone one night, maybe two, and he’d been gone four.
He slapped a fistful of coins on the counter. “I have to leave today. Here’s money. If you find the girl I seek, send information to my farm near Abbeville, and I’ll pay you more.” Which would, in effect, deplete the vast majority of money he managed to save since taking over the farm.
But he’d give away the farm itself to have Isabelle back. To take her in his arms and taste those full, lush lips and look into those deep brown eyes once more.
The clerk’s eyes lit with greed. “Where’d you say your farm was?”
After giving the man directions, he pushed his way outside and glanced out over the bay, as though simply looking that direction would make her appear. Where was she now?
Had she escaped him as well as the soldiers? Was she on her way to Stockholm even now, dreaming of the day she landed in London?
Was she happy?
He lifted his face to the sky. Father, keep her safe.
He couldn’t return to the farm without her. How could he bear to look at the bed whereon she slept or her spot at the dinner table? How could he forget the way her eyes danced in the sunlight, the way her chin quivered when she tried to be strong…or the way she felt in his arms?
Pain gripped his chest as he turned his back toward the bay and started the long walk home.
* * *
Isabelle brushed the sand from her hands and skirt as she stared at the closed door of Jean Paul’s room. She’d no concept of how long she’d lain on the beach making her peace with God, but as soon as she arose, she headed straight here. She grasped the door handle, slowly lifted the latch and pushed the door open.
Jean Paul lay on his bed sleeping peacefully. She walked to him and laid a hand on his arm, warm and strong. His eyes sprang open.
“I’m sorry your wife died without help from the seigneur. And I’m sorry my family lived lavishly at the expense of people such as you. Please forgive me.”
He jerked his arm away. Wincing in pain, he covered his shoulder with his other hand and propped himself up against some pillows. “Aye, I’ll forgive you—when I see your head roll.”
But his cruel words no longer made her skin crawl; his hatred no longer brought fear. “Know this, then—I forgive you.”
Fury radiated from him like heat from a fire. He spit at her feet. “I don’t want your forgiveness. You deserve to die.”
“I forgive you, anyway.” The simple, quiet words filled the room with a power more explosive than Jean Paul’s hatred. “What you do with it is your choice.”
Jean Paul glared. “Maybe you didn’t understand when I said I’d kill you if you ever came back.”
She ran her eyes over his injured body. Such a strong specimen of manhood. He should be home, helping Michel on the farm. Instead, he’d allowed years of bitterness to feast on his heart until his magnificent body became a shell for the soul dying inside. “You won’t kill me.”
“No? Ha! You’re a fool.” He licked his cracked lips but refused to meet her eyes. “What is it you want? Money for nursing me?”
“I want you to accept my forgiveness.”
His face paled, and his breathing grew strained. “Where are my clothes? I’ve money in my coat. I’ll pay for the room, and you can leave.”
“All you have to say, Jean Paul, is ‘I accept your forgiveness.’”
He shivered as his name left her lips. “My money, wench!” He reached out and fisted his hand in her skirt, pulling her closer.
“You’ve no money. Whoever shot you stole it. And I’m not leaving until we resolve whatever’s between us.”
“Christophé.” He shut his eyes and whispered, “The traitor.”
She wasn’t about to be distracted. “You could also try, ‘I shouldn’t have attempted to kill you.’ Or, ‘thank you for saving my life.’ Any such statement will do.”
He cracked an eyelid, his chest heaving laboriously for the little energy he’d exerted. “Why?” Jean Paul’s voice rusted.
“Because you shouldn’t judge me by my parents’ actions. Did you know they’re dead? A mob attacked them as they were trying to reach our château, and they were slaughtered along with my little brother. Does that bring you comfort?”
“No.” His eyelids drooped. “I understand you want an apology. But why are you rescuing me, forgiving me—” he forced his eyes open “—after I tried to kill you?”
Her throat felt swollen. “Because it’s what God wants. It’s no less than He did for me.”
Jean Paul turned his head away and stared out the window. She wanted to stomp her feet and shout and scream. You can’t ignore me. I won’t go away.
Instead, she raised her chin. He was bound to a bed, and she could wait just as long as he.
Chapter Twenty-One
A draft greeted Isabelle as she walked through the door with Jean Paul’s lunch tray. She shivered and glared at the man, who had apparently opened the window to the cold drizzle outside, and who even now stared out it as though it was perfectly sane to keep a window open while it rained. He’d been awake for a week, and though he hadn’t tried to hurt her, the brute still hadn’t acknowledged her forgiveness.
He was growing stronger by the day. Out of bed and walking around the room now. But a healthy body did little good when one’s heart was sick. Much as she wanted to square
off and then leave him to his own devices, he might never change if she left now. If she walked out of the inn this day, nothing prevented him from running back to the army and cutting down the next woman he found walking through the woods.
She set the tray on the dresser and moved to shut the window at the foot of his bed.
“Leave it open.” Jean Paul spoke without looking at her.
She crossed her arms and stared at him. Such an angry, brooding man. She never knew what to expect. “The quilt is getting wet.”
“She was like this.”
Isabelle frowned. “Who? What?”
“The rain.” He closed his eyes and inhaled, as though the scent of rain could bring him peace. “Corinne was like the spring rain.” His opened eyes glazed with both love and pain. “The kind that tinges everything in its path with gentleness, that gives life and color to everything it touches.”
The rain. How could such a hateful man say such sweet things of his late wife?
She ran her gaze over Jean Paul’s face—his strong nose, his thin dark eyebrows, the hard planes of his cheeks, the square set of his jaw and the scar twisting around the far end of his right eyebrow. Despite his faults, this man had loved his wife.
What would it be like to have such a consuming love for someone…or did she already know?
Could she love Michel as Jean Paul had loved Corinne? Wholly. Entirely. Exhaustingly? Would Michel take her back after how she left? Or had she given up the only chance she’d have at real love?
“You’re thinking of him, again.”
Isabelle sucked in a sharp breath. Her eyes snapped to Jean Paul’s, which stared mildly back at her. Had her thoughts been that obvious? “I know not what you speak of.”
“You’re lying, woman.” He scowled. “Don’t play coy. Michel loves you, and you know it.”
She turned away. Non, she didn’t know Michel loved her anymore. Two weeks ago, she wouldn’t have doubted his love, but Michel couldn’t possibly feel the same after she lied to him and ran away. “You’re mistaken.”
“I held a knife to his throat, and he still wouldn’t tell me where you were.”
Her heart stopped, and her mouth turned sour. She whirled around. “A knife! How dare you?”
Jean Paul moved his legs over the edge of the bed and sat. “Don’t get uppity with me. I didn’t draw blood. Well, mayhap a drop or two, but nothing serious.”
“That makes it better.” She balled her hands into fists and stalked toward the door. “A knife on your only brother. And France thinks nobility needs to be guillotined.”
He chuckled, the lightest sound she’d ever heard from the man.
Rage surged through her blood.
“I see you feel the same way.”
“What?” She paused at the door and turned back, prepared to tell Jean Paul to find another nurse and his own way back to his family. She was leaving.
“You love him, too.”
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you even think of telling me how I feel about your brother. You know nothing of our relationship. Nothing of what it cost me to leave him. Of what it cost me to stay here and care for a man who still wishes me dead.”
“I don’t wish you dead any longer.” His words, so quiet in relation to her outburst, held the power of a raging sea behind them.
Her jaw dropped slightly. “What mean you?”
“I shouldn’t have tried killing you.” He rubbed his fingers across his brow. “Though you may well be the only aristocrat in France worthy of life.”
She moved closer to him, failing to comprehend the full meaning of his words. “I—”
“And I wasn’t in Paris when your sister was killed. I’ve been in north France all this time. I just said it to get you riled that night.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came.
“Probably should have told you that bit about your sister sooner, huh?”
“Why the change?” She could barely move the words over the lump in her throat.
“I didn’t think you meant it—about really forgiving me.” He looked out the window, then back. “But you stayed. I figured you would leave me and go back to my brother.”
“I thought about leaving, but then it seemed my forgiveness would have just been with my mouth and not from my heart.”
“You saved me because of Michel, didn’t you?”
She nodded. Her throat felt too swollen to function, and tears gathered behind her eyes.
“Never thought I’d see the day I’d want my brother to marry the daughter of a duc.”
Marry? Surely Jean Paul hadn’t said the word.
He eyed her, as though observing her posture and stricken face for the first time during their conversation. “You’re going back to him, aren’t you?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand how I left. I betrayed him.” Her heart ripped afresh as she forced the truthful words over her tongue. “I lied to him. And he said…he wouldn’t take me back.”
“My brother’ll do right by you. We’ll head back together, in a couple days. When I’m strong enough to walk that far.” Jean Paul spoke as though going back to Michel was the easiest decision in the world, as though Michel would want her back.
“You weren’t listening. I said—”
“I heard you.”
She twisted her hands together. Could she face Michel again? A shiver slid down her spine. Could she live with herself if she didn’t try to make things right? She owed him an apology, at the least. Even if he sent her away afterward.
Jean Paul hefted himself from the bed and walked to the dresser. “Three days, maybe four, and I can walk the distance.”
She peered into his concerned eyes and swallowed. “Very well.”
“Good, then.” He settled his hat atop his head. “I’m going out for a bit.”
Her face drained. “Out? You can’t go out. You’re not well.”
He didn’t even glance in her direction as he shuffled to the door and pulled on his tattered National Guard coat. “Think you that I can walk to Abbeville several days hence, but I can’t stroll around the town square this afternoon?”
“It’s raining.”
He pulled open the door. “I’ve a hat and coat.”
She snatched up her cloak. “I’ll accompany you.”
He turned and watched her, his eyes softening into more of a gray than black. “You stay and rest.” He smiled, the half curve of his lips so similar to Michel’s that her heart ached.
She turned away.
Jean Paul let himself out, and numb with fresh thoughts of her love, she moved to her tick…and prayed Michel would take her back.
She awoke to the echo of boots striding down the corridor. Stretching, she sat up and glanced around the empty room. How long had she slept? The boot steps slowed near her room. Jean Paul must be returning even now. She stood as the door creaked open, and a tall figure loomed in the doorway.
She paused. The chamber tilted and couldn’t seem to right itself, time freezing as she stared into a pair of warm, dandelion-green eyes.
“Michel.” Half-afraid he would disappear, she flew toward him at the same moment he raced to her. They met in the middle of the room. His tall, muscled body enfolded her in its strength, his arms wrapping around her with such force she could hardly breathe. “Michel, oh, Michel. Is it you? I can’t believe you’re here, that you came…after how I—”
He hushed her with his mouth, a warm, passionate meeting of lips and hearts and souls. Moisture from his rain-damp garments seeped into her clothes, but caught in his arms, the wetness brought no chill to her skin. His hands stroked down her back, up her arms, around her neck as his mouth lingered over hers.
Te
ars streaked down her cheeks, their saltiness mingling with the frenetic kiss. His lips roamed her face and captured the tiny beads of sorrow and joy even as his hands slid into her hair and held her head.
The kisses ceased and he rested his forehead against hers. “Isabelle.” No word had ever sounded sweeter.
* * *
A shadow, a wraith, a mirage. Though Michel held her soft, lithe form in his arms, ran his hands over her, he couldn’t believe he’d found her. He’d searched for her once, only to come away desolate. But now…
She sighed, drawing him closer and linking her arms about his neck, but he shifted her back, pressing her shoulders away. His eyes roved over every detail of her face and body. Not a bruise or scratch marred her porcelain skin. Somehow, through all the days she’d been gone, she’d managed to stay safe. “I love you.”
Her breath caught, hope filling her eyes while a single tear trailed down her cheek. Gray light from the windows fell across her riotous hair, highlighting the glossy mixture of russet and black. Her throat worked, a back and forth movement of her creamy skin and smooth, long neck.
“I love you, too.”
The quiet words filled his heart, trickled through his blood, swelled through his muscles until he nearly exploded with joy. He crushed her against himself. How long had he waited for that simple pledge? How many nights had he dreamed of finding her and hearing her say those precious words? “I knew. The day of our picnic, I knew you loved me.”
He expected a smile, a slow curve of those full red lips. Instead, she buried her head in his chest and clutched the folds of his shirt. “I deceived you, then left you. I’m so sorry.”
He took her chin and tilted it up, then cupped her cheek. “I already forgave you, mon amour.”
“But that night in your woodshed, you said you wouldn’t take me back after—”
“Shhh.” He held his finger to her lips. “Don’t remind me of my cruel words. You’re safe. That’s all that matters. Jean Paul told me as much, but I couldn’t believe him until I saw you myself.”
“Jean Paul?” She gripped his shirt even tighter. “He found you?”
Sanctuary for a Lady Page 23
