In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4)

by Cindy Brandner

  “I had a meeting,” he said and smiled. She reached across and removed a bit of sugar from the corner of his lips and he caught her hand and kissed the palm of it.

  “I didn’t ask,” she said and laughed, because of course she had been thinking it.

  “No, but I could see you wondering.”

  “Jamie, if you have business you have to attend to, I’ll be fine on my own. I know you didn’t expect me, after all.”

  “While unexpected, it doesn’t follow that your arrival is in any way unwelcome. I have already cleared my schedule for the day. I intend to spend it with you in this loveliest of cities, right after I make love to you and allow you to get dressed.”

  An hour later when he’d made good on his first promise and was lying back on the bed watching her dress, he said, “Wear something warm, sweetheart, it’s chilly out there. However, I promise you there is no city as beautiful as Paris in the snow.”

  It was true. What followed would always remain for her a day of perfect enchantment. It was a day—literally—of wine and roses. Small sugared roses which they ate while walking the cobbled streets of Montmartre and the wine they had with lunch in a small café on the Rue Poulbot. Once a village of windmills and vineyards, Montmartre had become the mecca of artists, both those established and those struggling to become so. The ghosts of the Belle Époque still lingered in the narrow streets and between the old buildings—Renoir, Degas, Moreau, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and all the other artists and writers and dancers and the echo of the cabarets, theaters, music halls and circuses.

  Late in the afternoon, as they stood looking down over the city from the steps of Sacre Coeur, she became aware of a small tingly spot in the middle of her back.

  “Jamie,” she reached up so that it looked like she was kissing the side of his face, “is someone following us?”

  “Yes, it’s the short man with the terrible hat, the other one with the neckerchief who looks like a pirate and the one with the scar,” he said casually and then did kiss her as though he hadn’t a care or thought in the world beyond the two of them, wandering idly through the steadily thickening snow. He smelled of beeswax and so did she; they had both lit candles in the cathedral.

  “What do you think they want?” she asked, her face pressed to his. To outward appearances they were no more than besotted lovers, a role that wasn’t a stretch by any means.

  “Can you run in those ridiculous boots you’re wearing?” Jamie asked, looking like he was whispering something extremely suggestive in her ear. An old woman in a black shawl passed by and gave them a disapproving look.

  She looked down at said boots with some measure of doubt, they had rather high and delicate heels and had been bought for their aesthetic value and clearly, she thought wincing a little, not for their comfort. “Yes, I can run,” she said, stoutly.

  They picked their way down the stairs from the cathedral. At the bottom, Jamie looked at her, smiled and said, “Run!”

  Like gulls on the wing they flew down the street, running so fast it seemed like it was impossible to fall. It was the way she remembered feeling as a little girl flying down a hill, out of control and perfectly free. Near the bottom of the street Jamie darted to one side, ducking into a doorway. He emerged holding a bucket.

  “Up these stairs,” he said and caught her by the arm, pulling her up one of the narrow staircases which served as the alleys of Montmartre.

  “What is that? It reeks.”

  “Fish guts,” he said and then threw the contents of the bucket onto the stairway below them.

  The first man made it up ten stairs before he slipped and went careening backwards, his arms wind-milling madly. “Man with the funny hat,” she said.

  “One down and two to go,” Jamie replied and then they took flight again. This time across a small courtyard, thick with trees and a tiny bench with an angel’s head gathering snow. It became a blur after that of feint and counter-feint and running and ducking into doorways, and dashing through a café and out the back through a kitchen thick with steam and the scent of frying tripe and garlic, with startled chefs glaring at them and waving spoons and ladles and knives in indignation. Then under an archway and into a narrow alley and up stairs and down stairs, until she had no idea if they were merely running in circles. Her feet were soaked, her lungs hurt from running and she felt wildly, joyously alive. At last they spilled into a courtyard which had a high fence on three sides and the only open space was at their backs. They could hear the footfalls of the men already. They were trapped and Pamela wasn’t sure what they were going to do, barring sprouting wings and taking actual flight. Jamie glanced back and then withdrew a bottle from his coat pocket, uncorked it and flung the contents across the snowless cobbles under the entry. And then he seized her by the hand and ran for the corner of the courtyard which was most thickly dressed in shadows.

  Jamie had the reflexes and strength of an acrobat. He pulled himself up on the fence in a series of moves too quick for her panicked eyes to take in. The men were in the courtyard now.

  “Pamela,” he whispered urgently, “take my hand. I’m going to pull you up.”

  How he was balanced there she did not know. The top of the fence was no more than half an inch wide and of rounded iron. If he fell, there were iron spikes dotting the top of it which would quite neatly impale him. Or her, she thought grasping his hand and scrabbling up the fence. He was right, her boots were ridiculous. But she was upright on the fence, balanced like the dancer she had so long ago been. They inched along the fence and she saw his goal. There was a stone balustrade just beyond the fence, which in turn was capped with a massive stone gryphon and the gryphon in turn sat just below the roofline of a large house. It was going to be a stretch—literally—to cross the divide between the fence and the balustrade. She looked down and realized the fence was on the side of one of the butte’s steep drops. If they fell—no, she mustn’t think about that or she would lose her footing to an attack of nerves. Jamie moved like quicksilver ahead of her, in and out of the spikes, keeping his balance as though he was a child on the broad level of a stone wall. His hand still gripped hers, though, and she put her faith in his ability to keep them from a rather bloody fall or a gory impalement.

  They reached the corner of the fence and Jamie let go of her hand. He stepped forward and then jumped. If he missed on this first try, there wouldn’t be another. He jumped and grasped the gryphon’s beak and swung himself up and over so that he sat astride it. “Come on, jump!”

  It was a command and she obeyed, because there was no other choice and because she trusted him to catch her. He would have to catch her or she would tumble to her death down the long drop or be caught by the men, both of whom were in the courtyard now, one attempting to scrabble up onto the fence. She jumped and for a split second she thought she’d miscalculated and was going to pay for the mistake with her life. But he grasped her hard just above both elbows and pulled her up so that she caught a startling glance of beak and fierce eye and then she was up and over the gryphon’s back. She pressed a hand to her chest trying to catch her breath. There wasn’t time, though, for Jamie was beckoning to her now from the roof of the house. She caught at his hand once more, and rose, part of the air for a fleeting second and then was there beside him and the roof was blessedly beneath their feet. They scrambled up to the peak where there was a dormer window. Jamie pulled out a pocket knife and slid it between the frame and the window. It took a fair bit of jiggling but he finally got the hasp to give and the window swung open.

  Inside it was so dark that it was like stepping into a black velvet bag and having the top cinched shut over their heads. They stood for a moment, catching their breath and letting the darkness settle around them. Far off there was the sound of music, something beautiful and light. They walked toward that sound. They were in an attic, she thought, where old furniture had been stored, for as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she caught the stray gleam of a brass headboard and felt the l
ooming bulk of an armoire. They found a door after some groping and stepped out onto a landing above a steep set of stairs. Far below bright lights were shining and there was the savory smell of cheese and meat and fish. Her stomach rumbled loudly and she pressed a hand to it, willing it to stop.

  “I promise to feed you soon,” Jamie said and kissed her before leading the way down a winding set of stairs. They stopped on the second floor which was hushed, though the noise from downstairs was getting louder. It was much warmer on this floor, the heat having risen by degrees as they made their descent. They located an elegant powder room, tiled in palest green and well stocked with soap and combs and towels. Pamela looked in the oval mirror over the sink and gasped.

  “Jamie, I can’t go downstairs like this.”

  He plucked an oak gall from her hair and rubbed a smut of soot off her cheek. “Just tidy your hair a bit and it will be fine.”

  “Typical man,” she said.

  Someone tapped on the door just then and Pamela felt panic shoot through her.

  “C’est occupé,” Jamie said shortly and the person moved away.

  She pushed her hair back behind her ears. “Here,” Jamie said, rummaging in a basket beside the sink, “here’s a clip.”

  He handed the clip to her, it was a beautiful silver butterfly set with amethyst and tourmaline stones. She thought they were paste, but wasn’t entirely certain they weren’t real.

  “I can’t use this, it’s an antique.”

  “We’ll mail it back to her.”

  She did her best to scrape her hair back but the curls were madly knotted and refused to lie flat against her head. She put the clip in and hoped it would hold. Otherwise she was going to look like an inmate freshly escaped from the asylum. She sighed. Jamie had quickly run a comb through the bright strands of his hair and straightened his shirt and was ready to go.

  “It’s hopeless. If I had known you were taking me to a party, I would have packed an evening gown in my pocket. My stockings are an utter ruin.”

  He gave her an assessing eye and then tugged down her sweater so that her shoulders were partially bare. “There, no one will notice your stockings now.”

  “You can tell Yevgena had a hand in the raising of you,” she said tartly. She followed him down the stairs. The bottom floor was brightly lit and the sound of laughter and chat and music grew louder as they descended. It was a beautiful house and paintings lined the walls of the stairway with discreet and muted spotlights beneath each one.

  At the bottom of the stairs Jamie offered her his arm with a flourish. “My lady, our party awaits.”

  A few heads turned as they entered the main room where the party was being held.

  “Champagne?” Jamie lifted two glasses from a passing tray and gave one to her.

  “Yes please,” she said. He clinked his glass against hers and then they drank, the geysering fizz of the champagne on her tongue mirroring that in her blood. They were in imminent danger, there were still two men chasing them, and all they had for their defense were Jamie’s wits and his rapid-fire daring. He moved through the room as though they were invited guests and she held onto his arm moving with him. He chatted with a couple of people on the way through, his French flawless and his self-assurance such that no one dared to suggest they didn’t belong here, though they did draw a few odd looks. They were, despite their ministrations in the upstairs bath, both disheveled, bruised in spots and somewhat grubby.

  Jamie grabbed a handful of food from a passing tray and split it between the two of them.

  “I did promise I’d feed you,” he said, popping a crab puff in his mouth and swallowing it down with the last sip of his champagne. She ate her food—two crab puffs and three small rolls with spiced sausage in the center that were divine—as they continued to wend their way through the company.

  A woman with perfectly-coiffed white hair and wearing a simple blue dress, which Pamela knew meant it was terrifically expensive, turned toward them, surreptitiously sniffing the air and wrinkling her nose. She then looked down at Pamela’s boots, which were wet and not nearly as pretty as they had been this morning and made a small horrified sound of Gallic disapproval, which was, Pamela thought feeling a tad shriveled, like no other disapproval in the world.

  “There’s a distinct whiff of sardine on us,” Pamela said, stifling her laughter though it was making it hard to breathe. “And despite my cleavage that woman definitely noticed my stockings.”

  At last they made it to the big double doors and walked out through them sedately, despite the butler’s look of disapproval. Once outside they ran down the front stairs pausing only to put their coats back on. Then they both exploded in laughter until they were weak with it. The snowy street around them was quiet and there was no sign of their pursuers. Still, once they regained their composure, they moved swiftly down the cobbled streets toward people and light and hopefully transportation to take them home. Had a mule come along right now, emerging out of the snowy wastes of Paris, Pamela would have gratefully hopped on its back.

  Jamie stopped halfway down the hill. “In here,” he said and pulled open the door of a little café which was almost hidden behind a snowy drape of ivy.

  It was dark and she had to blink a few times to adjust to the lack of light. But there was warmth and the scent of food making her stomach rumble as though it had not taken notice of a couple of crab puffs and bits of sausage in pastry.

  Jamie led her to a table in the corner which held only a fat red candle in a jar to light the area around it. It also, she noted, had a clear view of the door so that Jamie could see who came in behind them.

  “Do you think I can safely go to the washroom, without you disappearing or getting assassinated in my absence?” she asked.

  “I can’t guarantee anything,” he said and grinned, a flash of white in the gloom of the corner.

  There was a tiny, cracked mirror hanging askew over the ancient hand basin. She looked in it and a stranger looked back. A flushed stranger with eyes shining brightly, and a slightly giddy look to her countenance.

  When she returned it was to find that Jamie had ordered food and, this being Paris, also wine. He poured her a glass as she sat down, and the exotic notes of lilacs and pepper reached her nose. The wine was a Valtellina, warm and velvety and redolent of the sunbaked hills from which it had originated. It warmed her blood nicely, sending a flush through her skin.

  “I think we either lost them or they’re waiting outside in the snow,” Jamie said. “Either way, I need food if we’re going to continue.”

  The food was divine, and she ate with an appetite born of the day’s adventures. They shared a well-spiced cassoulet and she was entirely full before she even managed half a serving. No one had followed them into the tiny café for the snowy night had kept people off the streets and it was only them and three other tables of patrons.

  Despite the lack of an audience, however, a man got up to play an accordion. The café had a microphone and two stools at one end. He was joined by a man with a Spanish guitar. They played Gypsy music of a sort both she and Jamie were very familiar with.

  She turned to look at Jamie and he smiled, green eyes soft in the candlelight.

  “Dance with me,” he said and she took his hand and followed him out onto the floor. He took her in his arms, and she moved with him as the guitar player began a slow Gypsy ballad. So near to him she had the heightened awareness she so often felt with him, brought into the full sunlight of knowing him as a lover and the heady anticipation of the night that lay ahead. Providing, of course, they actually made it home intact. The thought had the effect of sobering her a little.

  “Jamie, do you think we should involve the police?” she asked, quietly.

  “No, the man with the scar is a gendarme,” he said. “It’s too risky. I’ll get you home safely, I can promise you that much.” He pulled her closer and she took a deep breath. She believed him, he never made a promise he didn’t keep.

 
; Her fingers were brushing the inside of his collar, feather-light, but she knew the message was sent and received as it was meant to be.

  “Pamela, if you don’t stop that…”

  “Yes?” she turned her head so that their eyes met through the hazy light. She leaned in and put her cheek against his and said his name soft in his ear, “Jamie.” It was both question and command. The two syllables were all the man needed, for he took her hand and pulled her with him off the dance floor.

  “Let’s go. Out the back.”

  They went through the kitchen, where a woman was cleaning a large pot. She stopped and clapped her hands together and then hugged Jamie, exclaiming away in Spanish. Jamie replied in the same tongue and the woman’s expression became serious. She looked down at Pamela’s feet and nodded. She then bent down and took off her own shoes, a rough looking pair of flat-soled leather loafers.

  “Give her your boots,” Jamie said. He took in her look and added, “I’ll buy you ten pairs to replace those, now trade her. You need to be able to run and you can’t do it any longer in those boots.”

  She sighed and took them off. The other woman’s shoes were a tiny bit big on her and had decidedly not been worn for aesthetic reasons. Jamie said goodbye to the woman, and she said something to him which sounded rather like an admonishment to Pamela’s ears. Then they were out the back door and into the night where the snow was falling more heavily, the air hushed and still.

  Jamie offered her his arm and she took it and they set off through the snow at a brisk pace which had the overly large shoes flapping against the soles of her feet.

  They hadn’t gone more than twenty yards when behind them two dark figures emerged from the shadows. Pamela felt an arrow of fear dart up the length of her spine. She was certain she had seen a glint of silver in the hand of one man. They were well back but the streets were empty and she knew they could close the gap quickly if they wanted to.