Chapter Nineteen #2
“It ought to worry everyone. Too many are struggling and have been for too long. There are those with all they could possibly use who continue to take and take from those who’ve not ever had enough. The anger’s been simmering for generations. But it’s beginning to boil over.”
“That is true in the part of France we hail from as well.”
“Avoid the Fortiers if you can,” she said. “They live south of here. The oldest M. Fortier is the sort who—” She quickly crossed herself. “Just you avoid that family if you can.”
“Thank you for the warning.” Céleste tucked Adèle up close to her legs, hoping the girl kept to her usual tendency toward silence. “I think we’ll avoid going south.”
“Wise.”
Aldric stepped from the cowshed, his folded clothes under his arm.
He wore the homespun clothing of a rural farmer.
Somehow, he managed to move like one as well, rather than like the man of aristocratic assurance that he was.
The General was, as it turned out, as adept an actor as he was a strategist.
Adèle spotted him and pulled away from Céleste, rushing to him. He didn’t hesitate to take her hand and walk with her to the waiting woman. He set his pile of clothes in her outstretched arms, then picked Adèle up, holding her.
The woman smiled fondly. “Some little girls are tremendously attached to their fathers.”
Céleste nodded as if that were precisely what the moment was. Adèle looked more comforted by the reassurance of a relative stranger than an actual relative. That hurt more than she cared to admit.
Another quick expression of gratitude, and they were on their way.
Once Céleste was absolutely certain they were so far from the farmhouse that they couldn’t possibly be overheard, she spoke, in English so as not to worry Adèle.
“The woman said two manors have been burned in the area today. We already knew about one, and I am afraid the second was Fleur-de-la-Forêt.”
“It might very well be.” He didn’t sound indifferent, but neither did he flinch.
“She warned us to avoid the area where Monsieur Fortier and his family live. She included the entire family in her warning.”
Aldric’s brow creased in thought. “The less recognizable clothing you are wearing will help, but we absolutely have to get the two of you as far from your brother’s home as we can.”
“Neither of us is familiar with this road,” she said. “Wandering aimlessly seems dangerous.”
“We’ll pause at the next inn we find and learn what we can of the area.”
She didn’t at all like how uncertain everything about this journey was proving to be. “Where ought we to go after that?”
“I don’t know yet.” He slipped the reins into one hand for just a moment and gently patted Adèle’s back. The girl had taken to whimpering again.
“I don’t think we should go to Henri’s estate,” Céleste said. “It is connected to Jean-Francois.”
“My late mother’s estate is north of Fleur-de-la-Forêt, which means we’re already heading in that general direction. I know a few of the local families and believe they would take us in.”
“What if the people there are as angry as they are in this corner of France?”
He pushed out a breath. “That is yet another question I cannot answer, which, I assure you, is not an experience I am enjoying.”
They traveled on in silence, broken only by Adèle’s repeated whimpers of “I want to go home.”
Aldric scooted the little girl up next to him, and she leaned against his side, seeming to take some comfort in the arrangement. Céleste watched the passing scenery, wishing more of it was familiar, yet also grateful she was so far from Fleur-de-la-Forêt.
They were safer. She hoped.
An inn came into view not terribly long after their departure from the farmhouse. Aldric stopped the cart just outside the inn door.
“I’ll learn what I can,” he said as he climbed down.
“Don’t go,” Adèle said in the same moment Céleste asked, “You’re leaving us here?”
He stopped, not taking a single step away. “I need to get information, but we aren’t stopping. This will be faster.”
Céleste glanced around the innyard. It did look calm, and there was no one suspicious or enraged lurking about.
“You’ll be quick?” she asked him.
“Better still—” Aldric motioned to the nearby stable, where a groom had just stepped out into the yard.
He could make his inquiry without actually leaving Céleste and Adèle alone. Céleste wasn’t a coward by any stretch of the imagination. Hers was not anxiety brought about by spinelessness but, rather, justifiable wariness in a harrowing situation. There was safety in numbers.
Aldric spoke with the groom just in front of the cart. “We’re a bit turned around. How do we get from here to Rouen?”
His mother’s estate must have been near Rouen.
“Take this road.” The groom pointed to the road they’d been on. “Up a couple of miles you’ll find a road breaking off to your left. That road will send you in the right general direction. And you can get more specific instructions the farther you go.”
“Thank you.”
Adèle watched Aldric with the same pained longing that Céleste herself was experiencing in that moment. She felt safer with him nearby. She felt calmer and less alone.
“On the road that breaks off this one,” the groom continued, “there’s an inn—L’Auberge du Chêne Vert—that you’ll reach if you drive on past nightfall. The rooms don’t come too dear, and it’s a safe place to be with your wife and your little one.” He motioned to the cart.
“Thank you again,” Aldric said.
Céleste nodded her own gratitude to the groom. Driving into an unfamiliar area of the countryside during a time of upheaval was a perilous proposition. They could use every bit of help anyone would give them.
Aldric climbed back up. Adèle didn’t give him even a moment before clambering onto his lap and wrapping her little arms around him.
“Ma petite douce,” he said, “I can’t drive the cart safely with you like this.”
Céleste reached for Adèle, but the little girl only held more firmly to Aldric.
“I don’t know why she is so attached to me.” He sounded apologetic.
“And I don’t know why she is so unattached to me.”
“Poor judgment?” Aldric suggested with a shrug and a flicker of a smile.
That smile would likely always make her heart flutter.
“Adèle,” he said, giving the girl a loving squeeze, “if you’ll let your aunt wrap you in a blanket, you can cuddle up next to me as we drive on.”
The girl nodded and turned to Céleste. She reached down, pulled one of the blankets from the pile at their feet, and then wrapped it around Adèle.
“Wrap yourself in a blanket as well,” Aldric said. “If we’re going to be driving into the night, you’ll be cold without your cloak.”
Such thoughtfulness was characteristic of him. He could be so very intimidating, yet he was also so wonderfully kind.
“Monsieur Aldric?” Adèle asked, leaning against him as they made their journey.
“Yes, ma petite douce?”
“What is the horse’s name?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps your aunt does.”
Adèle didn’t shift away from him, but she did turn more toward Céleste. “Tante Céleste, what is the horse’s name?”
“I don’t know either. We should give him a name.”
“How do we pick a name for a horse?” Adèle hadn’t often chosen to speak with her aunt when she had Aldric as a conversational option.
“Sometimes horses are given silly names,” Céleste said. “Sometimes their names are very bold. Sometimes a person names their horse after someone they love.”
“Oh.” Adèle sat up straighter. “We should call the horse Monsieur Aldric. We love him.”
He glanced at Céleste. “Do you, now?”
Oh, I certainly do. The thought sent a blush stealing over her face. Love him? It was a feeling for him that she’d described in the past tense since Norwood Manor. But her heart hadn’t moved on as much as she’d insisted to herself that it had.
Adèle mentioned the things she saw as they drove—trees, flowers, the occasional farmhouse off to the side of the road, a carriage at a distance behind them, grass, clouds—and she called the horse Monsieur Aldric. Far from offended, Aldric smiled every time their little companion used the name.
While Céleste did find Adèle’s choice of names for the horse entertaining, her amusement was dampened by her growing worry over the carriage Adèle had pointed out.
At least an hour had passed, and it was still behind them.
It was at the same distance still, no matter that a traveling carriage, pulled by a team, could travel much faster than a two-wheeled, single-horse cart.
There were only narrow paths leading off the road to farms and small homes.
The carriage hadn’t taken any of those turns.
But then, neither had they. Céleste knew that when tensions were high a person could grow anxious about things he or she didn’t need to be concerned about.
But it didn’t help when that person also knew that their instincts were usually accurate.
Aldric himself turned off the road down a smaller one, which hadn’t been part of the plan. The road didn’t bend for a long stretch, meaning a quick glance back allowed her to see the carriage turn as well.
“They turned too?” he asked.
She ought to have realized he was as aware as she was that they were potentially being followed.
“They did,” she said. “It is possible they are on this same road purely by coincidence. But I don’t generally trust coincidences.”
“Neither do I.” He glanced at Adèle. She was distracted, having an imaginary conversation with her doll. “We need to decide what to do. I am entirely open to suggestions.”
“That is one of the things that surprised me the most about you, Aldric Benick.”
“That I listen to ideas?”
She shook her head. “That you listen to my ideas. Jean-Francois never does. Henri doesn’t always. But even when I first met you, during your visit to France seven years ago, you listened when I spoke and didn’t dismiss my thoughts out of hand. It shocked me, I will admit.”
“You are inarguably intelligent and capable. I would be unforgivably foolish to discount that.”
“Then why did—” She cut off her unintended diversion into the topic of his coldness during the Norwood Manor house party. “If we’re being followed, we need to place ourselves somewhere public and visible. That would be safest.”
“I will continue on this road until we find an inn,” he said. “We can stop there and see if that carriage does the same.”
She held her breath as they moved steadily along this unfamiliar road leading to a destination they couldn’t predict. And, behind them, the carriage kept pace.