Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Giselle almost brushed aside the question with her hand, so inconsequential was it to her.
“‘Tis immaterial,” she said quietly, and she took a step forward, feeling the damp rustle of her silk skirts against her thighs. “The first thing that we should do is pool information. How long have you been hunting the Great Whisperer?”
He did not look familiar, she thought to herself, but then it was almost impossible to remember every single person that she had tried to escape from, or passed in the street, or hoped was a disinterested stranger.
His jawline was sharp, his nose straight, and his eyes so piercing, she would have thought, if they had met, she would have remembered.
He at least had never before been close enough to her as the Great Whisperer to realise that she was, in fact, a woman.
“Perhaps there is someone else on this island,” éduard muttered, looking around him and frowning. “Just walking a short way could – ”
“I myself have been hunting for three weeks,” she interrupted, trying to force his thoughts back onto the track that she herself was pacing down. “Et vous?”
Perhaps it was the French that surprised him into responding, perhaps he was finally worn down by her questions, but he muttered, “Nine weeks. How far do you think the mainland is? Do you think it is tidal?”
Giselle brushed aside his questions. “Nine weeks, you say?”
She tried to speak casually, but it was a blow to her pride.
Almost as soon as she was coerced to take the role of the Great Whisperer, then, this man had been after her; following her perhaps, bribing her network, hunting down her friends, trying to prevent her from saving lives.
How could this man possibly live with himself, a revolutionary of France desperate to kill those who had, by chance, been born in a higher class?
A deep breath, that was what she needed.
She only had one more stop in her life as the Great Whisperer after all, and once she made it to London and managed to transfer copies of the last of the papers, she would be free – free to live her own life, to find Pierre, and to live their lives together.
Oh, her heart ached for him, but she could not be distracted by him now.
éduard was still staring around them, muttering. “‘Tis fortunate that I already have supplies on me, of course, we could be here for nigh on two or three days …”
Giselle shook her head. Really, it was all too embarrassing that he had managed to catch her in the first place, he really was so strange. Not incompetent, she would not say that; just simply unaware of the real challenge before him.
It was disappointing really, a specimen of manhood like that, that seduction was not to be her weapon of choice.
A slight blush tinged her cheeks as she looked at him critically.
Though her innocence was still intact, there had been some close calls in the past, and there was nothing, but nothing that she would not do to ensure the safety of Pierre.
And yet if she was going to be ‘seduced’ by anyone in the name of justice and honour, this éduard was not the worst option before her.
There was something in the way that he held himself, completely comfortable in his skin in a way that she had never seen in anyone else.
He was at home with who he was, in a way that almost suggested that nothing that anyone ever said could topple that confidence.
If she did not know any better, she would have guessed that rather than sitting at the revolutionary side of the table, he was from noble stock.
“Perhaps when we return to shore,” she said, in her most delightfully sweet voice, “we should go to London. I am almost certain that that is…that is where the Great Whisperer will go next.”
It was such a ridiculous lie, such a wild and stupid falsehood, that she expected him to laugh, to become suspicious.
But he did not. éduard stopped looking around and muttering, and stared at her as though she had just suggested they fly to the moon. “And right now, mademoiselle, we are not going anywhere until we find a way to get off this island.”
She sighed. “Well right now, mademoiselle, we are not going anywhere. There is no way to rescue ourselves ce soir, so we may as well make ourselves comfortable for the night. There is always tomorrow.”
As soon as she had made the suggestion, she shivered slightly. The idea of being asleep so close to éduard, even with all of her clothes on, made her feel strange: hot and prickly all over, but it was not an unpleasant feeling.
It looked like he was going to argue with her, so before he could make a sound she said curtly, “I am open to other suggestions.”
His mouth was open, but nothing came out of it.
Giselle nodded, and looked around her to find a suitable tree.
A silver birch had managed to grow up tall and strong nearby, and as she strode over to it, she pulled out her trusty dagger which she had managed to swipe from the bottom of the boat as they had stumbled onto this shore.
“Mon dieu!” éduard had jumped backwards at the sudden sight of the blade shining in the rising moonlight, but Giselle rolled her eyes and concentrated on her task: hacking down one large branch so that it tilted down the side of the trunk, creating a shelter of sorts.
It would keep off the December wind, anyway.
When she was finished, Giselle turned to face him and curtsied in a mocking way.
He laughed, and shaking his head said, “My dear woman, you do keep surprising me. First running in the first place, then fighting me in the boat, then spy hunting, and now this.”
Giselle returned his smile but it was a little wooden.
She must remember to act like the lady she was meant to be.
“Ah, monsieur, I am just Giselle, a poor lady from France who has taken to bounty hunting to survive. After all, there is a great reward for capturing the Great Whisperer, is there not?”
“Giselle,” murmured éduard, and she shivered to find her name on his tongue – but she rallied, and turned back to the tree in an attempt to make it that little bit more hospitable.
“And your name is? Beyond éduard, I mean.”
éduard bit his lip so hard that he tasted the tang of blood. The last thing that he wanted to do was reveal his true name, least of all to a spy hunter. Who knows what other names are written down on her list to hunt? Who else could she be keeping an eye out for; himself, perhaps?
The French system of politics, justice, and spy hunting was almost a complete mystery to him, though éduard attempted not to show it. After all, who wanted to admit to a fellow spy hunter that this was his first ever assignment?
This was madness, madness! He did not want to capture the Great Whisperer, he wanted to join him, to help him in his quest to protect the nobles of France – but now he was faced with this spy catcher, Giselle.
Forced to pretend that he was also a revolutionary, forced to pretend that he hated the Great Whisperer. This was going to be very complicated.
He swallowed. There was enough subterfuge in their world surely, that she would not expect his real name.
He had been foolish enough to let his true first name slip, in any case.
And Giselle could not possibly be her first name.
He would need to pretend that he was a revolutionary too, that he hated nobles.
It was a difficult task. Would he be able to manage it?
éduard sighs, and rattled his brain for his most common fake identity; that would be enough, for now.
“I am éduard Aviroux,” he said quietly, “revolutionary.”
It was at that moment that he gasped aloud and took a hurried step backwards, as Giselle span around fiercely with the dagger in her hand and an angry glint in her eye.
“You – you are not going to use that dagger on me, are you?” He asked weakly, trying to force a laugh from his lips but struggling. “Really, I – ”
“Stay away from me.” Giselle spoke quietly, but there was no mistaking her words as her gaze fixed him to the spot. “Stay far away from me if you know what is good for you, monsieur.”
éduard could hardly admit it to himself, but if he was honest with himself, he was a little afraid of her.
Who wouldn’t be? Her skill with a dagger had just been demonstrated before him, and there was no fear in her eyes as she brandished that dagger towards him, hair almost completely out of its elaborate setting now, with a long tear in her gown and her cloak almost falling from her shoulders.
“Giselle – mademoiselle,” he said hastily. “I – ”
“Non, you do not speak,” Giselle interrupted taking a step forward and glaring fiercely at him. “My entire family was killed by revolutionaries, you vermine. Stay away from me. Not everyone who wishes to catch the Great Whisperer is a murderer.”
éduard’s mouth fell open as heat and shock erupted in his mind. “That…that cannot be true,” was all he could manage. “It cannot be.”
She was walking towards him now, anger flecked in her dazzling blue eyes. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No!” éduard said hurriedly, finding his feet and his tongue at the same moment, and backing away from the approaching dagger wielding woman. “No, ‘tis just…well, revolutionaries I am sure would not do that!”
But as he spoke the words, his heart sank.
True, revolutionaries had a particular appetite for killing nobility, the wealthy, the landed gentry as they would say in England.
But that did not stop them from hurting, stealing, killing on their way to that end.
He had seen it happen, once before, and it had made him sick to his stomach then.
The idea that Giselle – that this woman had suffered in such a way, that she had lost her family and to such cruel hands…
“It was early morning,” Giselle said. Her feet had stopped moving, and the hand that was holding the dagger remained trained on him, and the ferocity of her eyes had not dissipated.
éduard found himself utterly transfixed by them, unable to move, unable to even look away.
“I was coming downstairs for breakfast, we were always early riders then. A knock at the door…we could not have known who it was. Who would be waiting on the other side of the door…”
éduard could taste bile rising in his throat, and tried to force it down without gagging. What this woman had suffered, what her family had suffered.
“Les révolutionnaires,” she said bitterly, her eyes finally releasing him and dropping to the floor as tears threatened to well up.
“And I was only halfway down the stairs, tu comprends understand, when they broke through, but my parents – they were there, unable to hide, unable to run. If I had not been late that morning, if I had not fiddled with my hair and changed my gown, I would have been with them. And instead I had to watch, for I could not look away, as they were dragged from the house …”
It was at this point that her words seemed to fail her, and éduard felt a selfish rush of relief that she could not detail the final act of her story. It was a terrible tale, an awful thing to happen to someone’s family; and yet …
“I – I do not understand,” he said quietly, hoping beyond hope that he was going to be able to ask this question delicately enough.
The sea rushed onto the shoreline and touched his boots.
The tide was coming in. “My apologies, Giselle, but there is something that I do not understand. Revolutionaries. They only took nobility, so why – ”
For a moment, she looked lost, her eyes wide and her left hand fiddling with the lining of her cloak.
“They were…they were servants,” she said quietly, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze. “My father was the butler and my mother the housekeeper in a big house. They – they had protected their lord and lady. They had always been kind to us, until…”
Her voice trailed away, and she looked lost; all the strength and power and determination that she had showed but ten minutes ago seemed to have drained out of her, as though she had just experienced it.
éduard tried to shake his head, as though ridding his ears of water. This was too much, almost overwhelming in its tragedy; but he had to stay in character.
He hated every syllable he said when he spoke. “Well, the nobility had it coming, after all. Hoarding the wealth of the land, were they not? And now we have liberté, égalité, fraternité!”
He heard the hollow echo, and hated himself for it. But what could he say? What sort of prince masqueraded as a revolutionary anyway?
But now the dagger was back and being waved near his face. éduard took a hasty step back.
“And so I repeat – stay away from me,” Giselle said quietly.
“You may sleep wherever you wish, but it cannot be too close to my shelter here.
You can make your own way back to the mainland if you wish, ‘tis all the same to me. Just remember this: I do not care if I have to leave you on this island, dead or alive.”
She stared at him for a moment, and in that moment éduard seemed to sense the fire in her. It was fierce and with plenty of fire left to burn, but it was also delicate; unsure of itself, frightened, fearful of what he was or what threat he could become.
Giselle was bluffing, he was sure of it. Was he brave enough to gamble on that bluff, and try to wrestle the dagger from her?
No.
“I appreciate your candour,” he said pleasantly, “and I will go further inland, I think, to find my bed. Sleep well, Giselle.”
Her eyes narrowed, and flickered over his face, as though trying to hunt out a lie.
By God, but she was beautiful, éduard thought to himself.
In a different situation, in a different life, perhaps their beds would be made very much closer to each other.
Perhaps he would have taken her into his arms and kissed away the pain that so evidently consumed her.
Perhaps she would have invited him to share her shelter, and the passion and tension between them would erupt and overflow into –
éduard shook his head again. What this woman did to him was almost uncanny.
As he stepped away from her and searched for a comfortable piece of ground to make his bed for the night, only two thoughts consumed him: irritation that he could not reveal his true name to Giselle, and what the Great Whisperer could be doing at that very moment.