Chapter 9 #2
Giselle sighed, moved her hand with the dagger back into her cloak, and continued on her way. Men. So disgusting, so stupid, so ready to take what they think is their own. So, perhaps the dagger was an over-reaction, but after all that she had been through…
He was right though, disgusting man as he was; there was no one else quite like her. She was completely alone, and the best thing that she could do was finish this last job, this very last job, and then fade into obscurity and search for Pierre.
“And you really think that your brother, this Pierre, is still alive? Mon dieu, Giselle, they almost certainly killed him as soon as you left!”
The dagger was safe in her pocket, and something seemed to stab her in the heart as she thought of éduard.
Stepping around a corner and avoiding an urchin who looked out to pick pockets, Giselle tried to push away the thought of him.
She had far more important things to worry about, and she could not be distracted.
Giselle turned sharply down a side street, and then hid herself in a doorway for a few minutes to see whether anyone was following her.
You could never be too careful, after all, and since that encounter in York she had never been quite certain whether anyone was following her. It was good sense to check.
But no one followed her into the alleyway, nor stood there gormless, attempting to decipher where she had got to.
Giselle let out the breath she had not realised that she was holding.
So close now, so close to her last destination.
No use thinking of éduard, his strong yet gentle hands, the way he laughed at her, the crinkle of his eyes, the strength of his –
Giselle shook her head once more. What was wrong with her? The last thing that she needed was this sort of nonsense.
Walking as silently as she could, she hurried down the side street to the house where she had found it useful to hide before, her identity covered by the myriad of female servants that went in and out of that building.
Her head kept down and her eyes lowered decorously as every servant should, Giselle passed through the outer gate and strode purposefully around the building to the servant’s door.
No one would question her, no one would even think that a woman so obviously dressed as a servant, and walking as a servant, and heading towards the kitchens could possibly be anything else.
It was one of the reasons that made her time as the Great Whisperer so elegant. No one expected a woman.
“All I wanted was to help him in his cause to overthrow the revolutionaries, and return France to a better way. But of course, now that I know that the Great Whisperer is yourself, I no longer wish that.”
Giselle swallowed, and pushed open the kitchen door.
It was the heat that hit her at first, as it always did during the winter months.
Three chickens were slowly turning on a spit, and a harassed looking woman was shouting for specific herbs, as two terrified looking young girls busied themselves around her.
There was mistletoe hung all over the place, and a ribbon on the handle of the door.
In the corner, sat near the fire and darning what looked like a very ugly and knobbly sock, was Florence Capria.
“Florence!” Giselle had not intended her word to be so desperate, so full of relief at the sight of her friend, but it had been a long time since she had managed to make her way back to London, and the view of someone trustworthy, reliable, and above all her friend was enough to make her knees sway.
“Giselle! Mio amica, hello!” Florence rose, throwing down the sock on the floor which caused a great sniff from the cook, but ignored her and ran to throw her arms around her friend.
Giselle closed her eyes and hugged her friend. She had done it. She had made it.
“And you look like you have not eaten for days, ragazza folle!” Florence was scolding her now, bringing her into the kitchen, and forcing her to sit in the place where she had been. “Weeks, it has been weeks since I have last seen you!”
Giselle nodded, smiling now and knowing full well that there was no use in attempting to interrupt Florence when she was in a flow – it was the Italian blood in her.
“ – and here I was, worried to death, a morte I say, and now you walk in here, bold as glass – ”
“Brass,” snapped the cook, who thrust the half-darned sock into Florence’s hands. “And if you do not get out of my kitchen, it will be brass for you my girl, brass on the head!”
Florence rolled her eyes dramatically at Giselle, but beckoned towards the servants’ staircase.
“Worried, I was,” she repeated as they strode hastily up the steps, the staircase freezing. “But here you are, and though you look a little underfed and a little weary, you are safe, si?”
She did not wait for an answer but instead threw open a door just off the staircase and strode in. Giselle followed her, and the two women sat on the two beds that were in the room.
“Who shares with you now?” Giselle asked quietly.
Florence shook her head. “Nessuno, the last girl did not last. I will not last much longer, I think.”
Giselle leaned back on the bed, finding sweet relief in being seated after such a long journey. There was even a small fire crackling in the grate, something that she knew Mr and Mrs Riversley would not approve of.
“You think then you will leave England, and go back to Italy, n’est pas?”
Florence shrugged in that way that only an Italian could, and Giselle smiled. It was good to be back with a person she could trust, a woman, moreover, who was a stranger in this country just as she was.
“Sometimes,” Florence said, “you just are not in the right place, and when you know it, you have to go somewhere – dovunque, anywhere!”
Giselle felt her stomach contract as her thoughts, unbidden and uncontrollable, meandered back to éduard. éduard, left alone on that island. Left alone on an island in the middle of nowhere, with no hope of getting back to the shore without some divine intervention.
He was alone there, without food, without shelter, and in that moment, she realised that she would much rather be back there, with him, than here in London, without him.
It was a startling thought, a terrifying one, and panic mingled with confusion rushed through Giselle’s mind.
Could she really care for him so much that she would sacrifice safety, and comfort, to be with him?
How could she have left him, perilously close to hunger and without the skills to swim, and just turned her back on him?
“Giselle?”
Giselle blinked, and saw Florence staring at her, concern across her face. She pushed aside the thoughts of éduard, and attempted to remove his handsome features from her mind.
“You should do what you feel is right,” she managed to say, a weak smile on her face. “No one has tried more than you, Florence, to make a life here. If you are not content, then you should not stay.”
“Ah, stay, go, restare, partire,” said Florence, throwing up her hands. “What difference does it make when your friends are so miserable?”
Giselle stared at her, and shivered slightly in the chilly room. “Who is miserable?”
“You, of course! Idiota, do you think I cannot see?” Florence shook her head sadly, and pulled a blanket off from the bed where she was perched and threw it across to Giselle, who wrapped it around herself gratefully. “It is written all over your face, mio amica. What hurts you?”
Giselle swallowed. It would not do to allow her emotions to overwhelm her, she had to stay calm.
“Nothing.”
“Ha!” Florence was smiling now as she shook her head, but it was a sombre one. “You think you are so very clever, Great Whisperer, so clever in hiding it, but I can see. You are upset, something has hurt you. Tell Florence.”
Pain seemed to be radiating from her heart now, but Giselle would not speak it, she would not give words to the ache she could feel.
“I was not born yesterday,” said Florence slowly. “No mio amica, I was not. Could this have anything to do, forse, with a man?”
Giselle rolled her eyes, but it was foolish to attempt to lie. “It may do.”
Florence laughed, and it was such a hearty laugh that it was impossible for Giselle not to smile in return.
“Oh, my dear one,” Florence smiled at her, and brought another blanket around her own shoulders. “Men. Men are fools, è vero, and we are fools for loving them.”
“I do not – ”
“Did I say you did?” Florence raised an eyebrow. “Any man that makes you feel loved and desired is worth fighting for, credo, even if it does not seem possible. Even if it does not make sense.”
A wintery breeze rattled at the window panes, but that was not the reason that Giselle shivered. “It is not possible for us … he could not … we cannot be together.”
Her friend stared at her in astonishment. “Giselle, when I first met you, it was not possible for you to be the Great Whisperer either. But you managed it. Because of love, because of the love for your brother. Is not this love enough?”
Giselle laughed, and now there were tears, tears of frustration and passion. “I have no way of finding him! No way of knowing where he could be, and in any case I – I left him on an island! On an island, Florence, with no boat or food…and he cannot swim!”
Florence raised an eyebrow. “Tell me the name of a man that you can love and abandon on an island!”
She was laughing through the tears now, but it felt so ridiculous, and she shook slightly as she said, “Prince éduard. I know, you will think it is a made up name, a false one, but – ”
Giselle’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at her friend’s eyes, which had just widened.
“Florence?”
Florence’s mouth had dropped open. “Prince éduard of Aviroux?”
Something was hammering hard in Giselle’s chest and it was painful and glorious, and she ignored it completely as she stood up, stepped over to her friend, grabbed her arm and said, “Florence – mon dieu, you know him!”