Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Deep voices rose behind the walls and told her that men spoke with urgency about their situation.
She swallowed. Opened her mouth. She grimaced at the effort. She could hum, but not talk. Awareness seared her like flame and memory consumed her. La Mère had tried to kill her. Put her blade to my throat.
She lifted her hand and was shocked it obeyed her command. Her weakness of last night or yesterday, or when last she was conscious, was less. Her strength more. Her fingertips told her that she had a bandage around her throat.
But La Mère is dead. And I am alive. Odd, that. She winced and covered her eyes with one hand. I have hurt so many and yet I live. Is that not unfair to all those who live a true and just existence yet have nothing to reward them for their diligence?
She tried to roll to one side, but cried out at the fire along her throat.
She dared not move. And froze. Her eyes fastened on the creature in the next pile of straw. The looks of that figure tore all her morbid self-doubts from her. For there, lying straight as a stone statue like those in the halls of royal tombs at St. Denis, was the shell of a young woman.
Her red hair was cut close to her scalp, curls completely gone. The cut of the shears someone had used on her was ragged. Worse, the lady’s vibrant china complexion was now ashes. Her cheeks sunken. Her lashes gone. Her skin stretched over her hands, taut as dried hide from an animal long dead.
Mon Dieu, sweet girl. What did they do to you?
But in her heart, Inès knew. She knew. There rested a young lady who had endured such hideous treatment that she might have died from it.
But you live, and we have you now.
Triumph winged through her.
We have gotten you and my brother. Two we have saved. Two we take to England with us to laugh and dance and sing.
She gulped down her tears. She would not cry. For Luc and this young woman, she would rejoice.
Even if she could not for herself.
#
“We must move on tonight,” Evan urged Luc and Rafe. They sat at their rickety table by the fireplace and drank the last of their very good brandy that Luc had bought from a nearby café.
“Are you able to travel, Luc?” Rafe eyed the thin fellow who seemed sturdier than he appeared.
“Ha! Can I flee this land? Oui. Anger gives me wings. But I will not leave Zephora. She is…so ill.”
Rafe shook his head. “The more numerous we are, the more noticeable.”
Evan agreed. “That is my worry too. Vaillancourt wants three of us badly. The two women the most.” From the stories of his friends—the Ashleys, Ramseys, and Carlisles—he knew how vicious Vaillancourt could be toward women he coveted.
If the gendarmes captured the five of them and took them back to Paris, Vaillancourt would hurl both Zephora and his darling wife in prison.
The man would kill them, and not by any means swiftly, but by all means possible to him, publicly.
Luc grew stern. “I have thought on this. I will go alone.”
Evan grunted. “You are not well, Luc. You are starved. Tired. We ran quickly two nights ago. But you need more strength. We dare not stay here any longer.”
“I know this part of France,” said Rafe. “Stay with Zephora and me.”
“And I, too, know it very well.” Luc nodded. “Since a child, I traveled between our home on the Loire and Paris. My wines were sold in the city and made us richer than we thought we should be. There is no town I do not know. No lane I have not plodded down.”
“And Inès?” Evan cast his gaze toward the door to the room where his wife recovered from La Mère’s attack. “Does she know this land, too?”
“Oui. But Vaillancourt will know this of her. He wants her. I know it. He came to my cell often and taunted me with his attempts to capture her.”
“Did he tell you how he had blackmailed her into saving you?”
“To kill for him? Oui. Bastard! He rejoiced in his devilry.”
“Inès murdered no one.” Evan’s heart pounded at what his wife had faced—and done. To say nothing of how she had accomplished and survived it all alone. But that day was done. He was hers and she was his.
“We must separate,” Luc declared, then looked at Rafe. “You know it, too.”
“I do.” Rafe scowled and nodded toward the bedroom where the women lay. “I worry that my lady of the winds cannot go just yet.”
Evan knew Rafe thought Zephora Burton about to die.
Rafe had carried the young woman out of that miserable cell and up out into the free night breezes as if she were a sack of grain.
As they ran to the bateau, he had cursed the lack of more blankets to wrap her in.
On the boat, he had laid her down, then joined in the fight against La Mère and her henchman.
But as soon as both had sunk to the river’s depths, Rafe had curled the woman to his body to warm her. That she was frail meant he had handled her as if she were fine crystal. God knew, she was so thin, she might be transparent.
Rafe had cuddled her, unafraid of any disease she carried or the tiny vermin in her long red hair. As they had climbed into their hired fiacre in the village of Passy, he had kept her well away from the rest of their party.
“No need for all of us to be lousy,” he had warned.
At once, here in their old farrier’s cottage, Rafe had pumped water from the well, warmed it in their fireplace, set her naked into the hip bath they had found, then cut her hair.
He had walked into town to the apothecaire and bought sulfa powder to kill her lice—and oil of aloe and verbena to soothe her dry skin.
He had washed and oiled every inch of her, unabashed, unapologetic.
She was not conscious of any moment of his care.
Not even, Evan thought, when he had spoon-fed her a beef broth Evan and Luc had made in the stew pot.
Zephora Butler had become Rafe’s only focus, her recovery his only goal. That the lady had not uttered a sound, made a move, or shown in any way that she still lived presented no challenge for him. As always, any problem he sought to solve became his sole reason to live.
“I leave after dusk,” Luc told them.
“Money?” Evan knew Luc would need it to survive and especially to pay the hefty fee to any smuggler who dared run the French and British blockade in the Atlantic.
“I will have means, never fear.”
Evan raised his brows, skeptical. “How?”
“Wine merchants know whom they can trust.”
“I see.” Evan smiled, relieved. “You will borrow from your old friends.”
“Bankers favor vintners, did you not know? We always earn good money and pay any loan with interest.”
The three men chuckled.
Luc’s good humor died. “I will depart, change my name, buy a few new clothes and perhaps a horse.”
Rafe whistled. “You must have very generous bankers.”
“I made the best wine in the Loire—and wine, no matter the king or emperor, is always in fashion.”
“We will not meet again, then,” Evan said, “until you come to us in London.”
Rafe inhaled, still unhappy with their plans. “Or the country.” He narrowed his black eyes at Luc. “Do I save the lady of the winds for you?”
“Do I love Zeph?” Luc looked surprised at the question.
“Oui. I hope to God she survives and lives a full and happy life. But do I love her as my darling? No. Sadly, I lost my only love years ago. I have not found one to replace her.” He curved his full lips in a small smile.
“If you discover that she is the one you adore, and she reciprocates, then keep her, treasure her. She is brave, wild, and deserves a man who cannot breathe without her.”
Rafe seemed humbled by Luc’s sentiments. “I will. I promise to be good to her.”
“I have seen it,” Luc said, and put out his hand to shake. “Do it.”
#
Inès regretted so much. So much. A sob escaped her and she bit it back, unwilling to awaken Zephora and prolong her friend’s recovery.
There was so much she had done wrong. She should have never bought the poison or asked her maid to buy it for her.
She should have confided in one of her friends—Amber or Gus or Giselle.
Any of them would have found a way to help her.
She should have told Evan what Vaillancourt demanded of her…
but she had not trusted her husband enough to reveal the deed she was being forced to do.
She had not trusted anyone. Not even the man she adored.
Another sob threatened, and this time, she let her tears drip down her temples. He had loved her. From the start, he had shown her his interest, his devotion, his passion. And what had she shown him?
Nothing to equal the glory of what he granted her each time he cast his eyes upon her.
No. She had been so consumed with René Vaillancourt’s threats. So terrified the man would kill her brother. So caught in her own web of lies and counter-lies, espionage that destroyed her mind and savaged her soul.
She felt her belly shake. What was…?
She put a hand atop her rounded stomach.
Here—yes, here—lived her answer. Her child.
Their child. One made of mutual desire and honorable regard.
This being had come to its quickening because of long minutes of delight and lasting love.
And he or she had endured the horror of his mother abandoning his father, the blessed failure of his mother to take the life of another, the shock of defeat, the joy of reuniting, the journey across the rough and treacherous Channel, and the frightful plan to regain his uncle from the clutches of Vaillancourt.
She would leave France now. Soon, and most likely forever.
That sat well with her idea of her future and her husband’s…
and their child’s. She would leave this room, this tiny place that allowed her time to reflect and repair the tangled threads of her integrity.
She would go with Evan and plan a future.
She would live with him, laugh with him, dance and ride and skate with him through all the days left to her.
She patted her stomach and promised to begin to be the cherished mother her own had been. Aware, watchful, hopeful, and devoted.
Then she pushed back her rough wool blanket, slid her legs over the edge of her bed of straw, gathered up the blanket to put around her naked body, and went to open the door to find her husband.
From this day, she would not be parted from him. Nor from her true self, either.
She saw him at the table with his two companions, his good friend and colleague Rafe, and her brother Luc.
“And so…tonight?” Rafe faced Evan. “Will you leave here?”
“I will arrange it for tomorrow night. The best carriage I can find. A hamper of food.”
“I am able to travel,” Inès told him in the loudest voice she dared manage.
He rose out of his chair in a moment, his arms around her, his lips in her hair, as she surrendered to his touch.
“I want to go, Evan.” She lifted her face to his, her eyes beseeching him, her lips on his, yearning to be far away, and quickly so. “Let’s go home.”