Chapter One #2
But even as Zephora recovered some of her physical strength, she had a few problems with her memory. In mid-sentence, she would stop, gazing out toward her past in that damn cell, and cringe. She would pause in a conversation, struggling to find the words.
“I am not an idiot,” she often seethed, angry at herself for her failure.
“Grant yourself patience,” he had advised.
She had scowled at him.
And silent, calm, he had smiled.
From her other problem recollecting the skill she told him she prized above all others, he had a more viable solution. He helped her add and subtract until she grew red-faced and insulted at her failures and his persistence.
When he laid out ten small stones from the beach, he had made her count them. Then do it again.
But when he took two away, she had to think…and put her hands to them to count.
He and she went on like that each day as they progressed from her counting to subtraction and addition, then multiplication. For some reason, she could not multiply beyond two times two. Furious at her failure, she would storm away. Later, she would roar back and apologize for her temper.
He accepted her, liked her as she was. And he told her so. She told him she applauded anyone who forgave so easily. It was an asset she wished to cultivate.
So, most often, she gazed at him with the warmth of one who had not only been spared horror and death, but one who appreciated his effort to care for her and amuse her in the process.
Now, if she still froze when they happened upon a stranger—especially if it were a man—she paused to collect herself.
She was learning the technique he had taught her to cope with the challenge.
Breathe. Quiet your mind. Learn the situation. Find the person beneath the facade.
She was quick to learn. Wise to her own wounds, physical and more. Desirous of growing beyond her trauma. Bold, he suspected she had always been. Proud, too.
No wonder Vaillancourt had wanted her for her impertinence to rob him.
No wonder he had imprisoned her. The man was filth.
The deputy chief of French police and Fouché’s next in command, René Vaillancourt was the scourge of women everywhere.
He had threatened many whom Rafe had come to know and value.
One day, Rafe prayed, he would have the man at his mercy.
But for today, Rafe had his reward here in Zephora’s company.
She trod on the sands barefoot and flounced into the wooden chair beside him.
She wore a simple, unbleached French peasant’s muslin gown that flowed over her body like water.
Her hair had grown after his shearing and was now a mop of short curls of red so fierce it made him blink.
She raised a hand to her brow and smiled into the pale blue sky with that wide, luscious mouth of hers.
She was recovering. Every day, she flourished in the sunshine that shone upon her in the country that had done her such wrong.
*
“You are quiet today.” She could not speak above a murmur because her throat was still sore. That failure irritated her sense of independence. But she would get back her voice. That and all her faculties. And soon.
Rafe riveted her with those forest-green eyes of his. His smile always stood in his gaze more than on his lips. She liked his emotions there, where only those who had studied him could see.
Like me.
“I think how mild the weather is,” he said.
What a diplomat! She had seen him yearning to be gone. He wanted to cross the Channel. Of course he did. I do too. “I hear that the sunniest days in England come in June.”
His curiosity lit in his verdant green orbs. “You were there, were you, during summer?”
She nodded. “I barely remember London. I was there only a few days with my father. I have a vivid memory, however, of the horrible voyage over. Plus, I am not a good sailor. You will learn that, soon enough.”
“We will deal with that.” He was always so positive. The world bowed to him.
Once it did to her, too. She’d make it do that again. But with Rafe Durham, she was bitterly honest. “The happiest time of my life was when I went to Madame Campan’s little school for girls.”
“You needn’t talk, chouchou.” He called her his cabbage.
That brought her own smile. His term of endearment was certainly much better than those hideous slurs she had been called in the pits of the Conciergerie.
He went on, “I know you were friends with Hortense, Josephine’s daughter, and Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister.”
She raised her brows at him in question. They were good at such silent conversations now, having had so much practice at communicating with looks and expressions.
“I was twelve years old when Papa left me there. Hortense was the same age. Caroline months older than we two. We were tightly bound, laughter our best tie. But also we three pretended we were musketeers, épées to the fight!”
“That I did not know!” He looked astonished. “Were you skilled?”
“I was.” And will be again. But that was beside the point now.
She wanted to know all he had learned about her and how he knew those things.
After all, how many men would care for a diseased woman, sores on her skin, bones jagged, with bugs eating her alive, strip her pitiful body and bathe her day and night…
then soften her dry hide with oils? How many would do that and ask for nothing in return?
“Who told you what you do know? Or have you told me that and I have, in my pitiful convalescence, forgotten that?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Cecily, Countess Nugent, told us.”
“And?” What else? Cecily had been her help, her succor when Vaillancourt had raised his influence against her.
“That she loved you. That you had other friends, dear ones. Among them were the countess’s two young wards, Augustine Bolton and Amber St. Antoine.”
“Older than I. But kind and dear.” Zeph sniffed back the urge to cry over the past. She had learned how silly that was. It solved nothing to ruminate on what could not be changed. “What else did the countess say?”
“That you were a light of Parisian Society for—what, a year? Then suddenly, you were sent to prison by Vaillancourt. Someday soon, when you are better able to speak, you will tell me all the details of that.”