Chapter One #3
Never. She shrugged, acting as if the episode of her imprisonment were a trifle.
Immaterial and long past. She could not reveal to Rafe the whole of her conflict with charming, elegant, damnable René Vaillancourt.
If Rafe heard the whole of it, he would sweep her up in his arms, as he had so many times these past few weeks, and make plans for them to move once again.
She could not bear it. I love it here. Peaceful tides upon the shore and tender breezes in my ridiculously short hair.
But she knew it to be false hope. They two had assumed false names, but one day, some slip, some lie, some inconsistency, would easily betray them and Vaillancourt’s ruthless friends would seize them both.
Rafe they would kill in a moment. But they would take her back and throw her at his feet. She would be dead in hours.
“You don’t wish to tell me? That is fine,” Rafe said in his usual tone of forgiveness. “The day comes when you can speak more easily. I will wait to learn. You will tell me. And we will slay all your dragons on the subject.”
She shook her head. “Vaillancourt is my only dragon.”
“A very violent one. Countess Nugent told us you stole from him.”
She did not dare move, only stared out to sea. He might know that, but not the full of what she had taken, nor its import.
He peered at her with humor twinkling in his eyes.
“I know that look, Zephora Butler.” He used her full given name when he was vexed with her.
“It declares that you don’t like that I know.
But I do.” He sighed. “A gaming book. From his gambling den. Intriguing. And you gave it to someone to pass through Society? Then parts were picked up by the gossip sheets?” He chuckled, but his mirth died. “You shamed him.”
“And his friends,” she told him with a lift of her chin. Rafe Durham was too canny. He saw when she refused to reveal information. Merde. I thought I had cultivated a fine ability to hide my thoughts.
“Tell me when you will, Zeph.” He was fond of her when he called her by her shortened name. “I have work to do. Today I go to the village and buy clothes for us. Coats, scarves. Many poor sell them in the summer. We need to appear poor, and we need warm clothes to cross the Channel.”
“Tired of France already, are you?” she challenged him with a grin.
His hooded eyes told of compassion. “I love the country. The chateaux. The white wine. The brandy and calvados. I hate the new men who rule.” He sniffed. “Absolute power is never appealing to everyone.”
“In France, that is all I have seen.”
“You were here…when? During the Terror?”
She nodded. “We came in ’94. My father was secretary to James Monroe, who was the American minister to France.
Papa took a house in the Rue du Bac. He hired a governess for me, but then sent me to Madame Campan’s school.
I saw him twice in nine years. When he went to London in 1798, he left me there.
” She put a hand to her throat. “The best…” She clutched at her throat.
When would she ever be able to talk at length again?
Was it another part of her that was dreadfully ruined?
“Don’t strain to talk.”
She waved two fingers at him. “The best decision my father ever made was to go without me. He saw me again once more in 1802 when he came to Paris. He had only a short time to live. I often wonder if he knew.” She grew pensive. “But he died in London last year in December. Also a good decision.”
She let her gaze rise to the peaceful cerulean sky above.
Rafe stood and offered her his hand. “Come inside. I will make tea to soothe your throat.”
Sweet, infuriating fellow, always after her welfare like a mother cat. Or rather…like the bear he resembled.
She put her hand in his large, warm paw. He took hers and covered it whole. He was indeed a bear of a man. Big. Broad. Dark and gruff. She adored his strength. His determination to save her. His savoir faire.
Now she was getting sentimental! Bah! To be honest, she had complaints against him. Too bad she could only think at the moment of one: she hated that he had lopped off her hair. But what could she do? Lice were never attractive.
Gazing up at him, she told him instead what she dearly wished. “I want to leave here, Rafe. Soon.”
“We go, chouchou. When I get a fine smuggler to take us hence. But I need you able to withstand the crossing.”
As if to prove how well she was, she shot up…and swayed. Damn it.
He caught her tightly to him. If she had a figure, her old looks, and a bit of her old perfume, she’d find his embrace an attempt at familiarity.
Who would want a rough stick without form or allure?
Not him. Not any man. Still, she counted her blessings that she was a head or more shorter than he.
That difference meant that when they debated, she had to state her position boldly and often to maintain her ground. “We should leave France now!”
He tucked her arm in his, and patted her hand as if she were a child. “For us to sail out upon the sea, you must be good. Eat more. Get fat, chouchou.”
She could say one thing was true in her life: Rafe Durham, her bear—without whom she would never again have seen the light of day or sky of blue, nor had any air to breathe—never made a promise he did not keep.
“You are a terrible cook,” she grumbled.
“All the more reason, Zephora Butler, to eat up so we can get the hell out of here!”