Chapter 8
Eight
Rafe grabbed Alix by the elbow and hauled her swiftly down the alley. Her foot connected with something repellently smooth and she slipped. “You don’t have to drag me,” she insisted, “I can follow on my own.”
“You, follow?” Rafe snorted. “That would be a first.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I’m not as obedient as your troops, Captain,” she said in an irritated voice.
“No more so than I. In the army, disobedience is a flogging offense.”
“Why do we have to walk so fast anyway? The watch didn’t see us, and we didn’t take anything...” Her voice trailed off and she gasped, “Or did you?”
Rafe stopped in mid-stride and swung round to face her, his hazel eyes hard.
“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle. You are the one who insisted, no demanded that Jervis and I break into your mother’s house.
Are you now implying that we stooped to theft?
” He loomed over her, his face a study in sharp angles.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest you’d stolen anything,” Alix said, taking a step back. “But,” she added defensively, “you must admit it was a bit peculiar the way the neighbors came by all of the sudden. And why on earth did that woman scream?”
Rafe resumed walking and Alix had to run to keep up with him.
His brows were drawn together and his eyes narrowed as he turned to look at her.
“Jervis and I left a man trussed up in the small salon of your mother’s apartments; a gentleman who said he’d been sent by your desperately ill father.
The gentleman claimed you’d stolen something valuable and that you were bringing your ill-gotten gains to a lover who worked in Madame de La Brou’s household. ”
“And you believed him?”
“If I had,” Rafe responded dryly,” I never would have hit him with the candlestick.”
“Hit him with a…” Questions filled her head.
“But why would someone make up a story like that...?” And then a horrible thought: “You don’t suppose my father could be alive?
’ Her blood turned to ice. “I never saw his body I heard the people yelling, the screams, and what sounded like blows. But Solange and David wouldn’t let me look for him.
” Her voice dropped to a strangled whisper.
“David told me... the mob... cut his head off.” She grabbed Rafe’s arm and looked beseechingly up at him.
“What if they were wrong? What if he’s badly hurt and he needs me? ”
Rafe hadn’t believed the man’s stories and seeing the anguish in Alix’s face, he refused to let her travel down that road either.
“I think the man was lying, Alix. I think you have something he wants, or he is seeking some sort of revenge against your family.” Seeing she remained tense, he added, “Unless, of course, the treasures in your lingerie were stolen and you do have a lover waiting for you somewhere in Paris?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, her eyes widening. “If I were planning to take the jewels and papers to some mystery lover, wouldn’t I have run to meet him, instead of following after you?”
“Perhaps you expected to find him waiting at your mother’s. Perhaps the man in the salon was your lover. Although, he did seem a bit old,” Rafe added teasingly, trying to lighten her mood. “But then there’s no accounting for tastes.”
Her eyes narrowed and her jaw set, “I would appreciate it if you would stop impugning my virtue. I am a, a...”
“Virgin?” he supplied helpfully.
“Yes.” Her face flushed and she was grateful he couldn’t see it in the shadows of the alleyway. Their conversation had become as twisted as the route they were taking back to the inn. Then another thought struck her. “The man in the salon, what did he look like?”
Rafe paused to remember. “Slight, middle-aged, dark suit, powdered wig.”
“Did you notice anything else, anything distinctive?”
Rafe shook his head.
“Surely you must have noticed something, eye color, scars, blemishes, anything?” He shrugged.
“You’ve described half the men in Paris, including Citizen Robespierre.” She shook her head disgustedly. “Men, no eye for details.”
“Well,” he drawled sarcastically, “if I’d known you were going to come scurrying after us, I’d have arranged a proper introduction before I hit him.”
The two fell silent as they entered a well-lit street.
The sidewalks were full of people out for an evening stroll.
A group of young men heatedly debating politics parted to let them through.
Two old men passed by complaining about the rising price of wine.
A group of chattering young women, trailed by a scowling chaperone in an enormous lace cap, cast admiring glances at Rafe.
Alix, feeling suddenly chilled and vulnerable, hunched her shoulders, pulled Jervis’s hat down over her face, and kept walking.
At last, Rafe turned and led her down a small muddy street. He stopped before a grated door and pushed it open. Its rusted hinges squealed in protest.
“Hey, who’s there?” a startled groom called out, curry comb in hand.
“Evening, Bernard,” Rafe responded.
“Oh, Citizen Harcrest. Jervis. Good evening.” The horse the groom had been brushing nipped at his arm. “I’ll get you to your feed bucket, just have a bit of patience boy,” he said turning back to his work.
Alix followed Rafe across the rutted stable yard, up a set of worn wooden steps and into the inn’s kitchen.
A sturdy woman, perspiration dotting her flushed face and dampening her blond hair, stood before the wide fireplace washing dishes in a steaming iron kettle.
Two other women sat at a scarred wooden table, sleeves rolled up, fichus draped over the backs of their chairs, peeling potatoes.
Blackened pots and pans hung from the low ceiling, along with bunches of dried herbs.
The room was warm and smelled of broth and sautéed onions.
Rafe drew two bottles of wine from a rack beside the table and took two freshly washed glasses from the woman by the fire.
“Here now,” one of the women began. But he cut her off. “Put it on my bill.”
As they mounted the narrow back stairs, one of the women called after them, “If you’re having a party citizens, let us know if you’ll be needing any company,” and the other two crowed with laughter.
A party, Rafe thought, that’s what he was going to have, a bloody engagement party.
The bottles clinking as he mounted the back stairs to his room, he wondered how many more he would need to get drunk.
Not excessively drunk, just oblivious enough to ask this French termagant to marry him.
It wasn’t that he would mind bedding Alix, he reflected, desire snaking through his loins as he thought of how Jervis’s britches left little of her slim legs and rounded buttocks to the imagination.
But he hadn’t reckoned on spending the rest of his life with her when he’d come to her aid on the street.
Still, he reflected as he booted the sitting room door open, he’d made that decision and he was man enough to live with it.
He’d given his word as an English gentleman that he’d help her.
Certainly, he thought as he glanced over his shoulder and saw Alix taking the steps two at a time to catch up with him, he couldn’t live with the consequences of leaving her to fend for herself in the killing fields of Paris.
An image of Lady Anne in the garden with her brother crossed his mind and he frowned.
He’d find some other way to protect Elizabeth, he told himself.
Rafe strode into the bedchamber dropping the bottles and glasses resolutely on the three-legged table.
He tossed his jacket into a corner of the room, loosened his stock and unbuttoned the top buttons of his waistcoat.
Pouring two glasses of wine, he offered Alix one, then took his, and dropped heavily into one of the armchairs by the fire.
He motioned for her to join him and took a deep draught of his wine, nearly emptying the glass.
“Sit, my little hoyden, we’ve a great deal to discuss. ”
Alix studied him carefully as he leaned back in the chair, his long legs stretched out before the fire.
“Sit,” he repeated, seemingly fascinated by the play of the firelight on the crimson liquid in his glass.
Alix perched gingerly on the proffered seat and took a sip of her wine; it was surprisingly good, she thought absently, and took another swallow appreciating the warmth it brought to her chilled body.
Rafe refilled his glass. “Let us talk of how we are going to get you to London.”
She took another, deeper sip of her wine, her heart pounding in her ears.
She couldn’t believe her luck. Despite the increasingly odd turn of events, he still seemed willing to help her reach her mother.
She leaned forward anxiously. She’d given her escape to London some consideration, and she didn’t want him to think she was entirely without resources.
“I’ve plenty of money,” she assured him, “so you needn’t worry about paying my way.”
Rafe finished his glass and topped hers off as he filled his again. “Believe me my dear, finances are the least of our worries.”
She ignored the sarcasm in his voice and continued. “I was thinking that I might travel with you under the guise of a governess for your sister.”
He looked at her and snorted. “You’re too young and too pretty. There isn’t a man from here to Calais, leastways not one with blood flowing through his veins, that would believe that one. Try again.”
He took a long swallow of wine, and Alix found herself following suit. He topped off her glass again.
“Well then, I could travel as your maid.”
He swirled the remaining contents of his glass, staring intently at the small red whirlpool. “No one would believe that either.”
Alix drained her glass, trying to quell her rising annoyance. It was as if he had already worked out how he was going to get her to London and was testing her to see if she could come up with the correct answer.