by Ingrid Hahn
Sidonie paused. So that was why they’d been so quick to ignore her. There were two strangers passing through, and she wasn’t the more interesting of the two.
“We’ll all be laying in pools of our own blood with our throats slit if he stays. His sort don’t belong here.”
“Shut up, you old hen. He’s probably cold and tired.”
“Why did he have no servant with him? Why didn’t he give his name? I don’t like it. Something t’aint right.”
“What’s not right is you. You’re as stupid as your cow.”
Sidonie lingered over the last few bites. Were they talking about the rider? Was the man who’d passed the cart on the road staying at this same inn tonight?
A chill seized the bones of her spine and her hand went to her throat. Maybe it hadn’t been her time with Roland responsible for her reaction this afternoon. The man in the road wearing the cloak . . . if he had been the inquisitor’s man. If he’d found her . . .
Putain. Damn. If only she could clear her muddled senses. Not knowing for certain would drive her mad. Ordinary people lived in uncertainty. They had no choice. Witches didn’t.
If only she could talk to Jeanne. Jeanne always helped.
But maybe she was allowing fear to rule her. Witches didn’t allow fear to rule them, either.
Ignoring her pounding heart as best she could, Sidonie sank into stillness and eased open her senses. There were people nearby. And animals. No surprises there. Without knowing the inn’s layout, she couldn’t ascertain the exact location of each—which were in the inn, which were in the building adjacent, and which were outside. That aside, however careful she was to search for even the most subtle signs, she found nothing unusual.
Could she trust herself? He was out there somewhere, the inquisitor’s man. Watching. Waiting. Tracking her.
Their time would come.
But it would not be tonight.
Mon Dieu, but she was tired. The lure of bed was too much. She had to sleep.
Partway across the common room, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and spun her around.
Chapter 13
Sidonie stared into bloodshot eyes. The man was wild with fury as he bared his brown teeth to her. “Are you with him?”
“Keep your hands off me!” She jerked away from the big man’s grasp, nearly choking on his sour stink. She couldn’t proclaim that she was alone. That was too much, even if they could see very well for themselves that she was. The innkeeper knowing was dangerous enough.
“We don’t want your kind here. You go up to your master right now and tell him. Take your things and leave tonight.”
A bellow from behind her saved her from responding. “Yves, you’re drunk.” The squat figure of the bald innkeeper appeared—Émile, presumably—and grabbed the big man with surprising ease for one so short, and dragged him to the door. “Go home and sleep it off.” The innkeeper threw the big man stumbling out into the darkness and slammed the door behind him.
He brushed past her with a surly utterance she guessed was meant to reassure her. “No guests of mine suffer attacks under my roof.”
Pray that be true, especially if the rider who’d let the inn’s single private chamber were indeed the inquisitor’s man.
Still, she was safer here than out in a stormy night such as this. A person could fight another person, but pulling a blade on the elements, no matter how sharp, no matter how skillful the hand wielding it, had never been known to have an effect.
As the only female guest of the inn that night, she had the common bed in the women’s room to herself. Upon inspection of the straw ticking and stained coverlet, she made do with a wooden chair by the glowing embers where she hung the outer layers of her clothing to dry.
When she woke with a start, the world was dark. Muzzy, she reached out to grab ahold of him and never let go again.
She snatched at air.
Sidonie blinked. Wretched dreams. Of course he wasn’t there. Roland would never leave Bramville. He couldn’t, not even for her. That was what being a guardian meant to him.
Somehow the ribbon had worked from her hair and fallen in a ripple on the floor. She reached for it, working the fabric through her fingers back and forth, back and forth.
Teeth chattering, she dressed. The fire had been left to die, not having been banked, but the clothing had dried before the heat vanished. Outside, the storm had subsided.
In the inn’s yard, Sidonie paused to look back, ignoring the undersized maid who chased after a pigeon that flapped wildly—the bird likely destined for a pie. Who was inside who’d upset the men? Who was the rider?
Sidonie turned herself inward. And sensed . . . there. Yes. It was nearly unremarkable, but it was steady. And not at all what she expected. Instead of a sense of a being, there was only a pull—a sort of minute compulsion to turn back into the inn.
Damn her weakened state.
Swallowing, she put the inn at her back, curled her cloak more tightly around her body, and started on the road. There remained a fair portion of ground to cover and no time to concern herself with examining possibilities.
Puddles in the road were iced over. Dawn was several hours away, but the sky was clear and starry, allowing enough light from approaching daybreak to bring the world into a shadowy monochrome of gauzy morning mists and indistinct landscape.
Hours passed. All the while, she put one foot in front of the other. Onward, onward, going exactly as she’d come.
Time had become a blur tempered only by the moon’s steadying influence. Sidonie relied on the gentle shifts to fix the points of the passing day. Often it seemed as though months had passed since she’d put Château Bramville behind her, the road to Paris stretching on interminably.
It wouldn’t be long. The roads were growing wider. Every now and again in the breeze she would catch the dusty stone scent of the city.
The sky began to darken with the steadily encroaching fall of night.
She stopped to rest against the trunk of a tree and closed her eyes again, searching for anything that might help her.
And saw something.
Without warning, Sidonie caught a flash. Then another. Her senses were reopening. Time was speaking again, revealing itself in a whispered syllable here and a shadowy glimpse there.
The webs of time was clearing—clearing, though not completely cleared. Her heart started to canter. After so many weeks of trying to restore her sense of divination, it dangled before her just beyond reach.
But . . . girls? Young, no more than children. Pale, with haunted eyes, and demeanors far too quiet for their ages. And wretchedly miserable.
The vision cut Sidonie in the same vulnerable place such things always did. She herself knew only too well what it took to strip children of their natural joy. The girls she saw wore the same looks that she and Manette had worn so long ago under their father’s cruel machinations.
Sidonie’s eyes flew opened and she gasped for breath. Why had she seen this? It made no sense, but seeing into the future often didn’t. What she’d hoped for was insight into the inquisitor’s man. Or a glimpse into something that might help her defeat him.
She tried grasping for more, looking beyond into something else, or deeper into what was already before her. It slipped beyond her reach, as if it had never existed at all.
Just as well. The glimpse she’d caught was troubling enough. She pushed onward.
Sidonie was walking along an orchard thick with old trees, their bare limbs straining toward heaven, when the sound of horse’s hooves beating the road sent vibrations up her legs. First she felt them. She paused and went still to be certain, eyes staring into the empty road behind as if challenging anyone or anything to dare materialize. Then she heard them, resounding as a giant’s footfalls upon the earth
.
Calm. There was no reason the rider had to be the inquisitor’s man. Any of a hundred different reasons would bring a man on the road to Paris.
Reason, however, didn’t overrule her instinct, and what was the most fundamental thing she’d learned these past years but to trust herself? The days in the north had shaken her, but they too pointed to the same thing.
The sounds drew nearer, the hoof beats quickening as if the rider sensed he closed in on his prey.
She darted into the orchard, hood falling back, heedless of her hair falling or branches scratching at her like spines.
There. Beyond the trees. A waist-high wall built of the blue-gray stone.
Too late. She should have acted instead of pausing to consider. He was there. He’d found her. He was running after her. That hesitation would cost her dearly.
No. This couldn’t be the end. Not here. What a pathetic waste. A burst of speed propelled her faster still, her skirts beating between her legs.
Before she knew what was happening, she was flying forward and landed in a tangle on the frozen ground with bone-rattling force.
A man’s hands closed around her arms.
~ ~ ~
Roland struggled to protect himself against the fists beating against his chest. “Stop. Sidonie, stop.”
He finally manacled her wrists with his hands and pinned her to the ground. Still she flailed, twisting and struggling, until he pressed the whole length of his body over hers. “Stop, Sidonie, please. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The panting wild woman under him stilled. She eased open her scrunched eyes to run her clear gaze over his features as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. “Roland?”
Her lips were scant inches from his own. Her nearness pulled on him, almost begging him closer. Every animalistic male instinct demanded he claim her as his own once and for all.
“What are you doing here?”
Ignoring her question, he eased himself upward and sat back on his heels. “Are you hurt?”
She rolled and hoisted herself upward, loose hair in a snarled mass, dead leaves and clumps of dirt clinging to her clothing. “Tell me what you are doing here. You said you’d never leave.”
Because coming was the only way he had left to honor his mother.
The words wouldn’t come.
Instead of setting herself to rights, Sidonie crossed her arms and glowered down at him—not a look a woman assumes when she’s sustained injuries. Well, he could be thankful for that. “I’m not going back.”
He set his hands on his thighs, fingers pointing toward each other. “Going . . . what?” He looked at her again, this time more carefully. “You didn’t know it was me.”
“I thought the lone rider was the inquisitor’s man.”
“Lone rider?” He stood, pulled off a glove, and began picking twigs from the tangle of her tresses. The blue ribbon he’d given her hung limp.
She took it, shoved it into a pocket to retie later, and replaced her cap on her head.
“There were men at an inn that first night. They were talking and, well, I don’t know what they thought. In truth, they’d probably drunk too much, but they didn’t like the look of him, I’ll tell you that.”
He spoke slowly, trying to make sense of all this information. “You thought this man was after you?”
She nodded.
“And you chose to travel by road instead of by way of the river?” The Seine was well trafficked, transporting people and goods north to Le Havre and south to Paris.
“Too many people. The river is teeming with spies.”
“Spies. Well, all right then, if you say so.” Roland kept his face impassive and focused on the task of cleaning the debris off her. Beyond the orchard and over a rambling wall were a few stone structures, one of which was likely a barn. A barn meant hay and hay meant a warm place to rest with Sidonie.
As if she sensed his lascivious thoughts—and very likely, she did—the air between them shifted. Red stains rose in her cheeks, making him all the more desperate to bring her into his arms.
He was here to protect her. Not make love to her. It would be easy to forget his vow about not siring any bastards. But what sort of rotten scoundrel would he be if he forgot his duty?
“What’s this now?” He hitched a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so she had to look at him. “There was none of this shyness at Bramville.”
“That was different. Then I could still believe we were shut away from the world. Today, here and now, it’s . . .” The depths of her eyes shone with such complete trust as he could only pray to be worthy of. “. . . it’s real.”
He started leaning in to take her in a kiss, but her hand shot up against his chest, her palm falling on the hidden pendant and pressing it into his heart. “I’m not going back, do you see that, Roland? I’m going to Paris and I’m going to—”
He silenced her with a finger over her lips. “I’m not here to stop you.”
“But no matter what your mother said, you’re not here to help me, either, are you?”
Chapter 14
Roland considered his next words with the utmost care. He’d come to protect her. But after a lifetime of believing himself bound to one duty, assuming a new responsibility—one whom he felt so strongly about—was still almost a foreign concept. “You left before we could settle the issue of our betrothal.”
The betrothal had been plaguing his thoughts. But he hadn’t meant to speak of it.
She made a sound of exasperation. “You’re not really bringing that up again, are you?”
Yes. For so many years, he’d told himself he’d made the right decision by pushing her away. That it was better she was gone. That she was out of Normandy all together, well beyond his reach.
Then she’d tumbled back into his life and overturned all his beliefs.
No longer did he want to be selfless. He wanted to be selfish. Wanted to hold her and keep her and protect her. Laugh with her. Hold her on his arm while the world admired her. Make love to her each morning, afternoon, and night every day for years to come.
Those things he could not say.
He was bound by his duty. He could not live for his own wants and needs.
“Well?”
“I’ve been thinking—I think . . . well . . .”
“That we should marry?”
He looked away. “When you say it like that, it sounds absurd.”
There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence.
Her gaze fixed at his waist and he followed her line of sight.
“Why are you carrying such a large dagger?”
“I carry it so I don’t have to use it.”
“Spurious logic.”
Beyond the trees came movement. Roland narrowed his eyes on a woman trudging with a bucket in each hand, her breath coming before her in white clouds. The farmer’s wife at her evening chores, no doubt.
So much for the opportunity to steal a moment in the barn with Sidonie. Ah, well. Better to have been caught in the open than coupling in the hayloft—or worse, getting a pitchfork in his backside when the farmer’s wife started feeding her animals.
No sooner had the regret flashed in his mind than the woman in the distance caught sight of him and came to a dead halt, face set in a black scowl as she shouted. “You there, off my land, you filthy vagabonds!”
Sidonie started and glanced over her shoulder as Roland began leading her back to the road. “Hear that? The Marquis d’Ambroisin is now a vagabond.”
“Me?”
“Well, she couldn’t have meant me.” Sidonie sniffed affectedly.
Roland smiled. A bit of playfulness felt good. “Come.” He tucked her arm around his. “We’d best be getting on, anyway.”
For every two of his strides, she took four, but she kept pace as they went back to the road. A gelded Percheron patterned with circles in its silver coat was having its way with a patch of wild strawberry leaves alongside the ditch.
“Allow me.” Roland made a motion to begin helping her upon the animal and she lurched backward, eyes wide.
“I told you I’m not going back.”
“You’re not going the rest of the way to Paris tonight.”
“I don’t need you, you know. I did very well on my own without you.”
“On your own? You’ve never been on your own. You went from your father’s house directly into the care of another.” The second the last word had shot from his tongue, he realized the depth of his mistake. Of course she had to believe she’d do well on her own. She might not have been alone then, but she was alone now. The other he’d referenced was one of the ones she wanted to save. Jeanne, he recalled the woman’s name being.
And it seemed she wasn’t about to allow him the grace to overlook what he’d said. She drew her spine straighter. “Why did you come?”
“My mother—”
“I don’t want you to be here because she sent you.”
He took a moment answering, keeping emotion at bay. The time for mourning would come later. “She made me promise. Right before she died.”
Sidonie bowed her head and crossed herself. Then looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears. “Roland . . . I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
“We’ve been expecting it a long while. It wasn’t a shock.”
Living in a world his mother did not inhabit would be strange indeed.
“That doesn’t mean losing her is any easier.”
He had no answer. He’d set aside his grief, but only temporarily.
Roland was unprepared for her taking his hands within his. Sidonie’s, with long fingers that bespoke years of hard work. Cold from having no protection in the biting chill of the morning. And his, so big and clumsy next to hers.