by Ingrid Hahn
“She’s going to be with you . . . always.” Sidonie spoke softly. “She loves you. Both of you, you and Jacques, her two dear sons. People can say what they like of a bond between a man and a woman, the strength of a mother’s love . . .”
A few of the welling tears spilled from her large eyes.
It was too much, even for him. His heart ached anew. If only things could have been different for them.
“Sidonie . . .”
“We need to go.” She dropped his hands suddenly, expression hard as if she were protecting herself from thinking about too painful a subject. The tender moment shattered. “I’ll remind you that you have precisely no say in my actions, no authority over me, and no input in the matter whatsoever.”
“Remind me tomorrow. The nearest inn is a bit east from here and is reputable enough. At least it used to be back when I traveled these roads.”
“That was long enough ago.”
He ignored her. Maybe she’d intended it as a jibe, but it was true enough. “Tonight, you’ll put yourself in my hands.”
A blush settled prettily in wan cheeks and Roland stirred in hot and ready response to the flurry of images passing before his mind’s eye.
She let out a breath in a white cloud before her pale lips. If only he could kiss them to a rosy pink.
To keep his fingers occupied and his face averted, he fussed with the horse’s tack. “I’ll see you have a soft place to sleep and something warm and nourishing in your belly. Nothing more.”
In other words, he wasn’t going to be putting her legs in the air.
Her touch was almost his undoing. “Roland . . .”
Duty came first. Duty always came first. This wasn’t a lovers’ tryst. He would be grateful later that the farmer’s wife had caught them before he’d abandoned reason, he would. If he kissed Sidonie, he wouldn’t be able to stop, not unless she told him to.
After what passed between them in the kitchens at Bramville, it was unlikely she’d keep a steady head in the midst of passions she herself welcomed. And what would indulging in lascivious attentions bring? Nothing but more dishonor upon his head.
He scooped her up and settled her on the horse’s back, settling himself behind her. The beast’s motions would do Roland a great injustice with her backside being pressed against him. A powerful hunger compelled him to be as close to her as possible. He had to resist.
“A few more nights. Then you’ll be free.”
And he’d return to Bramville. His prison.
Determined, Roland signaled the horse to a brisk walking pace. Without thinking, he bowed his head and inhaled the scent of Sidonie’s hair.
Mistake.
The fire of unquenched need raged in his belly well enough without such incendiaries.
~ ~ ~
Sidonie tried not to relax back into his arms as she mulled everything over. It was concerning just how muddled her powers were. She had trained so hard to free herself of expectation. Because that was precisely the trouble, wasn’t it? She’d expected Roland to never leave Bramville. With that in her mind, even unknowingly, had dulled her wits. A witch should have met everything with a measure of healthy suspicion. She still had so much to learn.
It was almost as if she were regressing, shedding all the skills she’d acquired as easily as silk flutters to the floor.
“I have back a fraction of my sight.”
“That sounds promising.” He sounded distant and uninterested.
When nothing more came from gentle hint, she shook her head. “It’s not enough. What I’ve seen . . . it makes no sense.”
“What would be the purpose a gift if you cannot use it?”
“The purpose could come.”
Dusk settled around them, shrinking the world. Winter might have been a season of death, but life was everywhere when you knew where to look. Even at night. Nothing could have been a purer example than what ran between herself and this man here.
But Death had a way of rushing time. A way of boiling need and want away from the clutter of uncertainty. It sharpened focus, made one take account of what truly possessed value.
Alone in the night, Sidonie could almost imagine they were the only two in existence—that all her cares and troubles were nothing more than a dream and that Roland was her true life.
Roland. He’d become her protector. In his arms, her strength rallied. This was where she belonged.
He let out a hard breath. “You have something to tell me, don’t you?”
A ripple of warning snaked down her spine. “This is dangerous.”
“You will find I am not wholly unaware of that fact.”
“No, I mean—” Her throat squeezed. “You’re attuned to me.”
“Of all there is to worry about, I believe that merits no second thought.”
Sidonie inhaled, bracing herself. “There is something, something I’ve, well . . . I’m not certain myself, so I haven’t been sure about what to say.”
She felt him jolt. “Is it about my death?”
“No, indeed. It’s about what I’ve seen, which I have no reason to believe has anything to do with your death.”
“All the same, I’m not sure I should know.”
“I’m almost certain you should.”
“Why is that?”
“I”—she struggled for a way to explain herself and found none—“It’s too difficult to explain. I do. It’s as simple as that.”
Or would be, for their purposes.
“If you think I ought to know, you should tell me.”
“I see children.”
He tensed. “Pardon?”
“Two young girls, about two years apart in age, I should think.” Recreating the images of what she’d glimpsed in a vision wasn’t the same as reaching into memory, but more like recalling an indelible dream. “Reasonably well kept, but more like sad dolls than children. Not smiling, curious, and mischievous, but burdened.” Sidonie squinted as if by doing so she’d sharpen her observations. “I’ve never seen them before. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m looking forward or backward. I could as easily be looking back on the childhood of one of my—of one of them.”
One of those the inquisitor’s man held in chains in the bowels of Paris. One of those Sidonie would stop at nothing to save.
“You think there is a message in there? Seems like nothing to do with—” She could feel the impression on the air of him having almost said nothing to do with us. Roland’s voice became strained. “With these matters.”
Sidonie opened her mouth to reassure him that the two children could not be the spirits of the daughters they might have had were they to have married. Neither life nor time worked in such ways.
Did they?
She shut her mouth again.
Roland was silent. When at last he spoke, his voice rumbled through her. “What is it like when you—” He cleared his throat. “When you see these things?”
It defied description. She tilted her head back to stare at the sky, grappling for the words. “For most of us, the practice relies on being able to step into a . . . into a particular sort nothingness.”
“What does that mean?”
“You must empty yourself. Trying to force divination only drives the sight farther from your reach. Only when you are empty can you see how much light there is in darkness. It’s rather like stepping from a room lit with a thousand blazing candles into the night and, instead of being blinded, discovering a new world illuminated entirely by starlight.”
“What does emptiness have to do with it?”
“Everything. You can’t very well hope to gather starlight without first making yourself a vessel to receive it.”
Chapter 15
With darkness came stars
, but no moon. Tomorrow would bring the perfect crescent rose. One more night until she came to the height of her powers. One more night until the reckoning.
And Sidonie was close. The scent of the city wasn’t distant any longer, not a phantom scent on the occasional gust, but a note ever-present in the air.
They came to the inn’s yard and a scruffy boy with shaggy hair shot from the stables to help with the horse.
She let herself be handed down as if she were still the lady of rank she’d been born to be. Roland’s strong grip lingered about her waist a second too long.
In the flickering light of the torch smoking by the inn’s doorway, his countenance darkened. His face hadn’t seen the sharp end of a blade for at least two days, maybe three. “What is it?”
She pressed her lips together. “I can’t stay.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Trouble with your wife, monsieur?” The glow of robust health shone from under the dirt on the child’s face.
Roland handed over a coin. “I’ll thank you to take special care of my horse, boy.”
When Roland tried leading Sidonie to the door, a sense of foreboding made her stomach lurch.
She dug in her heels. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t pinpoint what. The idea of staying at the inn seemed akin to being nailed into a coffin while still drawing breath. “I—I don’t think I can stay here tonight. I need to keep going.”
“Don’t want to be doing that, madame.” They turned to find the boy, one hand holding the straps of the bridle under the horse’s chin, the other stroking the gelding’s nose. He looked at them with an expression many years wiser than his age. “There be thieves on these roads at night.”
There were rules about what a witch did and did not do, but right now Sidonie had slight incentive to abide by the code. Everything pent up in her for what was to come was full to bursting. The way she felt, she’d be a far greater threat to any would-be highwayman than he would be to her.
Sidonie couldn’t help herself. She tossed the boy the look she’d learned from Jeanne—the one that could have crumbled bread. “Thieves have nothing to fear from the likes of me.”
“She’s not quite right in the head, is your wife, eh, monsieur?”
“Thank you, boy.” Roland’s tone was dry. He took Sidonie by the elbow, his grip firm, as if he feared she might bolt. “But mind your own affairs.”
Just before the threshold, Roland growled in her ear. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were spoiling for a fight with a lad not yet all of eight years.”
She flushed. “I will not stay.”
“What do you think you’re going to do? Travel all night?”
“It would be far better for me to reach Paris tonight.” Sidonie cringed. She was being neither firm nor direct enough.
“Perhaps you don’t believe you need sleep—although you certainly do—but I need sleep. I can’t protect you if—”
“That’s true.” It felt like she’d passed right through a wandering shade. A sort of nauseating cold unknown to most people, even in winter. “You can’t protect me.”
Roland stopped and stared at her with brows knit in a hard V. The light from the inn cast his features into sharp relief. “Stop this, Sidonie, you’re not acting like yourself. What’s gotten you so unsettled?”
“I need to be in Paris. Now. Tonight. Not tomorrow at daybreak. Now.” A pull like a tether compelled her toward the city.
“Is it because he’s coming?”
She went cold. He? “What?”
Something glinted in Roland’s expression. He flicked his gaze back and forth between her eyes. “Never mind. I’m mistaken, no doubt.”
When he tried to turn, she grabbed him. “Who is he? Who is coming? And why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought you knew.”
She bore her stare into the darkness of the night, losing her footing slightly as Roland tugged her inside. She grabbed for the doorpost, not caring about the splinters from the rough wood needling into her skin.
No. Worse than a few bits of wood . . . worse than highwaymen and cutthroats . . . worse than any demon or ghoul from the depths of hell.
The inquisitor’s man.
She’d been too distracted to notice.
If he were so close upon them that Roland had known they were being tracked, she had no choice. She couldn’t move by night, not if he were so close.
Her head fell back. Not another mistake. When was she ever going to comport herself honorably? At this rate, she’d have no self-respect left by the time she reached Paris.
Self-respect was for vain fools. All she needed was her determination to see this through.
That was what she’d tell herself.
Carrying the weight of trepidation on her heart, she followed Roland into the inn.
~ ~ ~
That sat together in the far corner of the public room, working on a hot dish of stew and a generous pour of ale. Rather, he worked on the stew. She’d had a bite, then pushed the bowl away, and sunk gloomily into her ale.
As painful as it was to witness Sidonie merely pick at a few morsels, he motioned the wench to clear the table of the food and refresh their tankards.
When they were alone again, he cleared his throat. “I feel compelled to speak about marriage again.”
The way she looked at him was almost as if she’d forgotten they were there. “If you wish to make love, we can make love. We don’t need to be married for that. It would be a pleasant diversion, I’m sure.”
Despite the damning “pleasant diversion” addition that did not add to the appeal of the idea, his cock roused to life.
It was one thing he didn’t do—use lovemaking as pleasant diversion.
Oh, he’d had women. More than he’d like to have had. It was not something he was proud of, how many handsome widows’ eager mouths he’d used. It’d been a way of forgetting. A way of denying who he was. Where his responsibilities lay.
Since having returned, he’d been as steady as a monk.
“I did want to marry you once, Roland.”
Her admission was more difficult to hear than he could have imagined.
“I must stay true to Bramville. To my blood.” He spoke as much for her sake as for his own.
“Yes. I know. Me, I know better than anyone the impact of your choices.”
“If we had married—”
“I don’t wish to discuss anything that might have been. Not again. Please. It’s a foolish waste of time. All we have is what is. And what we each of us must do.”
“Duty, you mean.”
A haunted look flashed over her face. There was something she was not telling him. But all she did was sigh and utter one single word with a resigned breath. “Duty.”
Chapter 16
Lying in the dark a hundred leagues from sleep, Roland cursed himself. If only he’d kept silent about the man following them. She’d been as spooked as a cat the entire remainder of the evening—wary and uncertain, which wasn’t her natural state, and difficult to observe.
One didn’t have to possess the witch’s arts to read subtle clues. He’d done too much tracking in his youth to be insensible of the hunter’s tricks. That the man following him had been so easily identifiable to Roland said two things. One, the man wanted them to know he was close. And two, there was no way Sidonie hadn’t noticed herself.
Unfortunately, he’d been wrong about the latter. What he should have realized sooner was that Sidonie was reserving her strength and abilities for what she must do in Paris.
Of course she would have been unaware. She hadn’t been looking—she would have blinded herself out of necessity. It wasn’t as if her arts came effortlessly. His mother, God rest her eternal
soul, had described an hour’s work, leaving her feeling as if she’d spent a week struggling to push a boulder up a mountain’s jagged face.
Although there was another explanation. Sidonie might have been distracted by him. If that were the case, he had no business trying to protect her. His mere presence would only act against his best attentions.
But he didn’t want to let her go. And it wasn’t because his mother had extracted a promise that he’d protect her before she died.
Roland kicked at the coverlet twisted about his legs, the length of the blanket having been intended for a person of slight stature. He was on the hard floor of a cramped storage space, his cloak the only barrier between himself and rough planks. The light fragrance of her in the air was enough to drive him mad.
Sidonie herself was curled above him on a wide shelf that had been storing items previous inn guests had left behind. Roland had spent a quarter of an hour convincing the innkeeper to let them this room. The only other private chambers in the place had already been claimed.
A foot eased down beside his head, jerking him from the thick tangle of suffocating dreams. Without thinking, his hand shot out to shackle the slender ankle. Mon Dieu, had he really been asleep? One minute he’d been alone in agony with his thoughts, the next, he’d been awakened by her trying to step over him.
At least he could trust his senses were in full repair.
He had her ankle, now what?
His mind supplied a lusty answer, his hard cock quick with ready agreement. Kiss it. The ankle was the perfect place to start. He could work his way up and up until his mouth found that sweet place between her legs . . .
“I consumed a goodly quantity of drink at supper, I think you’ll recall, and it’s not as if we have the luxury of a pot and a screen in this room.”
Roland eased his grip and, grabbing the cloak he’d spread below him, stood. They’d both settled in for the night fully clad. After a quick pat confirmed that he was as he left himself—although what else he might have expected, he couldn’t have said—he reattached the dagger to his belt. “I’ll go with you.”