Scars of Betrayal

by Sophia James

  Moments passed in silence, the heat of her slackening to limpness.

  When he brought his mouth onto the peak of her right breast, she simply clasped her hands about his head and nudged him closer. Like she might do a suckling baby, guided to the source.

  Quiet. Still. Primal. The reclamation of all that had been once before and now was again. The gift of belonging. The heavy punch of sex and now the softer pull of place. Home. With Sandrine. He shut his eyes and took the offered gift, grateful and indebted.

  In all of his life he had never felt as loved.

  * * *

  They woke to the sound of evening birdsong, the dusk across their blankets. With slow care she moved atop his manhood, filling herself with the largeness, moving in her own rhythms and refusing any help.

  Her gift, she had said, and his taking. When she pinned his hands against the earth and told him that she was in charge he had allowed it, the sky above and the meadow beneath. She did not let him come until the sun had fallen almost to the horizon, the tension in him stretched to the full ache of friction, a thin hot pain of need.

  And then she had taken each of his nipples between her nails and pinched. Hard. Jarring.

  He had climaxed as he never had before, emptying himself into her, wave after wave, involuntary, uncontrolled. And she had taken him in, wanting his seed, drawing him up as the final gift of the day. He felt the undulating motion of her insides around him and knew without a shadow of doubt that he could love her. For ever.

  On their return to Saint Estelle the tavern keeper was full of the news of a group of men who had come into the town looking for two strangers.

  ‘The leader was a big man with dark-brown hair and a scar across his cheek. Here.’ His fingers drew the shape of a crescent. ‘He appeared very angry.’

  Lebansart. Cassie drew in her breath and knew that Nathanael had felt her fear.

  ‘Did they say where they were going next?’

  ‘They didn’t say and I didn’t ask, but they left Saint Estelle before the noon hour and there was no talk of a return.’

  ‘We will stay here then for a few days longer.’ Nat dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. ‘If they should return at any time at all, I would like to be told of it.’

  ‘Who exactly is this man, Sandrine?’ The question came a few moments later when they were once again back in their chamber.

  ‘Guy Lebansart. He was an acquaintance of Anton Baudoin.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  She shrugged her shoulders and turned away. Me. She almost said it, almost blurted it out before biting down on the horror. The document she should never have read shimmered in her memory.

  * * *

  Cassandra spent the morning at the school at Holborn. Kenyon Riley arrived around midday and walked into her office.

  ‘Is Maureen here, Cassandra?’ His voice was tinged with the accent of the Americas, and he sounded happy.

  ‘She went to run an errand in town. I should not imagine that she will be long.’

  ‘You look busy.’

  Cassie observed the large pile of papers that littered her desk. She tried to be organised, she really did, but with the amount of work she had, such a thing was never easy.

  ‘My sister told me the good news about your betrothal.’

  ‘Did she? I was wondering if she would ever get around to mentioning it to anybody else.’ His smile was wide.

  ‘Reena is more contented than I have ever seen her.’

  ‘She deserves to be.’

  ‘I agree and I don’t think she could have chosen more wisely.’

  He watched her, his dark eyes perplexed. ‘And what of you, Cassandra? Is there someone in your life, too?’

  ‘You have been listening to rumour, I think?’

  ‘More than rumours. Lord Christopher Hanley, your uncle’s friend, claims he saw you in Whitechapel with Lord Lindsay. A large section of society is heeding him.’

  ‘Well, I have never played a big part in the life of the ton so it will suit me to be even more reclusive. What can they do, after all?’

  ‘Believe me, attack is the best form of defence. Come with your sister and me to the Forsythe ball and stare the naysayers down.’

  ‘Apart from sounding risky, did you consider the possibility you might be ousted because of your association with me?’

  He laughed. ‘My uncle is one of the richest men in England and he is dying. No one would chance offending the next heir to the dukedom.’

  In that moment Kenyon Riley seemed more like Nathaniel Lindsay than he ever had before. Powerful. Certain. Unafraid.

  Perhaps he was right. Cassie had already flouted convention with the keeping of her maiden name and no true proof of her being at Brown Street existed anywhere save with Lord Lindsay. She did not believe that Nathaniel would abandon her as she had him in Perpignan.

  ‘Maureen is having a fitting for a new gown this afternoon. You should go with her for you have worn the shades of mourning for all the months that I have known you. Perhaps it is time to branch out and live a little?’

  ‘You sound just like Reena.’

  ‘If I do, it is because I care about you and because Lindsay is a good man, an honourable man.’

  She nodded her head. ‘I know.’

  ‘He is also a man who would not ruin a woman’s reputation lightly.’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘Good.’

  When he left her office she leaned back in her chair and looked out over the street at the front of the house.

  Nat was indeed much more honourable than he would think her to be, in the light of what had happened on the outskirts of Perpignan.

  They had remained in Saint Estelle for almost two weeks, always putting off their leaving for yet another day so that they could walk to the hot pools above the village or to the abandoned cottage on the other side of the river and pretend that this was their house and their life. Entwined in each other’s arms, the particular glow of lovers blocked out the rest of the world and the world became blurred and ill defined.

  Until one morning when Cassie awoke to the knowledge that her menses had not come and her breasts felt sore and full and heavy.

  Pregnant? She counted back the days and the weeks and always came up with the same conclusion. She was overdue and her body was telling her that things were changing inside.

  Elation was her first thought and then caution. Caught out in the countryside in conditions that were hardly conducive for an early pregnancy she knew Nathanael would worry. So she said nothing.

  In Perpignan she would see a doctor and then she would tell him. She knew the town and the people there. She felt at home in the narrow streets by the river. Her hand with the ruined finger crept to the secret she held in her stomach and she cradled the joy. Their child. A child born of love and of passion. Tears threatened, and she swallowed them away.

  Five days later on the way into Perpignan she began to bleed. Only a little, but enough to make her understand that she needed to be somewhere quiet and peaceful, to simply stop and relax. Each morning for the past week she had felt sick on awakening and the nausea had not abated till the noon. She wanted a hot bath and a hot meal and a bed that she could stay in that was comfortable and safe.

  She wanted a doctor’s reassurance and the time to tell Nathanael that he would be a father, in a place where they were not looking over their shoulders for any sign of who followed them.

  They had seen no trace of another since they had left Saint Estelle, always keeping away from the main roads and shadowing the rivers as they ran from the mountains down onto the plains below.

  Perhaps they were safe now and whoever had been following them had given up completely. She knew Lebansart hailed from a place f
arther north. Had he realised the futility of chasing them and had returned home? She prayed that it might be so.

  Taking the shaded alleys, they came into the outskirts of Perpignan at sunset and stopped on the left bank of the Basse River. The fortified walls stood before them and in the distance on a high citadel the Palace of the Kings of Mallorca sat, its limed walls pale in the last rays of sun.

  Cassandra loved this place, with its warmth and its gentle winds off the sea. When first she had come she had been entranced to finally be able to speak the language of her mother and to feel the heat of the sun on her hair, the colours of this part of the world so different to the greyness of London.

  Perpignan and the busy Mercier household had been a revelation, and the fact that she was only a cousin had made no difference to the generosity of her uncle. Celeste’s mama, Agathe, had been dead a good two years so that was yet another thread that held the cousins together.

  Another time.

  A lost life.

  A whole family gone.

  She turned to look at Nathanael who sat leaning against a low stone wall, watching her.

  ‘This was where I lived with Celeste’s family. I came here to get well.’

  ‘Hell!’ His expletive was round as he stood. ‘You never told me that. Would those at Nay have known of this?’

  She shrugged, his anxiety seeping into her contentment. ‘Perhaps they may have.’

  ‘Then we cannot enter the town, Sandrine.’

  ‘You think those who followed might find us here?’

  ‘I know they will.’

  The shadows around them moved in a way that was suddenly dangerous, the branches taking on the outline of shapes of men in her mind. Never again. Never again would she allow herself to be under some other person’s rule.

  He must have seen her fear for he moved closer. ‘We will strike north tomorrow along the coast and find a ship to take us to Marseilles. I have friends there.’

  She shook her head. Another trek across the countryside and with the further promise of snow. The reserves she had been storing up were suddenly no longer there and now it was not just her life she had to protect. She had to stop, the cramping pains in her stomach no longer able to be denied and ignored. ‘You should leave, Nathanael. While you can. I cannot go on.’

  It is me that they are after. Lebansart could pass you on a street and not know your face. Thus far you are safe.

  She wished her voice did not sound so afraid, the cold air of an oncoming night making her shake. She had killed Baudoin with her knife. She could not be responsible for the death of Nathanael Colbert, too. Not him. Breathing in, she suddenly knew just what it was she must do. With all the effort in the world she smiled.

  ‘You have bought me home and it isn’t as unsafe as you imagine. Celeste’s family has a position here, a power. I can be protected.’

  She should take off the marriage ring held in warm white gold around her finger and give it back, but she could not quite make herself do that. For the first time in a long while she felt virtuous.

  ‘You cannot possibly think that a group of bandits whose secrets you know would stop pursuing you because of some aristocratic courtly authority? These people exist under far more brutal rule.’

  Shaking her head, she placed one hand across his. She would go to the home of Celeste’s father’s best friend and his wife. She knew without doubt that they would keep her safe.

  It all comes down to this, she thought, his life and her child’s safety. There was no room in any of it for her.

  The ache around her heart physically hurt as she gave in to all that she knew she must do.

  ‘We have been flung together out of expedience and I thank you for the protection you have given me and for the things you have taught me, but...’ She swallowed away the ‘but’ and began again. ‘We are different in everything that we are and I want to go home, back to a life that I know. I am not used to such...a lack of luxury, you see, and eventually we would both feel embittered by our differences.’

  Stifling grief, she looked directly at him, the stillness in him more worrying than any anger.

  ‘Just like that?’ he finally said, flatness in the words.

  She nodded. ‘It will be better for us both. I am sorry....’ She could not go on, her hands spread in front of her gesticulating emptiness. Her smile was so tight it hurt the muscles in her cheeks.

  They do not know you yet. They have no idea of exactly who you are.

  ‘I have a comfortable life in Perpignan and I am tired of the squalor that we have needed to exist in.’

  ‘I see.’

  No, you do not see at all, Nathanael. You do not know what this is doing to my heart.

  ‘We could meet sometimes, if you wish. I wouldn’t be averse to that.’

  ‘For what reasons, Sandrine? To demand my conjugal rights?’

  She shook her head, his anger gathering in the storm clouds of his eyes. ‘To reminisce.’

  ‘Reminisce about all these weeks of memories that mean nothing to you or about the importance of material acquisitions? I think I shall say no.’

  She could only guess at what he must think of her, one moment this and the next moment that. Disbelief flourished amongst fury as he lifted the blanket he slept on from his bag and rolled it out underneath a thick bush. ‘We will talk again of this tomorrow when you have come to your senses. By then you may see the wisdom of my arguments and the half-witted nonsense in your own. The church, too, has strict and particular ideas about the sanctity of marriage.’

  Then he simply turned away.

  * * *

  Cassandra’s eyes felt heavy but she made herself stay awake, the moon much higher now and the true silence of early, early morning upon the grotto. They had made their beds on opposite sides of a small field of grass and he had not spoken to her again, but now he was asleep. She could hear it in his breathing and feel it in the way he had been so still for all of an hour.

  She watched him from her place across the clearing, the strong lines of his body, the dark of his hair. She could not see his face because even in sleep he had not let go of his anger and had turned away from her, the knife on a bed of leather beside him. Readied.

  He would protect her to the death. She knew this. He would give his life for her without even thinking of the payment.

  Her chance. To escape. Her chance to leave him here, safe against the darkness while she attempted to creep into Perpignan alone and disappear. She did not know why she had not thought that Lebansart and his men would be waiting in the one place they guessed she might have returned to.

  Stupid, she chastised herself. You knew how dangerous they were, but you did not think and now you have placed Nathanael in danger also. Mortal danger.

  Carefully, she sat up, each fraction of movement as slow as she could make it, her breath shallow and light. Then she stood, again stopping as she came fully upright, only the wind in the trees and the far-off call of a night bird.

  One step and then two, the shadows taking her beneath them, blocking out the moonlight and then an open space on the banks of the Basse, a track to a bridge across the river and the gate on the old fortified walls. Open. It had not been defended for hundreds of years, a relic of a medieval past when nothing was as safe as it was now.

  She smiled at her thoughts given all that she was running from and kept to the dark side of buildings as she came into the town proper. She hadn’t brought her bag because she did not want to lift it and hear the rustle of thick canvas. But she had brought her knife, tucked into her right sleeve in leather, the hilt extending from the thick fabric of her jacket.

  Almost to the Rue des Vignes. Almost there.

  Then a noise. Close. An arm snaked about her throat, cutting off breath, and the face of Guy Lebansart appeared ne
xt to her own.

  ‘We thought you would come, Sandrine, although perhaps not quite so soon.’

  The warmth of his palm as it caressed the line of her cheek made her skin crawl.

  * * *

  Nathaniel came awake to emptiness. He knew Sandrine was missing before he even looked, though her bag still stood beside her blanket.

  Only a few minutes, he determined, the wool covering still slightly warm when he checked, but the wind had come up and she had used the noise from the trees to depart.

  Last night they had not spoken at all after she had told him she needed to go on alone. He swore at the absurdity of everything and the nonsense of her beliefs. Did she truly think she could just fit in again to all that she had been and forget what was between them? Had all of the past days been some kind of elaborate deception to allow her passage into Perpignan, his presence a necessary one to alleviate the sense of danger? Only that?

  Nat could not believe this to be true. There were other things that she had not told him, and he needed to find out exactly what they were.

  Bundling all their things together, he stuffed them into an empty space between one of the bushes nearby. He would come back for them later, but it never hurt to cover your tracks, no matter how much of a hurry you were in; spying had at least taught him that.

  She would have cut along the river, he was sure of it, to cross at the next bridge. From memory the Basse had more than one bridge spanning it and was swimmable in places, though he could not see her wanting to get wet. From there she would move inwards, and the town was not so big that a good search would be impossible. No. He just had to look carefully and hope like hell that she had made the place of her destination safely.

  He tipped his head, listening, but there was no sound that was different from the wind on the water and the trees, no sound that alerted him to danger or compromise. Three o’clock. The quietest hour of the night. Jogging along the track until the first bridge, he then went down on his knees.

  There he had it. A fresh print in the mud showing damaged soles. She had come this way. Again he tipped his head. Now there was only the noise of the water and the first spots of rain in the wind. Tracking. His forte. He had done this so many times over so many years, following so many quarries. This time, though, the stakes were raised and he knew he had to be very careful.