“I suppose I could have welcomed all male overtures as you did female ones,” she responded with sarcasm.
He clenched her elbow tighter, and Lissandra glanced around with curiosity to see if the roof blew off any buildings. Apparently, he was managing his temper. She ought to be more careful about how she riled him, but she was still testing her wings. And his, she admitted.
“It’s different for men,” he finally grumbled.
She debated shoving him down the flight of stone steps to the pebbly beach, decided that would set a bad example, and gave him a mental swat instead.
He retaliated with a vision memory of both of them naked in the grotto at home. His hair and face were dripping, and he stood up to his hips in water, fully aroused. She remembered that moment. She’d just turned eighteen, he was twenty-four, and he’d asked her to marry him. She’d refused, and he’d sailed out of her life. . . .
She jerked her arm away and walked faster, although every particle of her burned with lust. How could anyone think while aroused like this?
He barely broke stride to keep up with her. “Most women don’t require that men be their equals or more, but you do. You never knew a man besides me who was your match or better.”
“And you did?” Scorn dripped from her tongue.
“Find a man or a match?”
She didn’t acknowledge his wickedly bad wit because he was right. She was the only match for him. She gazed over the line of derelict fishing boats. “They don’t appear seaworthy.”
“The sound ones are out fishing and earning a living. We need to find the harbormaster. Play dumb for a change, will you?” He grabbed her elbow again and started down the cobbled walk.
“Oui, oui, citoyen,” she mocked in her bad French.
“On second thought, don’t speak a word.”
“Overbearing, arrogant, domineering . . . ,” she whispered under her breath while searching for more telling adjectives.
“For good reason,” he grunted in an undertone as they approached a self-important-looking man wearing a blue uniform with brass buttons.
Lissandra adopted an insipid smile and steered the man’s mind to Murdoch and away from her. Child’s play.
If she concentrated hard, she could translate their rapid French—more Breton than French, she gathered—but she didn’t doubt Murdoch’s ability to talk birds from a tree or ships from a harbormaster. Her task was to observe their surroundings and watch their backs.
So she knew before he did that an Aelynner was waiting for them around the corner.
Fifteen
Acknowledging Lis’s tug on his arm by squeezing her hand, Murdoch continued his inquiry about hiring a small boat, while opening his awareness more fully to his surroundings.
His ability to sense the presence of other life-forms was second nature. Unfortunately, in a town filled with creatures, large and small, the skill wasn’t entirely useful or practical.
He’d obtained as much information as he could from the harbormaster, and turned away before he found what Lissandra had warned him of—a living creature with no discernible emotions in the alley. Even rats cast images of food or vibrations of hunger. Trained Aelynners did not.
His first instinct was to walk directly toward the alley and see who lurked there. Only a few Aelynners possessed his and Lissandra’s sensitivity to emotions. Most would not realize he could sense their presence from their shielding. Chances were excellent, however, that an Aelynner could recognize someone as visible and powerful as an Olympus.
Ignoring the instinct to confront the lurker, heeding the rational thought to get Lis to safety, Murdoch steered her back up the hill in the opposite direction of the alley.
“We must see who it is!” she whispered, jerking her arm free of his hold.
“They must not see who you are,” he corrected. “Don’t you realize that, like Helen of Troy, you could launch wars? All Aelynn would rise up in arms should anyone harm you. What if this is the same person who was with the committee the other night? Let’s not give Ian and company failure of the heart because you’ve been taken hostage as the priest was.”
“But what if it’s someone who is stranded here like us? We cannot abandon him.”
“This is a village. I’ll find him easily enough. Do you have any money on you?”
“A few coins in my pocket. More in my hem. What do you mean to do?”
“Assuming you won’t return to the house, I’ll hire a private room at the inn where you can wait while I look for our spy.”
He willed her to understand without his having to explain what a valuable hostage she’d be for anyone who wished Aelynn harm—or who simply wanted the use of their strength for some unfathomable reason. He’d rather believe his fellow Aelynners were better than that, but he’d lived in the real world too long not to be distrustful.
To his relief, she didn’t argue. “No Aelynner of your ability would challenge you unless they thought you were causing me harm,” she reluctantly agreed, “and anyone less would have to be mad to confront you. It is what I don’t know or understand that I fear most.”
“That is wise. What we don’t know can kill us. It will be easier for me if I know you’re safe.” He took one of the coins she slipped to him and talked to the innkeeper, who showed them to an empty chamber with a small table and chairs beside a cold fireplace.
“Don’t take too long,” she warned.
Knowing she cared enough to worry about his sorry hide warmed the hollow space where his heart should be. He brushed a kiss of affection across her brow, revealing his weakness, before he turned and left her there.
Hurrying back to the port, fretting over Lis’s safety while studying alleyways for the blankness of the person he sought, Murdoch almost didn’t hear the childish cry of “Monsieur LeDroit! Stop, please!”
Only the rattling of an empty milk pail caught and held his attention. He spun on his heel in time to catch both pail and child as they tumbled down the hill toward him.
Filthy gold curls spilled from a torn bonnet, and small fingers clutched his coat sleeves as he tried to release her once he had her standing upright.
He recognized the child he’d tried to rescue, along with her father and the other prisoners, on the fateful day he’d nearly burned down a village. After what he’d done, he was amazed she dared approach him. “Amelie, what are you doing here?”
“Monsieur, please,” she begged in a husky whisper. “Papa is ill and the boat left without us. Help us, please.”
He couldn’t ignore a child’s cry. “Where is your papa?” he asked. Pierre must be near death’s door for the others to have left him behind.
Amelie tugged his hand and led him down a dark side street of huddled medieval buildings that Murdoch recognized as the kind that housed the owners in cramped apartments above their ground-floor shops. This wasn’t the squalor of a city slum, but the humble abodes of simple artisans.
He followed her down a bleak alley between a shoemaker’s shop and the ovens of a bakery. A crude wooden lean-to had been erected behind the shop to protect crates of leather and other supplies of the trade. Between the crates a haggard man rested on a dirty blanket, an awl in one hand, a shoe in the other. His eyes were closed as he leaned against a barrel, and Murdoch felt the man’s extreme exhaustion, a deep desire to die, and an even stronger love that kept him alive.
The intensity of that love almost bowled Murdoch over.
“Citoyen Durand, we meet again,” Murdoch said softly, so as not to startle the man.
Pierre opened his eyes and looked up at Murdoch with the child clinging to his arm. “Monsieur LeDroit, you lived. That is good.”
“The priest told me you saved my life by throwing me in the cart and fleeing the fire. I owe you,” Murdoch told him. “But why did you not set sail with the others?”
“I lacked the coin,” Durand said with a bleak smile. “I have found work here, and no one asks for my papers. We would not be alive if it were
n’t for you.”
If the Tribunal’s representatives had reached Pouchay, they would be asking for the shoemaker’s papers soon enough. Inevitably, if he lived, he’d be returned to prison.
“I believe I made a promise to take you to England, and I failed you.” That these two suffered because of him gnawed at his pride. The strong and wicked would always survive, but the innocents who shed light—and love—on the world often needed aid.
The shoemaker focused his glassy gaze on him. “I doubt that I could endure the journey, but Amelie . . . ,” he said in his poor English, before his voice trailed off in a plea.
The child fell to her knees beside her father and flung her arms around his neck. Huge blue eyes turned up to Murdoch’s as if he were truly the paragon the village had called him. He knew nothing about children or their ages, but he assumed this one couldn’t be much more than six. She didn’t have to speak a word. The emotions of Outsiders were easy to read.
“I’ve hired a vessel,” Murdoch said carefully. “There should be room for both of you.”
That was a huge lie. The harbormaster had told him little except when the fishing boats would return and which had the most reliable sailors. But he knew Lis would scratch his eyes out if he left these two here to die. And she would know without his telling her. She couldn’t read his mind, but she knew his heart inside and out.
She was his conscience.
“If you would just take Amelie, please.” Durand laid his stained and callused hand on his daughter’s head. “She’s no trouble. I have a cousin in London. . . .”
Murdoch wasn’t a man for argument or explanation. Action was simpler. Without further ado, he crouched down, lifted the nearly weightless man in his arms, and jerked his head at the child. “Come along. My wife will wish to meet you.”
His wife. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t have said less, but the phrase came naturally. He was a man without a home, but in his mind, Lis was his and always would be. After four years away and every reason to erase the arrogant princess from his thoughts, his feelings for her hadn’t changed. He would have to be a coward or a fool to pretend he could ever want another.
Durand was too weak to struggle, and Murdoch ignored his protests as he carried the ill man down the street and through the front door of the inn, causing heads to turn. He made his way back to Lis, the child clutching the leg of his borrowed breeches.
Lis had the door open and was ordering hot water before he even came within knocking distance. Although the shoemaker was too weak to think straight, the child was clearly generating enough emotion for Lis to notice. She might fool others with her placid ice-princess air, but Murdoch knew she was a Healer at heart.
“Find them clean clothes. I’ll need the strongest alcohol you can find,” Lissandra ordered as if she were a general and he, her lieutenant. “Ask the innkeeper for blankets. We need a larger cart to take them to Trystan’s. They would both benefit from his bathing pool.”
She spoke in Aelynn’s language. Both father and child stared at her in bewilderment. Murdoch knew how they felt. He had to distinguish between the Olympian commanding general and the Healer. Lis would never be an easy woman to understand. He carefully laid the shoemaker on the floor by the fireplace. “We can’t linger past the evening tide.”
“You brought them here. You can’t very well argue about the danger now.”
He could, and he would, but not until the Healer had a chance to work her magic. “Don’t make me fight you,” he warned, drawing off his coat, and covering the shoemaker.
“If it is me that you worry about, know that I can Heal with one hand and still lash a man into bacon strips with the other. Fetch the cart,” she ordered in that imperious manner he remembered well—there was much of her mother in her.
“You must Heal them quickly, mi ama,” Murdoch said harshly, not allowing her the upper hand in this. “We’re leaving tonight.”
That neither of them mentioned his choice of endearment acknowledged what they both knew and continued to deny—despite their differences, they were bound to each other by more than circumstance.
The trouble began when Murdoch returned to town in Trystan’s farm cart. Lis had him thinking like a peaceful Aelynner instead of the wary warrior he’d been. He knew the horse was a coveted asset and a temptation, the large, comfortable cart even more so. And without Lissandra beside him to add her mental manipulation, he failed to disguise them adequately.
Openly wearing his weapons was another invitation for trouble.
A soldier stopped him on the edge of town, stepping out before Murdoch could react. “Your papers, citoyen,” the lad demanded, holding his sword at rest and his hand out.
Having no documentation approved by the Tribunal for his presence in this corner of France would land him in prison. Stoically, Murdoch bit his tongue to tamp down any violent reaction, and sought a means of solving the problem without blasting anyone to purgatory.
It was too late to attempt mind manipulation. He could call down the wind or attempt a small earthquake, but the result would alarm Lis. With someone else to worry about besides himself, he must act with caution first.
Lips tightening at being reduced to this powerless-ness, Murdoch mimicked reaching for a coat pocket that wasn’t there, and frowned. “Mon Dieu, I was in such a hurry, I’ve forgotten my coat,” he exclaimed. “My wife is taken ill, and I’ve come for her cousins. If you will come with me, they can vouch for me. My humblest pardons, citoyen, for the inconvenience.”
The fresh-faced boy frowned. “I am not supposed to leave my post. You must wait here while I send for someone—”
Murdoch produced a coin and held it out. “It is all I have. Hold on to it, and I will bring back the cousins to vouch for me in exchange, if you will let me pass. My wife is very ill, you understand. I must hurry.”
The lad looked confused, as he was meant to be. Wishing he’d practiced more of Ian’s mind tricks, Murdoch tried nudging the young soldier to agree. The lad wanted the coin far more than the documents, and curtly, he nodded and stepped back.
“Just this once, citoyen. Next time, have your papers.”
Clinging to his illusion of humility, Murdoch hurried the mare down the cobbled street.
The next incident occurred when he drove the cart down the backstreet behind the inn to the stable. Climbing down to hand the reins to the stableboy, Murdoch was confronted by two older and more battle-hardened soldiers emerging from a stall to one side, as if they’d been expecting him. Was the Aelynner he hadn’t found involved in this harassment? His suspicion was aroused, but there was little he could do about it.
His hand went to the sword on his hip before he remembered he was posing as a simple peasant and the weapon was supposed to be hidden by illusion.
“Your passport, citoyen,” the mustached officer commanded.
Murdoch sensed that humility would only get him thrown into prison this time. These two had no compassion. Hunting aristocratic spies who would endanger their revolutionary independence, they bristled with mistrust.
With his weapons momentarily concealed on the far side of the cart, Murdoch wished he could lie as swiftly as he could run, but his thoughts scattered like leaves in a breeze. Only the knowledge that Lis waited for him prevented him from drawing his rapier.
“Let me buy you a drink while the innkeeper fetches my coat,” he suggested, boldly assuming the air of a man of authority and swaggering from behind the cart, letting the gold hilt of his sword flash in the sun.
Their misgivings lightened at his perceived honesty, but that would last only so long as it took for them to realize he had no papers. Murdoch wished he hadn’t led them to Lis and her patients. It was much simpler when he was alone.
He glanced up at the sky, but there wasn’t even a hint of a cloud. Where was a good storm when he needed one? Maybe he should irritate the duo until they angered him enough to raise thunderheads.
Using reason instead of temper wasn�
�t working so well.
It worked even less well when he heard Lis scream an angry obscenity just as they entered the inn.
Sixteen
Looking for a servant, Lissandra hadn’t paid enough attention to the muddled wits of the drunken sailor staggering down the hall—until he grabbed her from behind and squeezed her breast. She yelped in surprise and dropped the pretty painted bowl of water she’d been holding, then cursed herself for letting down her guard in her haste to be useful.
Recovering from her surprise, she reacted as Ian had taught her by screaming to attract attention. Directing her elbow backward with all her considerable strength, she connected with the lout’s soft midsection and was rewarded with an oomph of pain. Pulling from his clumsy grasp, she swung around in a swirl of skirts, and dug her fingers into his wrist. She focused her mind on the fragile bones beneath her grasp and snapped one.
Her assailant’s wail shook the walls. Or, more likely, unless the area was prone to earthquakes, Murdoch had heard her screams and caused the walls to vibrate with his rage.
She refused to let the thought distract her from teaching the villain a lesson. She increased the pressure of her fingers, and the drunk bellowed in agony and dropped to his knees. Her gown and the floor were soaked, and she considered rubbing her assailant’s face in the wet filth of the floor as extra measure. She was resisting that impulse when Murdoch burst into the hall, followed by two uniformed soldiers and the innkeeper.
“She’s murdering me!” the stout sailor cried in hopes of rescue from his fellow men.
The floor stopped shaking, and Lissandra appreciated that Murdoch was able to control himself once he saw she had the situation in hand. In fact, the insufferable superman appeared to be biting back a grin.
“This churl assaulted me,” she said in the tone of command she’d heard her mother use. “I wish to press charges before he hurts some other helpless innocent.”
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