by Shana Galen
He showed no reaction, seemed bored in fact. But she knew he must be struggling with the memories flooding him. They had arrived in France under cover of darkness, and now they would enter his prison in darkness. She shivered, thinking of the prison at night. Once they entered, would they leave again? Would this be their last sunrise?
Armand met her eyes, and she put away her fears. She had to be brave now. He would not allow anything to happen to her. Armand would protect them both.
Marius appeared to have all the papers and documents necessary to get them into Paris. They were waved through the city gates by soldiers who looked tired and hungry. The city looked tired and hungry, but all around hung limp French flags and banners proclaiming the French Republic. The city was bustling with people everywhere, buying and selling, living their lives. Felicity found it fascinating, but the men in the carriage did not even raise their eyes to peer outside.
It was only when they turned into a decrepit old street that she saw Armand stiffen. Beside her, Marius chuckled. “I see you recognize this place, monsieur. Yes, I thought you would.”
The coachman stopped outside a dreary tavern, and Marius pushed opened the door and leaped outside. Claude pushed her to follow, and on wobbly legs, she climbed down. It was afternoon by now, and Felicity blinked at the bright sunlight.
“Inside, mademoiselle,” Marius ordered. “I have rooms reserved.”
The tavern was small and dark, populated by sour-faced men hunched over what appeared to be sour wine. They did not look up as the small group walked through. Marius seemed to know where he was going, and he herded them upstairs. Felicity followed dutifully, but she could smell fresh bread baking, and her stomach growled. They had little to eat on the ship. Once on the upper level, she and Armand were separated. She was pushed into a small room with a cot and a table, a ewer and basin. She did not see where Armand was taken, but she heard her door locked and secured. Footsteps trailed away, and she tried the door handle. It was indeed locked.
Sighing, she went to the table and lifted the ewer. It was empty—no water even to wash her face. And now she was alone in a room in an enemy country. She could not conceive how Armand would get them out of this. She could not conceive how she happened to be here. She, Felicity Bennett, was the daughter of a vicar. She had barely a shilling to her name. No connections, no position. And she had been abducted, taken to France, and was being held prisoner until the Treasure of the Sixteen was found.
If she hadn’t sat on the ship crossing the Channel for two days and then a carriage traveling through the French countryside, she would have pinched herself to make sure this was real. It was just so unbelievable.
Her stomach growled again, and the last light of day began fading from the small window in the room. She looked outside and saw nothing but a long drop and a narrow alley. The grimy window was sealed shut, so she could not even call for help.
And if she were to call, what would she say? She was the enemy. Alerting people to her presence would only make things worse.
In the dim light, she heard a scurrying sound and turned to see a large rat dart under the bed. She closed her eyes and shuddered.
It was worse.
Somehow she had fallen asleep on the hard cot with the scratchy blanket under her. The rat had stopped moving long enough for her to cease imagining it jumping up and scampering over her face if she lay down. She had not intended to sleep, but her body was exhausted. Still as she lay there, hearing the sounds of the men and women below, part of her mind was listening.
When she heard the tapping, she turned over and tried to ease the ache in her back. But the tapping did not cease, and she finally opened her eyes. It was dark now, not full dark, but the darkness of evening, and she wondered if Marius and Claude had taken Armand to Le Grenier without her. The tapping grew louder, and she glanced at the window, almost screaming when she saw the face there.
But she clamped her mouth shut when she recognized Armand staring in at her. Good God! What was he doing outside her window?
She jumped up and ran to the window, stared out at him, trying not to think of the drop to the muddy alley below. “What are you—?”
He put a hand to his lips, silencing her. The action terrified her, as well, because it meant he was gripping the building with only one hand. He gestured to her to push the window open, and she gestured back that it was sealed. With a nod of understanding, he pointed to the blanket on the bed. Frowning, she brought it to the window. He made a punching sign, and she realized he wanted her to break the glass. Obviously, the blanket was intended to protect the skin of her hand.
Felicity glanced dubiously at the thin blanket, sighed, and wrapped it about her hand. If Armand could balance on a tiny ledge outside her window, she could break the glass. Only, she did not want to think what he would want her to do after the glass was broken.
She gestured for him to move out of the way, and then, taking a deep breath, she smashed the glass. Opening her eyes, she saw it had cracked but not broken. Her hand throbbed, but Armand indicated she should try again. Clenching her jaw, she did so, and this time she was rewarded as her hand punched through. Glass sprinkled over the alley below, and Armand reached through and grasped her tender hand.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Escaping. Break the rest of the glass and climb out here.”
She stared at him. His eyes were calm, his breathing calm, and though his hair was whipping wildly in the breeze, he looked mostly sane. “Are you daft?”
“I told you that when we reached France you would have to follow me.”
“But I didn’t think that meant plunging to my death!” She glanced down at the alley again. It was a daunting drop—probably not far enough to kill her, but she would be maimed quite thoroughly.
“We’re not going down there, and I don’t have time to talk.” He said the word talk as though it were akin to horse manure. “Marius and Claude are going to find that I’ve escaped soon. Get out here.”
She looked at him then looked back at the safe room. At least it appeared far safer than the tiny ledge where Armand stood. But if he could stand there, so could she.
Taking a deep breath, she punched out the rest of the glass and then dropped the blanket. Her knuckles were stinging now, but she ignored them and hoisted one leg out the window. Dizziness swept over her, and she refused to look down.
“Turn your back,” Armand instructed. “Feel for the ledge with your foot.” His voice was pedantic, and she decided she much preferred the role of tutor to that of student. She had an ominous feeling they had switched positions irrevocably.
Finally her foot grazed the ledge and, holding on with a white-knuckled grip, she eased her other leg outside. Her skirts whipped in the breeze, and she was painfully aware that if she made one wrong move, she would tumble to the hard ground below. But she was not going to think of that. She was going to hold on and close her eyes and concentrate on not falling.
“Climb,” Armand ordered.
“What?”
He was looking up, and she followed his gaze to the roof. It was not as far as she would have thought. And still, she would not dare release the window pane.
“I worked here for months before I was imprisoned. Once we reach the street, we can easily get away.”
“So you’ve done this before?”
He nodded and, using the natural ledges the misshapen bricks created, hoisted himself up a foot. “Come on.”
Felicity looked up then back at the relative safety of the room inside the window. She had never even climbed a tree as a child, and now she was going to scale a building? In a skirt!
“Come on! We don’t have time.”
Armand was now several feet above her, hanging on to the side of the building like some kind of ape. But he was almost to the roof. It was not far…
“I canno
t believe I am doing this,” she muttered and reached for the first extended brick. She trembled violently as she released her grip on the window but tried to control her fear. She figured she could shake and cry from the roof—if she made it.
With agonizing slowness, she climbed higher, kicking at her skirts when they tangled her ankles. Armand was on the roof ahead of her, and he reached down when she was two feet from the top and pulled her the rest of the way.
She tumbled on top of him, and lay there clutching his arms. “I never want to do anything like that again. In fact, I think from now on I shall avoid anything above the ground floor.” She looked up at him, and he raised a brow, looking pointedly around them. The rooftops of Paris glinted in the moonlight. “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “You cannot possibly mean to travel—”
“It’s the safest way to Le Grenier.”
“Le Grenier!” She bolted upright. “Why are we going to Le Grenier? Let’s go home to England.”
“We will.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. “After Le Grenier.”
He began to walk across the roof, and she followed him, pausing at the far edge. “But why would you intentionally return to Le Grenier? This is our chance to escape!”
He looked back at her. “And have Marius come after us again? I want to be rid of him.” He backed up a few feet, jogged forward, and leaped across the open space between the roofs, landing safely on the roof of the building beside them. “Come on!” He held out a hand. Felicity stared at him as though that hand were a venomous snake.
“I’m not jumping across.”
“I’ll catch you.”
“I’m not jumping!” She backed up. “There must be another way.” The man really was daft, either that or he was part feline. She was all human, and clumsy human at that.
“This is the way,” he said, and she could hear the impatience in his voice. “Jump.”
“No.” She looked around her, searching for some other exit. And found none.
“Jump!”
“No!” But there was no other escape. And the worst part was after she made this jump, she would be forced to make another and another. She was sure of it.
“Jump, Felicity.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, all right!” She took two big steps back, lifted her skirts, and ran. For a moment, she felt the rush of nothingness beneath her—or at least imagined that she did—and then she was falling into Armand’s arms. He was solid and strong, and she wanted to weep against his chest that she was safe.
But the feeling of safety was not to last long. He was already shepherding her toward the other end of the roof, and she just knew he was going to want her to jump again. The buildings here were close together, leaning into one another like old friends, but Felicity did not like heights, and she liked the idea of falling from them even less.
Armand did not give her much time to think. He dragged her to the edge of the roof, made a running leap, and then insisted she follow. They continued this way through half a dozen buildings. She made the mistake, only once, of looking down. Her world spun, her head seemed to detach from her body, and her legs wobbled. After that, she kept her eyes on Armand’s.
The city was growing darker, and from their vantage point on the roofs, she could see lights twinkling all over the city. It might have been pretty, if she were firmly planted. And if she were not headed for prison. She had no doubts now that they had escaped Marius and Claude, but she did wonder if they would escape Le Grenier. Surely Armand knew what he was doing.
Didn’t he?
“Here.” He gestured to a door on top of the roof where they had paused to catch their breath. “We go down here.”
Felicity blinked. “We do?” That was welcome news. No more jumping off roofs. On the other hand, if they were going down to street level, they must be close to the prison.
“Are we close to Le Grenier?”
He nodded, taking her hand and leading her toward the door. It was old and rotted, hanging on one hinge. He propped it open so she could descend the steep, dark staircase first. Perhaps she had taught him some manners after all—if allowing her to be the first to fall and break her neck could be considered manners.
“We travel the rest of the way on foot,” he said from behind her.
She was concentrating on finding her next foothold on the creaky steps, but she murmured, “Do you think we will reach Le Grenier before Marius?”
“If not, things will go badly.”
Oh, good. Just what she wanted to hear. She paused, glanced back over her shoulder. “You could try a little optimism.”
In the dim light, he furrowed his brow. “What is that?”
“Exactly.”
They reached the ground floor and exited in a quiet residential area. Before she could even catch her bearings, Armand had her hand again and was pulling her past trees and houses and the last carts of tradesmen heading home.
They rounded a corner, and he stopped and stared. She followed his gaze but saw nothing of interest. “What is it?”
He nodded at an old stone building, yellow with age, before them. “That’s Le Grenier.”
She frowned, unimpressed. “That’s it?”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “It does not look like much from the outside.”
She had to agree. It was wide and squat but formidable. Past the gate, where a lone soldier stood looking bored, towered a wide turret. It was probably three stories tall and ornamented with a heavy wooden door. Behind the turret was a rectangular building with few windows and no adornment. “Is that where the prisoners are?” she asked.
Armand only stared at the building. “Some of them.”
She squeezed his hand, wished she could ease some of the anguish she saw on his face. Why had they come back here? She would rather run from Marius and Claude forever, jump every roof in the city, than see him so anguished. “Where were you?”
“In the garret. All but forgotten.”
But that wasn’t quite true, she realized. No one had forgotten him. They had not known where to find him. Perhaps in the end that had saved him. As a small boy, she did not see how he could have held on to the secret of the treasure’s location and survived. “Are you sure you want to go in?”
“Yes. I will go back to my cell.”
Wonderful. They would have to go all the way to the attic, deep within the prison. “And how will we get up there?”
Now he looked at her, his eyes confused. “You are not going. You will stay out here and hide until I return.”
She gazed about the darkening street, eerily quiet except for the clank of prison doors and guards’ keys across the street. “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m not anxious to go inside a prison, but I’m not going to sit out here by myself, either. What if Marius and Claude come this way?”
“They will. You will hide.”
She turned to face him. “I’ll go with you.”
“No—”
She put a finger over his lips. “We don’t have time to argue. I go with you. Whatever happens to one of us happens to both. I’m lost without you in this city anyway.”
She could see he didn’t like the idea of her going inside with him, but she didn’t like the idea of waiting outside—for hours, for days, forever?—for him to come back out. “Like it or not,” she said firmly. “I’m going with you.”
He scowled at her, but she stood her ground, and he turned back to the prison. “There is one entrance and one exit to the prison. You see it there.” He pointed to the gate. “There is a second gate behind it.”
Double gates. Her chest tightened. “How will we get inside?” she asked again.
“Leave that to me.”
They crossed the street, angling away from the prison, so they would come upon it from the side. Once they were near the building, he gestured for her to
stand back as he approached the gate with the sleepy guard. She tried to appear interested in the architecture as a cart passed. In the meantime, Armand paused before the guard and asked him a question. She could see him talking to pass the time until the cart was out of sight. And then, quick as lightning, he reached out, snatched the guard’s bayonet, and smashed him over the head with it.
Felicity winced and felt her own head ache with sympathy pain. The guard stumbled, went down, and Armand reached into his boot, extracted a knife. Felicity rushed forward. “What are you doing?” The knife’s blade glinted in the moonlight. “You’re not going to kill him, are you?”
He looked up at her, his eyes laced with a savageness she had not seen before. “Why not? He did not care if I died in there. They brought me food once or twice a week, but you could see that they were waiting for me to die.”
She looked down at the soldier, who was really just a boy, then reached out and touched Armand’s arm. It was tense as a piano wire and hard as rock. “He’s a boy, doing his job. Tie him up and drag him into those bushes. Hopefully, we’ll be out before anyone notices he’s not at his post.”
She saw the hesitation as Armand flipped the knife from one hand to another. And then he tucked it back into his boot, ripped material from the soldier’s coat, and bound his hands. He dragged him out of sight and joined her at the prison gate. A set of keys dangled from his hands. “Let’s go.”
Everything in her wanted to back away, wanted to run somewhere—anywhere but this prison. After all, who in their right mind broke into a prison? But she could not turn back now. Armand needed her. And so instead of fleeing, she followed him into the mouth of the prison. There was a second gate beyond the first, and to her right was a door where she assumed the soldiers stood to admit visitors during the day. To her left was a wooden rack with bayonets and rifles lodged against it. The second gate was closed and locked securely.
Before her, Armand fingered the keys, and she heard the echo as they jangled. She tensed at the sound, certain it would send a whole pack of soldiers rushing to apprehend them. But nothing in the prison moved.