“I’ve been called to Paris,” he told Dain abruptly while spreading butter on his freshly baked bread. “I’ll have to leave at first light tomorrow morning. And I think you should seriously consider leaving tomorrow night, or the night after at the latest.”
“Why?” Dain asked.
“I will not be here to watch your backs. And with the best will in the world, you are not blending into the town. You are making enemies.”
“Who?” Dain demanded.
“The mayor and his wife.”
Dain blinked. “Because Isabelle would not succumb to his charms? While I was at the same party?”
“And because you would not succumb to hers. To Lucie Levigne it is clear only that, like me, you prefer Isabelle to her.”
Dain scowled. “Why can they not simply prefer each other?”
“It would be simplest,” Armand agree, “but it is not so. By their own lights, we have all insulted them, and neither takes kindly to that. I have my own protection, there is little they can do to harm me without harming themselves. But you are vulnerable to any kind of accusation they might make, any inquiry sent to Paris. You should be gone before they receive any reply. Tomorrow night at the latest, sir. Promise me.”
Dain exchanged glances with his sister-in-law and Isabelle, before returning his gaze to Armand. “I will try. My brother is much better. He can even walk with crutches, although getting him to the beach and into the boat may be problematic. I’m not sure I can carry him alone.”
“Get him to the path,” Armand instructed. “Georges will see that he’s helped.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I’ll arrest him if he doesn’t,” Armand said flatly. He took a gulp of coffee. “If you go tonight, I will help you.”
Again, Dain glanced at his sister-in-law.
“Tomorrow would be better,” she said firmly. “One more day will make a big difference to him.”
“Then make it tomorrow.” He set down his cup. “I have today as leave, to prepare for my journey. Which I can do in an hour.” He looked at Isabelle and smiled. “I would like to spend this day with you.”
When she smiled back, his heart melted.
“Is this wise?” Dain said abruptly. “Are you not simply making your parting harder?”
“It couldn’t be harder,” Armand said frankly. “I am trying to make it bearable.”
*
Halfway through their last day together, it began to rain, but Armand refused to let it spoil or even curtail their fun. With the horse blanket over their heads, they walked in the woods and sang loudly.
As their song ended in laughter, the question spilled from his lips. “Will you marry me, Isabelle?”
She stared at him, the smile still trembling on her lips. The light in her eyes was soft and warm. She reached up to his damp cheek. “Of course, I will. As soon as the war is over.” She kissed him, like a promise.
The wet blanket slid from their hold to the ground, and rain ran down their faces and into their mouths. But they both smiled.
“We can write to each other,” he said, just a little desperately. “The smugglers will deliver for us. Some of the time.”
“There will be a way,” she agreed. “If we don’t give up. Armand, is there no shelter hereabout?”
“Of course there is. It’s only half a mile to the inn.”
They dried off before the inn’s roaring fire and ate a warm meal. By the time they had finished, the rain was off, but the sun was low in the sky and the knowledge that their day was almost over lay heavily on both their hearts.
As before, they rode together on his horse most of the way back to St. Sebastien. Then they dismounted and walked together to the Rue l’Église, where, he was amused to see curtains twitching. Were the Renards’ neighbors really so interested in their affair of the heart?
No, he realized with a sudden plunge of his stomach. They were interested in the soldiers milling in and out of the Renards’ house.
“Oh, dear God,” Isabelle whispered. As one, they sped forward.
Armand didn’t even try to tie his horse to the garden fence. He simply strode up the path, roaring, “What the devil is going on here?”
The two soldiers at the door shot to attention.
“Searching, sir. There’s been an accusation.”
“Of what?” Armand demanded. “By whom?”
“I don’t know, Captain,” the soldier said desperately. “We’re just following orders.”
“Bah!” Whipping up his rage to drown the terror, he flung himself into the house, Isabelle at his heels.
Sir Marcus Dain stood in the hall, his mouth rigid, his hands tied behind his back. Furiously, Armand drew his sword, and Dain’s eyes widened in disbelief. Armand would have laughed if he hadn’t been so angry. With one slash, he cut through the ropes that bound the Englishman.
“Who is in charge here?” he yelled. “Show your damned face!”
Lieutenant Bernard’s hopeful countenance appeared over the bannister. “I am, Captain.”
“Told you he wouldn’t like it,” Caron said laconically.
For the first time, Armand noticed him and Boucher lounging in the sitting room doorway. Boucher was picking his teeth. Clearly, neither were helping.
“Then why the devil didn’t you stop it?” Armand demanded.
“He’s the lieutenant,” Caron pointed out.
“Lieutenant, take your men and get out!”
“But, Captain—”
“Don’t you know who these people are? Friends of the mayor himself, with connections that reach all the way to the emperor.” He leapt up the stairs, three at a time. “Out!” he roared, shoving soldiers toward the stairs, dragging one out of Major Dain’s bedchamber with particular violence. “How dare you? That man was injured severely in the service of his country, while you imbeciles laze around picking over his possessions. By God, there will be court martials over this day!”
There probably would, he reflected. His.
But somehow, with the cooperation of Boucher and Caron who recited all the dire things likely to happen after such a fiasco as this, he marched all the soldiers outside, sent them back to barracks, and slammed the door on them.
“Thank you, sir,” whispered Mrs. Dain from the stairs.
“Is your husband well?” Armand asked curtly.
She nodded.
Armand swept his gaze around the household. “Then prepare. You have to leave tonight.”
*
“How?” Isabelle asked intensely as they sat on the rocks by the beach where they had arrived only a week ago. Shadows moved in the darkness, going about the purely business part of the night. “How could this happen so quickly?”
“The accusation came from the mayor,” Armand said. “A suspicion of smuggling activities. Probably, he was goaded or at least encouraged by Lucie. But they both knew my commission here, and they both knew I had leave today before departing tomorrow. They knew they could bully my lieutenant into doing their bidding when I was not there. For one thing, Bernard is putty in Lucie’s hands. At the same time, I’m still nominally in charge, so I am responsible for the fiasco when a supposedly important family is troubled for nothing.”
Isabelle shook her head. “No, Lucie thought there would be something to find. That day, with the prisoners…she suspects me. She hoped for my arrest.”
Armand shrugged. “Whatever the results, they win. At the very least, you are inconvenienced, and I get my wrists slapped.”
She turned to him, a look of fear in her eyes. Throughout everything, their adventures in England and here in France, she had never been this frightened for him before. “Won’t it be worse than slapped wrists? You stopped them searching and arresting us, and when we disappear… If the truth comes out that you helped us—”
“Why should it?” he interrupted. He smiled, even nudged her as though they were children sitting on a wall and bantering. “In any case, I have friends in hig
h places.”
She threaded her fingers with his in the darkness. “Come with us, Armand,” she pleaded.
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“It might be sensible,” Dain said from the darkness.
“Not to me.”
“Torbridge will speak for you,” Dain said. “As will I.”
“I like your friend Torbridge,” Armand said. “God knows why. But I’ll be damned if I hand my life over to him. In any case…” He shrugged. “This is France. This is home.”
Isabelle turned her head to him once more, staring. Her fingers tightened on his. Something tugged at her, elusive, important, but out of reach.
“Very soon now,” she whispered, “you’re going to need more distraction.”
His fingers twisted, caressing hers. “No.”
“No?” she repeated with twinge of pain. She supposed their relationship was too new, that he felt it less deeply than she did.
“It’s odd,” he murmured, thoughtfully, as Dain fell into low conversation with his brother. “Now that we’re about to part, I seem to see everything, see myself, with new clarity. My constant search for distraction from my grief had become an end in itself. Even the grief for Rose and my son had become twisted, almost a crutch to hold on to, a reason for all my diversions, to give significance to a life that has become empty of real meaning, real ambition.”
He kicked the sand, as if he could not be still, but would not move from her side.
“This endless war for its own sake,” he said violently, “for an emperor in whom I no longer believe… It has become pointless to me. And so, I lived in a constant cycle of distraction to stop myself thinking and feeling.”
He turned his head to her and his teeth gleamed in a flash of some half-covered, shifting lantern. “And then there was you, dazzling my darkness, my finest distraction ever. I have no idea how or when you became more than that, but I suspected we were still in England at the time.”
Isabelle pressed her hand to her too-full heart. As the gladness seeped in among the ache, she tried to smile back.
“I will always mourn my lost family,” he said softly, “always miss them. But you—” He broke off with a soft laugh and swung her hand high. “You challenged me, cajoled, and seduced me back to life.”
“I’m glad,” she whispered as he kissed her hand.
“Rose would have liked you,” he said abruptly.
She leaned into him, almost at peace. Then she said lightly, “Pierre would not have liked you. That is all in our favor.”
Armand grinned, but his gaze seemed to have moved beyond her, to not one winking light but three or four.
“Georges,” he said urgently. “Are there more of you to come?”
“No. We’re ready to go. We just need to get the passengers…” Georges broke off, swearing as he took a step past Armand, also staring at the lights. “It’s soldiers!” He turned urgently back to his own shadowy accomplices. “Go! Now!”
Isabelle jumped up in alarm. The boats were already moving, one being heaved into the water, but on Georges’s command, the smugglers pushed harder and threw themselves in beside their cargo.
In panic, Georges, seized Louisa Dain by the arm, tugging her toward the other boat. “Hurry! We need to go!”
“Wait!” Isabelle hissed. “You must help the major! We are right behind you. Armand, run for God’s sake, before they see you.”
“There’s no time,” Armand said with strange calmness. “Stay where you are Georges. Allow the lady some dignity.”
“Dignity be damned!” Dain exclaimed, shoving past him none too gently. “If you won’t help, get out of our way!”
But the soldiers were running across the beach. One paused, raising his rile at the boat already on the glassy sea. The others slowed, raising their weapons and both Dain and Georges halted uncertainly, looking wildly around them for escape.
Isabelle stepped in front of Armand, pushing him to run while he could. His hat was off, so they might not realize he was a soldier, too. Their captain, in fact.
But she should have known Armand would never take the easy way out, not when it would leave her to be arrested. On the other hand, if he was arrested, too…
He swerved past her, marching straight in front of the soldiers’ guns. “What the devil are you about now?” he demanded.
The soldier in front raised his lantern, and Isabelle saw the same officer as had led the search of the house that afternoon. Lieutenant Bernard. “Bring the lights!” he snapped.
“Captain?” one of the men said in amazement when the glow spread around everyone. The men began to lower their rifles.
“What are you about now?” Lieutenant Bernard sneered. “Men, keep your rifles aimed.”
The men looked at each other. A couple of them raised their rifles again in a half-hearted way. But, with relief, Isabelle saw that none of them, even the one who’d been aiming at the vanishing boat, were likely to use them now.
“Important business that you are about to wreck!” Armand fumed. “Twice in one day. Even for you, Bernard, that is a record! You have seen nothing here and must return to the barracks.”
“While you send these English people, including your lover, back home? There is a word for men like you.”
“There is a word for men like you, too,” Armand retorted. “And I’m not so mealy-mouthed as you about saying it! Cretin!”
Lieutenant Bernard started forward in fury. Armand placed his palm on the man’s chest and shoved him backward, hard. The lieutenant flew at him, but Armand was quicker. He side-stepped and grabbed his underling, twisting his arm up his back.
The soldiers lowered their rifles with relief. It was only the captain they would obey.
“Listen carefully,” Armand hissed. “Madam Renard is not English, she’s as French as you and me and considerably braver. She goes to England with the blessing of…well those close to the emperor. To work for us. Do you understand? Her information will be invaluable—certainly a lot more valuable to France than your foolish bumbling after smugglers. You already know this man,” he waved one hand at Georges, “is working for us!”
Isabelle tried not to blink at this. Georges, she thought, worked for everyone.
“I don’t believe you!” the lieutenant panted.
“Imbecile! Why else would I be here? And incidentally, I don’t believe our superiors would think highly of you arresting me on the word of a jealous woman you want to bed!”
Lieutenant Bernard stopped struggling.
“I thought so,” Armand said grimly and released him.
The lieutenant shook himself. “You should have told me what you were doing,” he muttered.
“I had reservations about trusting you with such secrets. Justified, it seems by today’s events. Now, march the men back to the west beach, and I’ll speak to you before I leave for Paris. It seems I will have to trust you, now. Don’t let me down.”
A hundred expressions passed across the lieutenant’s face, including chagrin, doubt, and suspicion, and yet overlaying all, a faint hope, surely, of earning the trust Armand almost offered. He straightened. “Yes, Captain. Men, about face and march!”
Georges and the Dains were gazing at Armand in a bizarre mixture of astonishment and admiration. Isabelle knew how they felt, but other emotions, other knowledge was overwhelming her now as those elusive threads of realization began to come together in understanding at last.
“Now you are implicated without doubt,” Dain said urgently. “You must come with us or you will die.”
“He’s right,” Georges said. “I can take you, too. We’ll catch up with the ship just beyond the headland.”
Armand laughed. “I thank you for your concern, but it’s quite unwarranted. I’m off to Paris, and no one will touch me.”
The major, balanced between his wife and brother said, “Knock him on the head. Just bring him.”
Armand grinned at him and offered his hand. “Au revoir, my f
riend. When the war is over, we’ll meet again. Madame. Sir.” He shook hands formally with all of them, then gently took Louisa’s place and helped Dain carry the major to the boat. Georges lifted Louisa in, and Dain clambered up after her.
Armand turned to Isabelle, and she thought her heart would burst. In front of everyone, he put his arms around her and tipped up her head. “No words. Just remember. And soon, I will come for you.”
“No.” She clung to his wrist, watching the pain and confusion flit across his face. She smiled shakily, “There will be no need, for I’ll already be with you. I’m staying.”
“You can’t!” Louisa exclaimed from her position, fussing over her husband.
“I can. I must. Don’t you see? Home isn’t a particular piece of land. It isn’t determined by which side of the sea you were born, or who your family is. Home is with the people you love, and I love Armand more than my life. Where he is, is my home. Here, take this, Marcus.” She thrust the prisoner’s letter into Dain’s hand. “See it reaches its destination for me.”
Dain took it wordlessly. For an instant, everyone stared at her, more than half-appalled. Then Armand swept her up, crushing her mouth under his and striding back up the beach. Half-laughing through the kiss, she waved over his shoulder at the retreating boat.
Armand set her back on her feet, and together they watched the vessel and its occupants vanish into the darkness.
“Are you sure?” he asked hoarsely.
“I think it’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure about in my whole life.”
He hugged her to his side, for once lost for words.
Her position was precarious, she had thrown in everything with the man at her side in what was, effectively, a strange country, whose government had been her enemy all her life. And yet, intense happiness settled over her, sweeping her up in hope and excitement and wonder.
A new life. A new home.
Chapter Twenty
Isabelle stood at the open window of the Paris pension, gazing down at the bustling street below. Pedestrians of all kinds mingled with carriages and street vendors. Delicious cooking smells drifted up to her, making her stomach rumble, even among occasional whiffs of more noxious city odors.
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