by Regina Scott
He quickened his pace toward a set of stairs in the corner. “That’s who I just asked Hugues about. We haven’t found him yet.”
She watched the gendarmes, each coming back and reporting to a man with a decorated uniform and graying beard, likely the commander. “Is that why everyone’s still busy?”
“Oui. We’ll move the search out of doors if we don’t get him soon.”
“If he finds a way outside, you’ll never catch him. He’ll simply move his headquarters elsewhere and pay off the locals.”
“I’ll not let that happen, ma chérie.” He pulled her up another set of stairs, the same one Alphonse had taken her up when he’d allowed her out of her cell yesterday, and into a long, dimly lit corridor.
“The children’s chamber is right…” He stilled, his every muscle tightening as he stared at the end of the passageway.
The faint tap of footsteps sounded, and was that a flash of gray?
Jean Paul dropped his arm from around her and raced forward, jerking his pistol out as he ran. She followed quickly behind, fear twisting her stomach.
He burst through the last doorway in the corridor. She flew through the opening behind him…
And stopped cold.
Her heart pounded in her chest and blood roared in her ears. She blinked her eyes once, then again. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when she and the children were so close to freedom. But all the blinking in the world wouldn’t change the truth of the scene before her.
Jean Paul stood with gun already drawn, and Alphonse faced him from the center of an opulent bedchamber, a knife pressed to Serge’s throat.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Jean Paul Belanger, I presume.” A hard, thin voice permeated the air while the man dressed in gray held the silver blade steadily to Serge’s neck. “We meet at last.”
“Alphonse Dubois.” Jean Paul would have known the smuggler anywhere. The man carried an aura of danger and power that Robespierre himself would have envied.
Light footsteps echoed on the floor behind him, then a soft gasp. Brigitte. But he didn’t turn. Instead, he kept his pistol aimed between Dubois’s eyebrows, not that the musket ball would actually hit between the eyebrows at three meters. The old gun wasn’t that accurate at one meter, let alone three. But Dubois would have no way of knowing how inaccurate the old gun truly was.
“Let the boy go.”
“You killed my son, and now you’ve invaded my home and taken captive an enterprise that took decades to build. That’s reason for me to hunt down every person you love and make them die a long, slow death.” Alphonse repositioned his blade against Serge’s neck, and the boy yelped.
Jean Paul flinched, meeting Serge’s wide, terror-filled eyes.
“Ah, so you do love them.” Alphonse’s lips curved into a cruel smile. “And here I’d only guessed.”
Had that single glance at Serge given him away? No doubt Dubois would now track the rest of the family were he to escape.
Which was why he wouldn’t escape.
One good shot could stop him. “Release the boy, or die.”
“Ah, I’m afraid we’re at a bit of an impasse, as I have no intention of releasing the boy. And while it’s true you could kill me with that pistol, the boy would die, as well. It only takes a slight jerk of my wrist, and his life is over.” Alphonse moved the blade ever so slightly against Serge’s throat, letting a trickle of red slide down his creamy skin.
“Don’t harm him,” Brigitte sobbed. “He’s done nothing.”
Alphonse’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Harm is exactly what will happen if your man here doesn’t comply. You’ve a decision to make, Belanger. Either kill me and the boy, or slide me your pistol.”
Jean Paul looked from Serge to Brigitte and back. What choice had he? He’d gladly forfeit his own life before letting Dubois kill Serge. Not that he’d give up so easily—he still had his knives, which he could throw more accurately than the gun could shoot. He drew in a long breath, then squatted down and placed the pistol on the floor. It didn’t slide far across the uneven stone, but the little distance was enough.
“And your knives,” Dubois commanded.
’Twas as if the man could decipher his very thoughts. He yanked the knife out of its place at his waist and laid it on the floor.
“And the other.” Dubois glared down at him. “I’m sure you carry more than one.”
Brigitte sucked in a loud breath, her desire to sob pulsing through the air like a tangible entity.
He clenched his jaw and grabbed the one at the small of his back, then slid that over the rough stone.
“And I’ll take the one in your boot. I’m told you always carry one there.”
This man had studied him too well. Jean Paul yanked the blade out of its hiding place and threw it across the floor, scarcely caring when the tip wedged between two uneven stones and broke. The blade wouldn’t do him any good at present, anyway.
“Now you may rise.” Something hard and feral glinted in Dubois’s eyes as Jean Paul stood. “Finally, the man who killed my son stands weaponless before me. Such justice.”
Idiocy is what it was. “Your son was a criminal. He deserved to be held accountable for his crimes.”
“And you don’t?”
Jean Paul worked his jaw back and forth and stared into eyes as cold and hard as granite. “Mayhap I deserve death, but your grandson doesn’t. Your quarrel is with me. Let him go.”
Frantic footsteps sounded from…
From where?
Not from behind him, and not from the massive open doors on the other end of the room. Then the tapestry on the wall moved, and Danielle sprinted out from behind the heavy fabric.
“Serge!”
“Halt!” Dubois’s sharp command resonated against the ancient walls. “Or I’ll slit your brother’s throat.”
Danielle stumbled forward another two paces before she managed to still. Her eyes moved from her grandfather to her mother to Jean Paul to the pistol and knives on the floor. “Grand-père, what are you doing?”
“I’m leaving. Belanger here is going to call off his men and let me walk out of this castle with your brother. But first I need you to take a few steps away from me, mon petit chou. Go stand beside Belanger there.”
“Oui, move behind me.” At least he could put himself between the crazed smuggler and one of Brigitte’s children.
For the first—and likely only—time in her life, the girl obeyed without argument, coming to stand directly behind him.
Alphonse took a step backward toward the tapestry and hidden doorway, pulling Serge with him. A fresh panic lit the young boy’s eyes, but Dubois kept inching steadily toward the hidden door.
Jean Paul bunched his hands into helpless fists at his sides. The smuggler was going to escape, and if he so much as called for the men, Dubois might use that knife. When he’d left Abbeville and gathered gendarmes, he’d meant to rescue Brigitte and her children. Now Serge stood in danger, and he’d no way to save the child. Was this his fault? It should be. Had he never involved himself in the Révolution or the Terror, then he wouldn’t be watching a vile smuggler toy with an innocent boy’s life.
Nor would he have the bloody nightmares that plagued him, or the guilt that fisted around his chest so tightly he struggled for breath at times. And he wouldn’t—
Something cold and hard slid against the waist at the back of his pants.
A knife. And not just any knife, one of his. One whose weight and balance he knew. One he could throw with deadly accuracy.
He forced his cheek muscles to harden, lest they inadvertently smile and give him away. Of course, Danielle would think to give him his knife. Now he didn’t have to stand helpless while a child paid for his mistakes. One throw, straight at the smuggler’s head and…
No. He had no wish to kill again. And besides, hitting Dubois in the head with a knife posed the same problem that shooting him had. If he hit the smuggler in the forehead, t
he man would fall backward, his blade likely slicing Serge.
But Dubois must have a weak point somewhere. If only he could find it. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the thin old man. The forearm. ’Twas the perfect target. A good stab into the muscles that ran between the bones there, and the smuggler would drop his knife.
He tensed his arms at his sides, ready, waiting. But Dubois’s eyes remained riveted on him. If he reached for the knife now, Serge’s throat would be slit before the blade had left Jean Paul’s fingers.
“In here!” a masculine voice cried.
Boots, an entire horde of them, clomped and echoed through the wide doorway at the other end of the room.
“Take another step, and the boy dies,” Dubois cried out, but his gaze remained pinned to Jean Paul.
The clatter of boots on stone stopped, the men likely taking in the situation before them, but Jean Paul didn’t dare pull his eyes from the smuggler and Serge.
The boy’s fear-stricken eyes scanned the newcomers, and he swallowed.
Jean Paul held his breath and nearly cursed. Too big of a swallow, too quick of a movement, and Serge’s life would be gone.
“Call the men off, Belanger,” Dubois barked. “Tell them to wait in the corridor. Then I’ll leave. If anyone follows, the child is dead.”
“No,” Brigitte whispered.
“Now, Belanger!”
Jean Paul opened his mouth. Did he have any choice but to obey? His men had invaded Dubois’s crumbling structure, yet the smuggler still lived, prepared to sacrifice his grandson’s life for his own freedom. How did one prevent that?
God, he prayed earnestly, frantically. Not that he expected God to listen when God had been ignoring him for six years’ time, but in a situation this desperate, he had nowhere else to turn, nothing to cling to but the faith he’d learned as a child. If You could send some sort of distraction. It can be anything. I only need an instant to reach the knife and throw.
And then the most amazing thing happened. ’Twas almost as though God had heard his prayer, as though God cared enough about a filthy murderer like him to listen.
A lone set of footsteps clomped down the corridor behind him, entering through the door at his back, and Dubois’s eyes darted toward the newcomer.
Just for a moment.
But Jean Paul needed only half a moment.
He whipped the knife from the back of his waist and threw. The breath stilled in his lungs as the blade flew through the air.
A thunk. A scream. A jerk. Who had cried out? Serge? Brigitte?
Dubois.
Pain etched the old man’s face while Serge broke free of the hold and ran toward his mother.
Captain Archambault charged forward, leading the gendarmes to descend on Dubois while the smuggler sank to the floor, cradling his bleeding arm.
Danielle intercepted Serge halfway to Brigitte and threw her arms around him. Brigitte’s eyes and cheeks streamed with tears as she rushed toward her children and wrapped them both in a fierce embrace.
Jean Paul surveyed the scene before him, his heart still thudding wildly against his ribs, as though his body had yet to realize danger had passed.
Something shifted in the corner of the room. He took a protective step toward Brigitte then stopped. The distraction had come from that very part of the chamber. Who had drawn Dubois’s attention when half a gendarmerie post hadn’t been able to help?
His eyes landed on a tall youth with tanned skin and unruly auburn hair slightly darker than Brigitte’s. The lad lifted his gaze to meet Jean Paul’s, and eyes as clear and blue as Danielle’s stared back at him.
“Julien Dubois?” It could only be Julien. ’Twas no mistaking the family resemblance, and Laurent was still at sea.
The young man gave a curt nod. “You must be Jean Paul Belanger. Serge has much to say of you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. What did a man say to such things? That he didn’t deserve Serge’s praise? That he’d killed Julien’s father?
“Thank you for saving my brother’s life.”
“I put him in danger,” he growled. “It seemed only just I get him out of it.”
The young man’s gaze wandered to his family. “You didn’t put Serge in any more danger than I. I knew I tread a treacherous path in attempting to appease Grand-père enough so he wouldn’t harm my family. When he sent me away on a ‘mission’ last night, I understood what he was about, but I couldn’t get back any sooner. I…I didn’t think he’d hurt them.” His voice shook, then he snapped his mouth shut.
Though Brigitte, Serge and Danielle huddled together not three meters away, the boy stood alone, blinking against his tears. A suspicious moisture filled Jean Paul’s eyes, as well, and something hard tightened around his chest. But not the familiar guilt. No. He’d done right by this family. He’d come here and faced his past, and a part of him had been freed in the process. If he felt anything tight around his chest, ’twas love rather than regrets.
A love he knew not what to do with, since he wasn’t worthy of Brigitte or her children.
“Go fetch Victor from the nurse down the hall and then see to your mother, boy,” he gritted out. Then he turned and left, because if there was one place he didn’t deserve to be, it was in Brigitte’s arms, surrounded by her children.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Brigitte’s fragile fragrance wrapped around Jean Paul as she sank into the long grass beside him. Rather than look at her, he stared out over the marsh toward the wall that cut off the fortified town of Calais from the sea.
“I grew concerned when no one could find you.”
Why was Brigitte here? She should be within, surrounded by her children and basking in their love and safety—a love and safety he’d endangered not an hour earlier. “I wish to be left alone.”
She slid her long, slender fingers beneath his palm. “Well, I don’t wish to leave you. I wish to thank you.”
He turned to her then, stared into her deep brown eyes and took in the defiant hair hanging free about her shoulders, the soft curve of her cheeks and moisture on her lips. He loved this woman, yet he’d killed her husband and then endangered her when he’d sent her away from Abbeville. She’d proclaimed she loved him in the dungeon, but those were words spoken in haste.
Now Brigitte was free. She could return to her home in Calais or move to Reims. The only thing she couldn’t keep doing was loving him. “I’ve told you before not to thank me. I didn’t do anything worthy of being thanked.”
“You just freed my son from a man who would have slit his throat.”
“Consider it repayment for having your husband killed.”
“Non.” She gripped his cheeks between her hands and pulled his head down so he had little choice but to look at her.
It was torture, the wild hair begging to be touched, the soft lips waiting to be kissed, the eyes full of love and trust and other emotions begging to be returned.
He could have none of it.
“You mustn’t think that way. You were merely doing your job. As it was my job to spy on you for Alphonse. And I’m so terribly sorry. You didn’t deserve what I did to you, but my husband deserved his punishment.” She sunk her teeth into the side of her lip and glanced down. “You must hate me.”
Hate her? Had she gone mad? “I once thought it right to kill others to revenge Corinne’s death. I’m in no position to judge, and I hardly hate you.” He swallowed, working his jaw back and forth before he blurted the rest. “I love you, Brigitte, but that doesn’t change my past.”
The air stilled, a crackling sensation filling the space between them. “You love me? Truly?”
He nearly rolled his eyes. Teach him not to better mind his tongue.
And yet, as he gazed into her sincere face, he could hardly lie. “Oui, I love you. I realized it about a quarter hour after I sent you away. Danielle found me sitting against one of the very trees where we had quarreled. I couldn�
�t convince myself to move, only sat their thinking how much I loved you and…”
“And how deeply I’d betrayed you.”
“You hadn’t much choice. I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now.” He raked a hand through his hair. If only he’d let her explain when he’d found her and Alphonse’s man in the woods, so much could have turned out differently.
“But I did have a choice. I could have walked away from Alphonse when he first gave me my task. Instead, I chose to bow to him and deceive you. Then even when I knew I owed you the truth, I put it off, making excuses until you discovered what I was about. I deserve what happened.” She pressed her eyes shut and sucked in a ragged breath. “I almost lost everything. I would have—if you hadn’t come. You claim you don’t deserve me, but truly, ’tis the other way around. You’re far too good a man for someone like me.”
His hands shook, aching to reach up and smooth the matted hair from her face, to cause those lips to curve in a smile, to bring light back to her lifeless eyes. If only gentle words and tender touches could heal the wounds between them, but the festering sores of his past ran too deep, too painful. “No, Brigitte, I’m still not deserving of you.”
Her mouth pressed into a firm white line and her eyes flashed. “Did you leave your sanity back in Abbeville, Jean Paul Belanger? You just travelled four days to save me. Four! You freed Serge from near death a half hour ago and captured one of the most sought-after men in our country. And if today’s events aren’t enough to prove your value, think of your endeavors in Abbeville. You give food to the hungry and work to the lame. You try every day to right the wrongs you committed a lifetime ago.
“Look at me.” She got up onto her knees and stared him straight in the eyes. “I love you, and I’ll not be able to stop loving because you wish it.”
He dropped his gaze to his lap and the tall amber grass crushed between his legs. “Perhaps you think you love me now, in this moment, after I just pulled you from a dungeon cell and saved Serge. But will you still love me in three years? After your life has settled, will you be able to look at me—the man who killed your husband and children’s father—with love rather than hate?”