Ghislaine stared at her in mute frustration. “You’ve gotten very strong-willed, Ellen,” she muttered.
Ellen smiled brightly. “True love does wonders for a soul.”
“Then how can you leave him…?”
“He knows I owe you a debt I can never repay. He’ll understand,” she said stubbornly.
Ghislaine racked her brain for one more argument, one more excuse. In the end, she gave up. Whether she liked it or not, the truth was she wanted Ellen’s company. Not just for the trauma of reentering the country she swore she’d never set foot in again.
But for the trauma of leaving Nicholas behind.
She hesitated no longer. “Dump out half that valise,” she ordered. “If you’re coming with me, you’ll have to be prepared to travel fast and light.”
Ellen beamed at her. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
Nicholas collapsed in a corner, winded, his sword arm bleeding slightly, as he glared at Sir Antony Wilton-Greening. Tony wasn’t in any better shape. He’d collapsed in his own comer, and if the slice on his right hand went a little deeper, it would repair itself in no time.
“You’re better than I would have expected,” Nicholas managed to choke out in a grudging fashion.
“Well, as to that, you didn’t really want to kill me, did you, Blackthorne?” He wheezed cheerfully. “The girl’s in love with you, I’m devoted to your cousin, and all this violence is completely misdirected. Why don’t you marry the girl and save everyone a great deal of trouble?”
“I doubt that she’d have me,” Nicholas muttered, leaning his dark head against the wall and taking a deep breath, struggling to control his gasps. “She thinks I destroyed her life, and she’s not half-wrong. If she were fool enough to marry me, I’d probably end up ruining whatever chance of happiness she has left. The curse of the mad Blackthornes, you know.”
“I’m sick to death of the mad Blackthornes,” Tony said flatly. “There’s no denying you have a rum bunch of ancestors, no denying you’ve done everything you can to live up to your reputation. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change. If you want to.”
“Why should I want to?”
“I would think it’s obvious. Why don’t you tell her?”
“Tell her what?”
“That you love her, man. It’s obvious to me, who’s only seen the two of you together for a few brief, distraught moments. You’d think she’d know it too, but I’m willing to bet you’ve never told her.”
“It’s none of your damned business.”
“It is when you decide to run me through in a fit of pique,” Tony drawled. “If you really want to marry the girl, tell her you love her. Trust me, it’s a great deal less painful than you might imagine.”
Nicholas’s long-lost sense of the ridiculous surfaced at that point. “Is this in the nature of fatherly advice? We should have had this conversation before I tried to kill you.”
“Pay it no mind, dear fellow. I would have expected no less from you,” Tony said with an airy wave of his hand. “But if you’re willing to listen to a bit of advice, if I were you I’d get on with the business. Go upstairs and tell her the truth.”
Nicholas’s eyes narrowed in renewed suspicion. “You’re certain you have no personal interest in all this?”
“I have a very great personal interest. If Ghislaine doesn’t choose to stay with you, I’ll be honor-bound to take her with us. In which case she’ll become a third party to a very cozy honeymoon, and you’ll probably try to run me through again. And I’m not sure I can fend you off as well the next time.”
Nicholas pushed himself to his feet, leaning against the wall as he forced his breathing back under control. “She’s not going anywhere,” he said flatly.
Tony sighed. “You might say please,” he suggested mildly enough.
Nicholas started toward the door, only to be caught up short by Taverner’s brooding appearance. “You’re not going to like this, Blackthorne,” he said. “The both of them have gone.”
It took the two women a little more than a week to reach their destination. The small mountain town of Lantes was a two-day ride past the border of France, and Ghislaine told herself that for her brother’s sake she could endure any amount of time on French soil. The trip across Italy had been made in relative comfort—they rode on horseback and traveled swiftly.
France was a different matter. The moment they reached the border, Ghislaine took charge. They dressed in rough clothes, trading in their horses for a deceptively rude-looking farm cart. They slept in barns, in ditches; they ate bread and cheese and drank sharp red wind; and if any man was fool enough to approach them, Ghislaine sent him scurrying away with a few well-chosen words. The flame of determination burned strongly within her, enough to scare away any man foolish enough to think two peasant women alone on the road would be easy prey. She had lost Charles-Louis once. She had given up Nicholas, the one man she would ever love, for motives that were both noble and stupid. To find her brother again would give her at least some hope in a cruel world. She wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her salvaging at least someone on whom she could expend all the love that Nicholas had freed from her dark, imprisoned heart.
“Whatever you do, don’t say a word,” Ghislaine muttered beneath her breath when they stopped outside the crude inn that seemed to be the only hostelry the poor mountain town of Lantes could boast. “You’re my idiot cousin from Dieppe. You can’t understand or speak a word.”
“But why?” Ellen demanded in a plaintive tone. “I speak French perfectly well.”
“You speak the French of the aristos. There’s a world of difference between the people’s French and yours. Besides, no matter how good you think your accent is, it still has that atrocious English tone to it.” She turned to look at her friend and managed a wry smile. “You were the one who insisted on coming with me.”
“I’ve discovered a talent for that,” Ellen said modestly. “I couldn’t let you go alone. You need me. You may think you are self-sufficient, but I know otherwise. You need people.”
“Yes,” Ghislaine agreed, staring up at the inn that would hold the answers. “I need people.” She thought of Nicholas. A sulky boy, a furious man, a tender lover, a soul as lost as her own. She longed for him with every breath, with every beat of her heart. She expected that she always would.
“Are we going in that tavern?” Ellen whispered, obviously trying to keep the trace of nervousness from her voice.
Ghislaine cast her an amused glance. “We’ve been in worse. Don’t worry, you look perfect. The too-small clothes add to the air of witlessness. If only you could manage to smell as bad as you look. We could take some manure…”
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Ellen said. “I’ll just make sure no one comes close enough to smell me.”
“Of course it’s funny,” Ghislaine said. “Someone once told me you must either laugh or weep. And I’ve wept enough.”
Something in her tone of voice must have betrayed her. “What about Nicholas?”
“What about him?” she said, pulling her briskness about her like a warm cloak. “By now he’s realized he’s well rid of me. He no longer needs to feel responsible for me—he can go on with his life.”
“You think Nicholas is troubled by a sense of responsibility?” Ellen asked in frank amazement. “Gilly, you just spent a long period of time alone with the man. Surely you know him better than that by now. The man cares about you.”
“I know him better than he knows himself. And it’s up to me to save him from himself.”
“You’re good at that,” Ellen said. “You saved me, you tried to save your brother. Perhaps you might put those energies to better use.”
Ghislaine managed a wry smile. ‘To save myself, you mean? I hardly think I’m worth it.” She threw her shoulders back. It was a chilly spring afternoon in the mountains, and their rough peasant clothes were no proof against the cold. A warm fire, a soft pallet, something warm to eat would be heaven. But not yet. Not until she found Old Bones. “Come along, Agnes,” she said.
Ellen wrinkled her nose. “I wish you’d chosen a better name for me. Even pronounced the French way it sounds frumpy.”
“You’re a deal safer being frumpy, Agnes. Now be quiet. Someone might hear.”
There was one good thing to be said for the rough inn when the two women stepped inside. Their lack of body odor would scarcely be noticed in such a malodorous common room. “Remember to shamble,” Ghislaine whispered to Ellen, who promptly ducked her head and stumbled on the coarse wood planking. “And look stupid.”
Ghislaine could feel her palms sweating. The past week had been a horror for her, thrust back in a nightmare she’d thought to escape. The nameless inn was not much worse than the Red Hen, a place she’d called home for so many years. There was no reason for the clawing sense of panic, of looming disaster.
She immediately picked out the landlord, a shifty-eyed sort with a leer, and steered Ellen toward him. “We have no work,” he grumbled at them, before she had a chance to speak. “Best to check up at the monastery—they occasionally take on day workers. Unless you’ve a mind to earn a few sou on your back. In which case the monastery won’t do you much good,” he said with a cackle.
“We don’t need a job,” she said, slipping into the gutter French of Paris. It was subtly different from the mountain French of the villagers, but still close enough in class distinction to be acceptable. “I’m looking for a man.”
“There are any number of them,
cherie,”
he said, waving a burly arm at the sullen assemblage. “Take your pick.”
“A rag-picker. Come from Paris.”
“Paris. That’s where your accent is from. You must mean Old Bones. We don’t let him in here—he’s a filthy Jew. What would you be wanting with him?”
She’d worked this out carefully ahead of time, the long trip from Venice giving her more than enough time to plan. “He owes me something.”
“You think to get money from a Jew? You must be as witless as your companion,” the innkeeper said with a harsh laugh. “Besides, he has no money. He sleeps in the alleyways and barely has enough to eat.”
“He has something that belongs to me,” Ghislaine said firmly. “It’s not of value to anyone else. My poor sister and I have traveled a long ways to retrieve it. Do you know where he is?”
“Sometimes he begs for food at the monastery. Ever since he showed up here about a month ago he’s been haunting their doorstep. You’ll probably find him up there. Go to the top of the street, follow the path, and you’ll find it. Not that they’ll answer the door to women. The good brothers lead a contemplative life—they’ll think the devil sent two pretty ones like you.” His dark eyes were speculative as they ran over Ellen’s tall, stooped figure. “You might like to leave your sister behind. She’s not bad-looking, and she could earn a good meal and a place for the night.”
“No,” Ghislaine said, hoping Ellen wouldn’t understand the man’s mountain dialect. “She’s a poor creature, she doesn’t understand things.”
“All the better.”
“No,” Ghislaine said again, clutching Ellen’s limp arm. “She stays with me.”
“Suit yourself.” The innkeeper shrugged. “If you change your mind I may still be able to do something for you.”
Ellen was trembling, her head bowed, as Ghislaine drew her out of the dark, smoky inn. She took in great cleansing gulps of air, and her voice trembled.
“That was horrible,” she whispered.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t understand,” Ghislaine said, pulling her along the deserted streets.
“And those men, watching us. Particularly the one in the corner. Did you see him? I’ve never seen such dark, evil eyes.”
“I wasn’t paying any attention,” Ghislaine said. “They were all of a type. Harmless, if you stand up to them.”
“The one in the corner didn’t look harmless. Or like the others. He was better dressed, for one thing. And he was staring at us with such intensity. It made me quite ill.”
Ghislaine paused in her headlong pace, controlling her own impatience. “I can’t stop now, Ellen,” she said quietly. “I’m too close to my brother. I have to find Old Bones—only he knows where Charles-Louis is. If you want, we’ll find a place for you to stay while I search him out…”
“I’m going with you,” Ellen said, pulling herself together. “You don’t suppose your brother was in the inn…”
“Charles-Louis had golden-blond hair. All the men in the room were dark,” Ghislaine said flatly. “It was the first thing I noticed.”
“Why didn’t you ask the innkeeper about your brother?”
Ghislaine shook her head. “Old habits die hard—I learned long ago not to trust, not to take things at face value. I don’t know if Charles-Louis is in danger, but I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize his safety. Come along, Ellen, if you’re coming. I can wait no more.”
The path to the monastery was narrow and steep. When they reached the gates they were locked, against intruders, against the world, and the bell Ghislaine rang echoed with a ghostly, mournful sound.
“No one will answer,” a cracked voice muttered from the nearby bushes. A moment later the familiar, disreputable figure of Old Bones shambled into the gathering shadows. “Well met, Ghislaine. It took you long enough to get here.”
For a moment she didn’t move. And then she crossed the narrow clearing and put her arms around his ragged figure, holding him tightly. “It took a long time for your letter to reach me, old friend.”
“Who’s the girl?” He’d noticed Ellen right away, of course. Old Bones never missed a thing.
“A friend of mine. She’s the one who brought the letter to me. Where is he, Old Bones? Is he still in Lantes? Is he well? Does he want to see me?”
“He’s here,” the old man said, sitting down heavily on a rock, his ragged cloak fluttering around his scarecrow-thin body. “He’s well enough, I suppose. He’s waiting for you right now.”
“But where is he?”
“Where do you think, Ghislaine?” He jerked his head toward the dark, fortressed monastery. “He’s in there. Has been for the past ten years.”
The innkeeper kept his face impassive as the dark stranger arose from the corner of the common room and advanced on him. “I did as you asked, monseigneur,” he said, controlling his urge to pull his forelock. Lord, these new aristos of the government were even worse than the old ones. The old ones were generous with the tips and the smiles. Tins man, this official of the Paris government, gave him the chills. Never an extra sou, never a word, and his soft voice always carried a threat. “I told them to go up to the monastery. They’ll find the Jew there, sure enough.”