The Pirate Ruse (34 page)

Vienne
smiled through her tears. “No. But he may not allow me to leave.”

Cristabel smiled.
“Trevon has a plan for that too,” she said. She reached out, taking both Vienne’s hands in hers. “If you are ready to walk with me—to simply cross the road and leave this horror behind you—then we will walk from here…and to freedom.”

Vienne
stood. “Then let us go now, Cristabel Albay…my brother’s lover,” she said, “for in another moment, my courage may be lost to me.”

Without pause, Cristabel stood, taking
Vienne’s hand and leading her from the room.

“You’ll lose a day’s wages if you keep from your work any longer, woman!” Christophe roared as he strode toward them.

But Cristabel only smiled, for Baskerville already sat at a nearby table.

“You!” Baskerville called.
“Innkeeper! This beer is weak. Have you watered it down then? Is that your game?”

Instantly, Christophe was distracted—glared at Baskerville and growled, “Are you accusing me, man?”

“Come, Vienne,” Cristabel said, leading Vienne toward the nearest door.

As they approached their outlet to freedom, Trevon, Fergus
, and James Kelley entered. Cristabel heard Vienne gasp—felt her pause as Trevon looked at her.

“He only comes to offer distraction that we may escape,” Cristabel said.
Tears sprang to her eyes anew, however, when she saw the astonishment—the mingled joy and pain—in Trevon’s countenance as he passed them, nodding to his sister.

“Innkeeper!” Fergus shouted.
“We want drink, and we want it now!”

“
Vienne!” Christophe called. “Vienne, serve these men, at once!”

“Do not look back,
Vienne,” Cristabel said as they neared the door. “Do not look back. It is all behind you with this last step.”

As they stepped across the threshold of La Petite Grenouille and into
Vienne’s freedom, Cristabel glanced back. Vienne looked frightened—in truth, terrified. Yet she had made a choice, and Cristabel knew it would forever change the course of both their lives.

It had been hours—hours of talk and tears—of Cristabel offering Vienne reassurance and encouragement. Vienne had begged to be isolated from her family for a time—to bathe, weep, and prepare herself to greet her mother and brother. Yet a bond had been forged between Cristabel and Vienne. Thus, it had been Cristabel who had spent the first hours of Vienne’s freedom with her. It had been Cristabel who comforted and offered promise to Vienne Navarrone that her family would love her and without condition—Cristabel who now endeavored to distract Vienne with the tale of how she had come to be in Trevon’s possession, and beyond.

“Well, certainly he threatened to ravage me.
Again and again he threatened to do it…but I quickly began to suspect he was not so brutal as he would have me think,” Cristabel explained as she wove Vienne’s hair into a long ebony plait. She frowned. “Though I do admit to owning no memory of the night I consumed the demon rum. I suppose he might well have had his way with me, and I might not have remembered it.”

“You would have known…whether you remembered it or not,”
Vienne mumbled.

Cristabel wished Vienne would allow a change in the course of their conversation
, but she was far too determined to learn everything she could concerning Cristabel’s experience with her brother, the pirate Navarrone the Blue Blade.

“Furthermore, I know my brother,” she stated.
“He does not have within him such a thing as the villainy necessary to defile women. I am glad it was Trevon who found you, Cristabel.”

Cristabel felt awash with guilt
, for she had escaped the terrible fate that Vienne had not. She could not fathom the nightmare Vienne had endured. She winced as her imagination lingered a moment on such horrors. Still, she shook her head, determined not to think on Vienne’s past but only to help her to move into a bright and beautiful future filled with hope and love—unconditional love.

Vienne
turned in the chair in which she sat, gazing at Cristabel and smiling. “Truly, Cristabel…I am glad you were saved,” she said. “I do not resent that you were and I was not.” Her smile broadened. “And I am glad it was Trevon who saved you.”

“As am I,” Cristabel agreed.
She smoothed the long raven plait of Vienne’s hair, nodded toward the looking glass, and asked, “Will it do? I am not so very gifted at braiding.”

Vienne
returned her attention to the looking glass before her. She sighed, her smile fading a little.

“It is very nicely done,” she said.
“I only wish I did not look so dark beneath the eyes.” She reached up, tracing her forehead and cheek with trembling fingers. “I wish—”

“You look as beautiful as ever you have,
Vienne,” Cristabel told her. “How else would I have recognized you from your portrait?”

Vienne
smiled into the looking glass. “You are too sweet to me, Cristabel Albay. I wish I could repay your kindnesses…but I have nothing to offer.”

“Of course you do!” Cristabel exclaimed.

“And what is that?” Vienne laughed.

“Well, though nothing is needed in return,” Cristabel began, “for you forget that I created a grievous sin in not telling Trevon about you before
, and I hope that one day you may find in it in your heart to forgive me that…still, I would like to own your friendship.”

Vienne
smiled, and Cristabel was dazzled by the sudden light in her blue eyes—the perfect beauty of her face. She was indeed sustaining the beginnings of restoration.

“Of course!
Anything else?” she prodded.

Cristabel smiled.
“Well…I would enjoy hearing stories of Trevon as a child. I wish for you to tell me of what he was like as a boy. Someday…when we have ample time to sit together in light conversation.”

Vienne
giggled. “Done. We will find the time one day…and soon.”

“Yes, we will,” Cristabel agreed.
“But for now…I know two people who are nearly ill with wanting to talk with you, Vienne. Do you feel ready?”

Vienne
’s smile faded. “Of course not,” she whispered.

Cristabel knew that neither the soothing, fragrant bath nor having her hair brushed and plaited
could have vanquished Vienne’s fears of facing her family. These luxuries only made her feel more prepared in appearance to face her mother and brother. Her heart and soul were still terrified of the judgment that might appear in their eyes.

“You have nothing to fear,
Vienne,” Cristabel told her. “Now, come.” She bid Vienne stand and walk toward the hearth. “Wait just here,” she said. “I will bring them to you.”

Vienne
frowned, terrible trepidation obviously breaking over her.

Cristabel smiled.
“Do I dare leave you…even for a moment? Will you flee?”

Vienne
breathed a nervous giggle. “No. No, I will wait for them. I will meet them now.”

“Good!” Cristabel said.

Hastening to the door, lest
Vienne change her mind, Cristabel left the room, closing the door behind her.

Claire and Trevon were waiting without
, both with expressions of concern and anxiety.

“She is ready,” Cristabel told Claire.
“As ready as she can be.”

“James Kelley,” Trevon growled.

Cristabel smiled at James as he appeared from around one corner.

“Stand guard here,” Trevon commanded.
“I do not yet trust that the proprietor of La Petite Grenouille will not attempt to retrieve Vienne. Sound an alarm if anyone approaches.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” James said, nodding with determination.

Trevon glanced to Cristabel but only briefly. “And do not allow our prisoner to wander far. Do you understand?”

“Aye, Cap’n,” James agreed.

Tears filled Cristabel’s eyes, for Trevon did not make any gesture to indicate he might have begun to forgive her in the least.

“Come along, darling,” Claire said, taking Trevon’s arm.
“Let us see to our Vienne.”

Without another word, Trevon turned the door latch and allowed his mother to precede him into
Vienne’s room. He followed her, closing the door behind him.

Tears flooded Cristabel’s cheeks as she heard Claire exclaim, “Oh
, my darling! My baby! Oh, my beautiful, beautiful Vienne!”

Quickly she moved away
, toward the open doors nearby leading to the inn’s upper balcony. It was all so consuming—entirely overpowering. The tender, battered emotions of weeks of continually knowing joy, then despair, then joy once more had weakened Cristabel’s resistance. She felt as if she might expire—or in the very least that she would never feel rested or be truly happy again.

“You all right, Miss Cristabel?” James Kelley inquired from his post inside.

Cristabel nodded, sniffled, and angrily brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “Yes, James. I am well. I am simply overcome with the strain of it all, I suppose.”

“You need your rest, miss,” James said.
“Perhaps you may rest peacefully tonight…knowing all is well with the cap’n and his sister.”

“Yes…perhaps.
Thank you, James,” Cristabel said. The poor boy was so wholly innocent, so blind to the pain Cristabel was enduring. She supposed that his youth and inexperience left him unable to see that Trevon had spurned Cristabel—that Cristabel’s heart was breaking. She did not blame James for his naïveté, for she was fully as naive at aged fourteen years as he was—far more so, in fact.

Thus, she would not press her young friend to worry.
She would simply linger on the balcony and gaze at the horizon. The sun would begin to set soon. Although it seemed impossible, it was true that the day had nearly exhausted itself already. Vienne had taken many hours in preparing to meet her family again. Cristabel mused that this was yet another reason she felt such a sense of weariness, for it had been wearing to sit with Vienne—talk with her, encourage her, and offer hope all the long hours it took her to find the courage to face Claire and Trevon.

Suddenly, Cristabel wanted nothing more than to simply collapse—to find respite through deep
, slumbering unconsciousness. Yet it was not so thoroughly true that it was the only thing she wanted, for there was one thing she wanted more—Trevon.

*

“I should have died before I let them take you,” Trevon growled, still kneeling before his sister.

“No!”
Vienne sobbed. “No, Trevon! I know the pain you feel, and the guilt, for I thought you were dead for a time…and I owned guilt for it.”

Trevon gazed into
Vienne’s blue eyes—the eyes he had known for as long as his memory could allow. “What?” he asked. “Why would you think me dead?”

Vienne
sniffled and dabbed at her red nose with a handkerchief. “I saw them beating you, Trevon. I saw them put you under the cat until your body was drenched with your own blood…until you collapsed…unconscious. But I thought you were dead…that you had been beaten to death before my very eyes. It was not until months later that I heard you had been found and lived…that you had taken to piracy.”

“I should have died,
Vienne,” Trevon said, kissing the back of her hand. “For a very long time I wished that I would have died. I existed with the knowledge I failed you…allowed you to be tortured and murdered.”

Trevon felt his lower lip tremble as his sweet sister gazed into his eyes
, smiled at him, and brushed a lone tear from his temple.

“And if you had died, Trevon
, you would not have saved your sweet Cristabel, and she would have known the same fate I did…worse even than mine. Furthermore, it was Cristabel who brought me to you in the end…was it not?”

“Yes,” Trevon whispered.
He knew it was true—had been cognizant of it since the moment Cristabel had revealed having seen Vienne. “She is my rescuer in many ways, for she rescued you…and my heart.”

Vienne
giggled, and Trevon frowned. It had been near two hours since his mother had left them alone—left brother and sister to begin the healing of their wounds. Two hours he had lingered in her company, and it was the first time she had laughed.

“So you set sail in search of traitors and treason…and found your true love instead.
Is that it, brother?” Vienne asked, her eyes bright with merriment in teasing him.

Trevon breathed a chuckle as he stood.
He raked a weary hand through his hair, shaking his head.

“I am not worthy of her,” he sighed.
“She deserves a better man than I will ever be.”

“In the first of it, you are the best of men, Trevon,”
Vienne said. She stood, taking hold of his arm and smiling at him. “And in the second, we are none of us perfect. No one is without fault…or damage. Whether physical, emotional, or both…we are all of us human.”