Page 36 of A Night of Secret Surrender
She saw then that he had different clothes in his hands. A jacket and a shirt. When he peeled off the habit he wore trousers beneath, though his top half was bare and well muscled after all his years of soldiering. With speed he donned the shirt and tucked it into his trousers, handing the jacket to her.
‘Take off yours, too, and put this one on instead. Give me your hat and turn your old jacket inside out before wrapping it around your waist.’
He had done the same with his habit, rolled it into a wad of cloth and knotted it about him. The rope from his belt was formed into a rough coil and hung around his arm, like a fisherman might carry the tools of his trade, the hat jammed tight across clipped hair. Sucking at the blood on his knuckles, he lowered his hands.
It was the soldiers, Celeste was to think later, the ones who had passed them by so closely earlier. She had been rattled badly by them and had not recovered, the dreadful fear clawing at memory and leaving her breathless and brittle. At times like this in Paris, after meeting soldiers at a close call, she’d retreated to her apartment for days, curling into fragility until her usual steel returned and allowed her a resolution.
Here, she did not have such luxury. Here, she had to face her next enemy right on the heels of the last one, barely enough time to take in a breath.
Even after all these years the military smelt the same, she thought. Bitter. Pungent. Sharp. The softer scent of Summerley Shayborne rose to calm her. Caroline Debussy’s herbs. The ale he had consumed in the house of Aurelian de la Tomber was there, too, and the soap her father used. A mix of lavender and lemon.
Masculine. Safe. Familiar.
She swallowed away the lump in her throat and knotted the jacket. Out of Paris she would cope better. Her fingers fastened on the weighty butt of her knife in the pocket of her trousers and she clung to the steel with all that she was worth.
* * *
Celeste looked pale and shaky. The girl who had stood there with her eyes closed, expecting to be summarily slain, so unlike the woman who had walked into the underground dungeon of Les Chevaliers to save him that the shock still stung. Who was Celeste Fournier now? Which version of her was real?
He knew she kept a knife close in her pocket for he could see the tension in her left arm. Beads of sweat rose on the skin above her upper lip and her eyes looked glazed.
Fright, perhaps, he surmised, or memory? What had happened to bring her so easily to her knees in the face of a danger that was far less than the daring of her risky dungeon raid?
He weighed his options and made a decision, pulling her into a doorway a few hundred yards further on and tapping out a code.
The man who answered shut the portal firmly behind them as they came in. ‘De la Tomber said you might come.’
‘Is he here?’
‘No. Last night he arrived late and said there was a possibility you might have need of a room. You and the lad are to have the chamber at the top of the house. I’ll send up some food.’
The key was in his hand and then they were climbing, just the two of them, the small room situated among the rafters high above the street. The glass was so dirty he could barely see outside. For further protection, he thought, and pulled the curtain, waiting until the gloom settled into vision.
‘We’ll stay here until we know more about what’s happening. Someone will find us other clothes to wear.’ The doorknob was under his fingers.
‘You are going out?’
‘Just for a short time. Don’t worry, it’s safe.’
She’d sat down now, her hands either side of her splayed out. Like an anchor.
‘I am sorry.’
She didn’t elaborate, but he knew exactly what she meant.
‘Get some sleep.’ He could hear the irritation and shortness in his words as she looked away, her frown deepening, but he did not feel like being kind. He left before the pooling tears spilled across her cheeks.
* * *
It was full dark when she awoke and Summer was sitting on a chair by the opened window looking out towards the sky. He was dressed differently again, a crisp white shirt tucked into snug breeches, the leather boots below well polished. She went from sleep to wakefulness in a second and tried to gauge the time of night from the moon’s position.
Not as late as she thought. Somewhere around midnight perhaps? The empty silence of this part of Paris was unsettling. It almost surprised her when he finally spoke.
‘They think we have crossed the river already. From the information I have gathered, it is in the area of the cathedral at Saint Lambert they will now be looking.’
‘This information is to be trusted?’
‘As far as a good measure of gold will allow.’
