Page 61 of A Night of Secret Surrender
‘To ground. To hide. To live her days out in the peace she never had after her father’s death.’
‘Where do you think she went?’
‘I imagine she’d have burrowed into the countryside and made her way south. Caroline Debussy has good contacts in Rome and the rest of the Dubois family have already been taken there. Intelligence insists that it was the fair Mademoiselle Fournier who paid the fare for their transport, so I imagine she would have wanted to see them safe. However, any enquiries I’ve made quietly have turned up no sightings of her at all. So...’
God. Shay felt sick. Aurelian had said she looked thin and brittle when last he had seen her. The journey south, if she had made it, would have cost her a lot more in energy and resources. He also understood the peril of one who had named her boss as a murderer. Were there others there in Les Chevaliers who had wanted the job desperately enough to help her get rid of Benet? Could they have given her money to disappear?
Questions upon questions. He did not wish to ask his own contacts in the area to look out for Celeste Fournier either, for any notice was dangerous and if by chance she was hiding...?
But the Continent was a big place and a woman travelling alone was easy pickings.
For the hundredth time he wondered why she had not come back with him from Nantes when a passage could have so easily been arranged.
‘You have become more bitter, Shayborne, did you know that? You looked different with Mademoiselle Fournier.’
‘This has nothing at all to do with her.’
‘Does it not? Every time I speak of her I can see your interest. Every time I utter her name you look sad.’
‘She is gone. Dead and gone.’
‘So you will die along with her and just give up? I have been hurt and disfigured and tried as a traitor in a city that was desperate to blame someone for the imminent collapse of an Empire. But I survived. Now I just want peace and a family. I think I deserve this and you do, too.’
Such a confession made Shay ashamed. Lian was a good man and a gifted spy. Those two character traits probably had made his life hell and at thirty-three he wanted to settle down, to be quiet and content.
‘I have bought a property about an hour away from yours in Sussex, Shay. It is old and beautiful and I wish to make it home. Compton Park holds a great reminder for me of some of the manor houses I remember in Normandy. Substantial and solid buildings that have stood the test of time. Now, perhaps, I can marry, though my attractions are probably questionable and finding a willing bride might be difficult.’
‘You have calmed governments and doused the early sparks of international war. I am certain convincing a girl of your finer points would not be too onerous?’
The resulting laughter was heartening and Shay clapped his hands around the shoulders of his friend as they walked on.
* * *
In bed that night, he dreamed of Celeste Fournier. He saw her watching him by the river the evening after escaping the soldiers, her hair damp and the shortness of the light brown curls darkened into longer wisps.
‘Do you believe in angels, Summer?’ she had asked him quietly and he shook his head.
‘Well, if you don’t I shall disappear.’ When he laughed she had simply curled up into smoke, leaving him there empty-hearted.
He’d woken in a sweat because even he understood that dreams like this could be a sign of the truth. Was she dead already? Had he believed in her enough while he’d had the chance to? Lian’s description of her being thin, brittle and sick was also a part of his anxiety, for as he sifted back across the dream she’d been the same. Barely there, skin and bone, the mark around her wrist reddened and distinct.
Ropes.
Someone had tied her up. Lian had said that soldiers had taken her. She had been young and beautiful and half-English. He knew what might have happened to such a one in those circumstances and he turned his face into the pillows to try to block his suppositions out.
The last year without Celeste had been the most difficult one in all of his life. Granted, he had lost her once before, but then he had not truly known her, her spirit, her grit, her soul.
He had heard rumours through the intelligence grapevine about the various troubled hotspots in Europe and he had even toyed with the idea of travelling to the Continent to look for her. But she had not accompanied him back to England when she had had the chance in Nantes, so why would she do so now?
Aurelian’s confession of wanting to find a woman to share his life with had left a discordant note inside him, too, that threatened to turn everything upside down. For he wanted the same things his friend had spoken of, a family and a home.
He sat up and lit the candle near his bed, watching the light flicker across the ceiling. Celeste had looked so fragile in his dreams, so very easily hurt.
Swearing, he stood and donned his clothes. He would pour himself a stiff drink and find a book in his library. He wished he were at Luxford Manor right now, where at least at first light he could have ridden his horse as fast and as far as he desired in an attempt to escape the demons that clawed at any momentary contentment he felt. But Vivienne was there with all her sadness and needs and the duties of his peerage in London were many and complex.
Trapped.
That word followed him down the stairs of his town house, echoing over and over in his brain. He had never felt so alone.
