Page 13 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
She grinned at him and his attempt to lighten the mood. “Exactly. Like talking at four in the morning, eh?”
“A way to welcome sleep.”
“Or dredge up old secrets.”
His handsome visage went dark and tight. “What is yours, Amber? Why do this dangerous work?”
That touched a nerve. “Ah, you mean the dangerous work I no longer do because one man has frightened me so badly I fled like a coward?”
He reached for her hands. “Stop this self-criticism. Because you have left Paris does not mean you can no longer work.”
“No?” She snatched back her hands. Warm and strong though Ram was, he was very wrong. “Kind of you to say and help me keep my self-delusion, but the reality is I have left. Abandoned my role. My mission. Few know, I do hope, where I’ve been or where I’ve gone. Heaven knows how you found me. How did you do that, anyway?”
“Whispers. Rumors. Society was full of conjecture why you had gone. Many spoke of where. It was one of my jobs to keep track, to learn why this town or that one. I followed all the possible stories. Coming to Varennes made sense.”
“Why?” she demanded of him.
He gave a shrug of his shoulder. “Far away from Paris. Not your home in Reims. Not your aunt’s home in Compiègne.”
“Who mentioned Varennes?” She had to know. If it was Vaillancourt who spoke of this, she was a dead woman, if not tonight, then tomorrow.
He knitted his dark brown brows together. Shook his head. Looked away. “Madame Fouquet? Marie de Soissons?”
“Never them.” Amber cursed the names of the two females who led Paris salons, even as she scoured her memory for others. She had never shared with them that she knew anyone in Varennes. Had Maurice ever talked about his former winemaker? That he had retired? Moved from Reims? To Varennes?
She squeezed shut her eyes. Nothing came to her. What did it matter who had said what? If such words had sent Ram here toVarennes, then it was more than probable that Vaillancourt had sent some one of his men here to look for her.
The chill that ran through her shook her. “We have to leave in the morning.”
He tucked the blankets up to her shoulders. “We will.”
“I have to say goodbye to my friends before we leave.”
“We should not linger—”
“But I came to wish them well.” She glanced up at him and caught his scowl. He did not know all her actions here. “To go is not smart, but I must.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Where were you all this time since you left Paris in mid-March?”
“Compiègne,” she said, giving him a few crumbs of truth and feigning resignation.
Beneath his breath, he cursed. “For all those who beat a path to Compiègne to find you, you tested their abilities. They failed to find you. How?”
She swallowed loudly and licked her lips. “I lived beneath the city.”
“What?” he said, his blue eyes wide.
“Aunt Cecily’s house lies between the palace and a church. Her home was once a convent, and during the religious wars, the nuns took refuge beneath the buildings. I lived there for many weeks.”
“I have heard of people living there, but never considered it possible for any length of time.”
“I stayed as long as I could, but I became so cold.” She shivered and drew the blankets higher to her chin. “I…I could not bear the dark either, and I had to leave. I had to see someone’s smiling face. And…and besides needing the sun on my face, I knew I needed clothes, a bath, money. I had to get out. You see that, don’t you?”
His look of astonishment drifted to one of compassion. “We were not meant to live beneath the earth, but on it, with the sun and wind and rain and snow on our skin.”
“That’s when I left. I took money from Aunt Cecily’s safe. It was not much, but it got me to Reims. There, I knew I had hidden so much more, and I needed it. I awakened the servants one night, did what I had to, and left. I hoped to God I left no traces for Vaillancourt to seize my two maids and my old butler and haul them off to prison.” She cast a glance at Ram. “Tell me they are well. Untouched.”
“Frankly, I do not know. I did not come through Reims.”
