Page 85 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
Ram saw the man out, locked up the house tightly, and went upstairs to sit with his patient. She slept soundly. He picked up the book he’d been trying to read these past few days.
But tonight he would not turn many pages.
He loved her. He had grown up with love all around him. The acceptance of all that he was, the affections for whatever he did, had allowed him to flourish. If it also made him a gadabout, a man-child carefree and careless of his future, that had changed when he saw what happened to countless Frenchmen and women in the Terror.
He vowed such atrocities would never happen in his own country.
For that, he had applied his talents, doltish as they were in the beginning, to Scarlett Hawthorne’s spy ring. A stolen document, a bribed criminal, a government MP blackmailed and thereby retired for his abuse of army funds—all were child’s play compared to this dire business he did in France. But he had risen to the occasion.
Or rather, he had done all he possibly could to protect Amber, even from herself.
Woe unto him that he had fallen in love with her.
Now he had truly saved her from the vices of Vaillancourt. Taken her from that man’s house, his arms, his ability to determine her life or death.
Now, Ram faced a new challenge. He could improve her health. He could sweep her away to England.
But would that please her? Would that be enough to fill her life? Or would she wish to leave him?
He recoiled at the possibility and put down his book.
If she returned to France, took up her role again, she would by necessity operate very differently. She would have to work in anonymity, away from Paris and all she had known. Could she? Would she have the contacts, old or new, to make that worth her while and useful to the downfall of Bonaparte and his minions?
He shook his head.
He doubted it all.
And he could not, would not argue the issue with her. She had to see it for herself. She was not a person who took well to others’ analyses of her life or her decisions.
For now, she was here, his to care for and his to love.
That was his goal. All else would come in some far-off tomorrow that he could not color with his own desires for a future with her as his darling, his beloved wife.
*
Secure in thesafety of Corsini and Luc Bechard’s plan, Ram was even surer of Amber’s ability to endure the trip south. She had improved greatly, eating and drinking sparingly, but often. She felt well enough to endure the jostling of a coach. For the journey, Ram had Corsini rent a comfortable travel coach, and off he and Amber went. Seven hours after departure, they crossed the river at the fortified palace town of Amboise. Climbing more than one hundred feet above the river, the ramparts of the old palace of the medieval and Renaissance kings of France rose like giant arms to protect those who came.
The town spread along the southern banks of the Loire and around the castle walls. Their house Ram discovered by asking for “a blue cottage with white door facing the huge brown-pink stone palace walls.”
“The iron key,” he told Amber as he read from the instructions, “is beneath thedecrottoir.”
“The boot-scraper?” She laughed. “You may have to lift the stone beneath it to find it.”
He did. When Ram opened the front door, he was pleased at the sight of a large room filled with upholstered chairs and sofas. Even the bedroom and boudoir were well appointed. The house was the sort courtiers would have loved to rent so they might with ease attend the court of the kings and queens of France in the lavish Renaissance palace of Amboise.
The two of them stayed for three days, just enough time for Ram to find his friend and colleague, Yves Pelletier, and plan to head west. Yves, once an émigré to Britain, now worked for Scarlett Hawthorne, just as Ram did.
Pelletier ran his own nest of French spies, all of whom worked for the benefit of Britain. He kept it that way. Few in number, rabid in dedication, one agent knowing few others. In many ways, Pelletier had copied his operation on the workings of Scarlett’s. His base of operations was in Amboise, and he worked the Loire River from to the Atlantic coast.
Yves met Ram beneath the old town clock that spanned the street to the town center. They went to the local patisserie to drink coffee and eat pastry.
“You will have to start in Tours to sail to Nantes. I could not get any fisherman with a boat big enough who was willing to go from here all the way to Nantes. The town of Tours, west of here, holds many friends of mine who will, for a good sum, do much. The man I have for you is totally trustworthy, and you will be well cared for. My one piece of advice is to have Madame St. Antoine do much of your talking. Her French is undoubtedly better than yours, and your English accent will not be one any will love.”
The next morning, Ram and Amber closed up their small, comfortable house and boarded a coach headed for Tours. The medieval town of half-timbered houses and shops was filledwith friendly people who offered Amber directions to Pelletier’s fisherman. The fellow, happy to see them, suggested the two of them stay in an auberge across from the cathedral of Tours. They left the next morning on Jean Pierre’s small fishing boat. Two days later, they docked in Nantes.
A disturbance at the docks had Jean Pierre leaving Ram and Amber to learn the cause. When he returned, he suggested the best way to get transport to the coast of Southern England was to go by carriage to a small village south of St. Nazaire. He said he would accompany them to find a certain fellow whom he was hopeful would take gold coin to take them around the points of Normandy and northwest to England.
“But we have a challenge,” he told them. “This area is home to many who still sympathize with those who revolted against the consulate and those before it. They are with the revolutionaries of theVendée. A nasty bunch, cut your throat for a bite of bread. I will negotiate for you. It’s best.”
