Page 39 of The Secret Daughter
Numbly she held out her hand and received them, including her family, all neatly rolled up ready to be sold to some Parisian dealer. She wanted to scream, she wanted to weep. She ached with it all.
She climbed inside the wagon and shut the door. Then, for the first time in days, she bolted it.
She curled up miserably on the bed, feeling sick, disheartened, bitter.
What a fool she’d been. Reynard was not the man she’d thought he was. Oh, he was charming and handsome and the rest, but more importantly he was a cheat, a swindler. Cheating people out of the true value of their paintings. And who knew what else? She’d believed him about those imaginary three wives, but now she wondered. Had she believed him because shewantedto?
And the local people she’d met here weren’t the nice, friendly, generous people she’d thought they were. They, or their parents, had attacked her mother’s home, sending her fleeing for her life as they destroyed it, looting it, smashing, burning—even guillotining her little doll, no doubt in frustration over not catching Maman.
It was all too distressing to contemplate.
Why had she notseen? Not even guessed, or wondered?
Because she was a fool, letting herself be dazzled by a good-looking man with a—yes, a seductive line of chat and appealing, engaging ways. And she’d fallen for it.
Had he not decided to remove those paintings from their frames this evening, she might, even now, be in here with him, on this very bed, making love.
The thought made her feel quite sick.
She would not stay another day. She would meet up with the miller’s son at dawn, and by the time Reynard was awake, she’d be on her way to Nantes and thediligence. She would never see Reynard again.
Reynard. Fox. Cunning. A warning she’d been too stupid, too dazzled to see.
She slept very little that night. For most of the evening, she lay on the bed, listening to Reynard move about the camp, talking nonsense in English to the dog. In the past that sort of thing would have made her smile or giggle, would have made her want him more.
Now it simply flayed her.
Aware that she would have to catch the miller’s son at dawn, she barely slept, waking every hour or so, peering cautiously out at the night sky. It was hard to tell what time it was. She had to guess by the angle of the moon. Thank God it wasn’t a cloudy night.
It was still dark when she rose and prepared to creep out of the camp. She’d packed her bundle earlier. She picked it up, then put it down again. Moving very slowly and carefully—he was asleep under the wagon—she removed the painting of her mother’s family from the rolled-up canvases he’d passed her. Thank goodness he hadn’t already locked them away.
She rerolled the other paintings, then rolled up her mother’s painting, wrapped it in a protective cloth, then tied it in string.
Guilt pecked at her. It wasn’t stealing, she told herself. This was her mother’s painting. It was hers by right.
It wasn’t stealing to take from thieves, she reminded herself.
But she still felt uncomfortable about it. Even though sheknewshe shouldn’t.
She took the remaining sausage from the tin-lined cupboard and tucked it into a fold in the bundle, then openedthe door and stepped cautiously down, her bundle in one hand, the rolled painting in the other. The moonlight was faint. The camp was all gray shadows.
Oh lord, Hamish!she thought despairingly as the dog scrambled to his feet and came toward her. She dropped her bundle and held up her hand, whispering, “Sit.”
Blessedly, the dog sat.
Ever since they’d adopted him, he’d slept under the wagon, beside Reynard, lying along his back. She’d thought it was cute before: now it had the potential to be a disaster. If Reynard woke…
“Stay,” she whispered. The dog watched her curiously, his tail gently thumping the dust, but thankfully, he didn’t make a sound. She peered under the wagon to where Reynard slept. He hadn’t moved. She breathed again.
“Stay, Hamish. Stay,” she whispered, gesturing for him to stay—and praying he would, for once, obey.
The dog tilted his head in a silent question.
Zoë picked up her bundle and crept out of the campsite. Once out of sight of it—and hopefully out of hearing—she glanced back. And saw a large, scruffy, beautiful, loyal animal following her. “Oh, Hamish, no,” she murmured, but she’d prepared for this to happen.
He trotted up to her, his tail waving gently like a plume. She gave him a last enthusiastic embrace, finishing with a good scritch around the ears, then bent and kissed him on the forehead. “I’m sorry, darling, but I can’t take you, not on thediligence. I’m sorry. You be good for Reynard, won’t you? He’ll look after you, I know.” It was one thing—the only thing—she now trusted about Reynard, that he would take care of his animals.
She took out the sausage. The dog’s nose twitched. “Here, Hamish, fetch!” She hurled the sausage deep into a dense thicket of bushes. Hamish happily bounded off after it.
