Page 14 of The Agent and the Outlaw
“Probably,” I agreed.
She stood and went to the cellar door, testing the handle. The heavy iron padlock rattled on the outside. I joined her at the door and inspected the frame. Thick, solid oak blocked our way out.
Charlotte began to survey the room in much the same way that she’d surveyed the bedroom in the inn. It was deliberate, methodical, and thorough. It seemed at odds with the lifestyle that she’d described, unless my earlier supposition was indeed correct.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“What an absurd question!” she laughed. She’d uncovered a hammer beneath a length of canvas and hefted it in triumph. She continued to root around through the crates. “I don’twork—I’m a member of the aristocracy.”
She said it with such haughtiness that I believed her immediately, but her actions belied her protestations. What kind of a noblewoman knew how to fight and shoot and don disguises with practiced ease? I knew she was a spy—I just didn’t know for whom.
She cried out in triumph when she found a small set of rusty tools, extracting a chisel. She moved for the door, and I realized quickly what she had in mind.
“Allow me,” I offered, holding out my hands for the hammer and chisel. She raised a brow at me but handed them over.
“Why is there a bounty on your head?” she asked as I lined them up over the door handle.
“Tell me who you’re working for,” I countered. I brought them down hard, leaving a small dent just above the iron handle.
Shetsked. “I told you, I don’t work.”
“Right. And the innkeeper was merely mistaken about me,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips. I lifted the hammer again and brought it down with force. A greater chunk of wood dislodged and fell away. I needed to hurry, lest the innkeeper hear the racket and come to check on us.
“Fine,” Charlotte huffed. “We both have secrets. But if we’re going to get out of here, we need to trust each other at least alittle.”
A raspy chuckle escaped my throat. It had been a long time since I’d laughed.
“Certainly, Charlotte. Ladies first.”
“Very well,” she said arrogantly. “What’s your plan for when we get out of here?”
My hammer paused mid-air. I hadn’t considered that far ahead.
She smiled in mock sweetness. “How am I supposed to trust you if you don’t know how you’re going to keep us alive?”
I let the hammer fall on the chisel, and one of the boards in the door split. Not enough to break, but two or three more strikes ought to do it. All the while, my mind worked. We needed somewhere to hide out. A place thebêtes de sangwouldn’t be able to follow. Somewhere we could stay until the likely uproar at the marquis’s murder died down. Somewhere we could figure out what to do about each other and our precarious predicament. Away from Paris, away from Versailles, and far away from here.
Suddenly, I had it.
“Gévaudan,” I said. “We’ll go to Gévaudan.”
Charlotte blinked in surprise. “Gévaudan? Down south? But it’s so far away! It’ll take us days—a week, probably—to reach it!”
I struck one final blow at the weakened wood, and it cracked along the split. I wiggled the iron lock and door handle and wrenched them away, then kicked the doors open.
“If we move quickly and rest only when necessary, we can make it in two and a half, three days,” I said. I grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the stables.
She allowed me to pull her forward, then down behind the low bushes along the back of the inn. I knew we’d made a hell of a racket breaking out of the root cellar, and we needed to hurry. As soon as we ducked into the stables, Tartuffe’s soft nickering drew my attention. He was in a back stall, perfectly content with a bucket of oats. Relief unknotted some of my muscles—if the innkeeper had mistreated my beloved black Andalusian, I would’ve had to break his arms, and I didn’t think Charlotte and I had the time for that. Charlotte kept watch out the front while I saddled him, then led him around to the door.
“You’re not going to toss me over your horse’s ass again, are you?” she asked warily.
In answer, I swung myself up and held out my hand to her. She took it and pulled herself up like no aristocratic woman I’d ever known, sitting astride behind me.
“Ready?” I called back to her.
From outside, we heard a clatter followed by an enraged bellow. The innkeeper had discovered our absence. Charlotte opened her mouth to respond, but I didn’t wait for her words. I dug my heels into Tartuffe’s sides and shouted him forward. He took off like a shot, weaving past the apoplectic innkeeper and making for the main road through town.
I heard Charlotte squeal in surprise at our abrupt departure, then felt her arms tighten around my waist as we galloped through the bustling street, attracting the angry shouts and incensed attentions of several villagers. We raced on, not daring to slow our breakneck speed until the town was well behind us and Tartuffe’s sides heaved with exhaustion.
