Page 72 of Love in a Mist
She moved carefully to the window, then transferred Adèle to his arms.
“You’ll help us get to the stable?” she asked.
“I’m not going to abandon you, Céleste.”
That seemed assurance enough. She set her hands on the windowsill, then climbed over and out. No one in Paris Society would believe it if they saw the famously proper and pristine Céleste Fortier scrambling out the window of a countryside inn. But most of what had happened the last few days would shock Society. What was happening in Paris had no doubt shocked them as well.
With her feet firmly on the ground, she turned back to face the open window. It was low enough in the wall that he could see her from just below the shoulders up. Dim light from the fire behind him illuminated her face. She looked determined but also unsettled.
“I’ll hand you the bags and your violin,” Aldric said. “Then I’ll hand over Adèle.”
She fumbled a little as she reached for the items he handed out. They needed to be fast, but she seemed to be struggling.
“Now Adèle.” This last handover was the most precious one of all. Care was needed.
He made certain the little girl was safely held by her aunt before letting go. He deposited a few coins on the mantel—the innkeeper didn’t deserve to be cheated—then he climbed through the window himself, dropping onto the grass outside. He pushed the window closed once more. Where they’dgone and how they had escaped wouldn’t be known immediately, which would be helpful.
Aldric took Adèle in one arm and a portmanteau and their basket in the other. “Quickly, to the stables,” he urgently whispered.
“It’s so dark.” Céleste took hold of her violin and the other portmanteaus.
“We’ll light the lantern in the cart once we’re on the road.”
“I—” She took a deep breath. “I swear to you I’m not a coward.”
“I know you aren’t.”
They hurried to the stables, with Céleste struggling a little to navigate. Was she so discomposed by the dark?
A groom sat at a rough-hewn table inside the stables, repairing a rope. He hopped to his feet as they stepped inside. Céleste, despite her concern over the darkness outside, seemed to almost recoil a little at the lantern light inside.
“Our apologies for disrupting your work,” Aldric said. “We need to be on our way as swiftly as we can manage.”
“So late at night?” The groom looked concerned rather than suspicious.
Céleste set her bags down and crossed to him, one hand lifted a little the way one did when feeling her way through the dark. But the stable was lighter than the outside had been.
“Please, we need to reach a port town. What road ought we to take?”
Aldric crossed to their pony cart and set the basket and bag he was carrying inside.
“There’s a break in the road up ahead,” the groom said. “Take the branch to the left. You’ll arrive in Le Havre in about four days’ time. Go to the right, and you’d reach the Three Sisters a bit longer than that.”
“Which port is busier?” she asked. “With more regular departures?”
“Le Havre.”
“That is what we need,” she said.
Aldric turned to retrieve the other bags.
“Do you have any carts or wagons you’d be willing to trade for?” Céleste asked the groom.
“I have a farm wagon that I’d trade for,” he said.
Aldric realized quickly why Céleste had suggested a trade. Their cart was likely known to their pursuer. But so was their horse.
“Would you trade horses as well?” he asked the groom.
