LITMIR.BIZ

      Celeste was dead. And the Baudoin brothers. How quickly circumstances changed. In a heartbeat. In a breath. She looked across to the stranger, Colbert, and determined that he was still in the land of the living before she shut her eyes.

      * * *

      The girl was asleep, her hat pulled down across her head and her jacket stretched over the bend of her knees. As Nathaniel looked at her in repose there was a vulnerability apparent that was not evident when she was awake. She was thin, painfully so, and dirty. On a closer inspection he saw on her clothes the handiwork of small, finely taken stitches covering rips and larger holes. Her shirt was buttoned to the throat and the jacket she wore was tightly closed. More than a few sizes too large, it held the look of a military coat without any of the braiding. He knew she still had the knife, but it was not visible anywhere. Too big for the pockets, he imagined it tucked in under her forearm or secreted in one of the boots she wore beneath loose trousers.

      A child-woman lost into the vagaries of a war that could not have been kind.

      He felt stronger, a surprising discovery this, given his fever, and although the wound tugged when he shifted it did not sting like it had. Still, his vision blurred as he stood from the loss of blood or his own body’s heat, he knew not which.

      Camphor. Perhaps there was something in the doctoring, some healing property that would confound even the best of physicians? He resolved to use it again.

      She stirred across from him, wild curls escaping from the plait and falling around her face. In sleep she looked softer, the burden of life not marking the spaces between her eyes. Her ruined left hand sat on top of the right one and fire outlined the hurt in flame. Not a little injury and not an accident either. This looked to be deliberate, a brutal act of damage that would have taken weeks to heal. It was strange to see such a battle scar on one so young. His own back was filled with the vestige of war, but he had been in the arena of secrets for some time and such damage was to be expected.

      Her eyes flicked open suddenly, taking him in, fear reverting to wariness.

      ‘How do you feel?’ Even fresh from sleep she was observant.

      ‘Better.’

      Her glance at his throat read the measured beat of his heart. ‘Your temperature is still high so you should be drinking as much as you can. In a moment I will fetch more water.’

      A frown of concern slashed the girl’s forehead, but he was tired of thinking of her as ‘the girl’. ‘What are you called?’

      ‘Sandrine Mercier.’

      Rolling the name on his tongue, he liked the sound of it. ‘How old are you?’

      ‘Almost eighteen.’ Surprisingly forthcoming, though she did not look to have as many years as she professed.

      ‘And your cousin?’

      Moonlight caught her face as her chin lifted. ‘Celeste was twenty and she loved music. She loved everything beautiful and charming and good. She played the piano and sang like an angel...’ Her voice came to a halt.

      Nat knew what she was doing because he had done the same himself when those close to him had died. A memory they might be, but in speech they came alive, drawn for others to know, almost living.

      ‘Did Baudoin kill her?’

      Only the quick shake of her head.

      One day she will be beautiful, he thought. One day she will take men’s hearts and break them. For now she was young. Too young for him. For now the stamp of grace lay in her long limbs and her boyish defiance, the promise of womanhood only hinted at.

      He turned away, not wishing for her to see his regard.

      * * *

      He was back to being angry, his eyes the colour of a storm, not dark, not light, but the in-between shade that spoke of rain and coldness.

      ‘Are you a part of Guy Lebansart’s circle of spies?’ If she found out something about him, there might be protection there.

      His interest ignited. ‘Spies?’

      ‘Men who would take secrets and use them.’

      ‘For France?’

      ‘Or for whoever is paying the most.’

      His frown deepened. ‘Did you ever know any of these secrets, Sandrine?’ In his words she could hear exactly what she did not want to. Interest and intrigue. Eight months in captivity had taught her every nuance in the language of deception.

      ‘No.’ She kept her voice bland and low, shaking out the truth with effort. ‘I was only a prisoner.’

      ‘Where did they keep you?’

      She did not answer, moving instead to retrieve the flask. Her mattress had been in a room off Celeste and Louis’s chamber, a sanctuary she tried very hard to seldom leave. Lying low, she only ever ventured out when the early hours of the morning saw each inhabitant befuddled by strong drink, her cousin included. But Celeste had made her own bargain with the devil and had won conditions to make the tenure livable. Cassie’s thoughts went again to Celeste’s beautiful voice and her smile. When memory was selective, everything was easier.

      ‘I will get water and then we should leave. If others follow—’

      He cut off her worry with two words.

      ‘They won’t.’

      The confidence of a victor. So fragile. So absolutely flimsy. Baudoin had said no one would ever dare to challenge him and look at what had happened. Her French uncle had been certain, too, of the route west and then lost his way into peril.

      Everyone could be bought for the price of pain or promise or vanity. She wondered what Monsieur Nathanael Colbert’s price might be. Her own was freedom and she would never give it up again for anyone.

      ‘When we reach the next town, hide your face with this.’ He tossed her a scarf, dirtied with dust and blood. ‘And tuck your hair well into the crown of your hat. If anyone asks a question of you, look stupid, for there is safeguard in a simple mind. If you could walk with more of a swagger—’

      She cut him off. ‘I know what to do.’

      He swore at that, roundly, and began to collect his things.

      * * *

      Reginald Northrup was a large man, his face florid and his smile showing a mouth with at least a few teeth missing. The brandy he had hold of was in a glass as oversized as he was. The sweat on his brow reflected the light above him.

      ‘It is a surprise to see you here, Lindsay. I hear you aided my niece the other evening at the de Clare ball?’

      The man who sat near Northrup turned to hear his answer.

      ‘Indeed. The last pieces of a falling chandelier knocked her unconscious and a doctor was called.’

      ‘I am certain Cassandra herself could have remedied any wound she received. She has a knack for the healing and her mother was just the same.’

      ‘Her

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