Scars of Betrayal

‘You are burning up. The mind plays tricks when the fever rages and as I cannot shift you to the stream we will have to make do with the cold night air instead. I had hoped it would snow.’

Her accent was Parisian, the inflection of the drawing rooms and the society salons where anything and everything was possible. He wondered why the hell she should have been in Nay, dressed in the clothes of a lad, and when he inadvertently blurted the thought out aloud, he saw her flinch.

‘I think you should sleep, Monsieur Colbert.’

His name. Not quite right. But he needed to be quiet and he needed to think. There was danger here. He wished he could have asked her who she was, what she was, but the camphor was winding its way into the quick pricks of pain and he closed his eyes to block her from him.

* * *

He would be sore in the morning if he lived. The wound or the fever could kill him, but it was the bleeding that she was most concerned about. She had not been able to stop it. Already blood pooled beneath him, more hindrance to a body struggling with survival.

Tipping up the flask, she took the last drops of water.

She was starving. She was exhausted. The embers of the fire still glowed in the dark, but outside the small light the unknown gathered.

Baudoin had not existed alone and she knew that others would follow. Oh, granted, this stranger had hidden their tracks well ever since leaving Nay, his cart discarded quite early in the piece. She had watched him set false lures into other directions, the heavy print of a foot in a stream, a broken twig snagged with the hair from her plait, but she knew it would only be a matter of time before those in France’s underworld would find them.

She held far too many secrets, that was the problem. She had seen some of the documents Baudoin’s brother had inadvertently left in Celeste’s chamber, documents she knew had been taken from the carriage of a murdered man on the road towards Bayonne. A mistake of lust and an error that would lead to all that had happened next.

Her fault. Everything was her fault and her cousin had not even known it. The same familiar panic engulfed her, made her lean forward to catch breath, trying in the terror to hold on to the reason of why Celeste had done as she did. Cassie still felt the sticky blood across her fingers, the warmth of life giving way to cold.

Softly she began to sing, keeping herself staunch; the ‘Marseillaise’ because it was fast paced and because it was in French.

To arms, citizens,

Form your battalions,

We march, we march...

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 mother was reputed to be one of society’s beauties, was she not?’ Hawk’s question. Nat could not quite let go of the thought that he had voiced the query for his benefit.

‘She was, but Alysa Northrup died a good many years ago when one of her science experiments went wrong. Had she lived a century ago she might have been burned at the stake as a witch, for there were rumblings in all quarters about her unusual endeavours and none of them was kind.’

The easygoing stance of the man hardened, giving Nat an impression of much emotion.

‘She was a beautiful woman, Reg.’ Lord Christopher Hanley, sitting next to Reginald, had imbibed too much strong drink, lending his speech an air of openness. ‘None of the other débutantes that year could touch her in brains or beauty. I thought for a time it was you she was sweet upon until your brother snaffled her up right under your very nose and made her his wife.’

Northrup seemed out of step with such a confidence. ‘Both girls are as odd as their mother was. You will do yourself a favour by staying out of the way of them, Lindsay. Indeed, most gentlemen in society have done so already.’

Hawk beside him laughed. ‘I think it might be the other way around, sir, for even though they seldom venture into the social realm your nieces rebuff all interested parties with alacrity.’

‘If they turn their noses up at everything, it is because their father has too little left of his wits to bid them marry. Maureen has already reached a grand old age and I fear that she will always remain a spinster. Rodney, their brother, shall have to no doubt house them when he inherits the properties.’

By the look on Reginald Northrup’s face Nathaniel judged that he was not pleased about the fact. The terms of an entailment, perhaps, that left him with little to fall back upon?

‘The younger daughter was married in France, if memory serves me well? I remember it as quite a scandal at the time, Reg, and she never took on his name.’ Hanley spoke again, and Nathaniel stiffened. Another ache hooking into the cold prick of betrayal. He wondered what she had done with the ring he had given her, his mother’s ring, a single, pure, verdant emerald set in white gold.

‘What was the story of her groom?’ Nat addressed Reginald Northrup directly.

‘Oh, up and gone by all accounts, for she arrived home in a melancholic state that took a good year to recover from. I doubt any new husband would have put up with such gloom for that length of time, though my brother was happy enough to have her back and never questioned the marriage. He lives in his own world of science and experiments much the same as his wife was wont to. It was this interest that drew them together in the first place, I suppose.’

The layers of truth peeled back and, within the Venus Club in a room gilded with ostentation and excess, Nat found himself disheartened. It was what had happened after that which Nathaniel failed to understand: the closeness and then the unfathomable distance. He shook away his thoughts as Hawk spoke again.

‘Reginald is asking if we wish to join him at his country home for the Venus Club’s August celebrations, Nat. I said we would be more than delighted to accept his offer.’

‘Indeed.’ The taste of bitterness in Nathaniel’s mouth was strong, for nothing here made sense to him. Why had Cassandra Northrup never married again given the fragile and unorthodox legality of their nuptials?

She was beautiful. More beautiful than any other woman of the ton, even in the dreary guise of a widow. Aye, muted dove-grey suited the tone of her skin and the colour of her eyes and hair.

Her hair had been longer once, falling to the line of her hips in a single swathe of darkened silk as they had pulled themselves out of the river.

He had realised the danger the moment they awoke in the barn they had found in the late afternoon of the day before after walking for many miles. A sense of threat permeated the early morning air, and he was a man who had always relied on instinct.

Sandrine had stirred as he stood, straw from the beds they had fashioned still in the threads of her hair. Everything about her was delicate. Her hands, her nails, the tilt of her chin as she listened.

‘Someone is here?’

‘More than one. They do not know we are inside, however, or their voices would be quieter.’

He saw how she drew the knife from her sleeve and held it at the ready. Her hands were shaking.

Six of them, he determined, from the footsteps and the whicker of horses. By himself he would have taken them on, but with Sandrine to protect...?

Placing a finger to his lips he drew her to one side of the building and indicated a hole at the bottom of the boards.

‘Crawl through and make for the river. If they see you keep running and jump. Stay in the middle where the water flows fastest for at least a mile. After that I will find you.’

Fear sparked in her eyes. ‘I cannot swim well.’

‘Just put your arms out to each side and relax...’

He did not finish because a shout interrupted them and Nat knew their tracks had been discovered.

‘Go.’

A quick nod and the space where she had been was filled only with the scent of her and the sound of someone lifting the catch upon the door.

Unsheathing his knife Nat breathed out, another blade at his belt tilted so that the hilt was easily accessible. The dry straw also caught his eye. He would not make this easy for them and a fire would buy them some time. He hoped to God that Sandrine had reached the water way undetected.

* * *

She heard the commotion in the barn as flame leapt from straw, hot through the missing frame of a window.

Colbert had set the place on fire and as a diversion the plan was inspired. Already she saw two of the men retreating, their attention caught so firmly on the blaze they did not notice her as she ran past a line of weeping willows to the river bank.

Where was he? Why had he not come out after her? How long could a person breathe in the smoke and flame of straw? The quick report of a gun sent her under into the cold, down amongst the green of weed and the dirty swirl of mud. She pushed up and away, using her hands as he had told her, spread out as wings, the surface finally in sight, a faint glitter of day where only darkness had been and then she was out, air in her lungs again, a promontory cutting off any sight of the burning barn and distance-dulling noise.

Warm tears of fright ran against the chill, the quick rush of water taking her faster and faster, and the bank a good many yards from her on either side.

Had Nathanael Colbert died in the fight? The wound in his side and the remains of the fever would have sapped his strength and yet he had made sure she had the chance of safety before seeing to his own. He only knew her from her time with Baudoin, a girl marked with the horror of it and yet he had done this for her. Without question.

She wished he was here, behind her, as she was forced along in the rapid current, dragged down with the heaviness of her oversized boots.

And then he was there, reaching for her as she went under yet again, the water in her throat making her cough.

‘Put your arms around my neck.’

He was solid and sturdy, the muscles in his shoulders keeping her up in the cold air. His hair had been released from the band he kept it secured with and was falling in wet strands down his back. She wondered how he could keep going as the water flow quickened and rocks appeared, the fall of the river changing and whitening into rapids.

‘Don’t let go,’ he called over his shoulder, one hand fending off a jagged outcrop as they bounced into its path. Then they were free again, down onto a new level of river, softer and quieter.

Cassie could tell he was tiring, the gulps of air he took ragged and uneven. Blood from his wound stained the water crimson about them as damaged flesh opened to pressure. But still he did not stop, waiting until the bushes turned again to countryside before striking in for shore.

The mud under her feet was thick and deep as she gained a purchase. For a good long while they lay there, on the bank, the greyness of the sky above them promising rain. Freezing.

‘Take...your clothes...off.’ Even he was shivering.

The first soft drift of snow came unexpectedly, landing on her upturned face in a cold and quiet menace.

‘Take your...heavier clothes off...th-then get into the base of the hedge and dig. The l-leaves will be warmer than the air and they will p-protect you.’

He made no attempt to move himself, the flakes of snow thicker now. Again red blood pooled beneath him.

She came to a decision without conscious thought. He had saved her twice and she could not leave him here to perish. Unbuttoning what was left of his shirt, she sat him forward and took away the sodden cotton. His jacket was long gone, probably discarded when he first went into the river. A chain hung at his neck, a ring secured upon it, white-gold with a large clear emerald.

Was he married? Did a woman wait at home for him, hoping? His eyes this close were ringed in dark blue, grey melting into the colour seamlessly. Watching her.

‘Go.’

But she could not. Unsheathing the knife along the line of her lower arm as strength returned, she stood and cut a pile of branches. The leaves that lay at the base of a hedge she fashioned into a bed and rolled him into it, placing many more leaves and plant stems on top and using the brush as a shield to keep the snow away. Then, climbing underneath to join him, she snuggled in, jacket and shirt gone, skin touching skin.

Already the day had darkened, the dusk misting in early with the weather, more clouds on the horizon.

‘Will they find us?’

‘Not today. S-snow covers everything and whoever is looking will have to w-wait it out.’

Their small lair was becoming darker as the snow caught, layering and thickening. The wind, too, had lessened and heat was beginning to build. She liked it when his arms came about her, holding her close, the beat of his heart even and unhurried and his breath comforting.

For this one small moment they were safe.

She was glad when he stopped shivering, their warmth melding together to create hope.

* * *

Nat had awoken from their lair of snow beneath the bushes to a room with a fire burning bright. An older man and woman sat observing them, a youth standing near the window.

‘Our dog found your tracks leading from the river and we brought you here early this morning.’

Looking about, he saw that Sandrine and he had been placed on a bed together, a thick feather down quilt across them. He knew immediately that they were both naked, for she was tucked about him as if in sleep her body had sought the warmth she so desperately needed.

‘Your clothes and boots have been washed and repaired and should be dry by nightfall. The doctor said you were to stay very quiet for the wound at your side would have taken much in energy from you and could open again if you are not careful.’

A headache pounded in Nat’s temples, impairing his vision, the room swimming as their words were lost into a droning noise. Sandrine was still asleep, their voices making no inroad into her consciousness.

Shaking his head, he tried to distil the blurriness, but the pain only intensified and so he desisted. He could not even move a muscle; a heavy stupor anchored him to the mattress, and a tiredness that defied description seeped through. Alarm furrowed his brow, but when the dark claimed him he no longer had the vigour to question it, demand it different.

Sandrine was awake before him when he next surfaced and she had moved a good distance away, a rough linen shift now in place across her shoulders. A grey blanket was wedged in the space between them and no one else was in the room. A fire danced in the grate.

‘Madame Dortignac has just left. She brought chicken broth if you want some.’

‘No.’ The thought of food turned his stomach. Outside it was pitch-black and the noises of the house were stilled. Late, then? Around two, perhaps, though he had no real measure of time.

‘It has rained heavily all day,’ Sandrine said after a moment, ‘and I heard them say that the river has come up.’

‘Good.’ The threads of protection began to wind in closer. ‘Any sign of our presence will be long gone from the mud on the banks.’

‘They brought in a priest for you. I think they were worried you might not survive.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday afternoon. It has been a full two days since you last awoke.’ Anxiety played in her eyes. ‘He asked if we were husband and wife before he left. When I said that we were not he was displeased.’

‘A result of our bedding arrangements, I suspect. They think that I have ruined you.’

‘The priest tried to make me go to another room, but I felt safe here and told him that I would not.’

She looked so damn young sitting there, the dark beneath her eyes worrying him and the homespun in her shift showing up the fragility of her shoulders. Her hair had been pulled back into a loose chignon, small curls escaping around her face. Feeling the punch of her beauty Nathaniel breathed out and glanced away, angry at the effect she so easily engendered on the masculine parts of his body, even in sickness. He could not remember any woman with such sway over him.

Safe?

If he had felt better, he might have laughed at her interpretation of security. Looking around for his sword and gun, he found them next to his carefully folded clean clothes and polished boots to one side of the bed.

‘Did they say who they were?

She nodded. ‘Farmers. They own the land between the river and the mountains behind, a large tract that has been in their family for generations. The Catholic priest who came was certain that God was punishing us for...for....’ She did not finish.

He smiled. ‘Our sins of the flesh?’

A bright stain of redness began at her throat and surged up across her cheeks.

‘Life or death requires sacrifices, Sandrine, and if you had not removed my clothes and kept me warm I would have perished. An omnipotent God would know that, and I thank you for it.’

A myriad of small expressions flitted across her brow: humour, puzzlement and then finally acceptance.

‘Are you always so certain of things, Monsieur Colbert?’

‘Yes.’

At that she laughed properly, her head thrown back and her eyes dancing. Not the pale imitation of laughter that the society ladies had perfected to an art form, but a real and honest reaction that made him laugh, too, the medicine of humour exhilarating. He could not remember ever feeling like this with another woman before, the close edge of a genuine joy pressing in and a camaraderie that was enticing.