“But of course. My friend, I must tell you. More than two hours ago, men rode into this monastery. Leblanc’s men. Adrian led them away, except for Henri, who is over there.” She waved in the general direction of Henri, who was wriggling noisily by the pillar she had attached him to. “Adrian has not come back. There were shots…He is so weak. And there were at least three of them.”
“He’ll make it. He’s the sneakiest man alive. The men chasing us are great blundering dolts in the woods. City men. Untie me.”
“Doyle is…?” She couldn’t finish the question.
“Leading them in circles. They won’t get Doyle. He’s been doing this longer than you’ve been alive. And we killed a couple. Get these ropes off my hands.”
“I do not think so.” She did run her finger over the ties she had made, but it was to check that they were quite secure. “I wish Doyle very well. You also, Grey. I wish you the good luck in your travels.” She spoke to him, this last time, in the intimate form of the language, the one used between friends and lovers. “I part company with you now, as has been my intention for some while. This should not amaze you.”
“Don’t do this, Annique. Let me loose.”
Oh, but Grey was furious. He did not like to be helpless, this one. But there were other things in his voice…Worry for her. Caring. She could not be completely mistaken about that. She would not hurt like this if he did not care at all.
“I cannot stay long,” she said. “Leblanc’s men may become bored with chasing the excellent Doyle and return. And there will be gendarmes, before many hours pass, who will ask themselves why this wood is completely full to the brim with dead bodies everywhere. Do you need money? I will give you some of Henri’s, if you like.”
“Let me get you across the Channel. I’ll set you free on the other side, I promise. I’ll give you a head start. Whatever you want. Don’t do this on your own. You don’t have a chance.”
She smoothed the coat on his shoulder, where there were admirable muscles. She could indulge herself also in stroking his cheek. That was even better—the touch of skin upon skin. “Do you know, when I am with you I am not afraid at all. It is a magic altogether curious that happens inside the heart. I wish I could take it with me when I leave.”
She should not waste her time sitting and talking to him. They both had numerous tasks to accomplish before dawn. But she had not engaged in so many dissipations in her life, after all. She could allow herself a few minutes. “I am frightened of this next journey. The noise of the sea makes it hard to hear what is around me. I must go a long way through this desolation, which is chaotic and full of men trying to kill me. I would avoid it, if I could. I am not an idiot.”
“Think. Just stop and think. If by some miracle you get to England, you’re going to fall into my hands anyway. You’re just delaying the inevitable.” He was working very hard to get free, but she was no amateur at the craft of tying people. “I’m not going to hurt you. I swear it.”
“It is sad, my Grey. We are constrained by the rules of this Game we play. There is not one little place under those rules for me to be with you happily. Or apart happily, which is what makes it so unfair.” She sat more comfortably, pulling her knees up, resting her arms across them. “I have discovered a curious fact about myself. An hour ago I was sure you were dead, and it hurt very much. Now you are alive, and it is only that I must leave you, and I find that even more painful. That is not at all logical.”
In all the time she had known Grey—well, it was not so very long after all—she had never searched his face with her hands to know what he looked like. She could do it now. His hair was short, but soft to hold between her fingers. He had strongly marked bones in his nose—it had been broken once, she thought—and skin of an uncivilized roughness. The ridge of his eyebrows was most pronounced. Not pretty, Monsieur Grey. She had not thought he would be.
“I shall leave you the knife of Henri,” she said, “though I could use it myself. It is in apology for those bumps I have given you with this useful small cosh of mine. You must cut your way free when I am gone. I shall gift you also with Henri, who, I must tell you, I am beginning to find boring in the extreme in his attentions. I have still not murdered him, as you see. I am all benevolence.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed out there.”
“It is very possible.” She had one last minute to stroke his body, to hold on to the warmth of him. He was strong and worthy of respect, and gentle, and her enemy. Her choice of him seemed as inevitable as tides in the ocean. One drowns in the ocean. “Do you know the Symposium, Grey?” She set her palm against the stubble on his cheek. Men were not like women at all, to the touch. “The Symposium of Plato.”
“I’ll find you, wherever you go. You know that. I’ll never give up.”
“You will not find me. You shall not know at all where to look for me. Pay attention. Plato says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole. All men are seeking that other half of themselves. Do you remember?”
“This isn’t the goddamned time to talk about Plato.”
That made her smile. “I think you are the other half of me. It was a great mix-up in heaven. A scandal. For you there was meant to be a pretty English schoolgirl in the city of Bath and for me some fine Italian pastry cook in Palermo. But the cradles were switched somehow, and it all ended up like this…of an impossibility beyond words.”
“Annique…”
Swiftly, softly, she leaned to him and covered his mouth and kissed him. It seemed to surprise him.
“I wish I had never met you,” she whispered. “And in all my life I will not forget lying beside you, body to body, and wanting you.”
“For God’s sake…”
She stood up and jammed the knife in a crack between two stones some distance away, where it would take him a while to get to it. “Adrian was right. I should have made love to you when I had the chance.”
She walked out of the chapel, ignoring his words behind her, which were angry in the extreme, and taking care not to trip on the bits and pieces of her trap that were strewn around the entryway.
Henri’s horse was glad to see her. It did not like being so enclosed by briars. There was less trouble than she would have thought to mount, and no one in this dead monastery would see that her dress was hiked up far beyond decency. She gave the horse its head to find a way out of the courtyard and onto the road. Then all she could do was point toward the sound of the sea, hold on to rein and mane very tightly, and kick hard. It would be dawn soon. There was enough light for a horse to see. At the water’s edge she could follow the line of surf north.
She had come a mile when the road straightened and sloped downward. Henri’s horse picked up speed.
A blow slammed her. Shock. Pain. Falling. She had an instant to know it was a tree branch, hanging over the road, that had hit her. That the horse had done this on purpose.
She fell. Cried out in fear. Her head hit the ground, and the world exploded.
Then, nothing.
The horse, having demonstrated the vicious streak that allowed Henri to buy him cheaply, gave a satisfied grunt and trotted off in the direction of St.-Pierre-le-Proche. Annique lay in a ditch by the side of the road, her face upturned into the drizzle.
SHE hurt. Tendrils of pain reached into the nothing and gave it shape and form. She was pulled unwillingly to a place where pain knifed into her. Her head, in particular, hurt.
It is better to be unconscious. That was her first thought.
Pain filled her head like fire. Like fire. Like…
That was her second thought. Between one instant and the next, she knew.
Light. Light diffused through her closed eyelids. In terror and awe, she opened her eyes and saw pale dawn in the sky. Light everywhere. Light across a whole mass of swirling clouds.