Page 25

25

KIDNAPPED

L éon sat open-mouthed at the flippant-sounding comment regarding the fact that his whole world had, in fact, just imploded.

“Why would you do that?”

Because you’re exquisite in every sense of the word and this is the only way I can stop you from running straight back to town and turning yourself in.

“Larks.”

“This is a joke to you?” Léon cried.

“This is a game? My whole life is back there. Everything I’ve ever done, everything I’ve worked for?—”

Henry huffed a laugh.

“Who knew you had such a great time lopping heads.”

“It doesn't matter if I have a great time or not! You can’t just… just… Why would you do this? I thought we were?—”

“You thought we were what?” Henry drawled, head high and haughty, just as arrogant as he ever was.

What had he thought? Henry still hated him, of course he did. But it wasn’t as though Léon had missed the fact that he’d just taken a bullet for him.

Henry regarded him coolly, awaiting an answer that never came, then took long fingers to the clasp of his cloak and unfastened it. “You look cold.” He threw it across to Léon.

Léon dashed the cloak to the floor in one angry movement. Henry swished it up with a scowl, dusting it off, despite the blood and gore still clinging to the base of the garment. He settled his eyes back on Léon, who’d now wrapped arms around himself, absolutely freezing in the large, empty space moving at speed, but determined to deny it.

Henry let out an irritated sigh, slotted his sword back in its holster, and instead took out a small flask, silver, and etched with an enormous and ornate ‘V’. He unscrewed the cap, then offered it to Léon, who would have taken his head off in one glance had looks been able to kill.

Henry took a sip, then said, “It’s about time I introduced myself properly. I’m Henri de Villiers. That’s my sister Catherine at the helm. And I want to thank you for what you’ve done for us.”

Léon paid no heed to the fact Henry had just revealed his surname, a mark of trust for a criminal. He hadn’t even noticed. “Don’t you dare thank me, you absolute shit! Where are we going? Where’s émile? Where’s Souveraine? Are you a highwayman?”

“One thing at a time,” Henry sighed.

“No! Everything right now! Just what have you got me messed up in?”

Henry raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Yes, okay, I’m an occasional highwayman.” Léon laughed in a particularly succinct display of gallows humour, shaking his head, prompting Henry to add, “It’s only to pay the bills.”

“Bills?” Léon snapped, looking over Henry’s clothes yet again. “What bills does a man like you have to pay?”

Henry also laughed, albeit with a little more humour than Léon had. “You might be surprised.” Léon glared out the window. “It’s not a lifestyle choice, just so you know. Though it is fun, after a fashion.” He scrunched his lips at the burning pain in his wounded arm as he adjusted his position. “Mostly.”

Receiving no response, Henry fell a little more serious. “Your barmaid is with émile, and both are perfectly safe.” Léon settled his scowl on Henry. “I didn’t want to leave émile alone, but I also had to make sure you wouldn’t burn my sister. Therefore, I kindly asked your girlfriend to watch him for me until we were done. They’re at an inn several miles out of town, safe and warm and well fed. They’re expecting you.”

Hearing that, Léon was roused to a little more practicality to go along with his fury. “And what happens then?”

On a slight shrug, “Whatever you want to happen. If you want to go back to Reims, I won’t stop you. I just ask that you allow my sister and I enough time to escape before you make your way back.” Léon didn’t seem convinced, so Henry said, “I want to tell you a little more about my sister, and about our situation, before you leave. So perhaps you can understand why I’ve done all this.”

“Do you think the time for that might have been last night?”

It caught at Henry’s chest to be drawn so immediately back to the intimacy of the former evening. To hear Léon speak of it as though he had also noticed it. But then, of course he had. How could he not?

Henry took another sip. He didn’t want the closeness. And he didn’t want to have done what he just did, either. It was rash and a surprise even to himself, both the act of getting shot, then subsequently trapping Léon, nothing more than reckless impulses, and stupid ones at that. What the hell was wrong with him?

Out of nowhere, Léon snatched the flask from his hand. “Your sister,” he prompted before taking a sip.

Henry looked towards the front of the carriage, not that he could see Catherine through the polished wood as she drove them along. She had no idea where they were going, but by luck the carriage was already facing the general direction they needed to go, so Henry let her be until he had reason to interfere. As usual. “The situation is a little delicate.”

“Let me guess.” Léon’s head leaned back against the carriage wall, a sardonic note to his voice and mocking smile. “Your parents tried to marry her off to someone you or she didn’t like, so you and she decided to run off together. But you got in too deep, and now you don’t want to go to them for help.”

Henry’s hand ran to the hilt of his sword, and his eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

“It was hardly difficult to guess. All the things you said about Paris and the kind of freedoms you expect your sister will find there. Most men wouldn’t have thought twice about that sort of thing. You clearly have a vested interest.” Léon wasn’t about to admit to Henry that the idea had touched him—that Henry should have uprooted his whole life for Catherine—making Léon dwell in every spare moment on the possible deeply hidden sweetness of a man like that. A man who loved his sister with as much of his heart as Léon loved émile. And just then, he wasn’t about to admit it to himself either. He went on the attack. “But I can see you haven’t been without money for long.” He wrinkled his nose at Henry’s outfit. “Your clothes and your boots.” Raised his eyes to his weapon. “You haven’t had to pawn your sword or your gun.” Settling on the glittering ruby ring on his left hand, “And that looks like it would pay a few bills.”

Henry, unsettled by Léon’s perceptiveness, twisted the jewel from Léon’s sight with his thumb. “That’s special.”

“So is food,” Léon returned. “But I can see you’ve never had to make that choice.” He nodded at his weapon. “Is that ‘special’ too?”

“Tools of the trade,” Henry joked weakly.

Léon scoffed. “You can afford to wrap a sticky cake in a silk scarf and just give it away. You don’t strike me as someone who’s ever had to be without money, or who really believes they’ll have any trouble coming across more.” His eyes hardened. “You strike me as a spoiled rich boy who goes through life smashing things up until he gets what he wants. And now you’re going to Paris to live in a mansion and smoke and drink and wear long pants and play at being common. But they’ll sniff you out. And unlike Catherine, I’m not going to be there to save your head.”

“You’d probably love to watch it roll, wouldn’t you?” Henry sneered.

“I’d pay all the money I have.” Léon held his gaze on Henry, even as the fire retreated from Henry’s eyes, as he turned his head away and stared down at the floor.

Harsh words. Undoubtedly true. And fair, when Henry thought about it. It wasn’t nice to feel perfectly justified hatred from a man Henry was growing to like more and more by the minute, but what was even worse was that Léon had, yet again, easily and succinctly voiced everything Henry was afraid of.

Of course, Paris was increasingly dangerous. He knew it with every piece of news that reached him, with every newspaper headline he tried desperately to avoid, all of it clambering through the thick denial he’d built to retain some sort of hope. And Léon crushed it so easily. Which sent Henry into a fresh fury. He flung back, “What should I do then? Where should I go? You know so very much about the world, you tell me where it’s safe? Where a man can hide, where he doesn’t need money, where he can just slip into the woodwork and have no one know who he is or come after him.”

Made even angrier by Henry’s anger, Léon breathed out an exasperated, “You have money.” He shouted, “You have money! Money is all there is! Money is all that matters! You can go to Switzerland. You can go to Spain. You can go to this ridiculous America they keep talking about. You can do whatever you like in this world with your fine name and your fine clothes. Maybe if you’d ever had a real day of work in your life, ever had a single genuine problem, like how to find something to eat so you don’t starve to death, maybe then you’d see that your sister marrying some rich man isn’t the worst possible fate that could befall either of you.”

“Some rich man?” Henry’s lips snarled over the words.

“Some rich man, yes. What, is his house too big? You have to drive your six white horses and your private carriage a little further through his private fields to get to his door? Or do you just not like the wallpaper he chose for his three drawing rooms?”

Henry leaned forward, seething. “The man was sixty-two when they were engaged. She was sixteen, barely. She refused his every advance, and when he couldn’t have his way, he drugged her, knocked her out cold, and locked her in his bedroom at a ball he was giving. Only I was looking for her—only I came to find her, in his bed, like that.” Henry raised shaking fingers to his brow, closing his eyes and leaning against his cool skin to calm himself. “He fled before I could get my hands on him. But I told my father what happened. I told him never to let that man near her again, and I went looking for him. I was going to end him. I chased him all the way to Bath before I lost him. And it was forty-eight hours to the minute when I read the announcement of their engagement in the paper.”

Léon’s stomach lurched. The whole sordid history dropped just like that, and every idea of Henry he’d had turned on its head so swiftly. He didn’t doubt the truth of his words. He could see the venom in every powerful inch of him.

Henry read the appalled question in Léon’s eyes. “Why did he do it? Because she brought ‘shame’ on us. Because she accepted some punch at a party when she was a child and never thought for a moment that her respected host would do such a thing. Well, how could she have imagined? It’s not as though she knew those things existed.” Léon passed the flask back, and Henry took it in hand, though he didn’t lift it to his lips. “He was rich, all right,” he said, glaring at the wall as though he could see the very man there. “A politician. Stuffed to the gills with money. But I thought, young and na?ve as I was, that a father— any father—would protect his daughter from a man like that, no matter what offer was made for her. I was wrong.”

The gravity of it settled heavily over Léon as he watched Henry throw back a swig of brandy. Léon was not from Henry’s world. He’d seen the tarnish Souveraine bore in his name, but it took Henry’s final words on the matter to drive the point home.

“She’s done. At home, she has a reputation, through no fault of her own. There were a lot of people there that night and word spread fast. He made sure of it. All our friends and family have turned their backs on her. She’s an outcast, and this just for being rich and pretty. But you take away the trappings of my father, and she’s just a girl. She was just a child. And if she does not agree to the marriage, and if he finds her, he will send her to the madhouse until she does. And if I do not back down… Well, you see. This is where I find myself. Here. With you. In the back of this stolen carriage, a highwayman, with a sister who…” He fell to silence, his fingers tapping over the soft tapestry seat. “It’s been three years. Three long years on the run. So I’m pleased you think I’ve kept myself in such good order.”

It was then that Léon studied Henry a little harder. It was then he noticed the darned collar, the stitching in one spot not so neatly done as the rest. Then he noticed the wear on Henry’s holster, the slight fray at a corner of a cuff.

Henry watched him make his assessment, watched Léon’s face fall a little sorry. Then he asked softly, “Is it so very bad if I hope the revolution delivers its promises? If I believe—if I need to believe—in something like that?”

Henry looked away before he could answer. He stared up at the ceiling, seeming to Léon as though he wished the rocking of the carriage were an ocean current come to wash him out to sea to drown him once and for all. But had it been, he would have fought it and swum his way back in to his sister. That was something Léon felt in his soul. And he found, right at the base of his anger, something hard and solid that felt almost like respect for Henry.

Until Henry said, “What would you know, anyway? You’ve got your barmaid and your blood money. It’s all mapped out for you.”

“It was,” Léon mumbled bitterly, snatching the flask back and taking a sip. “Until you came along and ruined everything.”

Henry snatched it right back from him. “I’m sure you can find some other town where your ‘skills’ will be in high demand.”

Léon watched him down some more brandy, then wrenched the flask away again. “Oh yeah? How about Paris?”

“How about Paris?” said Henry, waiting for Léon to take another drink before he grabbed the flask. “Maybe you could do something meaningful with your life instead of wasting away, keeping your-your-your-your chesty concubine barefoot and pregnant.”

“My chesty concubine?” Léon cried, undecided whether to laugh at the ridiculous description or slap Henry across the face.

Henry shoved the flask back into Léon’s hand. “Did it ever strike you that there’s maybe more to the world than marrying the girl next door and living your whole life in the same stupid town?”

Léon drank again and shoved the flask back to Henry. “Yes! Why do you think I’m doing all this? I’m going to get émile out if it’s the last thing I do.”

“And what about you?”

Léon looked around the carriage, as though there was another version of him that Henry might have been referring to. “What about me?”

“What do you want?”

“What? I…” He took a sip. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what do you want? To do with your life.”

“Me? I…” He shrugged. “I-I don’t.”

Henry squinted at him. “You don’t what?”

“I don’t… want . Anything. I guess.” Another sip, and he passed it back to Henry.

“You don’t want anything? Nothing at all? No dreams, no places you want to go?” Meeting only another vague shrug, Henry asked, a little more gently but noticeably resentfully, “You’re happy with her then?”

“What? Who?” Léon blinked. “Souveraine?”

Taking another drink, “How many other barmaids are you planning to marry?”

Léon tilted his head, thrown by the change in conversation and tone. “What makes you think I’m planning to marry her?”

“émile said you are. I’ve seen her, so I presume you are.”

“émile says a lot of things. He’s a kid. He doesn’t understand…”

Henry challenged him with a piercing glare. “What doesn’t he understand?”

He chugged another sip, then Léon took the flask with a furrowing of his brow. “Why do you care? Why are you asking me all this?”

“I don’t care,” Henry said. “I’m just passing the time, and we’re having a drink?—”

“I’m only drinking because it’s fucking cold in here.”

Henry regarded him for a moment, a soft smile spreading across his handsome face. Then he did just about the last thing Léon would ever have expected him to do.

He picked his cloak up from the seat, crossed the carriage, and settled down by Léon, shoulder to shoulder. He said nothing, made no eye contact, only threw his cloak over Léon’s knees, then pulled up to his shoulders.

The move made Léon freeze up. It was a small and simple gesture, but it felt… foreign, somehow. Intimate, but a sort of intimacy Léon was almost wholly unfamiliar with. He hadn’t had a father around since he was seventeen, no mother since she died a few months later. Léon had only the physical touch of a boisterous brother, and, when he rarely let her, Souveraine.

No man had ever taken such a liberty with him, and Léon hated how good the cloak felt on his bare skin. The garment was lined with black and luxurious fur, and how good the clean end of it smelled, especially compared to the rotten body fluids that were still all over him. It smelled of leather and smoke and soap, and something else. Something particular and elusive. It smelled like Henry. And he hadn’t noticed until now just how good Henry smelled.

Had he? Maybe he had.

He took another sip. Then another.

With words as soft as the fur on Léon’s skin, Henry said, “It gets lonely, doesn’t it?”

Léon’s head tilted down in a sad acknowledgement. He felt the press of Henry’s shoulder, and his cheek moved a little closer to Henry’s, afraid of his closeness, but also craving the comfort, unable to stop himself.

“I don’t want to marry her,” Léon blurted out, maybe because he’d never said it out loud to anyone, and maybe because Henry was a crook and a man he’d never see again once they set foot outside that carriage. “I’m not in love with her. I never have been, and I never will be.” It felt good to say it. It felt good to get the pressure of eight long years off his chest. But he finished with, “I will marry her, though.”

He passed the flask over, searching Henry’s eyes for the condemnation he’d expect from anyone else.

Henry watched him, interested, a dark sparkle to his eyes. “Who are you really in love with?”

All the carriage, all the road, and all the rest of France seemed to draw up inside Léon, and it was only Henry and that question that no one had ever asked him. And that was terrifying. Especially while Henry watched and waited for the answer far too intently. “No one. I’ve never been in love. I can’t because…” Because I have a child. And responsibilities. And because I want a man. And I because I want him to be just like you. If only you weren’t so cruel. The thought shook Léon. He blushed under Henry’s keen gaze and tried to hide his eyes. He deflected as best he could. “Who are you in love with? You’re old enough to be married. Why did you never settle down with someone?”

“Because I’m a highwayman.” Henry tapped a hand to the ceiling, and they felt the pull as his sister immediately slowed the carriage. “And because I never met the right man.”

It was like a lightning bolt straight into Léon’s heart. Henry held his gaze, watched the realisation come over him, watched the parting of his beautiful lips, breathed in the taut air that escaped.

Then Henry was out the carriage door, just as quickly as the speed of the slowing vehicle allowed, leaving Léon alone, wrapped in Henry’s cloak, heart beating dangerously fast, wondering what the hell had just happened.