Page 26

26

IMPASSE

H enry never got back into the carriage, all the rest of the long drive.

He rode up top with Catherine, directing her to the brightly lit but isolated inn at which they arrived an hour or two later, night having fallen as they travelled.

Léon, still carrying his axe, was quick to the carriage door, but Henry was faster, pulling it open with all the gallant grace as if Léon had been one of the owners of the carriage, and he his date for the night.

It slowed Léon’s exit to find Henry so close, standing to his right, regarding him inscrutably.

There was an undeniable camaraderie between the two now—a strange closeness that they both felt—and one was as curious as the other to know if he felt it, too.

But neither, at that time, was about to force the bond further than they already had.

Catherine stood a little distance away, stretching out her back from the long ride, scandalously but carelessly exposed in her white shift, the dried blood that mostly coated the garment up to her midline being the only thing blocking a clear view straight through her dress.

She had ridden all the way through the unseasonably frigid air, just like that.

Léon’s fingers grasped Henry’s cloak before he even registered what he was doing.

He reproached Henry with a frown on his way past, slipping the garment from his own shoulders to wrap around Catherine’s.

But she pushed it back with an easy movement.

“Oh, no, I don’t feel the cold.” And hearty she looked too.

Her face was blooming with a pink and energetic flush, her hair was wild about her cheeks, fresh from the breeze, as though the flight had knocked all the grime of prison off her.

But her arms were thin, her cheeks not half as plump as they should have been, and the older brother in Léon took over.

“Please. I’m appalled I didn’t think of it earlier.”

“Let him,” Henry called over Léon’s shoulder.

Catherine glanced at Henry, registering the meaning of some look he sent her way, then she smiled at Léon, and said with a shrug, “If it will make you feel better.”

“It will.” Léon had just wrapped his arms around her to bring the cloak across her back, when he heard his name yelled in the familiar voice he loved best in all the world.

émile burst from the briefly illuminated doorway of the inn and bolted straight into Léon’s arms as he leaned down to scoop him up.

The overwhelm in Léon’s body was so great he dropped to his knees to hug and kiss the boy.

“We heard the carriage,” said émile.

“I was hoping it was you.”

Léon made no more answer than the kisses on émile’s warm cheeks.

It was over. The whole nightmare, all of it done, and émile back in his arms, clean, and so happy, after everything.

A soft hand landed on Léon’s shoulder.

Souveraine stood behind him, eyes flitting between Henry and Catherine, scared of the one, scared and jealous of the other, having noted Léon’s care of her from the doorway.

Léon arose and locked arms around her, pulling her in for a long hug.

“I’m sorry.”

Henry’s gaze fell on the pair of them, resulting in a loud clack of his tongue.

He might have turned away just then, but émile spotted him, yelled out, “Henri!” and left his brother’s side for the fine arms of his kidnapper.

Souveraine started forward in horror, but Léon surprised himself and her by saying softly, “It’s okay.” He watched Henry easily haul the boy up with one arm, asking him if he’d been good, and getting a gushing rundown on how very nice his afternoon with Souveraine had been.

Distractedly, Léon turned to her and asked, “Are you all right? What did he do?”

Dark eyes on Henry, Souveraine replied quietly, “He told me you’d only get émile back if I came.”

“Oh, Souveraine.” His hand slid against her cheek, and she dipped her forehead to his.

“I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head, instantly absolving Léon of any wrongdoing, as she always did.

And with the thankfulness of seeing her well, and with the love he felt for her friendship, his guilt redoubled itself.

It wasn’t only that she was, in every possible way, the perfect partner for him, had he been able to love her the way she wanted.

It was, yet again, the guilt of what if she’d been with someone else?

Married safely to a good man.

Then she would never have run off with a dangerous villain like Henry—a complete stranger—all for Léon’s sake.

What if it hadn’t been Henry who asked?

What if it had been someone far worse, with far more terrible intentions, and she had simply walked to her death for Léon’s sake?

The thought made him ill, and he tightened his hand around her waist, only to have their intimacy interrupted by Catherine’s too-close face, barely an inch from Souveraine’s.

“Souveraine, is it? I didn’t get your name at the prison.”

Souveraine snapped to, opening her eyes from the warming embrace to see a visage she was growing to dislike immensely, pretty as it was.

“That’s correct. I didn’t know you could speak.”

Catherine made no reference to this last fact.

“Thank you for your help.” She wrapped her hand around Léon’s forearm, just above the wrist cuff he still wore, saying of him, “He was amazing. So clever. But we couldn’t have done it without you.”

Souveraine’s nostril flared as she tilted her head up to appraise the very forward young woman.

But Léon’s attention had been drawn back to Henry.

There had been a flash of leather out of the corner of his eye, and now he couldn’t help but note the flex of Henry’s thigh as he raised a foot to lift émile onto the driver’s seat of the carriage.

émile found him great entertainment, and it was clear he was getting in all the time he could with him before Henry had to depart.

It was a touch hurtful, in the careless way children often are, that Léon had gone through all that only to play second fiddle to the man who’d kidnapped him.

But after all, Henry did have a way about him.

He was all smiles and jokes and his hair falling by his eyes when he leaned forward.

And Jesus Christ, he was so fucking hot…

“Léon!” Souveraine said for the third time.

“Sorry. What?” He tried hard to focus on her, but Henry laughed, and had his laugh always been that deep throated?

God, his throat… What good use he could make of that throat…

“What happened to you?” She ran a hand over his enormous, naked biceps.

“And why do you smell like… that ?” Dropping her eyes to the reddish-brownish smears across his abdomen, “Is that blood?”

“Just from work,” he tried to reassure her.

“And the rain. But I-I do need a wash.” He hadn’t ever told her about the pit.

She’d known his intention to help Catherine escape, but even the existence of the pit was something he didn’t want Souveraine thinking about.

Souveraine had more important things on her mind than how Léon smelled, anyway.

“Are we leaving now?” She glared over at Henry with émile.

“Is that our carriage?”

“I don’t recommend you take this carriage.” Catherine had wandered to the front of it as though she owned the thing, stroking a caramel-coloured horse along the white stripe that ran the length of its nose.

“It’s quite stolen.”

Léon’s tongue gave off an unchecked tsk and “What?” Souveraine gasped out, her big blue eyes looking up at Léon in alarm.

“Yeah. Um. It just… happened.” Was he actively defending Henry now?

No, he certainly was not!

“The-the whole thing was appalling,” he corrected sternly, trying to snap back to his old self, who he seemed to have left somewhere along the road.

“A nightmare. We need to get back to Reims at once.”

But his fast strides towards the inn were halted by a loud whinny, Henry’s, “There you are!” and the sound of hooves descending fast upon their meeting.

Henry jumped down from the carriage with sturdy calves that Léon absolutely did not notice the shape of, then he leaned his head back with an arrogant air, crossing his arms for good measure.

His black stallion trotted out of the night and directly to him, nudging hard into his shoulder.

Henry was sent back a step or two with the strength of the affectionate push, but he only said, “And I suppose you’ll be expecting me to pay for your food and board here?”

A neigh came back with the raise of the horse’s head, as if in direct answer, to which Henry replied, “Why should I? You hardly kept your end of the deal.”

émile had scampered down from the carriage and was fast beside Henry, poking a finger through his belt loop for stability.

“Henri! He’s a beauty. What’s his name?”

Another whinny, and the great stallion lowered its head to émile, who fell back on the ground with a laugh.

Léon rushed to pick him up while Henry continued his bizarre communication with the animal.

“No, I’m not saying that.”

Another neigh, and émile still chuckling at their hi-jinx, but Henry doubled down.

“I’m not saying it.”

A louder neigh and a strong nudge, then an eye roll from Henry as he stumbled back again.

émile, having sprung to his feet with Léon curious behind him, insisted, “Henri? His name?”

Henry wrinkled his mouth, and with a hand at his brow, stated flatly, “Astaroth, Bringer of Pain, Leveller of Worlds, and Destroyer of Mankind.”

Astaroth, Bringer of Pain, Leveller of Worlds, and Destroyer of Mankind seemed to nod with satisfaction.

“But I call him Destroyer,” Henry added quickly, to a disgruntled snort from the horse, at which Henry narrowed his eyes, at which Destroyer narrowed his eyes and offered a short-lived flattening of his ears.

“He’s magnificent,” said émile, stroking the horse’s snout, which appeased the animal appropriately.

“He’s a complete ar—” Léon caught his eye sharply “—Ahhh, where is the help, anyway?” He spun away with a conspiratorial grin that made Léon’s stomach curl in on itself despite everything.

He yelled out, “Garcon!” striding into the inn.

“Destroyer,” émile repeated on a whisper, as enamoured as a boy could be with all the adornments of Henri De Villiers.

The kidnapper. The highwayman.

Remembering this, Léon picked émile up onto his hip protectively, but he still couldn’t help running a hand over the soft nose of the strange creature.

He’d heard Henry say he was stolen, but he seemed the most docile and friendly beast Léon had ever been near.

It was odd, to say the least, the way Henry interacted with the animal.

Was he lying again? Was this really his horse?

Léon had seen no sign of it prior, back at that cabin.

Yet the rapport they had, the idea of this beast following them all the way from Reims, galloping through the evening by their side…

The warning twist in Léon’s stomach was interrupted before it registered, by Henry, returned with a young man, whom he directed to take both horses and the carriage around back, asking him to water them and lodge them in the stables for the night.

Hearing this, Léon rushed up.

“But I need to go back.”

“We’ll find you some other horses,” Henry suggested.

“Faster ones. Shall we?” He held out a hand towards the door of the inn.

Léon paused only long enough to hold his own hand out for Souveraine, who gladly took it, with a glace askance for each Catherine and Henry on the way past.

The inn was about as empty as such a place located in the middle of nowhere was always likely to be.

It operated more as a logistical necessity than a bar, a place for lodging the night before attempting the next leg of a long tour—a place for resting or changing horses.

It was, or should have been, the perfect place for Léon to get some fresh animals to make the journey back to Reims, but the moment they set foot inside, the landlady yelled out, “Oh, no, you can’t come in here looking like that.”

Léon halted on the flagstones, ashamed and embarrassed of his bulging nakedness, a sudden and gnawing horror of what he must have looked like overtaking him.

He cast his eyes down, and now that he was in the light, he saw his skin was entirely red with blood and blood-red rain, right over his shoulders and curvaceous chest, down his abs, and to his tight black leather pants that sat some way below his navel.

His hands, when he turned them over, were a darker shade still, and the still-bloody axe was doing nothing to soften his image.

His eyes flicked quickly to Henry, by his side.

Henry had fared better than him, somewhat.

His cuffs were blood-stained, and he stank just as badly, but he pulled leather gloves off clean fingers, wiped his boots, one, two, on a horsehair mat, then started forward.

He raised a chin to the lady of the establishment, who raised one right back at him.

She must have remembered him from earlier in the day when he dropped Souveraine and émile off there, Léon surmised.

Henry reached into his pocket, leaning over the counter for a quiet word in her ear, sliding some money across at the same time.

Léon soon followed him, dropping in on their conversation, assuming, naturally, that Henry was enquiring about the horses.

They both fell silent.

“Are there any?” Léon asked hopefully.

“Any what?” The woman ran her eyes over Léon’s bare chest.

He crossed his arms over himself.

“Horses.”

She looked up at Henry, he looked down at her, and she scratched the money up off the counter.

“Last pair just went,” she replied with a sorry shake of her head.

The lines above her small mouth pulled into the tight crevices of an almost smile.

“Won’t have anything until the morning.”

“That can’t be,” Léon declared, perfectly bereft.

“I need to leave. I need to get back to Reims. It’s very important.”

“Then I guess you’ll be walking.” She offered no more compassion than that, and Léon set to thinking the matter over.

He could walk it. He’d be back by morning, and hopefully not freeze to death if he set a good pace.

But not émile. He could never carry him that far, and certainly not out in the cold.

And he couldn’t ask it of Souveraine.

Hopelessly, he said, “Is there a farm? A property nearby where I could enquire of the owners? I’d bring them straight back tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t lend you my horse,” she said dryly, eyes on the blood beneath his fingernails.

“It was only the rain,” Léon tried, pathetically, scrunching his hands closed.

“I don’t care what it was. You and your,” she glanced at Catherine in her bloody dress, “lady of the night?—”

“What did you call me?” Catherine, silently listening until then, stepped forward with a grim, surprisingly menacing little smile on her face.

At that exact second, Léon became aware of a clanging of bottles behind the bar, a tinkle of the copper pots that decorated the walls as they began to shake.

“Catherine,” Henry said in a low voice that sounded to Léon’s ears like a warning.

“No offence, dear,” said the woman, accompanying the words with a snarky smile.

“Only, I don’t want the clap in my sheets.”

“I’ll give you something even better,” Catherine replied on a snarl.

A puff of dust, loosened from a shaking beam above, landed by Léon’s hand on the counter.

The room seemed to double in brightness as the flames in the fireplace grew, and the rattling increased all about, chairs sliding on the floor, tables banging, a decorative plate falling from a hook and smashing on the floor.

But above all this din, it was Henry who drew Léon’s eyes as he bolted forward, breathing out an anxious storm of, “Cathy-Cathy-Cathy-Cathy-Cathy-calm-calm. Shhhh.” He brought two hands to her shoulders, pausing her forward movement, and he said quietly, “We need to stay here tonight.”

She glared at the landlady.

“But she said?—”

“Catherine, please.” He stroked her cheek.

“Look at me.”

Her eyelids flickered a little lower at the woman in pure spite, then she did as Henry asked.

And he spoke soft words that Léon could no longer hear, and the anger on her face lessened.

The glasses settled, the chairs stopped moving, and the firelight dimmed back to its usual light.

“Thank you,” Henry whispered.

Catherine gave him a slight nod, and he returned one of his own.

He came back to Léon’s side, a different man to the one who’d just been so oddly placating, almost subordinate.

This man was as charming as he had been when he stole the carriage, smiling, and saying with overt enthusiasm, “These tremors we’ve been having lately! The very thing that upset our carriage. We barely got out of there, but as you can see, my sister fell in a puddle of this strange red rain. It’s the darnedest thing.”

“Your sister?” asked the landlady, locking eyes with Catherine’s, which remained dark, though she’d retreated into a brooding silence.

“Yes. A lady of the first order, and once she’s dressed in her usual garments, which are with the rest of our things, currently upstairs in the suitcases I brought in today, you’ll find she’s just as respectable as I am.” Henry stood a little taller as he said it, and it was clear his clothes and hair and good looks went a long way to supporting his claims.

The landlady appeared to accept it, moving her eyes over to Léon.

“And that one?”

“An executioner I kidnapped from town.” It took her a moment, but her face slowly eased into a smile, and she let out a cackle at what she imagined was a joke.

Spotting his opportunity, Henry said, “And that little one’s his brother.” émile gave a friendly wave.

“And that’s a random barmaid we picked up along the way.”

Souveraine let out a shocked gasp, not that it was entirely untrue, but she didn’t at all like the disparaging way Henry had said it.

But then, after a laugh at her expense with the landlady, he followed up with, “Only joking. She’s obviously my sister’s respectable ladies’ maid, which explains what she was doing here all afternoon with my nephew.”

Léon stared across at Henry, watching one lie after another roll off his tongue.

He wondered whether he was acting on the fly or if this whole scene was part of a plan, just as outrageous as his last plan to blackmail his sister’s executioner into freeing her.

A plan which had worked, it occurred to Léon.

“So that makes him your brother!” the landlady cried, pleased with her ability to follow the whole mess so intelligently, even if she hadn’t at all.

“Yes!” Henry cried. “A little family reunion gone awry on account of this insipid weather.”

“And that’s how you lost your clothes, too?” She looked at Léon.

“In this very big puddle?”

Léon, words trapped on his tongue, felt Henry bump his arm, and with no very good understanding of why he was playing along, replied, “It was deep. And the wheel. And-and weather. We were cold…”

To his great relief, Henry cut back in.

“So you see, you’d be doing me the largest favour ever if you could arrange some hot water and a meal, and we’ll be on our way as soon as we can find appropriate means.”

The woman stood a little longer, assessing them all.

Then, finally, “All right. Ladies upstairs. You’ve still got your key?”

Souveraine gave a nod and, “Yes, but?—”

“Come along, Souveraine,” Catherine said, sounding every bit the aristocrat she supposedly was, only with that same odd accent Henry kept slipping back into.

“Be a good girl, or I’ll have to discipline you.”

“But I’m not— Léon!” She cast desperate eyes over at him, with something that looked like a hot blush on her cheeks.

He made a move to follow as Catherine dragged Souveraine away, émile pushing ahead up the stairs, but was stopped in his tracks by the landlady’s, “Not you two.” Henry and Léon turned as one to await her meaning, even as she scoured her eyes over them.

“It’s the stables for you.”

“The what?” asked Léon.

“The what ?” asked Henry.

“The stables,” she repeated.

Then, sternly, “Maybe she is your sister, and maybe she isn’t, but I won’t have you all up there in that private room while they’re getting dressed either way.”

“But it’s so cold out,” Léon virtually wailed, the very thought of it scratching at his weary bones.

His tolerance for the whole charade having suddenly broken down, he said, “Forget it. Forget it all. Bring the horse back around, the brown one. With the carriage. It can make it back to town.”

Henry stayed the woman with a raised finger, and with an air of confidentiality, said to Léon, “Do you want to take a moment to think things through?”

“I don’t have a moment!” Léon hissed back at him.

“Léon.” Henry’s bare and soft fingers wrapped around behind his elbow to lead him some small distance from the owner.

Léon attempted to snatch it back, but found it held firm, and Henry’s voice swept close across his ear.

“How do you think it will look when you turn up with a stolen carriage?”

“I think it will look like I’m bringing it back to town right after having been kidnapped in it.”

“And who will you say kidnapped you?”

“I’ll say…” Léon looked around hopelessly.

“I don’t know. I’ll say it was some man.”

“Some man?”

“Some man. In-in a mask. And that I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Except they know you got a good look at him because those people will have told your people that you did it, and that you looked exactly like me. And how are you going to explain that without implicating me?”

Henry didn’t speak like he was threatening Léon.

He sounded like he was genuinely trying to figure a way out of the problem.

But Léon couldn’t entirely believe that.

A highwayman on the run with a convicted woman?

He was not someone to cross.

“Henri…” Léon met his concerned eyes with confiding ones.

“I won’t tell them. I promised you, didn’t I? And I know that probably doesn’t mean much to you, but… I haven’t betrayed you yet, have I?”

Henry’s grip on Léon’s elbow softened with the brush of his thumb across his arm.

The slightest movement, but one that brought Léon’s eyes to Henry’s hand, that elicited the flinch of Henry’s fingers, that brought Léon’s lips open, that brought Henry’s eyes to Léon’s lips, and Léon’s eyes to Henry’s, charged.

“I trust you,” Henry said.

“I’m trying to take care of you.”

And Léon wilted.

His insides melted like butter in a hot pan.

Shut up, Henri . He turned his head away.

Henry said, “How about this? We wash, we eat, then we plan our next move.”

“It’s not ‘our’ next move,” Léon replied, incredulous.

“This is it. This is where we part ways. Our deal is done. It’s over, and you’re leaving now.”

The words sat like a lead weight between them.

Henry hadn’t let go, and Léon hadn’t pulled away, but whatever had shifted between them the night before and that day and during every minute they’d spent together, Léon drew it out into the harsh light of day and eviscerated it.

They were nothing to each other.

They were strangers who’d crossed paths in the most tumultuous of ways, and just as soon as Léon got his horses, it would be through.

They would never once, not ever, meet again.

“Then wash,” said Henry.

“Wash, and I’ll give you a shirt to wear back to town. It’s too cold to go like that, and you’ll have to drive.”

The proposal made some kind of sense.

It was the least Henry could do.

And, all things considered, what difference could a few minutes alone in the stables with Henri De Villiers really make?