Page 34 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

“It was the risk I was willing to take. If I somehow end up with child, I will find a solution.” She leaned back and swung her body around as if she were one of acrobatic riders he’d seen in Covent Gardens, all the while pulling her skirts underneath her and her cloak over her head so that he could no longer see her beautiful face.

She’d built a wall between them which angered him more than her words.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I relinquish you from all paternal responsibilities.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. “And if I don’t want to give up my rights as our child’s father?”

She shook her head as if it were a moot point. “It doesn’t matter. We both know this wasn’t a real marriage.”

“What in damnation are you talking about? I told you it was legal.”

“You also told me you would not be bound to me. It’s fine.” She patted his hand on the reins as if she were appeasing a child. All he could think about was their child.

“We will be fine.”

“You dismiss me as if I donated my seed to your cause and that is the end of my role in our child’s life.”

She shrugged in response.

He’d thought he would have to let her down easy, but that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, if any heart was breaking…no. The pain in his chest was not from his heart.

He snapped his hand out of her reach and the horse complained for the first time, but he ignored it, too upset by the recent turn of the tide.

“What if I want to be bound to my child?” He didn’t say ‘bound to her,’ and if his comment caused her any personal duress, there were no signs of a blow to her heart.

“My child will not be born a bastard,” he spit out.

The laugh escaping her lips was brittle and false. “I will find a father for my child if need be.”

A growl escaped his lips, shocking her and him. “He has a father.”

It was her turn to bristle. “But she does not?”

A little girl. He’d never thought of having a daughter, a daughter like Máira, full of laughter and love he wouldn’t experience.

Over his dead body.

“Of course I will be there for my daughter. A girl needs her father.”

She didn’t argue, and he knew his misstep immediately. She had been very young when her father died, even younger when her mother died birthing Máira’s youngest sister. “Máira, I didn’t mean?—”

“It’s nothing,” she lied.

There was nothing he could say. He knew her pain more than most. He had lost his father as a teen and his mother when she sent him away to live with his uncle in England. It was all to keep him safe, but it didn’t mean the loss of both his parents hadn’t affected him. It had, profoundly.

They rode on in silence for the next couple hours.

Both trapped in the losses of their past and now their future as well.

But as the forest began to thin and the brine from the sea seeped into the air, Elias’s senses alerted.

They were close, which heightened the chances of running into more troops.

He leaned forward to whisper in her ear and felt her body stiffen.

How different it was from mere hours ago. “We are close. We must remain quiet.”

She acknowledged him with a nod and nothing more.

Nor did her body sink back against his. She stayed rigid and as far away as she could get.

Twenty minutes later, he caught sight of the Mill of Moidrey, the blades turning in the wind as the forest gave way to the rolling hills near the coast. He avoided the cottages of the town and directed their horse to a copse of trees near the mill where he lifted Máira from the horse.

“I need you to hide in the woods. I will be back when I know it is safe.”

Her eyes widened as if she realized for the first time since they’d buried the bodies of the soldiers that the danger wasn’t over. “Don’t leave,” she whispered.

“I’ll be back. You’ll be safe here.”

She laughed a humorless laugh as if he’d said something ridiculous. “I’m not worried about me. We’re better off if we fight together as a team.”

“I will be better off knowing you are safe.”

“What about me? Do you think I’m better off knowing you’re in danger?”

“Do you care, Wife?” Could he dare to hope?

“Of course I care. I don’t want you to die.”

It wasn’t exactly a profession of undying love.

“I won’t.” Elias turned the horse in the direction of the mill, giving her no choice but to get lost in the trees or stand out in the middle of the field and put them both at risk.

He heard her huff and watched over his shoulder as she disappeared into the darkness.

Mon Dieu . Their marriage seemed like a real marriage, considering how much work it was taking.

He turned and focused on the horizon for signs of trouble, for shadows moving toward Máira or himself.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of light from the cottages they’d already bypassed.

The wind caused the leaves and grasses to dance as the mill twirled round and round at a slow lazy pace. An eerie calm filled night as he slowly made his way up the hill.

Once he was at the top, he could see Mont-Saint-Michel in the distance.

The lights giving it an ominous appearance with its stone walls, gothic buttresses, and the golden form of Saint Michel brandishing his sword at the moon from the top of the tallest spire.

As a boy, his family had made the pilgrimage to Mont-Saint-Michel, but that was a very different time.

The sacred abbey was now a prison of the worst sort.

Elias allowed his shoulders to slump and his head to bob up and down with the fatigue he longed to give in to while he approached the windmill as if he were a weary traveler hoping for shelter.

Dismounting, he purposely stumbled and then tied the horse to a fence that kept stragglers from inadvertently walking into canvas blades.

From a distance the wooden skeletons which allowed the sails to capture the force of the wind, were invisible.

Up close, one realized how deadly those blades could be.

He looked up at the stone building sporting a thatched roof, one window on the second story and two wooden doors down below. He hoped it was a one-monk castle as Hag had said it would be. Using the side of his fist, he pounded on the door.

The door slowly creaked open, the light from a candle illuminating his face, not the mill-keeper’s. “Who are you?”

It wasn’t exactly the greeting of a holy man. Elias squinted into the light, unable to see the man beyond the flame. “Hag sent me.”

“I know of no hag .” The man drew out her name as if it was filthy and disgusting, then moved to close the door, the candlelight withdrawing inside.

Elias shoved his boot into the opening and said, “Aventine sent me for Father Charles.” The door still slammed against his foot. He ground his teeth, but didn’t remove his foot.

The glow of the candle felt warm against his face as once more the man lifted it to look into his eyes. He could feel the man study his features as the light shifted back and forth across his cheekbones. “Elias?”

“Yes, I am Elias, her son.”

“You’re a soldier?”

He hesitated. Knowing he had to put his trust in Hag’s knowledge of this area and this man despite being over a day’s ride away. “No.”

“Yet you wear a uniform.”

“Half a uniform.”

“Does that make you half a soldier?”

Damnation. Was it not bad enough he’d argued with his wife over the existence of an imaginary child, and now a priest was going to split hairs over a bloody jacket and hat?

A perilous quiet filled the air as he stared at the man beyond the candle.

His fists clenched. His jaw tightened. It took everything he had to rein in his anger and frustration and not kick the damned door down.

The priest must have sensed the danger in the air.

His rising temper. One moment the door was pushing hard against his foot, and the next it swung open to expose the man in monk’s robes looking up at him.

“You have grown into a big, fine man,” the monk said, as he looked Elias over from his shoes to his messy hair sticking out from under his hat.

Elias’s brow drew together. “We’ve met before?”

The monk laughed. “Of course we have. I am Father Charles. I was in charge of ensuring the pilgrims made it across to Mont-Saint-Michel safely. You were but a boy of seven or eight then, I believe.”

Elias tried to remember the round cheeks, straggly gray hair, and shining grey eyes. He was average height, but his dark robes covered everything else, and nothing about this man brought a memory to mind.

“I’m sorry?—”

The monk shook his head. “I could not wear my robes back then. I couldn’t show my allegiance to the church over the King, nor could I show my allegiance to the King over the church. It was a difficult time.”

“And now?” Elias knew the life of a priest in France was not an easy one.

Supporters of the revolution had killed the refectory priests who remained loyal to the Pope, and supporters of the church had killed constitutional priests loyal to the King.

Because of the political upheaval, most holy men and women had been arrested and deported or killed.

The man’s smile was genuine. “We have a reprieve, since France is focused on outside forces.”

“Even while Napoleon is holding the Pope captive?” Elias had heard of the Pope’s kidnapping a few years prior. As far as he knew, Napoleon still held the leader of the Catholic church.

Father Charles response was hesitant. “He is a guest of our leader.”

Elias nodded as he looked around the interior of the mill, which housed two silent millstones that were not moving in tandem with the sails of the windmill as he’d expected. Instead, they stood stationary on top of a larger stone covered in flour dust. He glanced at the monk.

“I don’t make flour twenty-four hours a day. I live here. Can you imagine the noise I would have to sleep through?” The wheels of the sails groaned at that moment, emphasizing the constant noises of motion within the mill.