Page 36 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

Fifteen

Dearest Iseabail,

I am told that you have been advised of the circumstances surrounding my marriage, but what you cannot possibly know is that my feelings for my husband have only grown.

I would not change one moment I have spent getting to know this incredible man who owns my heart completely.

I will not seek an annulment as he has suggested.

If our union is to be dissolved, it will be done by him, not me.

Do not think that I have been absconded or abused in any manner.

On the contrary, my husband has treated me with caring consideration.

Beyond love, no woman could ask for more.

Our honeymoon has taken on the greatest meaning a person could hope for.

Do not fret, I am well and I will see you upon my return.

Your loving sister,

Máira

—A letter written to the Duchess of Ross, from her younger sister Máira Blair Collins, or Lady Drake. The letter was never sent by the young bride, however. Hag found it and sent it to the Duchess. It arrived one day after the letter from Elias.

D espite Elias’s desire to immediately storm the abbey and rescue Astley, the tide had not cooperated.

They’d discussed the plan over and over until Máira had made him stop.

Father Charles was dead on his feet, and so was she.

He relented and was somehow able to sleep the rest of the night on the bed next to her, while the priest slept in the hammock he’d moved to the second floor of the mill.

The entire next day was spent preparing.

Father Charles had introduced them to intricate maps of the island he’d created in preparation for the rescue.

Although Hag had not told the priest about the rescue, Father Charles had anticipated it, as there was no other reason for Elias to want to visit the prison.

The abbey was surrounded by battlements all along the Mont Saint Michel Bay.

To the west, craggy cliffs rose up to a less guarded wall that was hidden from the main outlook, Gabriel’s Tower.

There was also a small stone chapel, dedicated to the priest who was directed by the archangel Saint Michel to build the church.

Elias had wanted to enter the abbey through the staircase leading up the mountainside from the Chapel of Saint Aubert, but Father Charles rejected that immediately.

“I do not know what is happening at the Chapel of Saint Aubert, but whatever it is, it has become heavily fortified in the past several weeks. We would be caught before we arrived.”

This had caused another argument about Máira’s participation, but Father Charles had stood his ground. “Their presence makes our need of her ability to break into places that much more important. She will cut down our exposure and the noise of you muscling through every gate and door.”

Elias scowled, but in the end, agreed when they were ready to leave as the cloud cover disguised the sunset, and the tide began to ebb.

Dressed in borrowed clothes from Father Charles she’d spent the day altering to the best of her ability, Máira secured her hair with twine and hid it under a farmer’s hat the priest had in his barn.

Father Charles had a fairly small foot, but she’d stuffed the shoes with remnants from her altered clothing into the toes to help with the fit.

Then she gathered supplies for injuries Simon may have incurred at the hands of the French and stuffed them in her satchel.

Elias and the priest carried bags over their shoulders full of weaponry chosen because it was silent but deadly.

Why a priest would have such a collection, Máira didn’t know and she didn’t ask.

Elias, however, had been rather pleased.

Elias led the way as they traveled across the hills to the Couesnon River with Father Charles in the rear. From there, they followed the cold waterway to the Bay of Mont Saint Michel. Their pace was uncomfortable, but necessary to take advantage of as much low tide as possible.

As they reached the bay, they removed their shoes and the men stuffed them in their bags.

Walking across the mud and muck of the bay at low tide felt as if the earth would swallow her whole if she stood in one place too long.

Yet when the voices of the guards on the ramparts of the abbey carried to them on the wind, they were forced to stop.

Máira wiggled her toes, and panic nearly overtook her as she began to sink.

“Don’t wiggle, you’re making it worse,” Father Charles scolded, his voice barely audible over the breeze. “The more you wiggle, the more you sink and the more you sink, the more you get stuck.”

Elias turned to look at her, his shock and the whites of his eyes flashing in the moonlight as he quickly took in how far she’d sunk in the muck.

She whimpered.

“Do not move.” The priest hissed.

Her eyes shot to the Abbey. Please let them leave. Please let them leave. She could no longer hear the wind over the sound of her heart in her ears and her labored breathing. She shivered, her entire body shaking despite the warm breeze, as she watched one guard disappear inside a door.

Move damn you! The guard ignored her silent scream as he slowly ambled toward the end of the rampart. She didn’t think it was possible for a grown man to walk so slowly, and when he finally turned the corner, she looked pleadingly at her husband.

Elias was at her side instantaneously, forgetting all about the guards. “Easy, ma chérie .”

“Get me out.” She sounded like a child to her own ears, but she was buried to her knees.

“Take my hand,” he instructed as he reached out for her. Máira had his hand before he finished the sentence.

Father Charles began giving instructions on how to escape the clutches of her silt grave. “Hang onto your husband.”

As if she would let go.

“Now rock one foot back and forth in a slow steady fashion.”

Slow and steady did not win the race. She yanked furiously at her foot.

“You must listen,” the priest insisted.

“Listen to him, ma chérie . He knows this land.”

“This is not land,” she argued, but did as she was told. Elias pulled on her arm as her first foot loosened the tiniest bit with a slurping of the mud. Every bit of space she created, the mud attempted to fill.

“This is why you insisted we go barefoot.” The realization slipped from her lips with a sob.

“Yes,” the priest admitted. She wanted to hit him.

He should have warned her how bad the crossing would be, but then she would have never insisted on coming.

She would have sat in the mill and waited, never knowing if or when Elias was coming back, just like her father.

She was damned if she went with him and damned if she didn’t.

“You’re doing wonderful, ma chérie .” Elias was down on his knees now, his trousers absorbing all the brine and mud that seemed to cover her from toe to head. He leaned forward and kissed her, a quick and intimate gesture that made her want to climb out of the mud and jump on top of him.

“When you get one foot free, kneel on it.” The priest instructed. “Then rock your other leg.”

She did as she was told and felt the earth begin to release its hold just the slightest bit. A sob of joy escaped her lips and Elias smiled down on her as he began reciting a French poem in a soft, gentle rasp that soothed her from the inside out.

“La vie est une fleur,

l’amour en est le miel.

C’est la colombe unie

à l’aigle dans le ciel,

C’est la grace tremblante

à la force appuyée,

C’est ta main dans ma main

doucement oubliée.”

With one leg free, and her second one well on its way, she asked, “Can you translate it into English?” She was afraid she was missing some of its meaning. She prayed she’d understood every word.

“Life is a flower

Love is its honey.

It is the dove united

with the eagle in the sky,

It is trembling grace

With sustained force,

It’s your hand in my hand

gently forgotten.”

And she had.

As if fate intervened, the earth released her foot just as he finished and she was standing, folded in her husband’s embrace as he whispered in her ear. “You are fine, ma chérie . Everything is fine.”

“Who is the author of such beautiful prose?” She asked.

“A young French poet you’ve probably never heard of named Victor Hugo.”

With her cheek held snugly against his chest, she smiled and relaxed her breathing as Elias stroked her hair with such a light, gentle touch, with the care one would only give to someone he treasured.

Victor Hugo was foreign to her, but the words were so heartfelt…

and yet sorrowful. She never wanted to step out of her husband’s arms, because once she did, she wasn’t sure her delicate hold on her emotions wouldn’t shatter into pieces.

They stood there in silence as she hugged him tight, until finally Father Charles cleared his throat and Elias set them apart.

“We are going back.” With his mind made up, Elias turned toward shore with her hand tucked in his.

It was Máira who was forced to let go. She would never forget the feel of her hand in his when she seemed doomed to be swallowed by the underbelly of hell.

She had no doubt anyone crossing this bay at low tide would feel as if they were on holy ground when they reach the solid rock foundation of Mont-Saint-Michel.

At any other time, with any other person, the experience would have sent her into a complete panic.

The bogs of Scotland had been aggrandized into her psyche since childhood.

The last thing she had ever wanted to do, was get lost in the bogs…

again…and here, in a strange country, for one brief moment, she’d thought she was living her nightmare once more.

The difference, however, had been Elias.

He’d come to her, held her hand while he soothed her with a beautiful French poem she’d never heard before, and her childhood nightmare was lost on the tide.

He had saved her from her fears, and now she would force him to face his.