Bones for Bread (The Scarlet Plumiere) (6 page)

Finally, she found a deeply shadowed spot from which she could watch the front door and Everhardt. Whatever happened, he would react first. She would have to settle for reacting to him.

And she waited.

Everhardt mounted one of the horses. The rains returned and intensified. He dismounted and wedged himself beneath one horse’s neck.

At least the poor man would have the luxury of one warm shoulder, she thought as she pulled her hood forward, then stood to avoid a small channel of water growing beside her. As for Blair, she was perfectly warm thanks to her tightly woven dress and cloak. The wool repelled the rain and kept all of her warm but the tip of her nose.

The rains subsided, and still they waited.

Everhardt had apparently deemed it long enough and pulled a sword from his side, then headed for the entrance.

Blair’s heart jumped into her throat and she considered calling out to him to wait for her, that she’d join him. But the opening of the keep’s doors froze her feet to the spot.

She wasn’t brave enough to look, yet she was unable to turn away. The only compromise was to close her eyes slightly, to peek out her wet eye lashes. Her fingers gripped her own arms beneath the cloak, her fingernails biting into her skin, but she could not help herself.

The blond they called Stanley emerged first and paused at the base of the stairs. The distance was too great to see his expression. His hands were raised, but only because he was pulling on a pair of gloves.

The second man to emerge was Harcourt. He moved quickly down the steps. Blair had rarely seen the man without a smile on his face, but there was no flash of white teeth as he turned in her direction, headed for the horses. Stanley turned and followed.

Blair inhaled once, then twice, refusing to think while she waited.

The tall black form of Ash appeared. He walked slowly, took his time descending the steps. Perhaps he was waiting for his friend and Martin to be brought to him! Behind him, two men emerged, one a great deal larger than the other. They remained by the door. Were they, too, waiting for the others to emerge? Had they been so mistreated they needed help?

If she had to judge, she would guess the big man at the door to be even larger than Ash. His expression was also unreadable, but she could tell he was watching the dark Englishman closely. Everyone was watching him.

Instead of turning toward the horses, Ash walked straight ahead to the crumbling wall and took to the steps, that portion of the wall still intact. Once at the top, he put his hands to his hips and surveyed the valley of the River Meuse, as if the keep were his own castle and he was taking some measure of his surrounding kingdom. When he looked her way, her breath caught. It was if he were looking into her soul, as if, through all those trees and shadows, he knew just where she was standing.

He gave the slightest shake of his head, just as he’d done on the road. He knew her question, and the answer had been no.

But perhaps this time he was telling her not to show herself. That was reasonable. Perhaps he predicted she would run to Martin’s side. . .

She shook her own head then, to stop the ridiculous thoughts from multiplying inside it.

He knew her question.
Was Martin inside?

And the answer was
no
.

He didn’t want to tell her face to face because they’d have to agree there was nowhere else to look. And maybe if they never said it aloud, it wouldn’t be true.

Tears distorted his image, but she would not look away.

He continued his survey of the hillside, then dropped his arms and descended the damaged steps. Once he was mounted, the four men left Givet Faux without so much as a backward glance. As soon as they disappeared over the rise in the road, Blair numbly turned back to the keep. The smaller man slapped the larger one on the back, then the pair went inside.

The rain returned, speaking to her in hushed whispers, intent on conveying so much, yet saying nothing. She could think of nothing better to do than listen. The small channel of water at her feet began to grow again and she felt it trickle against the side of her boot, but she couldn’t care enough to move.

It may have been minutes, it may have been hours, but finally the numbness wore off and she forced herself to look away from the doors from which her brother would not emerge. Martin was not inside. The reunion she’d envisioned would not happen today. It was the same disappointment as yesterday. Nothing had changed.

And yet, everything had changed.

“This is our last hope,”
came Ash’s deep whisper from the night before.

“This was your last hope,”
the rain mocked as it diluted the salt-water washing down her face.

If the rain was right, if Martin was lost to her, she was a boat drifting at sea. No sail. No oar. Tied to nothing. Holding to nothing. . .

Blair looked once more at the crumbling wall, saw again the black-clad figure of Ash, watched the slight move of his head from side to side. Only this time, she imagined him mouthing the words, “No hope.”

She tried not to think too unkindly of him. She’d run out of hope herself before she’d stumbled upon the men in Reims. Who was she to judge?

For the past few weeks, it was if she had been living off their faith and determination. They carried both around like giant pockets full of coins. She’d reached in, day after day, to take what she needed. But today, there was no clink of coin upon coin. No use of her asking for more.

Gone.

A wave of pain washed up inside her body and when it hit her chest, she crumbled to her knees and silently wailed her brother’s name.

Martin!

Martin!

Why did he not wail back, to tell her where he was?

Martin!

She shook her head, pounded her fists on the wet mud, refused to believe he was dead. In her head she screamed her refusal to God and demanded He bring Martin back to her.

A wave of dizziness washed over her. Delirium. The journey, the quest, had worn her to the bone. She needed sleep. If only she could sleep, tomorrow she could find her head and a direction to search. If she was but a drifting boat, with no Martin for an anchor, she had nothing else to do with her time but search. When she’d allowed herself such thoughts, she’d imagined that if all hope was lost, the searching would cease. But what else was there to do?

She swallowed and forced down the self-pity that rose like bile from her stomach.

No. She needed no pity. Just because the Englishmen had given up, did not mean she had to give up as well, aye? If her choices lie between mourning her brother and hoping unreasonably, she would hope unreasonably.

She closed her eyes to calm herself. In the darkness, she saw again the shake of the dark one’s head. But this time, she denied his pity. He’d best save it for himself.

“Forgive me, Martin,” she said aloud. “A weak moment. But the moment has passed.”

From the east came a rumble of thunder. She chose to think of it as a fine answer.

CHAPTER FIVE

What gentleman would leave me behind with a lame horse?

He’d known where she’d been standing. He could have circled back around for her, bloody man.

Suddenly warmed by ire, she rose to her feet and gave her beast a pat for his patience. Over her shoulder, she heard a squeak and turned.

The front doors had opened again. She told herself not to expect Martin to walk out of them, but she’d forgotten to tell her heart, which tumbled and fell in her chest when a small dark man emerged. Though she saw no others, he seemed to be arguing with someone just inside. He gestured to the rainy sky, then at his boots. A moment later, his shoulders fell and he turned down the steps. The doors closed behind him.

He tucked something inside his shirt, grimaced once more at the sky, then struck out for the road on foot. What interested her most was the fact he was walking south, and swiftly, as if he would like to catch up with the men on horseback.

“Ye’ve as much a chance as I do,” she whispered, and set off in the same direction.

She moved through the trees the way she’d come, but soon the whinny of another’s horse brought her up short. After a moment of waiting, she moved on carefully, though silence was hardly necessary with the rain knocking about in the leaves.

A dark chestnut mare stood tethered to a tree. A fine white handkerchief dripped from a branch above its head. If it weren’t raining, the white flag would have been easily seen from the road.

He hadn’t left her after all.

As she untied the flag, she gave God thanks the dark little man hadn’t noticed the horse first. She’d traveled approximately a kilometer when she passed the man. He was splashing along in the mud. As she left him behind, he called out to her in French that it was cruel for her to ride away with two horses and leave him in the rain. Of course, it would have been foolish for any woman to stop for a strange man on such an ominous evening, even if she were capable of defending herself; she assumed the man would understand.

The storm moved on and the sun came out for one final appearance, dancing on a stage of dark pink clouds that poured over the edge of the horizon, slowly dragging the sun over with it. Blair’s neck grew sore from her constant glancing sideways to watch. It cheered her like nothing but Martin’s face could have done.

But the face that haunted her all the way back to Charleville belonged to another man altogether.

~ ~ ~

The wall sconce in her hallway was graced with a new candle, and a poor man’s candelabra held a trio of fatter candles while protecting the solitary table from lustrous beads of wax. No doubt the attendant expected some worthy to grace the servant’s hall. She only hoped he’d be wrong since again, she was of two minds about coming face to face with Ash. After all, what could they possibly have to speak about? His lack of hope? Her refusal to give up?

Indeed.

Still, as she turned her key, she held her breath and waited to see if a handsome gentleman might be waiting to wrap his arms around her once again. Which he was not. But there were signs of him everywhere.

Obviously, he’d repeated the orders she’d cancelled. The fire carried on a crackling conversation with itself on its new grate. A flagon of wine and a single glass rested on the table next to a large pillar candle, and the entire room smelled of warm wax and smoky wood. There was no lingering smell of the man himself. A note sat propped against the candle.

Please join us for supper at the auberge.

It was simply signed with the letter A.

The last thing she wanted was to sit by the fire and torture herself with images of Ash standing on a wall, shaking his head—especially when she could torture herself with his presence instead. So she donned her only other gown, another wool dress, this one with a bit more green than blue to the plaid. She put on her cloak, hoping the damp would never reach her clothes, and banked her fire.

Blair stepped outside into the gloaming and turned to the right out of habit. As she was passing the shadowed alley that led to the stables behind Hotel Place Ducale, she nearly jumped from her skin when she realized the dark little man was standing in the shadows, the one she’d passed on the road and ignored when he’d called out to her. His back was turned, but she recognized the shape and unusual size of him.

Another man joined him, then nervously glanced her way. She turned her attention back to the sidewalk and moved on. Her curiosity would not allow her to go farther than the corner, however, and once there, she pressed her back against the stone wall and edged her nose as near to the alley as she dared, to listen. If someone passed her, they might suppose she was standing under the eaves seeking shelter from the ever-pouring rain.

Her ears strained to catch the conversation. The men spoke in French. One was not happy with the price he was paid, but gave up his information because it was raining and he was too fatigued to argue.

“The English nobles you seek are around the corner in the Auberge Ducale. Where else would they be?”

Blair turned and fled toward the door of the glorified tavern. She hadn’t quite decided whether or not she would join the English lords or ask for her own table, but she was determined to discover the little man’s business, even if she had to sit upon Ash’s lap in order to hear it. She hoped more had gone on inside Givet Faux than could be explained with a simple shake of a head. And if so, perhaps the next clue to follow would come from this little man.

Her heart jumped at the possibility, but she reined it in like a silly colt. There was only one thing to do. One task at a time. To find the gentlemen and get close enough to hear their conversation with the dark little man.

She moved to the far right aisle of the large tavern and approached the gentlemen’s usual table. One look at the trio, however, and she realized she could not possibly join them. Neither would eavesdropping do her any good.

They were drunk.

CHAPTER SIX