No Sweeter Heaven: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 2 (3 page)

“We
leave on the first tide,” Pascal said. He stood just inside the threshold of the private parlor where Lily was eating her evening meal alone, as she had taken all of her meals in the two interminably long days that they had traveled toward the coast.

Brother Julien stood just behind him, his hood pulled up, his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his habit, looking, Lily thought, as if the devil himself might leap out from the corner at any moment. Indeed, Pascal LaMartine made no move without him. They ate together, they walked together, they even slept in the same room. Lily was not sure if Brother Julien was supposed to be protecting her from the rake, or whether it was the other way around.

Brother Julien never met her eyes, nor spoke to her, but behaved as if she did not exist at all. As Pascal LaMartine behaved in nearly the same fashion, speaking to her only when absolutely necessary, it had been a silent and thoroughly unpleasant journey so far. It was not that she had anything to say to him, or any wish to listen to him. It was just that she was not accustomed to being so completely ignored, and she found his attitude extremely annoying.

“Did you hear me, Lady Elizabeth? I repeat. We leave for England on the morning tide.”

Lily waited for a moment, then glanced up casually enough from her dinner of a most superb confit of duck. “I heard you perfectly well the first time. We leave on the first tide. However, if you insist on playing a mute, there is no reason why I should not play equally deaf.”

He did not bother to respond to that sally. Instead, he merely looked at her in that unnerving fashion she was coming to know, the one that made her feel as if he had just unclothed her, somehow found her wanting, and clothed her again. It had a tendency to undo her, that look of his, to make her feel as if someone else entirely lived inside her skin, someone not the least bit likable.

Well, what did she care? She didn’t want him to like her. She wanted him to despise her to the point that he would shrivel up with loathing and disappear. She knew how to play that game, had played it successfully on all the miserable suitors her father had been throwing at her for years.

“Was there anything else?” she asked coldly, in her most imperious manner.

“No. Be prepared to sail first thing in the morning. And then be prepared to travel directly to Sutherby upon disembarking. We will not stop. This matter needs to be resolved as soon as possible for the abbey’s sake.”

“It cannot be resolved soon enough for me,” she said. “And when my father hears the full story, you shall be thrown off the premises and I will never have to look at you again.”

A small flash of anger sparked in those dark eyes, and she saw with immense satisfaction that she’d finally managed to goad him out of that infuriatingly cool, remote demeanor of his.

“No,” he said, “you won’t, for no doubt your father will have you instantly placed in an asylum when he hears you have been climbing about on walls, spying on monks.”

“I think chances are far better that he will want to see you instantly placed in a jail cell.”

“One cell or another, what difference? I am accustomed to solitude.”

“Good. Then leave me here, for I cannot be rid of you soon enough. I am more than capable of making my own way home.”

Pascal gave her another of his impenetrable looks. “Believe me, if I could, I would not hesitate. But as I have given my word to Dom Benetard that I will behave honorably, so I shall.”

“Honorably?” Lily said. “Honorably? I don’t think you even know the meaning of the word! You are nothing more than an unprincipled French—French
defiler,
hiding behind a mask of hypocritical piety!”

This barb actually elicited a small gasp from Brother Julien, but Pascal ignored it. “I do not think you are one to judge, Lady Elizabeth,” he said softly. “Fortunately, it is not you but your father who will be passing judgment on me.

“Believe me,” Lily said, “he will. And you shall live to regret your actions for the rest of your life.”

Pascal nodded, and it seemed that again the insult had slid right off his shoulders. “I can only pray that will not be the case. Good night, Lady Elizabeth.”

He turned abruptly and walked out of the parlor, Brother Julien scurrying behind.

Lily let out a long breath, suddenly feeling very tired. Tomorrow would be a very long and trying day, and she needed to sleep if she was to keep her wits about her. Her confit of duck had lost its appeal, and she pushed back her chair and mounted the stairs to her room, wishing for quick oblivion.

Pascal shoved his hands through his hair, then lifted his head and looked out over the pounding sea as if that might somehow drown out the clamor of his thoughts. The wind cut sharply through the material of his coat, but he didn’t notice the chill. He was so cold on the inside that a blizzard wouldn’t have made an impression on him.

It had been all he could do over the last three days to keep a grip on himself. Every time he looked at Elizabeth Bowes he wanted to put his hands around her throat and choke her until those full lips turned blue and her graygreen eyes bulged out of her head. It was not the sort of thought that someone like himself ought to have, but he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t feel like himself. He didn’t feel like much of anything other than a pawn in someone else’s game.

He thought of one of the books in his satchel,
De Materia Medica,
and all those herbal formulas Dioscorides had written down for posterity nearly two thousand years before, among them how poisons might best be used for assassinations. Hemlock—but he didn’t have any on hand. Deadly mushrooms—oh, what a wonderful thought. Easy to find, although unfortunately it was a bit early in the year for them.

“Foxglove, henbane, laburnum,” he recited softly, naming poisonous plants methodically and in alphabetical order. “Larkspur, monkshood, petty spurge…”

And then he gave a snort of disgust. Little comfort it was to think about assassinating the girl. She’d gotten there first, having already assassinated his name, his character, his reputation. Now she was about to throw him to the wolves and let her father finish the job. A fine way God had of paying back Pascal’s years of service in His cause—not that Pascal had had any choice in that, either.

He looked down at his hands, turning them over and then back again. They appeared perfectly ordinary to him, normal bones and tendons, flesh and blood like everyone else’s. And yet people looked at them as if they were made of something entirely different—as if
he
were made of something entirely different, as if he were not quite human. It didn’t seem to occur to people that he bled just as they did, that he hurt just as they did, and ate and slept and laughed and cried just as they did. He was set apart, as surely as if there were an invisible fence around him.

He hadn’t asked for such a gift. There were many times when he wished that it would just go away, that it had never been given to him in the first place. But it was useless wishing. God had had other things in mind for him when He’d sent Nicholas to fetch him out of the heaving sea, as drowned as one could be, and God had put Georgia there to breathe life back into him.

Pascal sighed heavily. Who was he to question God’s will? His Heavenly Father had always done with him precisely as He pleased, with no care to what Pascal might wish in the matter. And now the Lord was sending him back to England with the most selfish, shrewish, arrogant woman he’d ever had the misfortune to meet. How was he supposed to understand that?

His fingers wrapped around a hard rock, the rough edges biting into his cold palm. He barely felt it. He’d schooled himself not to feel anything—he couldn’t afford to feel, knowing what might be coming. He grasped the rock tightly and threw it as hard as he could, watching it hit the swell of a wave and sink without a sound.

“Just like you, my friend,” he whispered. “Just like you.”

“Lily? Elizabeth? Come, child, you must wake up now. It is time to rise, and for once in your life I think you should do as you’re told.”

Lily felt her shoulder being shaken in a not-very-gentle fashion by a bony claw, and she blearily opened her eyes.

She had hardly slept at all, tossing and turning throughout the small hours, finally falling into an exhausted slumber what seemed only moments ago. A faint gray light seeped in through the windows, and she could just make out Coffey’s anxious face bending over her. “Oh. What time is it?” she asked the old woman, pushing herself up in bed and shivering in the cold air.

“Gone half-past four now.”

“Half-past four? Oh, Coffey,” Lily groaned. “You can’t possibly make me get up at this ungodly hour. It must be ages before the boat sets sail.” She flopped back down onto the pillows.

“The monk and Monsieur LaMartine have risen and already eaten, pet.”

“Yes, but that’s because they’re always up before dawn,” Lily said patiently. “It’s like Father Mallet. I don’t think he ever sleeps.”

“The ship is in the harbor, and they have gone down to it along with your trunk,” Coffey said equally patiently. “I know you don’t like rising early, Lily, but you’re just going to have to get out of bed now, that’s all there is to it.”

Lily pushed her fingers into her eyes. “Oh, all right. But I know he only arranged this horrible hour to make my life even more miserable.”

She threw back the covers and went to the window to see for herself. Sure enough, there was a ketch, the tall masts rising toward heavy skies that looked as if they might open and weep at any moment. There, too, moving about on the pier, were the unmistakable figures of Brother Julien and the wretch, one distinguished by his slightness, his habit, and his cowl, the other by his height and his dark, uncovered head. She felt a strong rush of loathing for them both, and turned abruptly from the window, wishing the pier would open up so that they both might drop to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again.

She allowed Coffey to help her dress, but that was the extent of her goodwill. Lily refused to eat more than a piece of bread. There was a knot of dread in her stomach, for unless something extraordinary happened today, such as the ketch going down in a storm, or perhaps a convenient accident on the road to Winchester, she would be facing her father’s certain wrath that evening. The only solace she had was the absolute certainty that punishment for her attacker would be swift and furious. However, her own punishment for what her father and his priest would consider an unforgivable act against God on her part was also sure to be equally swift and perfectly horrible. She deliberately lingered over her piece of bread, picking it into small pieces, partly to delay the inevitable, and partly to annoy the wretch, who was no doubt waiting impatiently.

There was nothing to do during the long journey aboard ship except sit below in the cabin. It was not much different than waiting out the long hours in a carriage, except that mercifully the French wretch and his shadow were above on the deck where Lily did not have to look at them.

“Now, Lily, pet,” Coffey said, glancing up at the hatch as if to ensure that her words would not travel up and directly into the ears of the enemy, “you and I need to have a little chat.”

Lily managed a smile. “A little chat? Oh, dear, Coffey. Those are far too familiar words coming from you. Do I sense a lecture coming?”

“Not a lecture, child. Simply a few words of advice. There is bound to be a fuss when we arrive, and…”

“Well, naturally there is going to be a fuss,” Lily said, cutting her off. “Whatever that wicked man has coming he deserves in every way.”

“No doubt he does, but it is not Monsieur LaMartine whom I am concerned for,” Coffey said. “It would do you well to remember that it was your exploits that put you into this stew to begin with.”

“Well … I don’t expect to escape completely unpunished for my part in everything, but as I am far too old for one of Father Mallet’s thrashings, thank goodness, I think a good tongue-lashing is more like it.” She flashed a brave grin at Coffey. “Well … perhaps I’ll get the usual bread and water for a week—maybe even two—and I’m sure there will be a book full of penances too, from Father Mallet, but what else can they do to me? You must not worry for your own sake, Coffey. I shall make it very clear that it was all my idea, and I demanded that you stay behind when I went for my walk.”

“After this, your father might not let you go anywhere ever again, most especially Saint-Simon,” the older woman said tartly. “And whose fault would that be? Look how long it took you to persuade his grace to let you visit your brother at all, and what did you do? At the first opportunity you ran wild with one of your crazy schemes.”

Lily managed to look remorseful. “Perhaps I didn’t think it through as well as I might have. But Papa will never connect my visit to the abbey with Jean-Jacques. Why should he?”

Coffey shook her head, the bunch of cherries on her bonnet swaying crazily about. “I should never have let you talk me into this one. I should have insisted that we stay at Saint-Simon, instead of sneaking off in the dead of night like two thieves, with no explanation of why you were chasing off on your own—and in a foreign country too.”

Lily bristled with indignation. “But I did tell Jean-Jacques, Coffey. I left him a note explaining everything.”

“What, that you were off to find a solution for his land? That is no kind of explanation. Further, I do not think that listening to fairy tales and fantasies about magic gifts is any way for a sensible, well-bred girl to behave, certainly not one of two and twenty, and a duke’s daughter to boot.”

“I wasn’t,” Lily said with exasperation. “I was looking for a botanist. It was Father Chabot who came up with all that other nonsense.”

“Still, you should be married and settled with a husband and children,” Coffey persisted. “Instead, you are in a scrape unlike any you have managed yet, and this time you might truly have ruined yourself. Only you, Lily, could manage to be compromised within the walls of a monastery.”

Lily gave her nurse an amused look. “Oh, does that make being compromised somehow holier?”