Lord Nathaniel Lindsay, heir to the earldom of St Auburn.

She could not believe it—could not quite take in that her dangerous rescuer in Nay with his scarred body and quick reflexes was now a dandified Lord, known across all of England for his wealth and his power, his family lineage stretching back across the centuries.

Away from the stares she was feeling a lot better. His coat was warm, and her shivers were lessened by the touch of wool. She could smell him too, here in the carriage, the depth of him and the strength, and if her sister had not been right there beside her she might have breathed in further, allowing the colours of his beauty to explode inside, tantalising and teasing.

The scent of a man who could ruin her.

AUTHOR NOTE

SCARS OF BETRAYAL is the third book in a series about three friends: Nathaniel Lindsay, Lucas Clairmont and Stephen Hawkhurst.

The themes of family, protection and betrayal have been features of all three stories: SCARS OF BETRAYAL, MISTLETOE MAGIC and MISTRESS AT MIDNIGHT.

I hope you enjoy Cassandra and Nathaniel’s story.

Scars of Betrayal

Sophia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SOPHIA JAMES lives in Chelsea Bay, on Auckland, New Zealand’s North Shore, with her husband who is an artist. She has a degree in English and History from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed by reading Georgette Heyer in the holidays at her grandmother’s house.

Sophia enjoys getting feedback at www.sophiajames.net

Previous novels by the same author:

FALLEN ANGEL

ASHBLANE’S LADY

HIGH SEAS TO HIGH SOCIETY

MASQUERADING MISTRESS

KNIGHT OF GRACE

(published as THE BORDER LORD in North America)

MISTLETOE MAGIC

(part of Christmas Betrothals)

ONE UNASHAMED NIGHT

ONE ILLICIT NIGHT

CHRISTMAS AT BELHAVEN CASTLE

(part of Gift-Wrapped Governesses)

LADY WITH THE DEVIL’S SCAR

THE DISSOLUTE DUKE

MISTRESS AT MIDNIGHT

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

London—June 1851

It was Nathanael Colbert walking down the wide staircase of the de Clare ballroom.

Cassandra Northrup knew it was him.

Knew it from the bottom of a rising horror and an unmitigated relief.

The same strength and height, the same dark hair, shorter now but every bit as black. She could barely take a breath, the guilt and the anger that had been stored inside and hidden for so long seeping out, winding her with its intensity.

Lord Hawkhurst, the heir to the Atherton fortune, descended beside Colbert, laughing at something Colbert had said. Disbelief made Cassie dizzy. Why would he be here in such company and dressed like an English lord? Nothing quite made sense, the wrongness of it all inviting disarray.

Shaky fingers closed around the small pottery shard that she always wore around her neck, the heavy beat of blood in her ears making her feel sick. What could this mean for her?

Carefully, Cassie opened her fan so that it covered most of her face and turned from the trajectory the pair were taking. She had to leave before he saw her. She had to escape, but that was becoming harder as shock numbed reality. Maureen clasped her hand and she was grateful for the anchor.

‘You look pale, Cassandra. Are you feeling sound?’

‘Perfectly.’ Even her sister did not know the exact details of what had happened in the south of France all those years ago, for she had never told another soul. A private torment, the details locked in shame.

‘Well, you do not look it.’

The will to survive was flowing back, the initial jolt of shock receding under reason. She doubted Colbert would recognise her at a quick glance and resolved to leave as soon as she was able to without inciting future question.

Future. The very word made her stiffen. Could she have a future if he saw her? She felt as if she stood in the ballroom in nothing but the clothes he had once found her in, the events from almost four years ago searing into memory, all anger and fear and regret.

No. She was stronger than this. In a moment she would walk farther away, into the throng of people, carefully and quietly so as to draw no attention towards herself. She had become adept at the art of camouflage within society, the skill of obscurity in a crowd almost second nature to her now. It was how she had survived, washed back into the world she had not thought to be part of again, with its strict observance of manner and rule.

Cassie’s gown mirrored her anonymity, the plain dove-grey unremarkable. All around the well-heeled young ladies bloomed like flowers, in yellows and pinks and light blue, tucks, ruffs, frills and flounces adorning their bodices, sleeves and hems. Her widow’s weeds were another way to hide in full view from the notice of others.

As five seconds went past, and then ten, she started to feel safer, beguiled by the noise and movement of the very large crowd.

Everything is all right...it is still all right.

Her eyes scanned the room, but Colbert was nowhere to be seen. ‘I should not have come, Reena,’ she said, turning to her sister. ‘You manage these things with far more acumen than I. It is simply a waste of my time to be here.’

Maureen laughed. ‘I hate these functions, too, but Mr Riley was adamant about the invitation being for the both of us, Cassie, and his purse is a generous one.’

‘Well, as he did not show himself I doubt he would have known if I had stayed away.’ She needed to leave, needed to walk towards the door as though she did not have a care in the world. The ache inside intensified.

Once she had loved Nathanael Colbert, right from the bottom of her broken life.

The thought of what had happened next made her swallow, but she shook it gone. Not here, not now. Fixing a smile on her face, she listened to Maureen ramble on about the beauty of the room and the dresses and the lines of the small shaped trees set up near the band to give the appearance of a natural grotto. A fantasy world where anything was possible, a kinder world away from all that was sordid and base and unclean. All about her happy banter tinkled, the easy discourse of people with few worries in life apart from what they would be wearing to the next social occasion or the generous inheritances they had garnered from the latest deceased relative.

A strange sound above caught her attention. Looking up, Cassie noticed one of the chandeliers lurching sideways, each globe spluttering with the motion. Would the whole contraption fall? The horror of the thought that perhaps it was about to made her mouth dry. Had anyone else seen? To shout out would draw the attention to herself she so wanted to avoid, but the death of some unknowing soul would be for ever on her conscience if she did not.

‘Watch out! The light is falling.’ Her raised voice carried easily across the chatter around her, but a group of girls to one side were not quite fast enough. With a crash the ironwork of the leaves and flowers caught the leg of a beautiful young blonde woman.

In the chaos Cassie hurried forward, kneeling almost at the same time as another did, bumping his arm against hers.

Monsieur Nathanael Colbert.

Close.

A touch away, unbridled fury in his eyes. Grey eyes with just a hint of blue. Unbalance hit and she felt a jagged panic, her glance taking in the line of his jaw bissected with the scar she’d wrought upon him. When she had last seen this it had been opened red, blood falling across his shirt in a stream. She wanted to reach out and trace it, as if trying through touch to let him know of her sorrow. He would not welcome it, she knew, but betrayal always held two sides and this was one of them.

The sheer physical presence of him scorched at sense but as the woman’s cries mounted the healer in Cassie prevailed. She could not deal with the ramifications of meeting Colbert now. Looking down, she placed her palm hard against the back of a shapely knee and the flow of blood waned, red dribbling on to her skirt, the colours mixing strangely.

‘Keep still. There is a lot of bleeding and it needs to be stemmed.’

At that the young girl sobbed louder, grasping her free hand in a vice-like grip.

‘Will I die?’

‘No. A person is able to lose at least twenty per cent of their blood and still feel only mildly cold.’

Leached grey eyes raked across her own, no warmth whatsoever within them.

‘How much would you say I have already lost?’ The wounded girl’s voice was breathless with panic.

Cassandra made a thorough check of the area, lifting her ankle to ascertain just what lay beneath.

‘A little over half that amount so it would be wise to stay calm.’

The answering terrified shriek left her ears aching.

‘I am certain that it is not so severe, Miss Forsythe.’ The voice she had recalled in her dreams for so many years was measured. It was the first time she had ever heard him speak in English, the clipped and rounded vowels of privilege hanging upon every word. She hated the way her heart began to race.

‘Well, as your shin has been badly cut it is most important that you...’

A shadow to one side caught her glance and then all she knew was black.

* * *

Sandrine Mercier? Speaking perfect English? Downed by the last falling remains of the chandelier and completely unconscious. The loathing he felt for her swelled in his throat. Another deceit. A further lie.

She lay on her side, her eyelashes magnified against the shining de Clare tiles, her hair shorter now, and sleeker. She was still thin, but the beauty once only promised had blossomed into a full and utter radiance.

Damn her.

He wanted to stand and turn away, but to do so would invite question and in his line of work such scrutiny was never a good thing.

Lydia Forsythe was screaming at the very top of her voice, but the bleeding from her leg had almost subsided. A doctor had scurried over as well as her distraught mother and a myriad of friends. Around Sandrine just himself and one girl lingered, an uncertain frown on her forehead and tears pooling in dark-brown eyes.

Albi de Clare, the host of the evening’s entertainment, crouched down beside him. ‘My God, I cannot understand how this has happened for the lights were installed only a few months ago and I was assured that they were well secured. If you can lift her, Nathaniel, there is a room leading off this one that should offer more privacy.’

Another touch. A further punishment. When Nat brought her into his arms blue-green eyes snapped open to his, horror blossoming into shock.

‘I never...faint.’

‘You didn’t this time, either. The debris from the chandelier hit you.’

She was vibrating with panic, her head turned away. On reaching the smaller salon he placed her down upon a sofa, wishing he could leave.

‘My personal physician is amongst the guests, Nathaniel, and he is examining Miss Forsythe as we speak.’ Albi de Clare’s tone was muted and Nat saw Sandrine’s glance flicker round taking in the presence of the others who had followed them in. ‘He will come to you next.’

‘No.’ Already she had swung her feet onto the floor and was sitting there, head in her hands. ‘Please do not take the trouble to call him, my lord. I should not wish for any fuss and I already feel so very much...better.’ She stood on the word and just as quickly sat down, beads of sweat garnering on her top lip.

Albi, however, was not dissuaded from seeking a medical opinion, hailing his doctor as he came into the room.

‘Mr Collins, could you have a look at this injury? The back of the patient’s head has connected with the remains of the lamp.’

The old physician placed his leather satchel on a table next to the sofa before making much of extracting a pair of glasses from an outer pocket and perching them across his nose.

‘Certainly, sir. Those outside intimated that you were one of the first on the scene, Lord Lindsay. Was the young lady unconscious for long after this happened?’

‘Only for a few seconds,’ Nat answered. ‘As soon as I picked her up she seemed to regain her mind.’ Plain and simple. Everything complex and twisted would come later.

Sitting, the physician held up two fingers.

‘How many do you see, my dear?’

‘Four.’

The woman beside Sandrine shook her head and worried eyes went quickly to her.

‘Three. Two.’ Guessing for all her heart’s worth.

‘Do you have a headache?’

‘Just a small one.’

‘Is your right arm numb?’

She did not answer as she dug her nails into the flesh above her elbow. So numb she did not feel it at all?

At the doorway a group of interested onlookers had gathered, though Sandrine, marked by the blood of the other victim, looked bewildered and vulnerable. She had also begun to shake. Badly. Taking off his jacket, Nathaniel tucked it about her, for shock could be as much of an enemy as injury. He hated himself for bothering.

‘Warmth will help.’

For the first time he noticed the pendant at her throat, the one he had given her in Saint Estelle before she had betrayed him. The grey fabric of her bodice had drooped to reveal the roundness of one breast and the tall woman who had followed them in knelt down to pull the gown back into place, the skin on her cheeks flaming.

‘Keep still, Cassie.’

Cassie? The anger in Sandrine’s eyes was magnified by a deep and startling verdant green.

Albi’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘If you bring Miss Cassandra this way, Nathaniel, a carriage is waiting. Miss Northrup, if you would collect her reticule and follow us?’

Northrup? Maureen and Cassandra Northrup? These were two of Lord Cowper’s daughters? Hell.

A shutter had fallen across her averted eyes at the mention of her name, wariness and the cold surge of alarm evident.

‘I need no extra assistance, my lords. My s...sister can help me to our conveyance.’

At that the other moved forward, pleased to be able to do something in the room with all its onlookers and the stark awkward silence.

Within a moment they were gone, both of them, only the scent of some flower he could not name left behind.

Hemlock? Foxgloves? Lily of the Valley? All poisonous and lethal.

Albi watched them go, a frown across his brow. ‘The Northrup sisters may have their detractors, but it is my reasoning that with just a little time and effort they could knock the Originals from their perches. They seldom come out into society, but by all accounts their mother was beautiful, too. I think there’s a third sister, married and living in Scotland. You will need to get your jacket back.’

‘Perhaps.’ Nat’s tone was flat.

‘They live in Upper Brook Street and you can’t miss Avalon, the Northrup monstrosity.’ Nathaniel did not wait to hear more, walking out instead to the ballroom and being instantly surrounded by the newest and most beautiful débutantes of the season.

Young women of impeccable taste and good breeding, their pasts unblemished and flawless. He smiled as he moved into their midst.

* * *

Cassie’s head ached and her neck stung. She knew the wax from the candle globes had burnt her, but there had been too much to ascertain about the health of the young woman to spend time thinking about her own injuries.

Lord Lindsay.

The physician had called him that and de Clare had named him Nathaniel. Lord Nathaniel Lindsay, the heir apparent to the earldom of St Auburn. She could not believe it, could not quite take in that her dangerous rescuer in Nay with his scarred body and quick reflexes was now a dandified lord, known across all of England for his wealth and his power, with family lineage stretching back across the centuries.

Away from the stares, Cassie was feeling a lot better. The borrowed coat was warm, her shivers lessened by the touch of wool. She could smell him, too, here in the carriage, the depth of him and the strength and if her sister had not been right there beside her she might have breathed in further, allowing the colours of his beauty to explode inside, tantalising and teasing.

The scent of a man who could ruin her.

As the skin at her neck smarted beneath the heavy silk swathe of her gown, Cassie longed to take off her clothes and walk into the shallow pool at Avalon. Her mother’s pool, Alysa’s gown still upon the hook and her beads draped across a single gold-leafed chair. Papa had insisted on them staying.

‘Lord Lindsay has only recently returned to the social scene, but I have heard tales about him.’ Maureen watched her sister carefully, and Cassie knew that she was curious.

‘Tales?’

‘He is said to have spent some time in France. You did not meet him there, did you? I gained the impression he knew you.’

Cassandra shook her head, the truth too terrible to speak of, and she pulled the jacket in tighter.

He had remembered her, she knew he had, and under the smile she wore to keep Maureen’s avid curiosity at bay she also knew she must stay as far from him as possible.

When the lights of Avalon came into view she was pleased to see them.

* * *

Nathaniel Lindsay watched the house through the night, the moon upon its burnished roof outlining the gables and the attics.

The Gothic style here in London. Even the trees had taken their cue from the stark outline of the building and dropped some of their leaves as though it were already winter.

He should not be here, of course, but memory had made him come, the calm treachery of Sandrine’s voice in Perpignan as she had dispatched him into hell.

‘I barely know him, but he is a soldier of France, so better to leave him alive. But do as you will, I really don’t care.’

Swearing, he turned away, but not before the pale outline of a figure holding a candle moved through the second floor, down the stairs and out on to the porch, peering through the black of night.

There was no way she could have seen him, tucked into the shadow of a brick wall. But for a second before she blew out the flame the world seemed bathed in a daylight born from the candle, and she looked right into the heart of him.

Then there was only darkness and she was gone.

Sometimes his world disgorged ghosts from the past, but never ones as worrying as Sandrine Mercier. He’d been twenty when he had entered the heady enclave of espionage, his grandfather’s distant demeanour a catalyst for him to become part of a close group of men who worked for the British Service.

His friend, Stephen Hawkhurst, had already been involved and when Nathaniel’s grandfather, the Earl of St Auburn, had ranted and raved about his uselessness as the only son and heir, Nathaniel had joined as well.

Determining the likelihood of the rumoured marriages between the Spanish and French crowns had bought Nat into France, his expertise in both languages allowing him an easy access to the higher and lower echelons of its society.

The ties that were being forged between Britain and France were becoming strained, leaving a climate of suspicion and fear in their wake. A united block would render England isolated and make the battle for the control of Europe all that much harder to fight.

Nathaniel’s mission had been to test the waters, so to speak, and to liaise with the handful of British agents who had been assimilated into the French way of life, keeping an eye on the workings of a political ally who was hard to trust.

Determining the likelihood of such an alliance had taken him to the court of Madrid. Returning across the Pyrenees to make his way up into Paris, he had been alarmed at the murder of one of his agents whilst on the road to Bayonne. Finding those culpable had led him into an enclave of French bandits near Lourdes.

And it was here he had met Sandrine.

* * *

Cassandra knew he was there, quiet and hidden in the night. It had been the same at Nay, when in the chaos the spaces around him had been full of a certain resolve, menacing and dangerous, the last afternoon light glinting in the dark of his hair as he had taken apart the minions of Anton Baudoin.

She shivered at the name and thought of Celeste. A week sooner and her cousin might have lived as well, might have been taken too, through the long night and back into warmth. She did not know Lord Lindsay was an Englishman then, dressed in the trousers of a peasant, skin sliced with the marks of war. The French bastards had not known it either, his accent from the warmer climate of the south and the musical lilt of a Provençal childhood masking all that he was.

Nathanael. He had named himself such. Monsieur Nathanael Colbert. At least part of his name had been true. His hands had been harder then, marked with the calluses of a labouring man and none of the softer lord on show. He still wore the same ring though, a gold chevron against blue, on the fourth finger of his right hand.

A movement behind made her turn.

‘Ma’am, Katie is crying and Elizabeth cannot make her stop.’

One of the Northrup maids stood in the doorway, a heavy frown evident, and, forcing all the thoughts from her mind, Cassie hurried inside.

Tonight, chaos felt close and Lord Lindsay was a large part of the reason. She understood that with a heartfelt clarity as the cries of the girl took Cassie from her revelries.

Elizabeth, her maid, was in the annex at the rear of the house, the place used when women needed a bed for a night or two before being rehomed elsewhere. She was bathing the burns on thin legs, angry red scarring beneath the soft brush of cotton; another small casualty owing her injuries to London’s underbelly of child trading.

‘Did you make certain your hands were clean, Lizzie, before you touched the wounds?’

‘I did, ma’am.’

‘And you used the lime solution?’

‘Just as you told me, ma’am.’

The smell of it was still in the air, sharp and strong, crawling into all the corners of the room. Alysa, Cassie’s French mother, had always been a vehement supporter of cleanliness when dealing with sickness, and such teachings were ingrained within Cassie.

Soaping up her hands, she dried them and felt the child’s forehead. Fever was settling in, the flush in Katie’s cheeks ruddy and marked. Removing a clean apron from a hook by the door, Cassie put it on and went to stand beside Katie, the folds of the child’s skin weeping and swollen. Carefully Cassie took plump shards of green from her medical cabinet and squeezed the slime into a pestle and mortar before spitting into the mixture. Mama had shown her this and the procedure took her mind back unwillingly into a different time and place.

She had been almost eighteen years old, still a girl, still hopeful, still imbued with the possibilities of life.

Completely foolish.

Utterly naive.

And painfully heartsick from the guilt of her mother’s death.

Chapter Two

Nay, Languedoc-Roussillon, France—October 1846

The stranger had forced himself into stillness. She could see it as he stood, his heart and breath calmed by pure will-power as he raised his blade and stepped forward.

So many were dead or dying; such a little space of time between the living and the departed and Cassandra expected that she would be next.

A knife she had retrieved from the ground felt solid in her fist and the wind was behind her. Left handed. Always an advantage. But the rain made steel slippery as he parried and the mud under her feet finished the job. As she fell her hat spun off into the grey and her plait unfolded into silence. She saw the disbelief in his eyes, the hesitation and the puzzlement, his knife angling to miss her slender neck, pale against all else that was not.

The shot behind sounded loud, too loud, and she could smell the flare of powder for just a second before he fell, flesh punched with lead.

He could have killed her easily, she thought, as she scrambled up and snatched back her cap, angry with herself for taking another look at his face.

Mud could not mask the beauty of him, nor could the pallor of death. She wished he might have been old and ugly, a man to forget after a second of seeing, but his lips were full and his lashes were long and in his cheek she could see the dent of a dimple.

A man who would not bring his blade in battle through the neck of a woman? Even a fallen one such as she? The shame in her budded against the futility of his gesture and she went to turn away. Once she might have cared more, might have wept for such a loss of life and beauty and goodness. But not now.

The movement of his hand astonished her.

‘He is alive.’ Even as she spoke she wished she had not.

‘Kill the bastard, then. Finish him off.’

Her fingers felt for a pulse, strong against the beat of time, blood still coursing through a body marked with wounds. Raising the knife, she caught the interest of Baudoin behind and, moving to block his view, brought the blade down hard. The earth jarred her wrist through the thin woollen edge of his jacket and she almost cried out, but didn’t.

‘Take your chances.’ Whispered beneath her breath, beneath the wind and the rain and the grey empty nothingness. Tonight it would snow. He would not stand a hope. Cleaning the knife against her breeches, she stood.

‘You did well, ma chère.’ Baudoin moved forward to cradle the curve of her chest, and the same anger that had been her companion for all of the last months tasted bitter in her mouth.

She knew what would come next by the flare in his eyes, knew it the moment he hit her, his sex hardened by death, blood and fear, but he had forgotten the knife in her palm and in his haste had left her fighting arm free.

A mistake. She used the brutality of his ardour as he took her to the ground, the blade slipping through the space between his ribs to enter his heart and when she rolled him off her into the mud and stood, she stomped down hard upon his fingers.

‘For Celeste.’ She barely recognised her voice and made an effort to tether in her panic. The snow would help her, she was sure of it; tracks could be hidden beneath the white and the winter was only just beginning.

‘And...for you, too.’ The sound was quiet at first, almost gone in the high keening of wind, a whisper through great pain and much effort.

Her assailant, his grey eyes bloodshot and sweat on his brow underpinning more extensive injuries. When he heaved himself up, she saw he was a big man, the muscle in his arms pressed tight against the fabric of his jacket.

‘You killed him too cleanly, mademoiselle.’ Not a compliment either as he glanced at Anton Baudoin. ‘I would have made him suffer.’

He knew how much she had hated him, the prick of pity behind his eyes inflating her fury. No man would ever hold such power over her again.

‘Here.’ He held out a silver flask, the stopper emblazoned with a crest. ‘Drink this. It will help.’

She meant to push it back at him, refusal a new capacity, but sense kept her quiet. Half a dozen days by foot to safety through mountainous land she held no measure of. Fools would perish and she was not a fool.

The spirits were warm, slung as the metal had been against his skin. The crest surprised her. Had he stolen it in some other skirmish? She could feel the unfamiliar fire of the whisky burn right down into her stomach.

‘Who was he?’

‘A bandit. His name was Anton Baudoin.’

‘And these others?’

‘His men.’

‘You were alone with them?’ Now his eyes only held the savage gleam of anger. For him or for her, she could not tell. Against the backdrop of a storm he looked far more dangerous than any man she had ever seen.

As if he could read her mind, he spoke. ‘Stop shaking. I don’t rape young girls.’

‘But you often kill men?’

At that, he smiled. ‘Killing is easy. It’s the living that’s difficult.’

Shock overtook her, all the horror of the past minutes and months robbing her of breath and sense. She was a murderer. She was a murderer with no place to run to and no hope at safety.

He was wrong. Everything was difficult. Life was humiliating, exhausting and shameful. And now she was bound for hell.

The tall stranger took a deep swallow from the flask before replacing the lid. Then he laid his jacket on the ground, raising his shirt to see the damage. Blood dripped through a tear in the flesh above his hipbone. Baudoin’s shot, she thought. It had only just missed killing him. With much care he stooped and cut a wide swathe of fabric from the shirttails of one of the dead men, slicing it into long ribbons of white.

Bandages. He had tied them together with intricate knots in seconds and without pausing began to wind the length tightly around his middle. She knew it must have hurt him to do so, but not in an expression, word or gesture did he allow her the knowledge of that, simply collecting his clothes on finishing and shrugging back into them.

Then he disappeared into the house behind, and she could hear things being pulled this way and that, the sound of crashing furniture and upturned drawers. He was looking for something, she was sure of it, though for the life of her she could not imagine what it might be. Money? Weapons?

A few moments later and he was back again, empty-handed.

‘I am heading for Perpignan if you want to come.’ Tucking a gun and powders into his belt, he repositioned his knife into a sheath of leather. Already the night was coming down upon them and the trees around the clearing seemed darker and more forbidding. The cart he had used to inveigle his way into the compound stood a little way off, the wares he plied meagre: pots, pans and rolls of fabric amidst sacks of flour and sugar.

She had no idea as to who he was or what he was or why he was in Nay. He could be worse than any man here ever had been or he could be like her uncle and father, honourable and decent.

A leaf fell before her, twirling in the breeze.

If it rests on its top, I will not go with him, she thought, even as the veins of the underside stilled in the mud. And if he insists that I accompany him, I will strike out the other way.

But he only turned into the line of bushes behind and melted into green, his cart gouging trails in the mud.

A solid indication of direction, she thought, like a sign or a portent or an omen of safety. Gathering up her small bundle of things, she followed him into the gloom.

* * *

There was no simple way to tie a neckcloth, Nathaniel thought, no easy shortcut that might allow him the time for another drink before he went out. Already the clock showed ten, and Hawk would be waiting. Catching sight of his reflection in the mirror, he frowned.

His valet had outdone himself with tonight’s dress, the dizzying hues of his waistcoat clashing with the coloured silk of his cravat; a fashionable man with nothing else to occupy his mind save entertainment. People dropped their guards around men such as this. His fingers tightened against the ebony of his cane and he felt for the catch hidden beneath the rim at the back as he walked downstairs.

He had returned from France in the early months of 1847 more damaged than he allowed others to know and had subsequently been attached to the London office. For a while the change had been just what he needed, the small problems of wayward politicians or corrupt businessmen an easy task to deal with after the mayhem of Europe.

Such work barely touched him. It was simple to shadow the unscrupulous and bring them to the notice of the law, the degenerate fraudsters and those who operated outside justice effortlessly discovered.

Aye, he thought. He could have done the work with his hands tied and a blindfold on until a month ago when two women had been dragged from the Thames with their throats cut. Young women and both dressed well.

No one had known them. No one had missed them. No anxious family member had contacted the police. It was as though they had come into the river without a past and through the teeming throng of humanity around the docklands without a footprint.

The only clue Nat had been able to garner was from an urchin who had sworn he had seen a toff wiping blood from a blade beside the St Katharine Docks. A tall and well-dressed man, the boy had said, before scurrying off into the narrow backstreets.

Stephen Hawkhurst had been asked to look into the case as well, and the Venus Club rooms five roads away towards the city had caught their attention.

‘The members meet here every few weeks. They are gentlemen mostly with a great appetite for the opposite sex. By all accounts they pay for dancers and singers and other women who think nothing of shedding their clothes for entertainment.’

‘So it could be one of them is using the club for more dubious pursuits,’ Nat expanded. ‘There are a number of men whose names and faces I recognise.’

He had kept a close eye on the comings and goings from the club across the past weeks, astonished at the numerous alliances taking place. ‘Any accusations would need to be carefully handled, though, for some there have genuine political and social standing.’

‘Hard to get closer without causing comment, you mean?’ Stephen questioned.

‘Exactly. But if we joined we could blend in.’

Stephen had not believed him serious. ‘I don’t think belonging to the ranks of the Venus Club is the sort of distinction one would want to be known for.’

‘It’s a place hiding secrets, Hawk, and privacy is highly valued.’

‘Well, I’m not taking part in any initiation or rites of passage.’

Each of them had laughed.

‘Frank Booth is reported to be a member. I will ask him to sponsor us.’

A week later they were given a date, a time and a place, a small break in a case that was baffling. Girls were ruined all the time in London, for reasons of economics, for the want of food, for a roof over the head of a child born out of wedlock. But they were seldom so brutally hurt.

Sandrine. He remembered her ruined hand and the fear in her face when he had first met her.

The rage inside him began to build. Back then Cassandra Northrup had never given him any glimpse of an identity, though with each and every day in her company questions had woven their way into the little that she told him.

The first night had been the worst. She had cried behind him in small sobs, unstoppable over miles of walking in the dark. He had not helped her because he couldn’t. The wound in his side had ached like the devil, fiery-hot and prickling, and by midnight he knew that he would have to rest.

Throwing down the few things he had taken from the cart after abandoning it many miles back, he leaned against a tree, the bark of its trunk firm behind him. Already the whirling circles of giddiness threatened, the ache at his hip sending pins and needles into his chest.

The girl sat on the other side of the small clearing, tucked into a stiff and inconsolable shape.

‘You are safer than you were before. I said I would not hurt you.’ He couldn’t understand her weeping.

‘I killed a man.’

‘He was about to rape you.’ Nat’s heart sank at the implications of her guilt. God, how long had it been since he had felt anything remotely similar? He wished he had been the one to slide a knife into the French miscreant, for he would have gutted him and enjoyed watching him die. Slowly.

Her hands crossed her heart and her lips moved as if reciting a prayer.

Had the bullet wound not hurt as much he might have laughed, might have crossed the space between them and shaken her into sense. But he could only sit and watch and try to mitigate his pain.

‘I am sure that the wrath of God takes intent into account.’

‘Oh, I intended to kill him.’ Honestly said. Given back in a second and no hesitation in it.

‘I was thinking more of your assailant’s purpose. I do not think Monsieur Baudoin would have been gentle with you.’

‘Yet two wrongs do not make a right?’

He closed his eyes and felt the bloom of fatigue, irritation rising at her unreasonableness. ‘If you had not killed him, I would have. One way or another he would have been dead. If it helps, pretend I did it.’

‘Who are you?’ The green in her eyes under moonlight matched the dark of the trees. In the daylight they were bluer, changeable.

‘Nathanael Colbert. A friend.’ Barked out, none of the empathy he knew she wanted held within the word. She remained silent, a small broken shape in the gloom, tucked up against bracken, the holes in the leather soles of her shoes easily seen from this angle. ‘Why the hell were you there in the first place?’

He did not think she would answer as the wind came through into the hollow, its keening sound as plaintive as her voice.

‘They caught us a long time ago.’ He saw her counting on her fingertips as she said it, the frown upon her brow deepening. Months? Years?

‘Us?’

He had seen no other sign of captives.

‘Celeste and I.’

Hell. Another girl. ‘Where is she?’

‘Dead.’ The flat anger in her voice was cold.

‘Recently?’

She nodded, her expression gleamed in sadness. She had old bruises across her cheek and new ones on her hand. In the parting of her hair when her cap had been dislodged he had seen the opaque scar of a wound that could have so easily killed her.

As damaged as he was.

Tonight he did not have the energy to know more of her story and the thin wanness was dispiriting. If they could have a drink things would be better, but the flask he had brought with him was long since empty.

‘Can you hear that stream?’

She nodded.

‘We need water...?’

He left the words as a question. No amount of want in the world could get him standing. He had lost too much blood and he knew it.

‘Do you have the flask?’

‘Here.’

When she took it and left he closed his eyes and tried to find some balance in the silence. He wanted to tend to himself, but he would need water to do that. And fire. He wondered if the young French captive would be able to follow his instructions when she returned.

He also wondered just exactly how those at Nay had gained their information on the identity and movements of a British agent who had long been a part of the fabric of French country life.

* * *

It was quiet in the trees and all the grief of losing Celeste flooded back. Her cousin’s body rounded with child. Her eyes lifeless. The pain of it surged into Cassie’s throat, blocking breath, and she stopped to lean against a tree. The anguish of life and death. What was it the man who sat in the clearing wrapped in bandages had said?

Killing is easy. It’s the living that is difficult.

Perhaps, after all, he was right. Perhaps Celeste had known that, too, and put an end to all that she had loathed, taking the child to a place that was better but leaving her here alone.

Alone in a world where everything looked bleak. Bleaker than bleak even under the light of a small moon, the trickle of water at her feet running into the tattered remains of her boots and wetting her toes. The cold revived a little of her fight, reminded her how in the whole of those eight terrible months she had not given up, had not surrendered. She wished the stream might have been deeper so that she could have simply stripped off and washed away sin. A baptism. A renewal. A place to begin yet again and survive.

The flask in hand reminded her of purpose and she knelt to the water.

Her companion looked sick, the crusted blood beneath his nails reflected in the red upon his clothes, sodden through the layers of bandage. Without proper medicine how could he live? Water would clean the wound, but what could be done for any badness that might follow? The shape of leaves in the moonlight on the other side of the river suddenly caught her attention. Maudeline. Her mother had used this very plant in her concoctions. An astringent, she had said. A cleanser. A natural gift from the hands of a God who placed his medicines where they were most needed.

The small bank was easy to climb and, taking a handful of the plant, she stripped away the woody stems, the minty scent adding certainty to her discovery. She remembered this fresh sweet smell from Alysa’s rooms and was heartened by the fact. The work of finding enough leaves and tucking them into her pocket took all her concentration, purpose giving energy. A small absolution. A task she had done many hundreds of times under the guidance of her mother.

An anchor to the familiar amidst all that was foreign. She needed this stranger in a land she held no measure of and he needed her. An equal support. It had been so long since she had felt any such worthiness.

He was asleep when she returned, though the quiet fall of her feet woke him.

‘I have maudeline for your injury.’ Bringing out the leaves, she began to crush them between her fingers, mixing them to a paste with the water on a smooth rock she had wiped down before using. She saw how he watched her, his grey eyes never leaving the movement of her hands.

‘Are you a witch, then?’

She laughed, the sound hoarse and rough after so many months of disuse. ‘No, but Mama was often thought to be.’

Again she saw the dimple in his right cheek, the deep pucker of mirth making her smile.

‘Maudeline? I have not heard of it.’

‘Another name for it is camphor.’

He nodded and came up on to his knees, holding his head in his hands as though a headache had suddenly blossomed.

‘It hurts you?’

‘No.’ Squeezed out through pain.

When he stood she thought he looked unsteady, but she simply watched as he gathered sticks and set to making a fire. The tinder easily caught, the snake of smoke and then flame. Using the bigger pieces of branch he built it up until even from a distance she could feel the radiating warmth.

‘The tree canopy will dissipate the smoke,’ he said after a few moments. ‘The low cloud will take care of the rest.’

* * *

Half an hour later flame shadow caught at his torso as he removed his shirt, the bandages following. His wound showed shattered skin, the tell-tale red lines of inflammation already radiating.

‘Don’t touch.’ Her directive came as she saw he was about to sear the edges of skin together with a glowing stick. ‘It is my belief that dirt kills a man with more certainty than a bullet and I can tell it is infected.’

Crossing to him, she wiped her hands with the spare leaves and poured water across the sap. When she touched him she knew he had the fever. Another complication. A further problem.

‘I have been ill like this before and lived.’ He had seen her frown.

Lots of ‘befores’, she mused, lines of crossed white opaque scars all over his body. The thought made her careful.

‘You are a soldier?’

He only laughed.

Or a criminal, she thought, for what manner of man looked as he did? When he handed over the flask of water, she did not take a drink.

‘I will heat it to clean the wound. It might hurt for it has been left a while. If you had some leather to bite down upon...?’’

He broke into her offered advice. ‘I will cope.’

* * *

Stephen Hawkhurst’s voice made Nathaniel start, the echo around the marbled lobby disconcerting as all the years past rolled back into the present.

‘You look as though you have the problems of the world upon your shoulders, Nat. Still thinking of the Northrup chit, I’d be guessing: fine eyes, a fine figure and a sense of mystery. Her uncle, Reginald Northrup, will be at the Venus Club tonight. Perhaps you can find out more about her from him.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘A few years ago when I was in Paris I heard a rumour about a woman who sounded remarkably like Cassandra Northrup.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That she was kept a prisoner in southern France and that she was not released for quite some time.’

‘I see.’

‘Her rescuer was also mentioned in detail.’ The flint of gold in his friend’s eyes was telling and there was a certain question there.

‘It was you, Nat, wasn’t it? And she was one of theirs?

‘Whose?’

‘The French. One of their agents.’

Anger sliced in a quick rod of pain. ‘No, Cassandra Northrup never held loyalty to any cause save that of her own.’

‘Others here might disagree with you. She is the chairwoman of the charity Daughters of the Poor.’

‘Prostitutes?’

Hawk nodded, leaving Nat to ponder on how the circles of life turned around in strange patterns.

‘She must have been a child then, and scared. God, even now she looks young. And you got home in one piece, after all.’

One piece? How little Stephen truly knew.

Taking his hat and cloak from the doorman, Nat forced away his recollections and walked out into a cold and windy London night.

* * *

They were all there, myriad affluent men gathered in a room that looked much like a law chamber or a place of business. Nat was glad that Stephen stood beside him because he still felt dislocated and detached, thrown by the reappearance of a woman he had thought never to see again.

He recalled Cassandra Northrup’s eyes were exactly the same as they had been, guarded in their turquoise, shuttered by care and secrets. But her hair had changed from the wild curls she had once favoured and she was far more curvaceous.

If her eyes had not given her away her left hand would have, of course, with the half-finger and the deep scar across the rest of her knuckles.

It had been a newer wound back then in the clearing, when she had reached forward and laid one cool palm across his back. He had flinched as she brought the knife she carried upwards to cut away the badness.

The pain had made him sweat, hot incandescence in the cool of night as she simply tipped the heated flask up and covered ragged open flesh.

The camphor helped, as did her hands threading through places on his spine that seemed to transfer the pain. Surprise warred with agony under her adept caresses.

The poultice was sticky and the new bandages she bound the ointment with were from the bottom of her shirt. Cleaner. Softer. He could smell her on them.

He wished that he had the whisky to dull the pain. He wished for a bed that was not on a forest floor, but some place warmer, more comfortable, some place where his heartbeat did not rattle against the cold hard of earth.

‘If you sit, it should help with the drainage.’

He was shivering now, substantially, and went to drape his jacket around himself to find warmth, but she held it away and shook her head.

‘You are burning up. The mind plays tricks when the fever rages and as I cannot shift you to the stream we will have to make do with the cold night air instead. I had hoped it would snow.’

Her accent was Parisian, the inflection of the drawing rooms and the society salons where anything and everything was possible. He wondered why the hell she should have been in Nay, dressed in the clothes of a lad, and when he inadvertently blurted the thought out aloud, he saw her flinch.

‘I think you should sleep, Monsieur Colbert.’

His name. Not quite right. But he needed to be quiet and he needed to think. There was danger here. He wished he could have asked her who she was, what she was, but the camphor was winding its way into the quick pricks of pain and he closed his eyes to block her from him.

* * *

He would be sore in the morning if he lived. The wound or the fever could kill him, but it was the bleeding that she was most concerned about. She had not been able to stop it. Already blood pooled beneath him, more hindrance to a body struggling with survival.

Tipping up the flask, she took the last drops of water.

She was starving. She was exhausted. The embers of the fire still glowed in the dark, but outside the small light the unknown gathered.

Baudoin had not existed alone and she knew that others would follow. Oh, granted, this stranger had hidden their tracks well ever since leaving Nay, his cart discarded quite early in the piece. She had watched him set false lures into other directions, the heavy print of a foot in a stream, a broken twig snagged with the hair from her plait, but she knew it would only be a matter of time before those in France’s underworld would find them.

She held far too many secrets, that was the problem. She had seen some of the documents Baudoin’s brother had inadvertently left in Celeste’s chamber, documents she knew had been taken from the carriage of a murdered man on the road towards Bayonne. A mistake of lust and an error that would lead to all that had happened next.

Her fault. Everything was her fault and her cousin had not even known it. The same familiar panic engulfed her, made her lean forward to catch breath, trying in the terror to hold on to the reason of why Celeste had done as she did. Cassie still felt the sticky blood across her fingers, the warmth of life giving way to cold.

Softly she began to sing, keeping herself staunch; the ‘Marseillaise’ because it was fast paced and because it was in French.

To arms, citizens,

Form your battalions,

We march, we march...

Celeste was dead. And the Baudoin brothers. How quickly circumstances changed. In a heartbeat. In a breath. She looked across to the stranger, Colbert, and determined that he was still in the land of the living before she shut her eyes.

* * *

The girl was asleep, her hat pulled down across her head and her jacket stretched over the bend of her knees. As Nathaniel looked at her in repose there was a vulnerability apparent that was not evident when she was awake. She was thin, painfully so, and dirty. On a closer inspection he saw on her clothes the handiwork of small, finely taken stitches covering rips and larger holes. Her shirt was buttoned to the throat and the jacket she wore was tightly closed. More than a few sizes too large, it held the look of a military coat without any of the braiding. He knew she still had the knife, but it was not visible anywhere. Too big for the pockets, he imagined it tucked in under her forearm or secreted in one of the boots she wore beneath loose trousers.

A child-woman lost into the vagaries of a war that could not have been kind.

He felt stronger, a surprising discovery this, given his fever, and although the wound tugged when he shifted it did not sting like it had. Still, his vision blurred as he stood from the loss of blood or his own body’s heat, he knew not which.

Camphor. Perhaps there was something in the doctoring, some healing property that would confound even the best of physicians? He resolved to use it again.

She stirred across from him, wild curls escaping from the plait and falling around her face. In sleep she looked softer, the burden of life not marking the spaces between her eyes. Her ruined left hand sat on top of the right one and fire outlined the hurt in flame. Not a little injury and not an accident either. This looked to be deliberate, a brutal act of damage that would have taken weeks to heal. It was strange to see such a battle scar on one so young. His own back was filled with the vestige of war, but he had been in the arena of secrets for some time and such damage was to be expected.

Her eyes flicked open suddenly, taking him in, fear reverting to wariness.

‘How do you feel?’ Even fresh from sleep she was observant.

‘Better.’

Her glance at his throat read the measured beat of his heart. ‘Your temperature is still high so you should be drinking as much as you can. In a moment I will fetch more water.’

A frown of concern slashed the girl’s forehead, but he was tired of thinking of her as ‘the girl’. ‘What are you called?’

‘Sandrine Mercier.’

Rolling the name on his tongue, he liked the sound of it. ‘How old are you?’

‘Almost eighteen.’ Surprisingly forthcoming, though she did not look to have as many years as she professed.

‘And your cousin?’

Moonlight caught her face as her chin lifted. ‘Celeste was twenty and she loved music. She loved everything beautiful and charming and good. She played the piano and sang like an angel...’ Her voice came to a halt.

Nat knew what she was doing because he had done the same himself when those close to him had died. A memory they might be, but in speech they came alive, drawn for others to know, almost living.

‘Did Baudoin kill her?’

Only the quick shake of her head.

One day she will be beautiful, he thought. One day she will take men’s hearts and break them. For now she was young. Too young for him. For now the stamp of grace lay in her long limbs and her boyish defiance, the promise of womanhood only hinted at.

He turned away, not wishing for her to see his regard.

* * *

He was back to being angry, his eyes the colour of a storm, not dark, not light, but the in-between shade that spoke of rain and coldness.

‘Are you a part of Guy Lebansart’s circle of spies?’ If she found out something about him, there might be protection there.

His interest ignited. ‘Spies?’

‘Men who would take secrets and use them.’

‘For France?’

‘Or for whoever is paying the most.’

His frown deepened. ‘Did you ever know any of these secrets, Sandrine?’ In his words she could hear exactly what she did not want to. Interest and intrigue. Eight months in captivity had taught her every nuance in the language of deception.

‘No.’ She kept her voice bland and low, shaking out the truth with effort. ‘I was only a prisoner.’

‘Where did they keep you?’

She did not answer, moving instead to retrieve the flask. Her mattress had been in a room off Celeste and Louis’s chamber, a sanctuary she tried very hard to seldom leave. Lying low, she only ever ventured out when the early hours of the morning saw each inhabitant befuddled by strong drink, her cousin included. But Celeste had made her own bargain with the devil and had won conditions to make the tenure livable. Cassie’s thoughts went again to Celeste’s beautiful voice and her smile. When memory was selective, everything was easier.

‘I will get water and then we should leave. If others follow—’

He cut off her worry with two words.

‘They won’t.’

The confidence of a victor. So fragile. So absolutely flimsy. Baudoin had said no one would ever dare to challenge him and look at what had happened. Her French uncle had been certain, too, of the route west and then lost his way into peril.

Everyone could be bought for the price of pain or promise or vanity. She wondered what Monsieur Nathanael Colbert’s price might be. Her own was freedom and she would never give it up again for anyone.

‘When we reach the next town, hide your face with this.’ He tossed her a scarf, dirtied with dust and blood. ‘And tuck your hair well into the crown of your hat. If anyone asks a question of you, look stupid, for there is safeguard in a simple mind. If you could walk with more of a swagger—’

She cut him off. ‘I know what to do.’

He swore at that, roundly, and began to collect his things.

* * *

Reginald Northrup was a large man, his face florid and his smile showing a mouth with at least a few teeth missing. The brandy he had hold of was in a glass as oversized as he was. The sweat on his brow reflected the light above him.

‘It is a surprise to see you here, Lindsay. I hear you aided my niece the other evening at the de Clare ball?’

The man who sat near Northrup turned to hear his answer.

‘Indeed. The last pieces of a falling chandelier knocked her unconscious and a doctor was called.’

‘I am certain Cassandra herself could have remedied any wound she received. She has a knack for the healing and her mother was just the same.’

‘Her mother was reputed to be one of society’s beauties, was she not?’ Hawk’s question. Nat could not quite let go of the thought that he had voiced the query for his benefit.

‘She was, but Alysa Northrup died a good many years ago when one of her science experiments went wrong. Had she lived a century ago she might have been burned at the stake as a witch, for there were rumblings in all quarters about her unusual endeavours and none of them was kind.’

The easygoing stance of the man hardened, giving Nat an impression of much emotion.

‘She was a beautiful woman, Reg.’ Lord Christopher Hanley, sitting next to Reginald, had imbibed too much strong drink, lending his speech an air of openness. ‘None of the other débutantes that year could touch her in brains or beauty. I thought for a time it was you she was sweet upon until your brother snaffled her up right under your very nose and made her his wife.’

Northrup seemed out of step with such a confidence. ‘Both girls are as odd as their mother was. You will do yourself a favour by staying out of the way of them, Lindsay. Indeed, most gentlemen in society have done so already.’

Hawk beside him laughed. ‘I think it might be the other way around, sir, for even though they seldom venture into the social realm your nieces rebuff all interested parties with alacrity.’

‘If they turn their noses up at everything, it is because their father has too little left of his wits to bid them marry. Maureen has already reached a grand old age and I fear that she will always remain a spinster. Rodney, their brother, shall have to no doubt house them when he inherits the properties.’

By the look on Reginald Northrup’s face Nathaniel judged that he was not pleased about the fact. The terms of an entailment, perhaps, that left him with little to fall back upon?

‘The younger daughter was married in France, if memory serves me well? I remember it as quite a scandal at the time, Reg, and she never took on his name.’ Hanley spoke again, and Nathaniel stiffened. Another ache hooking into the cold prick of betrayal. He wondered what she had done with the ring he had given her, his mother’s ring, a single, pure, verdant emerald set in white gold.

‘What was the story of her groom?’ Nat addressed Reginald Northrup directly.

‘Oh, up and gone by all accounts, for she arrived home in a melancholic state that took a good year to recover from. I doubt any new husband would have put up with such gloom for that length of time, though my brother was happy enough to have her back and never questioned the marriage. He lives in his own world of science and experiments much the same as his wife was wont to. It was this interest that drew them together in the first place, I suppose.’

The layers of truth peeled back and, within the Venus Club in a room gilded with ostentation and excess, Nat found himself disheartened. It was what had happened after that which Nathaniel failed to understand: the closeness and then the unfathomable distance. He shook away his thoughts as Hawk spoke again.

‘Reginald is asking if we wish to join him at his country home for the Venus Club’s August celebrations, Nat. I said we would be more than delighted to accept his offer.’

‘Indeed.’ The taste of bitterness in Nathaniel’s mouth was strong, for nothing here made sense to him. Why had Cassandra Northrup never married again given the fragile and unorthodox legality of their nuptials?

She was beautiful. More beautiful than any other woman of the ton, even in the dreary guise of a widow. Aye, muted dove-grey suited the tone of her skin and the colour of her eyes and hair.

Her hair had been longer once, falling to the line of her hips in a single swathe of darkened silk as they had pulled themselves out of the river.

He had realised the danger the moment they awoke in the barn they had found in the late afternoon of the day before after walking for many miles. A sense of threat permeated the early morning air, and he was a man who had always relied on instinct.

Sandrine had stirred as he stood, straw from the beds they had fashioned still in the threads of her hair. Everything about her was delicate. Her hands, her nails, the tilt of her chin as she listened.

‘Someone is here?’

‘More than one. They do not know we are inside, however, or their voices would be quieter.’

He saw how she drew the knife from her sleeve and held it at the ready. Her hands were shaking.

Six of them, he determined, from the footsteps and the whicker of horses. By himself he would have taken them on, but with Sandrine to protect...?

Placing a finger to his lips he drew her to one side of the building and indicated a hole at the bottom of the boards.

‘Crawl through and make for the river. If they see you keep running and jump. Stay in the middle where the water flows fastest for at least a mile. After that I will find you.’

Fear sparked in her eyes. ‘I cannot swim well.’

‘Just put your arms out to each side and relax...’

He did not finish because a shout interrupted them and Nat knew their tracks had been discovered.

‘Go.’

A quick nod and the space where she had been was filled only with the scent of her and the sound of someone lifting the catch upon the door.

Unsheathing his knife Nat breathed out, another blade at his belt tilted so that the hilt was easily accessible. The dry straw also caught his eye. He would not make this easy for them and a fire would buy them some time. He hoped to God that Sandrine had reached the water way undetected.

* * *

She heard the commotion in the barn as flame leapt from straw, hot through the missing frame of a window.

Colbert had set the place on fire and as a diversion the plan was inspired. Already she saw two of the men retreating, their attention caught so firmly on the blaze they did not notice her as she ran past a line of weeping willows to the river bank.

Where was he? Why had he not come out after her? How long could a person breathe in the smoke and flame of straw? The quick report of a gun sent her under into the cold, down amongst the green of weed and the dirty swirl of mud. She pushed up and away, using her hands as he had told her, spread out as wings, the surface finally in sight, a faint glitter of day where only darkness had been and then she was out, air in her lungs again, a promontory cutting off any sight of the burning barn and distance-dulling noise.

Warm tears of fright ran against the chill, the quick rush of water taking her faster and faster, and the bank a good many yards from her on either side.

Had Nathanael Colbert died in the fight? The wound in his side and the remains of the fever would have sapped his strength and yet he had made sure she had the chance of safety before seeing to his own. He only knew her from her time with Baudoin, a girl marked with the horror of it and yet he had done this for her. Without question.

She wished he was here, behind her, as she was forced along in the rapid current, dragged down with the heaviness of her oversized boots.

And then he was there, reaching for her as she went under yet again, the water in her throat making her cough.

‘Put your arms around my neck.’

He was solid and sturdy, the muscles in his shoulders keeping her up in the cold air. His hair had been released from the band he kept it secured with and was falling in wet strands down his back. She wondered how he could keep going as the water flow quickened and rocks appeared, the fall of the river changing and whitening into rapids.

‘Don’t let go,’ he called over his shoulder, one hand fending off a jagged outcrop as they bounced into its path. Then they were free again, down onto a new level of river, softer and quieter.

Cassie could tell he was tiring, the gulps of air he took ragged and uneven. Blood from his wound stained the water crimson about them as damaged flesh opened to pressure. But still he did not stop, waiting until the bushes turned again to countryside before striking in for shore.

The mud under her feet was thick and deep as she gained a purchase. For a good long while they lay there, on the bank, the greyness of the sky above them promising rain. Freezing.

‘Take...your clothes...off.’ Even he was shivering.

The first soft drift of snow came unexpectedly, landing on her upturned face in a cold and quiet menace.

‘Take your...heavier clothes off...th-then get into the base of the hedge and dig. The l-leaves will be warmer than the air and they will p-protect you.’

He made no attempt to move himself, the flakes of snow thicker now. Again red blood pooled beneath him.

She came to a decision without conscious thought. He had saved her twice and she could not leave him here to perish. Unbuttoning what was left of his shirt, she sat him forward and took away the sodden cotton. His jacket was long gone, probably discarded when he first went into the river. A chain hung at his neck, a ring secured upon it, white-gold with a large clear emerald.

Was he married? Did a woman wait at home for him, hoping? His eyes this close were ringed in dark blue, grey melting into the colour seamlessly. Watching her.

‘Go.’

But she could not. Unsheathing the knife along the line of her lower arm as strength returned, she stood and cut a pile of branches. The leaves that lay at the base of a hedge she fashioned into a bed and rolled him into it, placing many more leaves and plant stems on top and using the brush as a shield to keep the snow away. Then, climbing underneath to join him, she snuggled in, jacket and shirt gone, skin touching skin.

Already the day had darkened, the dusk misting in early with the weather, more clouds on the horizon.

‘Will they find us?’

‘Not today. S-snow covers everything and whoever is looking will have to w-wait it out.’

Their small lair was becoming darker as the snow caught, layering and thickening. The wind, too, had lessened and heat was beginning to build. She liked it when his arms came about her, holding her close, the beat of his heart even and unhurried and his breath comforting.

For this one small moment they were safe.

She was glad when he stopped shivering, their warmth melding together to create hope.

* * *

Nat had awoken from their lair of snow beneath the bushes to a room with a fire burning bright. An older man and woman sat observing them, a youth standing near the window.

‘Our dog found your tracks leading from the river and we brought you here early this morning.’

Looking about, he saw that Sandrine and he had been placed on a bed together, a thick feather down quilt across them. He knew immediately that they were both naked, for she was tucked about him as if in sleep her body had sought the warmth she so desperately needed.

‘Your clothes and boots have been washed and repaired and should be dry by nightfall. The doctor said you were to stay very quiet for the wound at your side would have taken much in energy from you and could open again if you are not careful.’

A headache pounded in Nat’s temples, impairing his vision, the room swimming as their words were lost into a droning noise. Sandrine was still asleep, their voices making no inroad into her consciousness.

Shaking his head, he tried to distil the blurriness, but the pain only intensified and so he desisted. He could not even move a muscle; a heavy stupor anchored him to the mattress, and a tiredness that defied description seeped through. Alarm furrowed his brow, but when the dark claimed him he no longer had the vigour to question it, demand it different.

Sandrine was awake before him when he next surfaced and she had moved a good distance away, a rough linen shift now in place across her shoulders. A grey blanket was wedged in the space between them and no one else was in the room. A fire danced in the grate.

‘Madame Dortignac has just left. She brought chicken broth if you want some.’

‘No.’ The thought of food turned his stomach. Outside it was pitch-black and the noises of the house were stilled. Late, then? Around two, perhaps, though he had no real measure of time.

‘It has rained heavily all day,’ Sandrine said after a moment, ‘and I heard them say that the river has come up.’

‘Good.’ The threads of protection began to wind in closer. ‘Any sign of our presence will be long gone from the mud on the banks.’

‘They brought in a priest for you. I think they were worried you might not survive.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday afternoon. It has been a full two days since you last awoke.’ Anxiety played in her eyes. ‘He asked if we were husband and wife before he left. When I said that we were not he was displeased.’

‘A result of our bedding arrangements, I suspect. They think that I have ruined you.’

‘The priest tried to make me go to another room, but I felt safe here and told him that I would not.’

She looked so damn young sitting there, the dark beneath her eyes worrying him and the homespun in her shift showing up the fragility of her shoulders. Her hair had been pulled back into a loose chignon, small curls escaping around her face. Feeling the punch of her beauty Nathaniel breathed out and glanced away, angry at the effect she so easily engendered on the masculine parts of his body, even in sickness. He could not remember any woman with such sway over him.

Safe?

If he had felt better, he might have laughed at her interpretation of security. Looking around for his sword and gun, he found them next to his carefully folded clean clothes and polished boots to one side of the bed.

‘Did they say who they were?

She nodded. ‘Farmers. They own the land between the river and the mountains behind, a large tract that has been in their family for generations. The Catholic priest who came was certain that God was punishing us for...for....’ She did not finish.

He smiled. ‘Our sins of the flesh?’

A bright stain of redness began at her throat and surged up across her cheeks.

‘Life or death requires sacrifices, Sandrine, and if you had not removed my clothes and kept me warm I would have perished. An omnipotent God would know that, and I thank you for it.’

A myriad of small expressions flitted across her brow: humour, puzzlement and then finally acceptance.

‘Are you always so certain of things, Monsieur Colbert?’

‘Yes.’

At that she laughed properly, her head thrown back and her eyes dancing. Not the pale imitation of laughter that the society ladies had perfected to an art form, but a real and honest reaction that made him laugh, too, the medicine of humour exhilarating. He could not remember ever feeling like this with another woman before, the close edge of a genuine joy pressing in and a camaraderie that was enticing.

But when he reached out to touch her fingers humour dissipated into another emotion altogether. Connection, if he might name it, or shock, the sear of her flesh burning up into the cold of his arm.

She had felt it, too—he could tell she had as she snatched her hand away and buried it into the heavy grey of the blanket. Her face was turned from his so deliberately that the corded muscle in her throat stood out with tension, a pulse beating with rhythm that belied calmness.

* * *

Nathanael Colbert was as beautiful as he was powerful and even with the fever flushing his cheeks and tearing into the strength of him he still offered her protection. Outside, the night clothed the land in silence and inside his warmth radiated towards her, the barrier of wool insubstantial.

If she had been braver, she might have reached over and removed it, so that their skin could touch again as it had done before, close and real, offering safety and something else entirely.

Urgency. Craving. A yearning that she had no experience of, but that was there in her flesh and bones, the call of something ancient and destined, an undeniable and inescapable knownness.

Shocking. Wonderful. She did not wish him to see the remnants of all she thought so she turned away, pleased when he did not demand her attention or reach out again.

An impasse in a cold and wind-filled night, the mountains of the Pyrenees filling a darkened sky and a fire measuring out the passing moments in warmth.

One and then two. Enough to regain composure and push away the thoughts of what might have been between them should they have given it a chance. An ache wormed its way across her throat and heart before settling lower. Loss could be a physical hurt, she would think much later, but right now it was a wondrous and startling surprise.

Chancing a look at him, she saw he lay back against the pillows, the sheet pulled away from the dark nakedness of his skin, muscle sculptured under the flame light. Still sick, she realised, by the sheen of sweat across his brow and the high colour in his cheeks. She wondered how the wound at his side had fared from such exertion, but did not dare to ask him, given the state of her racing heart.

‘I will protect you, Sandrine. Do not worry.’

The words were quietly said.

‘From everyone?’

His lips turned up, the dimple in his right cheek deepening.

‘Yes.’

She did not wipe away the tear that traced down her face, but waited to feel the cold run of its passage, the blot of moisture darkening the yellowed counterpane as it fell. As his breathing evened out she knew he was asleep, his body needing the balm of rest. Turning with as little noise as possible, she watched him, his breathing shallow and fast and his dark eyelashes surprisingly long.

The past few days rushed up at her, the chaos and the hope. Baudoin and his brother had been bandits whose livelihood was made by taking the riches from aristocrats travelling the roads towards the north and west, but Guy Lebansart was a different story altogether. He boasted about working for the French Government, though Sandrine knew enough about the houses and land that he had accrued to know that more lucrative pickings had taken his fancy.

Lebansart blackmailed people and he hurt anyone who got in his way—even Anton Baudoin had been scared of him. He had been due to arrive at the compound with a good deal of gold in exchange for information found on a man Baudoin’s men had killed on the highway. But Nathaniel Colbert had arrived first.

A coincidence.

Sandrine thought not.

Glancing again at the stranger, she frowned. What were his secrets? Closing her eyes, she fervently prayed that Lebansart and those who worked for him would never catch up with them.

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