books.”
“I find it hard to imagine you disappointing anyone, Mr. Fraser. I’ve met few people so adept at coping in a crisis.”
The smile that tugged at his mouth was more bitter than he intended. “That depends on the crisis. Some are more easily resolved than others.” He paused. “The first step is always to face the problem. Talking to a friend can help.”
She drew in her breath. For a moment, they looked at each other without speaking. He wasn’t going to force a confession, but he was very much hoping for one. It would make things a great deal easier.
The wind cut the fog so that it swirled and re-formed round them. She released her breath, a sound as harsh as the crack of dry needles. “You’re an observant man, Mr. Fraser. Or is it obvious to everyone?”
“I shouldn’t think so. To own the truth, I was concerned from the moment I heard your story.”
She let out a mirthless laugh. He cupped his hand round her own so she wouldn’t spill the precious tea. “My old nurse said a cup of tea soothed any trouble.” He smiled into her bleak eyes. “I’m not sure she was right, but it can’t make it worse.”
Miss Saint-Vallier gave a weak attempt at a smile. Even that brightened her face. He steadied her hand as she lifted the cup to her lips and took a careful sip. Warm metal, cold fingers, soft skin.
“How sure are you?” he asked.
She looked straight into his eyes. “I’m never ill like this, Mr. Fraser. I’m sure.” Her mouth went taut. “‘She is a woman, therefore may be woo’d; She is a woman, therefore may be won.’ But there was precious little wooing about it, and I refuse to say that I was won.”
He kept his hand cupped round her own. “It’s too soon for it to have been the
“Yes. I’m carrying a French soldier’s bastard. I couldn’t tell you his rank. I doubt I’d recognize him if he passed me on the street. There was more than one, and I didn’t get a very good look at their faces.”
Oh, Christ. For a moment he thought he was going to be sick himself. He murmured the first words that came into his head. “‘Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.’ I’ve always fancied myself a humanist, but I sometimes think this war will strain my faith in humanity to the breaking point.” He tightened his fingers over her own. “What about Blanca?”
“She’s all right. Oh, God, that sounds ridiculous. I mean, the French soldiers didn’t plant a babe in her belly. I don’t know about the
“I’d like to kill them for you.” The words came out with a violence he hadn’t intended. “Though I’d be a poor match for a pack of bandits, not to mention soldiers. And it would do nothing to solve your predicament.”
She gave a desperate sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. “I’m afraid solutions to this predicament don’t exist.”
“On the contrary. It’s not unheard of, even in the best families in London.” He hesitated. She was sharp- witted and well-educated, but it was difficult to judge how much an unmarried girl of little more than twenty would have been told. “There are ways—” He sought for the right words, for once quite out of his depth.
“Of getting rid of it?” Her gaze was clear and candid.
“It can be dangerous.” He looked straight into her eyes. They couldn’t afford to waste time on embarrassment. “But there are doctors who know the business and can be counted on to be discreet. I could make inquiries when we reach Lisbon. Or you could retire somewhere secluded to have the child. Then a home could be found for it.”
Her lips twisted. “And everyone could pretend it didn’t exist, including me?”
He studied the fragile bones of her face, the delicate point of her chin, the pure line of her throat. The fog misted her skin and made damp tendrils of hair cling to her forehead. “No one could blame you if you couldn’t bear to look at this child after it’s born. Or if you couldn’t bear to carry it at all.”
Her fingers stilled beneath his own. She glanced down into the steaming liquid in the cup they held between them. She looked as though she was seeing places he could only begin to imagine. “Perhaps not.” She drew a breath that shuddered through her, stirring the folds of her cloak. “I’ve wondered, sometimes, if I’ll be able to forget how the child was made. The problem is, I’m quite sure I won’t be able to forget that the child is mine. The only relative I have left in the world.”
“You have time. It’s not a decision to make lightly.”
She put her free hand over her abdomen, the way she had three nights ago in the wine cave. “After the
He nodded and said the only thing left that he could say. “Then I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
Her mouth curved in a genuine smile. “You’re a kind man, Mr. Fraser.”
That smile cut through to a place somewhere inside him that he had thought no longer existed. His breathing turned uneven. At the same moment his ears caught something he’d been a damned fool not to hear earlier. Not a specific sound so much as a shift in the creaks and rustlings of the forest. Noises that weren’t caused by birds or rodents or the wind.
He caught Miss Saint-Vallier’s arm in a hard grip and gave a warning shake of his head. She nodded. He slid his hand into the pocket of his greatcoat, feeling for his pistol. His gaze swept the area round them. Nothing save fog, trees, and the damnably telltale glow of the fire.
A crack sounded from beyond their camp some fifty feet away. A booted foot, landing on a dry branch. A stir of movement followed, then a startled curse and a sharp report. One of their own men had wakened, reached for his musket, and fired off a shot.
A hail of answering bullets ripped through the fog. Someone cried out. A flock of birds rose from the trees, squawking in fear. The horses whinnied. A woman screamed.
Blanca. Miss Saint-Vallier started forward, but Charles pulled her back. “No,” he mouthed against her hair. “Not that way. It won’t do any good.”
Jennings was shouting orders to his men. They fired off a volley of musket shots. Bullets ricocheted off the rocks. The smell of gunpowder choked the air.
Charles had his pistol out, and the leather bag that contained dry powder. He loaded the powder and rammed the ball into place, but he couldn’t see enough to make out how many stood or had fallen. He reached out to grip Miss Saint-Vallier’s hand again.
“Drop the gun.” A voice, disembodied in the fog, spoke in French-accented English. “Or I shoot the lady.”
Charles mentally called himself six kinds of fool and dropped the pistol. Miss Saint-Vallier was standing very still not two feet away. He twisted his head to the side. A man in the brass helmet and scarlet-faced green coat of a French dragoon had his own pistol pressed against her back.
“Kick the pistol over here,” the dragoon said, his voice raised above the blare of musket fire.
Heroics were an impossibility. Charles nudged the pistol with the toe of his boot. It scuttered through the pine needles. The dragoon bent and scooped it up, keeping his own pistol trained on Miss Saint-Vallier.
In the clearing beyond, shots still rang out. A voice called out. A Spanish voice. Oh, Christ. The bandits had arrived to collect their gold and hand over the ring.
“Right.” The dragoon tucked Charles’s pistol into his belt. “Now—”
Miss Saint-Vallier let out a soft moan and crumpled to the ground. She crashed into the dragoon as she fell. The cup she still carried spattered hot tea onto her captor. He stumbled, and the pistol that had been pressed against her back tilted toward the ground.
Charles lunged forward and delivered a swift blow to the dragoon’s chin. The dragoon staggered. His pistol slipped from his fingers. Charles hit him again. The dragoon blocked the blow with his arm, and his fist came up and caught Charles full in the face. Charles fell against the hard, rough bark of a tree. Pain sliced through his temples. He heard the click of a hammer and found himself staring down the muzzle of his own pistol.
He had a moment to think, with faint surprise, that he didn’t want to die. Then the dragoon gave a strangled cry and collapsed face-first on the ground, the pistol clutched in his hand, a knife hilt protruding from his back.
Melanie de Saint-Vallier stood over him. “He was going to shoot you.” Her voice was flat. “Is he dead?”
Charles bent over and felt for the pulse in the dragoon’s neck. “Very.” He looked up at her. Her face was a
