He stopped, not taking a single step away. “I need to get information, but we aren’t stopping. This will be faster.”
Céleste glanced around the innyard. It did look calm, and there was no one suspicious or enraged lurking about.
“You’ll be quick?” she asked him.
“Better still—” Aldric motioned to the nearby stable, where a groom had just stepped out into the yard.
He could make his inquiry without actually leaving Céleste and Adèle alone. Céleste wasn’t a coward by any stretch of the imagination. Hers was not anxiety brought about by spinelessness but, rather, justifiable wariness in a harrowing situation. There was safety in numbers.
Aldric spoke with the groom just in front of the cart. “We’re a bit turned around. How do we get from here to Rouen?”
His mother’s estate must have been near Rouen.
“Take this road.” The groom pointed to the road they’d been on. “Up a couple of miles you’ll find a road breaking off to your left. That road will send you in the right general direction. And you can get more specific instructions the farther you go.”
“Thank you.”
Adèle watched Aldric with the same pained longing that Céleste herself was experiencing in that moment. She felt safer with him nearby. She felt calmer and less alone.
“On the road that breaks off this one,” the groom continued, “there’s an inn—L’Auberge du Chêne Vert—that you’ll reach if you drive on past nightfall. The rooms don’t come too dear, and it’s a safe place to be with your wife and your little one.” He motioned to the cart.
“Thank you again,” Aldric said.
Céleste nodded her own gratitude to the groom. Driving into an unfamiliar area of the countryside during a time of upheaval was a perilous proposition. They could use every bit of help anyone would give them.
Aldric climbed back up. Adèle didn’t give him even a moment before clambering onto his lap and wrapping her little arms around him.
“Ma petite douce,” he said, “I can’t drive the cart safely with you like this.”
Céleste reached for Adèle, but the little girl only held more firmly to Aldric.
“I don’t know why she is so attached to me.” He sounded apologetic.
“And I don’t know why she is sounattached to me.”
“Poor judgment?” Aldric suggested with a shrug and a flicker of a smile.
That smile would likely always make her heart flutter.
“Adèle,” he said, giving the girl a loving squeeze, “if you’ll let your aunt wrap you in a blanket, you can cuddle up next to me as we drive on.”
The girl nodded and turned to Céleste. She reached down, pulled one of the blankets from the pile at their feet, and then wrapped it around Adèle.
“Wrap yourself in a blanket as well,” Aldric said. “If we’re going to be driving into the night, you’ll be cold without your cloak.”
Such thoughtfulness was characteristic of him. He could be so very intimidating, yet he was also so wonderfully kind.
“Monsieur Aldric?” Adèle asked, leaning against him as they made their journey.
“Yes,ma petite douce?”
“What is the horse’s name?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps your aunt does.”
Adèle didn’t shift away from him, but she did turn more toward Céleste. “Tante Céleste, what is the horse’s name?”
“I don’t know either. We should give him a name.”
