She tucked her violin under her chin once more and took up the well-known tune. Adèle began dancing again, gliding about, turning slowly and gracefully.
At the window, Aldric reached into the pocket of his jacket. He pulled out the twine-tied package he’d obtained at Versailles: his mother’s last gift to him. His thumb ran over the knot in the twine. His expression was both painful and sentimental. Aldric’s gaze remained on the window, but his thoughts, she was certain, were years in the past with his late mother.
After a moment, he slipped the package back into his pocket, then set his hand atop that pocket. He closed his eyes and took a breath so slow and deep that Céleste could see his chest rise and fall. His fingers tapped lightly along with the tune, and the tiniest hint of a smile touched his face.
Seeing that the music was bringing him a measure of peace, Céleste played with more feeling. She was letting her heart grow unwisely attached again. She had come to depend on Henri, and he’d left her for England solong ago she struggled to remember life before she was abandoned. Nicolette had been her greatest, most dependable friend, and she, too, had left. Céleste thought she had become close friends with the Gents and their ladies at the house party, but none of them had ever written to her. And Aldric had already broken her heart once.
She needed to be wiser about these things than she was being.
The tune was interrupted by a knock on the door. Céleste froze, her heart suddenly in her neck. She met Aldric’s eye. He stood slowly and moved with care toward the door.
Without opening it, he asked. “Who is there?”
“Forgive me for interrupting.” That was the innkeeper; Céleste recognized his voice. “We are hopeful you might be willing to play your violin in the public room. The patrons would enjoy it.”
In the public room? They would be able to see people coming in and out of the inn from there. But they would also be more vulnerable. Céleste had almost never played her violin for others and might be too nervous to manage it.
Aldric stepped back to her. In a low voice, he said, “I have watched the yard and road. No one has arrived, nor does anyone seem likely to. Leaving our watch post isn’t a significant risk.”
From the other side of the door, the innkeeper added an offer to his request. “We’d give you dinner tonight in exchange for the music.”
A look passed through Aldric’s eyes that told her something he likely hadn’t intended her to discover: they had reason to be nervous about money.
She’d not given it much thought, but suddenly, it made sense. They’d fled Fleur-de-la-Forêt without warning. There’d not been time to truly prepare for a many-days-long journey during which they would need to pay for inn stays and food to eat. She didn’t imagine Aldric had much money with him. She didn’t have any at all. Should their journey last much longer, they might very well run out of coins.
They needed to save what little they had, and here was a way to do it. But the prospect was a daunting one.
“We’ll discuss it,” Aldric said to the innkeeper through the still-closed door.
The innkeeper’s footsteps sounded, growing quieter as he walked away.
Aldric turned back to her once more. “What are your thoughts, Céleste?”
Too many to quickly share. “Is our guise believable enough to withstand scrutiny all evening?”
“I think so.”
That was some reassurance. “We would be able to see anyone who enters the inn.”
Aldric nodded. “The door opens into the public room.”
Being in so public a setting with a view of the entrance was a relatively safe arrangement, though perhaps not as much as being locked inside a room no one else could enter.
But we need to save what money we can.There was too much upheaval in the area and too much animosity toward those of their station in general and Jean-François in particular to hope they would be safe anytime soon.
“Do you suppose we’ll still be down there when it grows dark?”
“Likely.”
A roomful of strangers she would struggle to see. She didn’t like that at all.
“You don’t have to, Céleste,” Aldric insisted. “If you would rather remain in the room, that is what we will do.”
It was up to her, then. More money to facilitate their journey. Or remaining in a space where she didn’t have to be worried about what she couldn’t see. As nervous as the prospect made her, the idea of having no money in another couple of days and being unable to secure lodging of any kind was a far more unsettling prospect.
“You wouldn’t ... leave me there alone?” she asked.
He actually looked a little hurt by the question. “Of course not.”
