And he hadn’t intended to wound her feelings. “Why don’t we both agree that we’re coming at this situation at a disadvantage and choose to view each other through a lens of generosity?”
“I would appreciate that.” Her smile remained a little tentative.
Getting back to the matter at hand would allow her a bit of an escape from her perceived offense. “Regardless of which port town we embark from, we have a few more nights on the road before arriving there.” He kept hold of her hand, and she made no effort to slip away. “I don’t have a great deal of money with me, and I suspect you don’t either.”
She shook her head. “None at all.”
They were in a conundrum. “I never saw another carriage on the road today. Did you while I was sleeping this morning?”
“No.”
“I wish I could believe that means we aren’t being followed, but I don’t feel overly certain of anything just now.”
“There is something Iamcertain of.” Her expression grew ever more strained. “Though the man in the ballroom whose words are referenced in the note we found was clearly attempting to disguise his voice, I have heard it before.”
Which only limited the list of possible speakers a little. Céleste knew most of Paris Society and interacted with shopkeepers and others.
“You didn’t see his face though?” Aldric asked.
She released another tense breath, something he’d come to recognize as her attempt at calming her worries. “It was dark, and there were too many candles.”
“Too many candles?” Surelymorecandles would be helpful rather than a hindrance.
She either didn’t hear his question or was choosing not to answer it. “We, apparently, saw him last night but didn’t recognize anyone in the public room. I don’t like feeling helpless.”
“Me either,” he said. “It is something I experience far too often where my nephew is concerned.”
“Perhaps, while Adèle is at Norwood Manor, your brother might be convinced to allow Roderick to visit,” Céleste said. “I think the children would enjoy playing together. And it would be good for you and your nephew to spend time together.”
“What is good for either of us has never been a priority of my brother’s.”
“I wish I didn’t understand that as well as I do.”
She closed the single step that separated them and leaned against him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her. He felt the strength of that simple touch clear to his soul.
Aldric had, in the past, been the recipient of female attention. He’d been part of a few harmless flirtations. While he’d enjoyed those moments, he’d never felt strengthened by them, buoyed up, reinforced. It wasn’t something he’d realized was even possible. He’d assumed such things were always heart flutters and anticipatory racings of the pulse. He did feel a bit of that with her in his arms, especially when noticing her golden hair, having partially escaped the simple knot it was pulled up in, had an intriguing wave to it. But it was the feeling of home that caught him most off guard. It was a feeling he had learned at a young age not to trust.
Feeling it now, he didn’t want to let go.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Céleste and Adèle were sleepingin the narrow bed in the room. It was not terribly late, but both of them had been too exhausted to stay awake long enough even to take their evening meal. Aldric needed to keep that in mind as they tooled their way toward the coast and England. Journeying as quickly as they could was important, but he couldn’t risk their health or their well-being in doing so.
He sat on the floor near the small fireplace. There were no chairs in the room, but he didn’t overly mind. They had a roof over their heads. The room was warm. The soft glow of the embers offered just enough light for him to see.
As he’d done every single night since the day they’d visited Versailles, he pulled from his pocket the twine-tied parcel his mother had left him. He held it and studied it, feeling uncomfortably emotional and nervous.
He turned it over in his hand. The shape of it gave away nothing. It wasn’t heavy, though it also wasn’t featherlight. It was small enough to hold in his hands, but only just. It tucked easily into his coat pocket but could not fit in the much smaller pockets of his waistcoat.
What was your final gift to me, Mother?
An ember popped in the fire, sending a spark into the air. A slight breeze outside rattled a pane of glass.
He wished his mother were there, and not merely because he missed her. She would have known how to comfort Adèle. And she would have lifted some of the burden from Céleste. She could have helped Aldric sort out what to do with these feelings building inside him.
He dare not run the risk of letting himself depend on and be too wholly depended upon by another person. He’d already unwisely let himself grow attached enough to Céleste that he would be heartbroken when they parted ways. It was more than just the fact that Céleste was Henri’s sister. She was becoming so much more than that to him.
“Have you not opened it yet?” Céleste’s voice was quiet and soft, yet it still startled him.
