“I will, and we can both hold out hope that Crofton doesn’t find a way to ruin it. He’s awfully good at that.”
“He is an older brother. That seems to be what older brothers do.”
“Adèle is fortunate she will never have an older brother.” He tucked Adèle’s blanket up over her shoulders.
With Marguerite expecting a new arrival the next few months, Adèle would have ayoungersibling. It was another reason the girl was likely to eventually return to France. But Céleste had promised not to worry about that yet, so she pushed it from her thoughts.
“If Roderick does visit while we are there,” Céleste said, “he could always pretend to be Adèle’s older brother, teasing her and such, just so she will understand how good she actually has it.”
Aldric laughed quietly. It was good to have a lighthearted moment in the midst of Céleste’s troubles. Without Nicolette in France the last two years, that had almost never happened.
“Roderick is far more like Henri than Jean-François,” Aldric said. “He might tease Adèle, but he wouldn’t be unkind.”
“Then he is far more like his uncle Aldric than his father.”
“I am trying to find a way to make sure that continues to be true, but I see him so seldom that I don’t know what influence I will have in the long term.”
She took a breath, grateful she was feeling calm enough to do so more easily than she had mere moments earlier. “That might be another thing for our list of worries we won’t let ourselves be weighed down by yet.”
“Again, you prove yourself a source of wisdom.”
Céleste yawned.
“Lie down and let yourself rest,” he said. “Things will look better in the morning.”
She shifted about so she was lying on the hay, wrapped in her blanket. She could feel Adèle brushing up against her back. Céleste closed her eyes.
Her back was to Aldric, with Adèle, their bag and basket, and her violin forming a barrier between them. But she knew he was there and that he would be there in the morning.
For the first time in a very long time, she had someone she knew wouldn’t abandon her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aldric had, on any numberof occasions, stayed in the most opulent of places, been afforded the most comfortable of beds and warm blankets, with fires kept burning. Yet, waking the next morning, with Adèle scrunched up against him, so trusting and so tender, and looking across the wagon at Céleste, sleeping as well, with the dim morning light beginning to illuminate the beautiful French countryside, he felt certain any of those fine and enviable homes and beds and rooms could only hope to compare to the quiet perfection of that moment.
But that moment didn’t last. The “why” of their current situation—pressed into the back of a farm wagon, tucked behind a wall and a cluster of trees—landed too heavily on his mind. His two ladies, as he’d begun to think of them, were in danger, fleeing their flame-engulfed home and depending on him. He would let himself entertain tender and sentimental ideas once they were safely at Norwood Manor. Until then, he needed to be vigilant.
He sat up, his blanket slipping from his shoulders and allowing the chill of the morning air to hit him. It was more than merely cold; the air felt wet. The weather had cooperated up until now. A quick look at the dim morning sky revealed heavy clouds. Their luck on that front seemed likely to run out. He carefully climbed down, doing his utmost not to jostle the wagon too much. His ladies needed to sleep and rest. Adèle would be more amenable to the continued journey if she wasn’t overly tired. Céleste needed to sleep as long as possible too. They’d both been so exhausted at the inn that they’d slept through supper.
A jug had been included in the basket provided to them by the innkeeper two nights before. They’d fled last night’s inn too quickly to refill it with water. Aldric could see to that while his ladies slept.
He found a small stream not very far from where they’d stopped, still within sight of the wagon, and filled the jug. By the time he returned, Adèle was awake and standing in the wagon, looking around frantically.
When she spotted him, she held her arms out. “Tonton Aldric. You were gone.”
He reached up for her and lifted her out of the wagon. “I was only getting us some water,ma petite douce.”
He’d thought perhaps she had simply been confused or a little put out at having awoken without him when she had been accustomed to the opposite the last few mornings. But her arms wrapping tightly around his neck told him she’d been afraid.
“Did something happen?” he asked.
“I had a bad dream.” She leaned against his shoulder. “And then I woke up and you were gone.”
He kissed her little cheek. “I’m here now, and your tante Céleste is here. We have water, and we have food.”
“And we slept in the wagon.” The slightest hint of excitement touched that declaration.
“It was a little adventure, wasn’t it?”
