He felt that too, and he didn’t like it at all.
“I know this handwriting. I’ve seen it before, but I can’t place it.”
Tension tiptoed over him. “The handwriting is familiar?”
She nodded. “Familiar enough to know I’ve seen it but not enough for me to remember where. The capital letter I has extra swirls. I know I’ve seen that. I know I have.”
He kept his eyes on both the road and the sky overhead. “It has to be someone fairly well-known to you then. Someone who’s written a letter to you or to Jean-François that you’ve seen.”
“You saw the letters that were sent to his house,” Céleste said. “This isn’t the same handwriting, yet it contains the same threats.”
That was true. The same threats and likely motivated by the extortion scheme that involved more than one victim.
“You don’t suppose there arethreepeople coming after us, do you?” she asked.
Lud. How were they to thwart three people they couldn’t identify?
“Only a few more days and we’ll be in Le Tréport,” he said. “Another day will see us across the Channel, and then we’ll be in England and on our way to Norwood. We’ll be safe there.”
She folded the paper again and slipped it inside her caraco jacket. “I am—”
In that exact moment, the heavens burst open, and rain began to fall heavily. In the back of the wagon, Adèle squealed, clearly not liking the soaking they were suddenly getting.
Fortunately, there was what appeared to be an abandoned barn just off the side of the road. He’d been watching it for a little while, wondering if they ought to stop there. He didn’t need to wonder any longer.
He guided them in that direction. The stone building was still standing, but where the enormous barn doors would have been was simply an open, gaping hole. He drove the wagon directly in, horse and all. The roof overhead was still intact with only the tiniest gaps here and there. Aldric found a section of it where no water appeared to be leaking and pulled the wagon to a stop.
They hopped out quickly and set to work. The blanket in the back that had been spread over the wagon bed was quite wet. They’d be short a blanket that night if it didn’t dry sufficiently. And Adèle was dripping wet, as was Céleste, she having given up her cloak the very first day of this frantic flight from danger.
Aldric pulled off his coat and wrapped it around her.
“Thank you,” she said.
The remaining blankets had been under the wagon bench, protected from the rain. He opened their traveling bag and pulled out Adèle’s nightdress. The poor thing had started to shiver.
He hunched down so he could talk more directly to her. “Your tante will help you change from your wet clothes. Then we will wrap you in one of the dry blankets. You’ll be warm again in a trice,ma petite douce.”
She smiled at him and captured his heart ever further. It was the same almost hopeless tug of his heart that he felt with Roderick: wanting to keep these children near, to just love them the way they deserved to be loved, knowing they both had parents who didn’t offer them that. But they weren’t his children, and that kept him at a distance.
Céleste saw to Adèle while Aldric flicked out the wet blanket and laid it across the wagon bench and over the front of the wagon. If they were fortunate, it would dry quickly.
He unhitched the horse. There was still a decent amount of hay left in the back of the wagon, plenty enough to provide for the horse while still making their makeshift accommodations less uncomfortable. And the wet blanket meant the hay itself had stayed dry in the rain. Aldric pulled an armful of hay out of the wagon bed and placed it in a dry corner of the abandoned barn. The horse moved directly to it and began eating. Aldric tied the lead, still attached to the horse’s bridle, to an outcropping of the wall. There was slack enough for the horse to move about, but the mare wouldn’t run off in the night.
He took up one of the dry blankets and wrapped Adèle in it once she was changed.
“Are you feeling warmer?”
She nodded and leaned against him. He wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m a bit wet myself,” Céleste said. “I’ll change into my nightdress so I’ll at least be wearing something dry.”
“A good idea.” He smiled at Adèle. “Shall we step over by the horse and watch Buttercup eat her supper?” That would give Céleste a bit of privacy.
She nodded again.
Céleste set Aldric’s coat around his shoulders. “It’s growing colder.”
He looked up at her from his position still hunched down holding Adèle. “Andyouare wearing wet clothes.”
