Aldric studied every face they passed as they walked toward the sea. No one took much notice of them. No one watched them overly long. And no one looked familiar. But somewhere in this seaside town, someone knew precisely who they were.
L’Horizonwas docked down the pier. Activity on board indicated the ship was indeed setting out to sea shortly. This was his chance to get Adèle and Céleste to safety.
“Stay with your tanteCéleste,” he said to Adèle. “I will be back quickly.”
He moved with determined steps to where the boat was docked. A man stepped off onto the pier.
“Are you sailing to England?” Aldric asked.
“We are. To Portsmouth.”
“That is fortuitous. My family and I”—how he wished that weren’t a ruse—“are hoping to get to Portsmouth. What would you ask in payment for passage?”
The man didn’t call back up to the boat for the captain, meaning he himself was likely the captain. He thought a moment, then quoted a price that was more than Alric had left.
“We won’t take up much room,” Aldric said. “And I would do what work you might have for me if that price could be lowered.”
“I have all the hands I need on board, but I could use the money. And you need to get to Portsmouth.”
Aldric had made a strategic misstep. He ought to have made Portsmouth soundalmostwhat they wanted. Now the captain knew he had the upper hand. Truth be told, what he was asking for passage for three people wasn’t exorbitant. Aldric was only objecting because he couldn’t afford it.
“There’s no other ship crossing the Channel today,” the captain said. “Andl’Horizonwill be leaving port shortly. You need to make a decision.”
Yes, he did. He returned to where Céleste stood, holding Adèle’s hand and watching.
“He’ll give us passage, but he’s asking for more money than we have left.”
“And he can’t be convinced to lower that price?” Céleste guessed.
Aldric’s frustration must have been more evident in his expression than he’d intended. “No.”
Adèle reached her free hand out to him, holding her arm upward in a gesture he had come to recognize very quickly. He bent down and picked her up. Holding her close, he glanced around the pier, as he’d repeatedly done since arriving, watching for threats and danger.
“What do we do now?” Céleste’s exhaustion-tinged question caught him off guard. She generally jumped right into strategizing with him, offering thoughts and ideas and suggestions. She’d ascertained very quickly theinnkeeper’s objections the night before and had quickly thwarted them. But since then, she’d collapsed into herself, and he couldn’t seem to find her again.
He firmly dismissed that thought. It wasn’t his place to find her. He was charged with getting her and Adèle safely to England. That should be the entirety of his focus.
She didn’t quite look at him, another thing that had changed at the inn. Though he didn’t want to admit it to himself, he suspected he knew what had put up this wall between them. He’d kissed her. Again.
His entire world had been turned upside down by those two moments. He would spend the rest of his life reliving them, wishing he could hold her again and truly kiss her over and over again. But she’d not reacted at all the way he’d thought she might.
She’d seemed embarrassed or maybe confused by their first kiss. She’d closed off entirely after the second.
He ought to have predicted as much. A Benick didn’t get to have a happy ending with the family of his dreams. He could save all of them a lot of difficulty by reminding himself of that, something that wasn’t overly difficult when he looked at Céleste and saw the distance she very pointedly put between them.
I need to get her safely to England. That must be my focus.
With his free hand, he pulled his mother’s parcel from the pocket of his coat. “I suspect the captain will accept a trade.”
For the first time since the night before, she looked at him fully. “You can’t do that, Aldric. This is your mother’s gift to you.”
“Her reason for leaving it for me was the monetary value it has. I would be using it for that.”
“That is your entire future. That necklace will allow you to break free of your brother. Not everyone gets that chance.” She swallowed in just that way he’d come to recognize as her forcefully pushing back emotions and feelings. “Your mother left you a means of breaking free. Don’t throw that away.”
“It will not take long for the person inquiring after us at the inn this morning to locate us in a town this small. We have to leave this morning. We have to get as far from here as we can, as quickly as we can.”
“That necklace is worth hundreds of times more than the captain could possibly be asking,” Céleste objected.
