Céleste sat on a chair next to the bed—it was a very small cabin, and there was nothing else in it—with her eyes unfocused, her gaze not seemingto settle on anything in particular, the way it did when one was pondering something else and hardly aware of one’s surroundings.
Their shared portmanteau was open on the bed next to Aldric, allowing Adèle to reach in and pull out whatever she wished to entertain herself with. The basket of food was not entirely empty, the food they’d received at the inn the night before having been rationed very carefully. Céleste’s violin case sat on the floor beside the basket.
She was wrapped up in a blanket, with long tendrils of golden hair hanging loose from the chignon she’d fashioned her hair in that morning.
She was beautiful. But she was also clearly unhappy.
His mind filled once again with the sight of her standing outside that abandoned barn, watching in horror and disbelief as he’d returned with Adèle in the moments after she’d nearly been taken from them.
Céleste hadn’t looked at him the same way since. The trust and confidence he’d seen in her eyes was gone. And so, it seemed, was much of the tenderness that had been growing between them.
Adèle reached up with her little carved dog and made it run along his arm up to his shoulder. He pretended to be startled by it, and she giggled. The game repeated a couple times, and it lightened him in ways he desperately needed. Céleste stood and took the two steps required to get from the chair to the bed. She crawled onto it, sitting near the bag.
He didn’t know what she was looking for or what she needed. Perhaps she wanted to play as well. She, no doubt, could benefit from Adèle’s sweet and tender attention. Céleste pulled from the bag a pair of thick stockings and slipped them on. It was cold in the cabin. He had his coat on, as did Adèle. But Céleste still didn’t have one. He hadn’t even thought about that.
“You can tuck yourself under the blanket,” he suggested. He and Adèle were sitting atop it, but there was room for Céleste to take advantage of the warmth.
Without quite looking at him, she nodded and slid her feet and legs under the blanket, sitting beside him. There was space enough between them that he could have set Adèle there and she would have been comfortably situated. It was not terribly unlike the arrangement they’d managed in the wagon. There was a familiarity to it that calmed him. It was the family tableau that had set him to dreaming of things he ought not to have.
Adèle continued her game, leaning her back against Aldric’s chest, undertaking a quiet and very childlike conversation on behalf of the dog and the bird. She was very much at ease, which, in turn, helped ease some of thefeeling of failure Aldric was struggling with. Even after the near catastrophe in the barn, Adèle trusted him again. She felt safe with him, and that was important.
Céleste inched a little closer, but he made certain not to look at her.
Speaking in English and her voice quiet, she asked him, “Why did you kiss me last night?”
He hadn’t been expecting that question. Why had he kissed her? He couldn’t deny that he’d wanted to. It was a longing he’d felt since even before their first kiss in the farmer’s field. But he wouldn’t have indulged in the impulse if not for the situation the night before.
“The innkeeper said a husband would have kissed his wife in that moment,” Aldric said. “He was already suspicious of our pretense. Refusing would have brought more scrutiny, and we needed him to cooperate.”
“He did seem to believe us after that,” she continued in the same low voice. “And he protected us this morning.”
“Yes, he did.”Thank the heavens.
“Convincing Claude and his mother proved very helpful as well.” Céleste wasn’t looking at him. “We are better actors than I would have guessed.”
Actors.
“There is no one else in here,” he said. “There’s no need for either of us to pretend at the moment.” That should allow her to relax a little.
She didn’t answer.
“And once we’re in England, we won’t need disguises either,” he said. “I can find someone in Portsmouth to serve as a chaperone to satisfy the proprieties. We’ll go back to who and what we really are: a gentleman accompanying his friend’s sister.”
Céleste looked at him at last. The unhappiness in her eyes hadn’t eased over the past two days.
He took a breath. “I am also safeguarding Adèle.” He wouldn’t fail in that again. “Once in England, I can focus on those two things. It will be ...” Be what? He didn’t actually know how to finish the thought.
The cabin grew entirely silent except for Adèle’s play.
“Less complicated?” Céleste guessed quietly.
Their flight had been exceptionally complicated. And much of that complication was specific to France. Yet it wasn’t the descriptor he was searching for.
“It will be good to be home,” he decided on. “Back to my life there. Back to being myself.”
They sat there, neither of them speaking or moving. Céleste’s gaze turned to Adèle. In the next moment, the little girl looked up at him, making her wooden bird fly near his face.
“Greetings, little bird,” Aldric said, smiling at Adèle.
