“You’re one of them. They might have listened to you. Why should—” A sudden shout caused Juliette to stiffen with fear.
“Hurry. Come with me.” The stranger stepped from the shadows and Juliette registered a swift impression of a man above medium height with a square, hard jaw. His eyes were arresting. They were fierce, light-colored, the eyes of an old man in a young man’s face. “They’ll probably come streaming out of the gate anymoment. I have a carriage waiting around the turn of the road about a quarter of a mile from here.”
He wore a dark brown cutaway coat, well-fitting trousers, knee-high boots, a fine white linen shirt. He didn’t look like thosecanaillesin the courtyard, but Dupree had also been dressed in the guise of a gentleman and he was even more monstrous than the others. “I don’t trust you.”
“Then die here,” he said harshly. “What are two more aristos to me? Why should I care if you’re bludgeoned like cows in the marketplace? I don’t know what impulse made me offer my aid in the first place.” He turned on his heel and strode away in the direction he had indicated the carriage waited.
Juliette hesitated. It could be that he was like Dupree and merely wanted the exclusive use of their bodies before he dispatched them.
Another shout. This one sounded dangerously close.
“Wait.” She hurried after him, dragging Catherine along with her, her other hand clutching the handle of the sword. As long as she had a weapon, the danger of trusting him was not so great. She could always split the bastard as she had the man in the tomb. “We’re going with you.”
He didn’t look at her. “Then be quick. I have no desire to be found with you and have my own throat cut.”
“We are hurrying.” She turned to Catherine. “It’s going to be all right, Catherine. We’ll be safe soon.”
Catherine looked at her blankly.
“What’s wrong with her?” The young man’s gaze was fixed on Catherine’s face.
“What do you think is wrong?” Juliette stared at him scornfully. “She’s been treated as gently as those other women have been treated. She’ll be fortunate if she keeps her senses.”
His gaze slid away from Catherine. “I’ve always found women have a greater strength than we men think they have. She’ll survive to get her own back.”
“She wouldn’t know how. I’d have to teach her.”Juliette smiled grimly. “I may do it. Oh, yes, I’d delight in sending you all to perdition after this night.”
“I can understand how you’d feel that.” The heaviness of his voice startled her. They reached the curve of the road and he stopped abruptly. “Stay here. I have to get rid of Laurent.”
“Who is Laurent?”
“The coachman. I don’t want word of my helping you getting back to Paris. I’ll send him to the abbey on some pretext or other.”
“A massacre is permitted, but a rescue is forbidden?”
“Stay hidden in the shrubbery until I return.” Without another glance he disappeared beyond the turn of the road.
Juliette pulled Catherine behind the screen of holly bushes at the side of the road. They were still too close to the abbey. She could hear the sound of shouts and the dull roar as the flames engulfed the buildings of the convent.
“Dirty,” Catherine whispered.
“It’s not true.” Juliette gently pushed a strand of light brown hair back from Catherine’s face. “You’re clean, Catherine.”
Catherine shook her head.
Juliette opened her lips to argue but closed them again without speaking. She wasn’t sure there were words to pierce the stupor enveloping Catherine. She would have to worry about Catherine’s sanity later. Now she had to keep them both alive.
She stiffened as she saw a figure hurrying around the bend of the road. The man was tall, lanky. The coachman Laurent? Whoever he was, he hurried past them down the road in the direction of the abbey.
Three minutes later two men followed him around the turn. One man was powerfully built, deep-chested, a veritable giant with a huge leonine head. The other she recognized as the young man who had led them from the abbey. He now carried a coach lantern, and the flickering flame lit the square planes of his cheekbones and deepened the green of his eyes.
Juliette stepped out of the shrubbery to confront them. “Can we go now?”
The larger man stopped in surprise.“Bon Dieu. What have we here?”
Juliette gave him an impatient glance. He was probably the ugliest man she had ever seen. A scar twisted his upper lip into a permanent sneer, his nose was smashed into his face. Smallpox scars added to the ruin of his visage. “We have no time to chatter. We’re still too close to the abbey.”
“I see. My young friend didn’t explain the exact nature of the situation.”
