Page 110 of Souvenir Heart

“Sharing them?” he continued, “the way I did in the quarry, is…”

“Like stepping into the darkness?”

“No, not frightening. Unfamiliar. I can learn. I can do better. But old habits will die hard. Can you give me time?”

When she didn’t answer, his tone became fierce. “Even if you don’t, Marguerite de Joley de Rouvroy, I won’t give up. That’s one thing that won’t change. I swear.”

He released her then and stepped back. Nodding at the bundle of clothes she’d dropped in the grass, he said, “You should wash and change, too. If it’s privacy you require, I can give you that, too.”

She looked at him. At the bruises darkening on his cheek, his shoulder, and his hip; a record of exactly how and where his body had hit the ground. As he moved past her, she mapped the scars on his belly, his arm, and his back.

“Time,” she said softly. “If we get out of here, I will give you exactly that. I don’t want to lose you, Marcus.”

“When we get out of here,” he said, turning back and holding his arms out wide. “Swear.”

Marguerite stepped into them, reveling in the warmth and strength of her battered, but very much alive love. She sealed her promise with a kiss.

A short time later, a modestly attired, if slightly damp and disarrayed couple climbed into the coach, leaving behind a smoldering pile of ashes that were all that remained of a blood-stained brown suit, two national guard uniforms, and a few odd pieces of furniture.

Andre, spying the possessive arm Marcus slid around Marguerite’s waist as he settled into the coach beside her and the way her head came to rest on his shoulder, wisely closed the coach door. Glancing up at the bench, he debated climbing up to sit beside David. But the brindle dog, as if sensing his intention, lifted his head from where it had been resting on the big man’s thigh, and growled.

Feeling decidedly like the odd man out, Andre mounted up one of the extra horses, gathered up the reins, and cried out, “Home!”

Sixty-Five

Marcus and Marguerite spent the next few days either in the cramped space of the Berlin, still crowded with odd bits of furniture, or (when they needed to pass through Bureau of Public Safety check points) within the even more cramped space of a compartment Aylesworth had designed. The compartment was beneath the coach’s rear seat. Its entrance was through a cleverly designed panel in the belly of the coach. But the coach’s battered appearance, particularly the interior, stained with blood, and half-filled with furniture, encouraged the various local guardsmen to believe the story told by David and Andre’s forged identification papers. They’d purchased the massive old coach for a song from the estate of a now very dead aristocrat and planned to use it as transport for the used furniture business they were setting up.

The appearance of the brindle dog, Isidore, who David had taught to growl on command, also helped speed the inspection process, for which the pair were incredibly grateful. The record-breaking August heat persisted, and the compartment was suffocatingly hot and dark. Still, with her back pressed against Marcus’s chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her, and his voice whispering in her ear details of the team’s many back-up plans, Marguerite felt oddly safe.

Marcus joked that he was beginning to like the dark.

Andre, scratching at his wrists and ankles, complained that the dog was giving them fleas.

Nights were spent sleeping in fields, in the woods, or if they were lucky, in the stables of members of the team’s networks.

It took nearly a week, but at last they reached a rocky path along the coast that led down to a pebbled beach. The sails of their rescue sloop were tiny white triangles against the blue horizon. David took out a small mirror, and with a quick series of flashes, signaled their arrival. He was rewarded with a series of return flashes, which Marcus, spy glass to his eye, explained indicated the time and place a rowboat would be sent to meet them that evening.

“Have to admit, I was a bit worried Grenville would be too furious to send the sloop,” Andre admitted.

David slapped him on the back, “Not me. I knew he’d never pass up the opportunity to see us horsewhipped.”

“Will you be punished for saving me?” Marguerite turned to look at Marcus, who was leaning back against the Berlin’s cushions, sketchbook in hand.

“Won’t be the first time.” He sighed. “Grenville feels that this team, while highly competent…”

“Suffers from a shocking lack of discipline,” Tyndale, Scott, and Aylesworth said in unison.

Around midday, a sturdy man in rough clothes, with a pack on his back, wandered up to the parked coach. He inquired about the state of the roads. When the man climbed up on the box, Marguerite gasped and grabbed Marcus’s arm.

“It’s code,” he said, his callous-roughened hand settling over hers. “He’s here to dispose of the coach.”

David, sitting outside on the box, heard this exchange through the coach’s open windows. “Not dispose of, store.” He said it as if they were discussing the Mona Lisa, rather than a massive, aging coach.

“Eh, citizen, can I interest you in storing a dog, too?” Andre asked.

“This team leaves no members behind,” David said firmly. “Isidore’s coming with us.”

As Scott and Aylesworth began debating the value of the dog, Marcus tucked his sketchbook in his pocket and got to his feet. “Time to go.”