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"I'll need breakfast first. A lot of it and extra napkins. Then . . . Then I'll pack just a satchel. Can you take it for me, hide it outside the gate? I don't want the groom asking questions."
"Oui. I'll go get the food, shall I?"
"Yes. And I will send for you as soon as I'm home, you understand? I can't take you with, you hate horses." Her voice broke on the last word and tears spilled over her cheeks.
Danielle cried out and tried to reach for her, but Alex pushed her hands back. "No, none of that. Get the food. I'll pack."
Her hands shook, but not one more tear fell.
Wool stockings. Wool scarf. Money. One of the plain dresses she'd worn for that long-ago tryst. An extra pair of gloves. What else? What else? There was r
oom for the food and more, but she couldn't think. She stuffed in a candle, wondered how she'd light it. No matter. She would find an inn before nightfall.
Her knife. She pulled it from its hiding place under the bed and started to stuff it into the bag, then thought of St. Claire. He hated her now, and he had killed before. Alex eased the knife from the bag and stared at it. If he was watching the keep, if he followed her. . . Well, she'd do the best she could to draw his blood.
She set the blade on the dresser. She'd hide it in her boot once she'd dressed.
She couldn't think of anything else and her fingers twitched to do something, so she stripped off her nightdress and pulled on thick stockings, pantalettes quilted for warmth, a chemisette and a linen shift. She pulled out her boots, then spun around to yank another pair of stockings from the drawer. Layers. She laid her winter riding habit on the bed. Her fur-lined cloak and gloves. Another scarf.
A blanket? She rolled one as tight as she could and stuffed it into the bag. There, it was full. She could wedge a piece of bread in though. Some cheese and ham.
Danielle burst through the door, face blank with distress above the tray of piled food. Her eyes darted around, taking in the clothes draped across the bedspread, the bulging satchel.
Alex began sorting through the food before Danielle had even managed to maneuver it to the table. Salt stung the inside of her lip as she stuffed a piece of bacon into her mouth. A cut, she realized dimly. She must have bitten a hole through it sometime, trying not to cry. She didn't have that problem now. Her eyes were now dry as sand, barren as death. She wrapped food and chewed mindlessly.
"What. . . Where will you go?"
"Home."
"But. . . Take a carriage, Madame, please."
"No. I'm going now before he realizes. He would try to keep me here, try to do the honorable thing and apologize. I don't want his honor, his bastard replacement for love. I don't care to hear another apology."
"It is not safe—"
"Safer than staying here! He's likely to murder me some night when my eye falls too fondly on one of the grooms."
"But you're not. . . How will you find your way?"
"I remember the way. There's that town a day's ride from here, where we stayed the night."
As she stuffed the last of the roadworthy food away, her eye caught on Danielle's starkly drawn face. Her eyes were bright with a fear that Alex had never seen there before and her heart clenched at the sight.
"Danielle," she whispered, reaching to take her limp hands. "All will be well. I'll go home to my brother. I'll send for you and our life will return to what it was."
"But, Madame, you are married!"
"Pah." She let go her hands and reached for the habit. "Here. Help me dress."
Given something familiar to do, the maid sprang into action, muttering French in such a low tone that Alex could only hear the occasional punctuation. Monster. Idiot. Beast.
"Stay in the room as much as you can. I will not have you lie for me again and there is the occasional person here who'll ask after me."
"This is not a good idea!"
"I cannot make wise decisions even when I try, Danielle, so what is the point?" The last fold of her skirt fell into place, the cloak stirred the briar patch of her curls when Danielle swung it around her. She'd leave it unbound, it was warm that way, like wool batting.
"My boots!" she laughed, tucking the scarf around her neck. "What a madwoman I am, all bundled up with no boots on." She giggled again, watching Danielle's blond head duck low to slip the stiff leather over her foot. "I feel mad, you know."
