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Elodie thought about the dangers of a child’s existence on the streets and shuddered. ‘Grace à Dieu he didn’t send you back!’
‘I thank God, too. Max saved my life, plain and simple. But passing muster with the earl was just the first step. In many ways, Eton and Oxford were more difficult, not a single test but a limitless series of them. It was Max who taught me there would never be an end to bullies wanting to pummel me, or betterborn snobs trying to shame me, and it was smarter to outwit and outmanoeuvre them rather than fight. A born diplomat, even as a boy, he knew I was too proud to take money from him. Though the earl paid my school fees, I had no allowance; it was Max and my cousins who lured the other boys into playing cards or dice with me, or betting on my magic tricks. I’d always win enough for a meat pasty at Eton, or steak and a pint of ale at Oxford.’
‘So that’s where you perfected your beguiling pedlar’s tricks.’
He cupped her chin in his hands and tilted her face until she met the intensity of his gaze. ‘So you understand why I’m so loyal to Max and my cousins? Why the bond between us is as strong as the one between a mother and her son?’
He wanted her to realise why, despite all they had shared, he was still willing to sacrifice her to redeem his cousin. Though she’d thought by now she was incapable of feeling anything, a sharp, anguished pang stabbed in her gut.
‘Seeing all you’ve done since Vienna, I already understood. I respect Monsieur Max, too. He was kind to me, even tried to protect me as best he could from St Arnaud’s abuse. Nothing but the imperative to get my son back would have forced me into tricking one of the very few true gentlemen I’ve ever met. A gentleman who offered to assist me, not to further some scheme of his own, but out of genuine concern.’
As everything else, that story led back to her loss. Recalling it like a knife slash across her heart, she said, ‘Ah, mon Dieu, it’s even worse, knowing I entrapped him and lost my son anyway. At least now I can attempt to make amends by fulfilling our bargain. I will testify to whatever you wish to vindicate your cousin and clear his reputation.’
Will hesitated. ‘That might not be such a good idea.’
‘Not a good idea?’ she echoed, confused. ‘Haven’t you just spent the last few weeks dragging me across Europe to do just that?’
‘True, but your testimony might have … severe consequences if, instead of viewing this as a personal matter concerning only Max’s reputation, the Foreign Office decided to open an official enquiry. The penalty for being judged an accomplice in an attempt to murder the allied commander …’ His words trailed off.
Would be a long sojourn in prison, or death, she knew. ‘That outcome is always a possibility, although both de Merlonville and Armitage said neither government wants a formal investigation. But if they should, it would be as you told me in Vienna: a life for a life. Not so bad a bargain. Monsieur Max would become a great man, who could do much good. I could do this one thing and then I … I am of no more good to anyone anyway.’
For a long moment he held her gaze. ‘You’re good for me,’ Will whispered.
The tenderness of it made her already-decimated heart ache. ‘Sweet Will,’ she said, attempting a smile. Their strong mutual attraction didn’t change the melancholy facts. The unique, incomparable interlude of their journey from Vienna, wary co-conspirators who’d become mutual admirers, then friends, and then the most passionate of lovers, was almost over.
The silly, battered heart she’d thought was beyond feeling anything contracted in a spasm of grief that she must lose Will, too. She stifled its instinctive demand that she find some way to extend their time together.
But the English coast loomed just beyond a narrow stretch of restless sea and she’d never been one to deny reality. It was time to see the bargain she’d made to its conclusion.
Gently pushing Will’s hands away, she took the last sip from her mug. ‘I imagine you’ve conjured a vessel and some good sailing weather for tomorrow. We should rest now, if we’re to be away early in the morning.’
Looking troubled, Will opened his lips as if to speak. Elodie stopped him with a hand to his lips. ‘There’s no more to say. Rest easy, Will. C’est presque fini. Your quest is almost done.’
Putting aside her mug, Elodie swiftly disrobed down to her chemise and climbed into the uneven bed, settling back on the pillows with a sigh. In the hollow emptiness within, lit only by the warmth of tenderness for Will, the decision to testify, come what may, sat well.
She wasn’t sure when she’d made it. Some time during the long silent hours of moving north from Paris, probably, as the reality of life without Philippe settled into her shredded heart. She could repay the debt she owed Max Ransleigh, even the balance between. Like a person suddenly blinded, she could see no future beyond sitting before a green baize table in a Foreign Office enquiry room.
‘May you have a happy, distinguished life, Philippe, mon ange,’ she whispered, as a rip tide of exhaustion swept her towards sleep.
Bone-weary, Will climbed in bed beside Elodie.
During the last of their discussion, he’d wanted to interrupt her, to disagree, to tell her how unique and beautiful she was. But as he hadn’t yet worked out a remedy for her stark assessment of her condition—a woman without home, without family, without her son—she would have seen any such speech as pretty, empty words.
He wanted to tell her she meant too much for him to let her become a sacrifice to Max’s redemption. But how could he expect her to believe him, when every step he’d taken since arriving in Vienna had been directed towards doing just that?
Unable to voice or reconcile the conflicting claims of loyalty clashing within him, he fell back to the only language that wouldn’t fail. Gently he turned her pliant body towards him.
She murmured when he kissed her, then encircled his head with her arms and pulled him closer. He took the kiss deeper, moving his hands to caress her, filling her when she opened to him, showing her with his mouth and hands and body how much he cherished her.
Afterwards, as she dozed in his arms, exhausted and satisfied, Will lay awake, unable to find sleep. Tormented by a dilemma with no satisfactory answer, his mind spun fruitlessly round and round the final points of their discussion, like a roulette wheel before the croupier settles the ball.
For all his early years and then his time in the army, his survival had depended on making the correct, lightning-quick decision. But from the beginning of his doubts in Vienna through betrayal and reconciliation in Paris, he’d put off deciding what the final move in his game with Elodie would be. With arrival in England imminent, he could put it off no longer. And he was still not sure what to do.
He owed Max his life. But, he might as well admit it, Elodie now held his heart.
A vagabond all his life, he’d never thought of settling down on any of the small properties he’d been acquiring the last few years. Never thought of finding a wife or begetting children.
No more than she had he a home to offer her, and his only family were his cousins. The earl would sever their tenuous connection in a heartbeat, and if he were to betray his vow to Max to side with the woman who had ruined his cousin’s life, he wouldn’t have them, either.
He wished Max lived in the far reaches of Northumberland, so he would have longer to figure out what to do.
He would still willingly give his life to save Max’s. But he was no longer willing to let Elodie give hers. Though he’d been dodging around the fact since the attack on her outside Karlsruhe, after almost losing her again to St Arnaud, he finally could no longer avoid admitting the truth. He’d fallen in love with Elodie Lefevre.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected love to be, but it wasn’t the hearts-and-flowers, bring-her-jewels-to-woo-her-into-bed sort of fancy he’d imagined. More a gut-deep bond that made the air fresher, the sun brighter, the taste of wine sweeter because she shared it with him. A deep hunger to possess her, to be one with her, to satisfy her, that seemed to increase rather than diminish the longer they were together. A sense that losing her would suck all the joy, excitement and pleasure from life, leaving him like a mechanical doll, gears and levers taking it through the motions of life, but dead and empty inside.
He simply couldn’t lose her.
Admitting this didn’t make the way ahead any clearer. Though Elodie desired him, she’d given no indication that she felt for him anything deeper than fondness. But whether she returned his affection or not, he now had no intention of bringing her to the Foreign Office to testify. Despite what Armitage and de Merlonville avowed, it was too risky, when her testimony could too easily detour down a path to prison or the gallows.
Instead of leaving Elodie at one of his properties and going first to London to snoop around the Foreign Office and see if he could discover what evidence would be sufficient to clear Max, perhaps they should proceed straight to Max himself. Max, much better attuned to the intricacies of the Foreign Office, would be in a better position to know if there were a means for Elodie to absolve him without her having to testify in person. By means of a sworn deposition, perhaps, which he could have delivered after he’d gotten her safely out of England.
