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“Visitor for Viscountess McCullough,” the guard said.
Gabrielle stabbed herself with the needle. In pain, she jumped up. She did not know why she stood. There was no need to rise to attention, but she had been so surprised to hear her name.
And then she saw him, and she sank back down again.
She hated herself. She hated that even now—even after all that he’d done—when she looked at him her heart clenched and her belly fluttered. She remembered the feel of his arm about her waist at the gate into Paris, the way his eyes held hers and kept her strong and determined when the mob at the gates had been screaming for the marquis’s blood, the feel of his mouth on hers in the quarries…
“Gabrielle!” he rushed forward, pressing against the bars of the large cell directly across from her.
Gabrielle’s eyes stung with tears, and she focused on the needle in her hand. She would not look at him, would not acknowledge him.
“Gabrielle!” he called again, his deep voice echoing through the cavernous prison.
She was aware the eyes of the other prisoners were on her. Visitors were infrequent, and the fact that she had a visitor and did not want to see him elicited any number of whispered questions around her.
Gabrielle stabbed her needle into the material again.
“Gabrielle, if you’ll just speak to me—“
Her head snapped up. “Then you’ll explain why you betrayed me? Why your name was on the arrest warrant?”
She heard several gasps.
“I don’t want to hear your lies anymore, citoyen.” She’d wanted to call him Lord Sedgwick, to betray him as he had her, but she couldn’t do it.
The duc’s sister rose from the table and cleared her throat. “My lady, perhaps you would rather speak to your visitor in our private chambers?” She gestured to a corner of the cell where a screen had been erected to give privacy while the prisoners attended to bodily functions.
“I thank you, my lady, but I have nothing to say to him.”
“Bien sûr. Perhaps you might tell him that privately?”
Gabrielle nodded. She was acting like a child, squabbling in public. She set her needlepoint on the table and rose. Inclining her head at Ramsey, she indicated the corner of the cell. Ramsey followed, and when she stepped behind the screen, he was on the other side of the bars. The illusion of privacy was so real that it took her a moment to remember she was not alone, and she was not free.
She was losing track of time, of days and nights, hours and minutes. Each time she woke up or looked about her and saw the prison, a wave of panic and nausea hit her so hard she all but doubled over. She felt it again now.
She would die. She would die like those poor souls she’d seen in the Place de la Révolution. Perhaps her head would be paraded around like many of the unfortunate victims of the guillotine.
“Gabrielle?” Ramsey’s voice was low. “Are you unwell?”
She straightened, glaring at him. “I’m as well as can be expected.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Go ahead then. Give me your lies, tell me you had nothing to do with my arrest.”
His green eyes seemed to harden like emeralds, but behind the hardness she saw the flicker of pain. “I won’t tell you lies any longer. I did have a part in your arrest, but I swear to you I played my part unwittingly. I tried to protect you.”
“A fine job you did.” She gestured to the prison.
“I’ll get you out.”
She laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. “How? It was all but impossible before, but now that the comtesse has escaped, the guards are taking greater measures with security. I’ll never escape, and tomorrow I’ll be sentenced to death.”
“You there!” a guard called to Ramsey. “Your time is up.”
“Goodbye, Ramsey,” she said, and turned away. “I hope whatever you bartered my life for was worth it.”
The guard approached Ramsey and pulled his shoulder back.
“Gabrielle, don’t give up hope,” Ramsey called before he was yanked away.
But it was too late.
