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“I cannot see anything. I don’t know where we are going,” she said, trying to stall him.
“We are following the corridor to the end. Keep walking.”
Now that he didn’t hold the knife to her throat, her fear had turned to anger. Who exactly did he think he was to try and abduct her? She’d come to help him—well, not him but those like him—and this was how he repaid her?
She turned on him and knocked her head on his chin. She hadn’t realized he was so close behind her. “I am not walking any farther. You can go wherever you like, but it won’t be with me.”
Suddenly his hands were on her arms, and he’d shoved her against the wall of the corridor. “I do not have time to argue with you, mademoiselle. Your friends are undoubtedly planning their counterattack even now. Keep walking.”
“Or?”
“Or we do things the hard way.”
“I hope they guillotine you,” she hissed when he pushed her forward again.
“I am certain you will get your wish.”
“I hope it takes more than one chop.”
“Unlikely as my neck is not excessively thick,” Montagne replied. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
She staggered forward, hands outstretched in the darkness. What had ever come into her to imagine kissing him last night? She’d rather kiss a toad than the horrid Marquis de Montagne.
She kept walking, and the floor seemed to slope downward gradually. Above them she could hear scuffling sounds at times. Were they under the Rue du Jour? Were those passersby on the streets or men and women moving about in their homes and shops?
Finally, after it seemed they had walked for hours, and she was ready to kick Montagne if he dared to prod her even one more time, the floor angled upward, and she had to lift her skirts to avoid treading on them. She wore a simple muslin dress, no cap as she’d been inside, and no tricolor cockade either. When they emerged, she would be in danger of being questioned as lacking patriotic fervor. Moreover, the Convention’s new decree that all women must wear the tricolor cockade made her lack of the blue, white, and red ribbons all the more egregious.
She tripped over a step and would have fallen if Montagne had not caught her arm. “Are you hurt?”
“What do you care?” she snapped and shook his hand off. She was cold in this underground corridor in October, but his hand still felt warm.
“Watch your step,” he advised.
She lifted her skirts higher and kept her other hand on the wall beside the steps. Finally, she reached the last and put her palm on a wooden door before her.
“Another door,” she said, turning her head so he could hear her whispered words.
“Do you hear anything on the other side?”
She stood quietly for a few moments, but she heard nothing. “Silence.”
“Open it.”
“Youopen it.”
He blew out an impatient puff of air. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Only when I’ve been abducted.”
He reached around her, found the latch and tried it. Honoria sighed when it opened. Why couldn’t it be locked? Immediately, the scents of candles and furniture polish wafted over her, and she realized they were in an ante-room in the church. No candles lit the room, but the high windows let in some of the light from outside.
“Is this Saint Eustache?” Montagne asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been inside.”
“It must be. Clever of the secret passage to open here. No one attends church anymore,” he said, looking about.
“Not when belief in anything other than the revolution is suspect. Even the priests are required to preach about the virtues of liberty.”
