The Return of the Prodigal (6 page)

He’d been so busy bemoaning the loss of his arm, he’d allowed himself to wallow in self-pity; to drift, to dream, never once thinking of his family, of the danger he knew always existed for those at Becket Hall.

But he wanted the medicine, any medicine that would rid him of this terrible headache, this feeling that his body was both hot and cold, and that, although he knew better, he could swear small insects were running up and down his flesh, burrowing beneath his skin.

Once he was home, had spoken with his father and the others, told them about the mysterious
Comte,
then they could sort it all out and he could forego the medicines, put himself in Odette’s care. She’d know a better way to rid him of these damn fevers.

“Trust me, Rian Becket,” Lisette said, uncorking the bottle, holding it in front of him. “You’ve just to tell me where we are going. I will get you safely home.”

He reached for the bottle with his shaking hand, silently cursed himself for being weak, and took a deep swallow.

W
ITH THE THANKFULLY
once again compliant Rian settled in his bed and sleeping soundly, Lisette wrapped her cloak more firmly about her and walked across the cleared area around the small country inn, heading for the cover of the trees. She didn’t look left or right, but only kept up her measured pace, her heart beating quickly as she rehearsed what she would say.

If the men were here, if the increasingly difficult to manage Rian Becket had not succeeded in losing them.

“Mam’ selle? Mam’ selle Beatty?”

She glanced behind her, to make sure no one could see her from the inn windows, and then stepped to her right, deeper into the stand of trees.

“I feared you may have lost us,” she said, looking at the three men in her
papa
’s employ.

“We do not become lost so easily. But it was to be Petit Rume,
mam’ selle,
” Thibaud, the tallest of the three, said. Scolded.

Lisette looked at him levelly as she lied. She was, alas, becoming a very accomplished liar. If she wasn’t already well on the path to Hell for sleeping with Rian Becket without benefit of vows, she would say an extra rosary for this new sin. “The Englisher changed the route,” she told Thibaud. “He takes us to Calais, where he says he has friends.”

“Christ’s teeth! Friends? Our man is in Calais? It was thought the coast of England, for certain. This makes things easier for us. I have no taste for the Channel in an October storm.”

“You stupid man. How easy to cross from Calais to the English coast! Dover, this place called Folkestone—so many more. Praise God the nuns forced geography on me, yes? If I am to be followed by fools.”

“Fools, is it?” The man took a step forward, his hands drawn up into fists. “I have followed the man since before he spilled his seed into your mother. But women are good for that one thing only. If you were not your father’s daughter…”

“But I am, and he would tie your guts in a bow around your filthy neck if any harm were to come to me,” Lisette reminded him, her chin high even as her insides quaked in fear. “You’d be wise to remember that. Wiser still to get yourselves to Calais ahead of us, rather than to continue to follow, and perhaps be seen.”

“You keep him drugged with Loringa’s potions. He looks nowhere other than beneath the skirts you lift for him so he can poke you like some cheap whore.”

Before she could consider the consequences, Lisette slapped the man, hard, across the face. “You are a dead man speaking to me, Thibaud.”

Thibaud grabbed her wrist and squeezed, hard, as he brought his face, and his foul breath, to an inch away from her nose. “I would be so much better, you know. With two hands to stroke you, to tease you until you cry out in your great pleasure. Listen! I can already hear you.
Thibaud, Thibaud, my magnificent prince!
”

The two men behind Thibaud laughed as Lisette struggled wildly to be free of him.

At last he let her go, pushing her to the ground, where she remained, struggling to breathe. Was it monsters like this that Geoffrey Baskin had handed her poor mother over to that day?

Thibaud stood over her, his huge fists jammed into his hips, his smile gone. “We do what we do,
mam’ selle
whore. We do what your
papa
has ordered, and take no orders from women. A woman once cost us much, didn’t she, my good friends, and that will not happen again.”

The other two men mumbled their agreement as Lisette finally dared to get to her feet, careful now to keep her distance.

“My…my
maman?
That’s who you mean, don’t you? Because Geoffrey Baskin coveted her?”

Again, Thibaud laughed, the roar of that raucous laughter causing more than a few of the slumbering birds above them to stir, fly away. “Is that the story he tells? Ha! Then, yes, that’s how it was. Yes, little whore, the gospel according to your so holy
papa.
”

Before Lisette could react, Thibaud had hold of her wrist again, painful now from how tightly he had held it the first time. But she was so angry; she didn’t care about the pain. “Don’t you dare mock my father and his love of my mother!”

“I mock nothing. But I don’t die twice for the same mistake.” Thibaud leered down at her. “Bah! I am too old for this! The past is gone. Is it not enough to be fat and happy now, my friends, to die in our beds, with two pretty young trollops tucked in beside us? But enough!
Go!
We will follow as we were ordered. God curse us for it, we always follow.”

Lisette wanted to stay, insist Thibaud explain his words, but she had already said too much, perhaps heard too much. Enough to reinforce her growing misgivings about what she had already been told this past year since her
papa
had taken her from the convent, enough to cause her nervous concern over what she had already done.

Because, somewhere between the plan and the execution, Lisette had decided that she would do this her own way, send Thibaud to Calais, and proceed to Ostend with Rian Becket, without these three men dogging her steps.

But none of it because she had begun to question her
papa.
No, most certainly not!

And, please God, not because, as she was sure the lout, Thibaud, would declare, she was a stupid woman who had begun to care too much for the sad and injured and so beautiful Rian Becket.

R
IAN WOKE SLOWLY
at first, and then all at once, as he realized he was somehow lying in a bed, not riding in that damned, badly sprung coach. He sat up, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the fading light of the small, dying fire in the grate slowly separating that darkness into light and shadow.

How had he gotten here? The obvious answer was that he’d been carried, like some sleeping infant.

“That settles the thing,” he muttered, squeezing hard at the bridge of his nose. “No more laudanum. My head feels like I spent the night living in a bottle.”

He climbed out of the bed, but not before realizing that Lisette was not sleeping beside him. Where, exactly, were they, he wondered. Where were his clothes? More importantly, where was Lisette?

“Lisette?”

“Here, Rian Becket, at the window,” he heard her say, and he turned toward the sound, barely able to make out the heavy draperies that were closed tight.

“Hiding?” he asked, pulling back one side of the drape, to see her fully dressed in her plain gray gown, and perched on the window seat, her knees drawn up to her chin. “Or did my inconsiderate snores chase you?”

She had her arms wrapped about her legs, her chin on her knees, and was looking out into the darkness rather than at him. “I thought someone should stand watch,” she told him, at last unbending herself and lowering her bare feet to the floor. “The
Comte
’s men could still find us, for all your clever maneuverings. Which, by the way, have maneuvered us into this sorry inn and to its damp sheets. And the mutton at dinner was tough and stringy.”

“Then I’m happy I missed it, even though I’m starving. A thousand apologies, your grace. I had no idea you were more accustomed to luxury.”

“You mock me,” she said, brushing past him, having gathered up her half boots from the window seat.

Her mud-crusted half boots. Not the dried mud he would expect from their walk to the stable yard, but mud still fresh, wet. He could smell it.

He took the half boots from her hand. “You’ve been out walking?”

“I believe it is called patrolling,” she said, snatching the half boots from him and moving across the small room, to the bed. She pushed herself up onto it and pulled first one boot, then the other, over her feet. “We can not all rest like innocent children, unaware, when the world can come tumbling down on our heads at any time.”

She was so suddenly indignant, he held back his laughter at her expense. “Ah, not your grace, but my little General Lisette, patrolling our perimeter. And so, General, as you mention
time,
isn’t it still the middle of the night? Where do you think you’re going now?”

“Not me, Rian Becket.
Us.
And we are leaving. There is a man downstairs, in the tavern, who seems suspicious. I am not sure, but I may have seen him before, although I was careful not to let him see me. We must not linger here. I was waiting only for you to wake.”

“Bloody hell, Lisette,” Rian said, reaching for his boots, knowing he couldn’t pull them on by himself. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

She shrugged. “I told you a sip, only. The laudanum lets go in its own time. It would have been fruitless to even attempt to wake you.”

Considering the fact that she’d managed to have him carried to this room without awakening him, he supposed she was right. “No more laudanum, Lisette. Even if I ask for it. Even if I beg for it. You understand?”

“But you need your rest, Rian,” she told him as she took one of his boots and motioned for him to take his own turn sitting on the edge of the bed, which was the only place to sit in this small room under the eaves. “What do I do with a man dead from fever?”

“We’re back to that, are we? You say a quick prayer if the spirit so moves you, and leave his body in a ditch after withdrawing the bag of coins from his pocket—you might also be able to sell these boots for a good price—and strike out again for the coast. Damn, I hate needing your help this way.”

She knelt before him on the floorboards and struggled to push on the boot that had been fashioned especially for him by the talented Ollie in Becket Village, and fit like a second skin. “And then what, Rian Becket? I take myself to your home and tell them I had been bringing their son back to them—before I left him dead and barefoot in a ditch? Do you think they’d slay the fatted calf for me then, hmm? And I don’t even know where to go, do I, to deliver this so sad news? Where are we going?”

“Home,” Rian said shortly, pushing his foot deeper into the boot.

She glared up at him even as she picked up the other boot. “Maybe I don’t believe you, Rian Becket. Perhaps you are taking me to London, to sell me to some low brothel.”

Now Rian did laugh. “Where on earth do you get an idea like that?”

She tugged and tugged on the second boot. “Sometimes ladies would come to the convent, sent there by their husbands who wanted them to learn to be more obedient. They would bring novels with them and share them with me.”

“The convent, Lisette?”

She gave one last pull on the leather straps, and the boot slid up and over his calf. “My
papa,
he would sometimes teach the nuns English. I told you that. You remember nothing, Rian. How can I trust you to know how to get home?”

Rian looked down at her, trying to engage her gaze, but she was already getting to her feet once more, moving away from him. What a pretty girl. How little he really knew about her. “I don’t remember you saying anything about a convent.”

“Men never listen to women, when they speak of themselves. Only when the woman speaks of the man. It’s the way of men, to listen only when they are the subject of the conversation.”

“And now I’m being scolded,” Rian said as he got to his feet and stamped his feet hard against the worn floorboards, to settle himself more firmly into the boots. The force jarred painfully at his thigh, at the bone that had taken so damnably long to heal itself. He’d probably be like an old man now, able to tell when a storm was coming, just by the pain in his leg. How depressing. “Our coachman isn’t going to be happy to be roused from his sleep, you know. We’ll lose another coin to him, and one to the ostler who puts the horses in their traces.”

She helped him into his jacket, turning the thing so that he could first slip his abbreviated arm into the sleeve held shut with a pin, covering his stump. “We won’t be bothering him. We’ll walk to the next inn, and hire another coach. Can you tell west from south by the stars, Rian Becket? It wouldn’t do to only retrace our steps, or wander in circles.”

“All this because you saw a man you think you may have seen before? Very well, Lisette. You’re my savior, so I might as well humor you. But at least allow me to pretend that I am in charge.”

“So you believe me, you agree that we should leave here now? Simply walk away? I like you when you are being reasonable.”

“You like when I agree with you, which you consider reasonable. But it might be good to leave the coach behind, yes…?” He cupped her chin in his hand, turning her face toward the firelight. “As for your other question…? I want to believe you in all things, Lisette,” he told her quietly. “I think I want to believe you care at least half as much for me as you do for escaping the
Comte.
”

She looked up at him, her gaze obviously centering on his mouth. “We…there is no time for this now, Rian Becket. We must be practical.”

“You can ask my family when you meet them, Lisette. I am very rarely practical,” he said as he lowered his head to hers, pressed his lips against hers, drew her into the circle of his one good arm. God, but she made him feel alive!

He felt her arms go around him, hold on to him tightly as she pressed her mouth against his, then just as quickly dropped her arms, stepped free of him.

“Lisette?”

“One of us must keep an even head, Rian Becket,” she told him, closing the straps on the portmanteau and heading for the door. “And you’re feverish again. I could taste it on your mouth. You need to conserve your strength for the walk to the next village.”

“Yes, my General, I will do as you order, for now. I think we’re becoming quite adept at skulking about in the darkness,” Rian said, executing a mock salute as she held open the door and he walked past her, into the dark hallway. He waited for her to close the door behind them, and then added, “One or two more nights before we reach Ostend, Lisette, and tonight’s inn will have dry sheets, and you will share them with me. You will be my medicine.”

“If I choose so,” she told him, motioning down the hall, toward the servant stairs.

“And do you so choose?” he asked her as he followed.

“
Shh!
How can you speak of things like that when we are about to sneak out of this inn without so much as paying for our lodging?”

“You didn’t pay? Isn’t it enough that the
Comte
may have sent someone in pursuit? Now we’re to also have some fat innkeeper chasing after us with a meat cleaver?” Rian bit back a laugh. “Lisette, you’re incorrigible. And this from a girl who frequented a convent? For shame. Where’s the bag of coins? I’ll go back, leave one on the bed.”

She turned back to him, reached up and squeezed hard at his earlobe, twisting it. “The fever makes you silly, stupid. I should pour all of the laudanum down your throat and use the coins to hire a strong man to
carry
you to this Ostend and toss you into a boat.”

Rian didn’t know if the fever made him silly, or stupid. He only knew he felt good, perhaps too good, which may or may not be better than the times he felt so horribly bad.

He followed Lisette down the narrow stairs and out into the night, the crisp air as good as a slap to the face against his hot cheeks. It was time he took charge, damn it, rather than be forever led about tied to Lisette’s apron strings like a mindless, helpless child.

“Lisette, wait,” he said, taking hold of her elbow and pulling her into the deepest shadow just outside the doorway. “I can’t do it. Much as it shames me to admit it, I can’t walk to the next village. My thigh aches like a toothache from yesterday’s walk, and my brain keeps refusing to cooperate with me. We still have most of our coins, so we can rent or buy a horse. That way, we can cut across the fields, not having to keep to the roads and be more easily followed. It will be slow going, but safer, I believe. Can you ride?”

She shook her head. “We had no money for riding horses. Only our pony cart.”

“Damn. But you have two arms, Lisette. You can sit up behind me, and hold on tight.”

She shook her head again. “But
you
have only one arm, Rian. How can you control one of those great beasts?”

He smiled, definitely feeling better. To have a horse beneath him again, even if it was not his beloved Jupiter, would do much to make him feel more in charge of his own destiny, something he knew he hadn’t been for too long a time. “I ride you with one hand, Lisette. You haven’t bucked me off yet.”

“I will tell your
maman
how crudely you speak to me, when I meet her,” Lisette bit out angrily.

“Then pray you don’t meet her for a long time, Lisette. My mother has been dead for more than twenty years.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. And your
papa
? Are you an orphan, like me? But you have a family, yes?”

He took the portmanteau from her and began walking through the dark, toward the faint outline of the inn’s stables. How could he possibly explain his family to her? And did he dare? “Yes, Lisette, like you. And not like you. I have more family than you can even imagine. Now listen carefully, Lisette. Here is what I want you to say to the ostler…”

L
ISETTE STOOD BESIDE
the ridiculously low table in the private dining room of the inn at the edge of the town called Torhout, bending her knees slightly so that she could more easily leverage herself to spread butter on a thick slice she had cut from a still-warm loaf one of the maids had brought them.

If she never saw a horse again in the remainder of her lifetime she would be endlessly grateful. If she could ever sit again without whimpering in pain, it would be a miracle.

“Lisette, sit down to finish your meal,” Rian told her, the evil man sitting at his own ease, and grinning at her like the most stupid man in the world. “It can’t be that bad.”

“No, you’re correct. It is not that bad, Rian Becket. It is worse than simply
not that bad
. I may die. And, feeling as I do, I don’t think I would mind meeting your mother now.”

“You should go on the stage, Lisette. You’re quite the actress.” Rian took another bite of lovely pink ham.

Lisette knew it was lovely, because she’d already managed a few pieces on her own. Maybe five or six, because dying seemed to make her quite hungry. But that was before she’d decided that the pink of the ham would probably be pale indeed when compared to the bloody red pulp that had to be her derriere, and she had lost her appetite for anything but the bread.

“Yes, I will consider that. I would make a good Juliet, don’t you think? And you could be my Romeo. You die every day.”

“Ah, now that’s not fair, Lisette. Only every other day, surely. And not today, even though you dragged me out in the middle of the night, and I’ve been in the saddle for the better part of twelve hours.”

“And I hate you for that, you know. At the
Comte
’s, you napped each afternoon away, and spent your time writing sad poems and then smiling at the statues in the garden, as if you could hear them speaking to you.”

“Some did,” he said, grinning. “Or at least I thought so. It was the draughts you brought me. I’m sure of that now.”

“It was the long summer of fever muddling your brain, Rian Becket,” Lisette told him, pointing the knife at him. “The draughts saved you. The draughts, and of course my most devoted nursing, for which you have yet to thank me. Your lack of gratitude insults me. I don’t think I will speak to you again tonight.”

“Heaven still delivers small mercies,” he told her, and then ducked quickly as she launched the remainder of the loaf at his head, and it sailed by harmlessly, to land against the wall behind him. “Shall I assume you were hoping to hit the wall? I wouldn’t want to criticize your aim.”