Mystic Rider (26 page)

“His ears are more sensitive than mine. Speak to him sharply
and he stumbles. Shriek — ” He winced as she elbowed him. “Speak more loudly, and
he falls. You are my secret weapon.”

“That is nonsense. Go back to sleep.”

“I warned you not to let the chalice go,” he murmured again.
“Learn to heed me, and all will be well.”

Fine for him to say. He intended to go home. She couldn’t.
She wanted to rage against the unfairness, but she still couldn’t believe they
were forever banned from her beloved France. She loved the sea and fresh scent
of scythed grass at their country estate. She adored the hotbed of ideas and
discussion in their circle of Parisian friends. She couldn’t live without her
piano. It simply did not seem reasonable that she should lose everything
because the king had chosen to escape the same day they’d left town.

“Maybe I’ll listen to you when you listen to me,” she
retorted, to fight back tears.

“I listen,” he said. “I just do not always agree. Your
tongue is persuasive, but not always reasonable. You have your areas of
expertise, and I have mine. We will learn together.”

He gave her more confidence than she deserved, and she
enjoyed the idea of learning together too much. He did not even scold her for
abandoning the precious object he’d come so far to recover. She tried to sit
up, but Ian tugged her back. She didn’t fight him.

She had to blame the madness that was Paris these days as
much as she blamed Pauline and Ian for their predicament. Keeping a king
hostage was an open invitation to war. Blaming everyone else for their problems
would not provide solutions. Filling the streets with weapons carried by
unregulated, desperate men was a recipe for anarchy.

So perhaps her home was not the home it once had been.

The carriage rocked to a halt in the shelter of a beech
grove, and Ian instantly stiffened. The driver slid open the speaking door. “There’s
soldiers blocking the road ahead,” he said in his crude accent. “If ye’re after
avoiding them, I’ll let you out here and pretend I’m working on the wheel until
ye’ve gone around out of sight.”

Chantal glanced questioningly at Ian, who nodded agreement.
Murdoch was already awake and watching them.

“They’ll be my men,” he said.

“You wear the colors of a royal officer,” Chantal objected.
“Men loyal to the king have no reason to pursue us.”

Murdoch shrugged. “The king is now a prisoner, and those
loyal to him are fleeing the country. Those men out there are mercenaries who
follow me now, and I’ve set them to hunting you. Let me go, and I’ll call them
off.”

Ian sent him a look of scorn, then clambered from the carriage
and offered his good hand to help Chantal. She clung to it, needing the
reassuring squeeze of his fingers to keep fear at bay.

Murdoch remained inside. “Come and get me,” he said with a
weak chuckle.

“I could, but I told you I’m saving my strength,” Ian
replied peaceably. “Chantal, he is endangering your father and godchildren by
his recalcitrance. What do you have to say to him?”

“That I’ll come in and drag him out by his bad arm?” she
suggested, still thoroughly puzzled by Ian’s and Murdoch’s odd quarreling.

Silence from within the carriage.

Ian nodded approvingly. “Now say it as if you mean it and
directly to him.”

“Will the two of you quit playing games!” she said in her
lowest shout. “You could both bleed to death if we don’t find a physician
soon.”

Murdoch miraculously appeared in the doorway, leaning
heavily against the frame, looking haggard and pale. “The Inquisition could
have used her talent,” he grumbled.

Ian used his good arm to help his prisoner down. “Who says
they didn’t?”

Chantal knew her voice wasn’t that bad. Murdoch’s pretense
that her fury hurt him must be some kind of game he and Ian played.

Briefly, she remembered other people wincing at her angry
words — like the printer who’d escaped under his press when she’d received the
note about Pauline’s imprisonment. Perhaps she spoke more sharply than she realized.

“The two of you don’t look well enough to walk two steps,
much less half a mile.” Deciding to ignore the nonsense about her voice, she
gauged the distance between the carriage and the curl of smoke ahead. The path
through the woods would not be difficult for her, but she would never be able
to lift either of the men should they fall.

“Do not worry about us,” Ian told her, keeping his hand
wrapped around Murdoch’s uninjured upper arm. “Start down the path ahead of us,
and we will follow. Don’t go too far ahead, though, in case Murdoch thinks me
unarmed and helpless, and tries something stupid.”

Since Ian wore both swords and carried his staff, he was
scarcely unarmed, but loss of blood had left them both close to helpless, as
far as she could see. Still she saw no point in arguing with opinionated men
who thought they were invulnerable.

Instead, she addressed the driver. “You will tell the
soldiers you merely went in search of the stallion?” Rapscallion was tied to
the back of the coach.

The driver raised his crop to his cap in a salute of
agreement.

Gathering her ruined skirt and petticoats, humming under her
breath, Chantal proceeded down the rocky shortcut through the woods. She heard the
men trampling the underbrush behind her. They moved with remarkable speed
despite their weakened conditions. She hurried a little faster. Their speed
increased.

She was all but running by the time she reached the inn’s
kitchen garden. The men were right behind her, striding comfortably as if
taking a stroll in the park. She didn’t know why she’d worried about them.

She abruptly swung around and was nearly crushed by the two
giants stumbling into her. She started to scold them for their haste, then
noted how pale they were beneath their stoic demeanors. Blood seeped through
their bandages. She’d found Ian’s robe to cover him with some decency, and
pulled Murdoch’s clothes back up his arms again, but they still looked as if they’d
survived a royal battle — which they had, apparently. She had no intention of
asking over what. Cocks fought, in her experience, and these were two prime
cocks.

“You’ll scare the maids to death. Let me go in first. I’ll
send them on errands and distract the cook.”

Murdoch started to object, but Ian quelled him with a look.
“Do what you can. We’ll handle the rest.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but eager to settle her
patients somewhere safe, she hastened into the kitchen. Facing the entrance so
the maids had to turn their backs to it, she set them to heating water to take
up to her father’s room, then engaged the cook in a discussion of healing
broths for invalids.

Neither maids nor cook seemed to notice the blood-stained,
bedraggled ruin of her clothes, which she thought odd, but she used her most
charming voice to keep the cook’s back to the door until Chantal saw Ian and
his prisoner slip safely past. With a grateful nod, she thanked the cook for
her understanding and wisdom, and scampered after them.

The inn had only three doors upstairs. Ian unerringly aimed
for the center door and went in without knocking. She followed her father’s
voice inside. He was sitting in a wooden chair by the window, appearing
somewhat less gray than when she had left him. He smiled at her appearance, until
he took note of her clothes. Then he scowled at the two bloody men entering
with her.

“This is a pretty predicament,” he growled. “Perhaps we
ought to send Chantal and Pauline across the border on their own. They’d be
better off than burdened with the lot of us. What the devil do you intend to do
with a king’s officer?”

Ian studied Murdoch’s tattered uniform. “In my country, he
is a criminal.”

“You have criminals now?” Alain snorted in derision. “My,
how the mighty have fallen. You can’t even hold on to that damned chalice anymore.”

Arms still tied behind his back, Murdoch rested his good
shoulder against the wall beside the bed and slouched as if distancing himself
from the argument, yet Chantal had the distinct impression that he was
absorbing a great deal more than it appeared.

“Chantal does not yet understand that the chalice is worth
more than all of us together,” Ian replied. “But now that we have Murdoch, we
should be able to catch up with it. Did Pierre take one of your horses?”

“The oldest one,” Alain agreed. “But even though he’s a poor
rider, he’ll have time to catch a ship before we escape this mess.”

Although Chantal sensed Ian’s tension, outwardly, he didn’t
appear worried. “Why the sea when the border is so close?” he asked, reasonably
enough.

“I don’t know what got into the boy. He’s always had an
idealistic bent. Perhaps he hopes to sell the chalice to save the church.” Alain
looked tired. “Le Havre is our home. His parents have an estate there. And that
was his direction.”

Ian nodded as if filing this information in the appropriate
corner of his formidable mind. “Our ships can find him on the sea. The main
problem is how we will travel to the coast.”

“The main problem is finding a physician who won’t go
running for the National Guard,” Chantal said when none of them seemed to care
that both men were swaying from their wounds. “The bed is empty. Sit down, both
of you. You make me dizzy just watching you.”

Both arrogant roosters remained standing in an apparent
challenge to see who submitted to his weakness first.

“Fetch your sewing kit to mend Murdoch’s arm. That is better
than cauterization,” Ian suggested. “We do not need physicians. Once we’ve
eaten and rested, we will set out again. I think the local troops can be made
to look the other way, if Murdoch’s men can be diverted.”

Murdoch snorted but remained otherwise silent.

“Fine, have it your way,” Chantal replied with a shrug. “I
have nothing left to lose. But if you don’t start listening to me…” She raised
her voice sharply on the last words.

Murdoch visibly shuddered and collapsed into a sitting
position on the bed’s edge. With a degree of weariness, he leaned against the
headboard and dragged his legs up onto the mattress. Grinning, Ian did the
same.

Her father stared from them to her in astonishment.

“Don’t ask,” she told him. “I’ll fetch Pauline’s sewing
kit.”

She opened the door and let in a maid carrying a bucket of
water and another with a tray containing bowls of broth. Bread was still too
expensive, so she had not asked for it. She did not know how they would draw on
their bank funds if they were forced to leave France, so she must mind their
small store of coins. Perhaps Pierre had seen the chalice as a king’s treasure
and an opportunity to provide for his sister and the children.

Her stomach rumbled in protest, but she hurried to Pauline’s
room first. She needed to see for herself that the children were safe and
sound.

At her entrance, Pauline looked up with relief, then widened
her eyes at the state of Chantal’s clothes. “Are you all right? Shall I send
for a bath? A physician?”

Chantal couldn’t let exhaustion catch up with her. She
crouched down to hug the children and kept her voice warm. “After a while, a
bath. I must do some mending first. Do you have a needle and strong thread?”

“Pierre?” Pauline asked in fear. “I know he means only to
help, not harm.”

“He’s safe, for all I know. I’ll explain later.” She kissed
Marie and Anton on their foreheads. “I will read to you later, yes? You have
been such good children, I will have to think of a lovely reward for you.”

“Sweets?” Marie suggested, her blue eyes lighting with hope.

Making promises she feared she could not keep, Chantal took
the sewing kit offered and hurried back to her father’s room.

As much as she loved the chalice, she saw no purpose in
risking the children’s safety to follow it. She could not imagine what had
inspired Pierre to steal the cup, but knowing his idealism, she was certain it
was for the good of all, as Pauline said. If he had chosen the road to his and
Pauline’s childhood home, she couldn’t blame him. She longed to return to the
carelessness of youth as well, but she feared he hadn’t made a wise decision.
The roads of France were no longer safe, and the route to the coast was long.
She would not feel comfortable until they rode the few short miles to the
border. Once safe in the Netherlands, they could decide where to go.

Ian must choose his own course. If he elected to chase after
the chalice, it was no matter to her any longer. Her family came first.

She hummed to shut out the sickening wrench of her heart at
that decision.

He lacked the required concentration to keep Murdoch bound
by mental restraints, Ian decided wearily as the whole family gathered in the
sickroom to discuss their next step.

It was one thing to focus his gods-gifted mind while
performing serenity-enhancing exercises on a barren hill. It was quite another
to do so while confined in a small chamber with a woman whose presence kept him
in a perpetual state of arousal. It was still another to do so while surrounded
by an irascible diplomat with a sharp tongue; two laughing, quarreling
children; and their weepy mother; not to mention Murdoch — a man with unknown
gifts, some greater than his own.

For the first time in his life, Ian felt the helplessness of
Others. How did they survive? He could scarcely think straight much less filter
out all the conflicting thoughts and emotions while keeping Murdoch mentally
bound.

Obviously, there was a reason he’d been alone all his life.

Ian couldn’t tell how much of his pain his amacara could
sense. He knew that once the vows were said, mates shared their gifts, even if
in a small way, but until now, Chantal had exhibited little awareness of
anything extraordinary.
He’d
certainly not taken up singing as a means of dealing with this damned violent
world. So he watched her every action for a sign that they were matched in all
senses of the word.