Page 47 of The Rebellious Countess
It was his turn to swallow audibly. The next part of his story he’d told only once before and that was to his mother, or rather Hag, the very last time he called herMother. The very last time she had shown emotion. Since then, she had been almost as cold as her father—almost.
“They were able to subdue him when two more soldiers joined the fight. By this time, I had figured out my arm was broken, it was of no use to me. Claude was shaking his head, trying to see what was happening, but it was obvious he couldn’t focus, let alone stand on his own.
“Thenhespoke. He recognized my father, in fact he seemed happy to see him. For a moment, I thought the world that had turned upside-down would right itself again.”
He felt her hand on his cheek, her touch tentative and gentle. It was only then that he realized a tear trailed down his face. It was the only one he’d shed for his father since that day. He let her wipe it away and gave her a grateful smile, meeting her gaze for the first time since he began to describe his nightmare.
“You don’t have to tell me the rest if it’s too painful.”
“You need to know the type of men we are up against, because that general may be dead, but his successor is the man who has Astley.”
Her eyes widened, the only sign of her understanding about the severity of the situation they faced.
“Your grandfather is dead?” She asked.
“Yes. When I was twenty, I received a letter in England from my mother, telling me he had died.” He didn’t tell her it was the only letter his mother wrote. He’d gotten past the pain she had caused.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What he did that day changed my life forever.” He took a deep breath and released it before continuing. “Mon grand-pèresaid my father was the reason they were there. That he was a traitor to France, an embarrassment to his daughter and grandson, and my father would be hanged for his crimes.”
She gasped. “No.”
“Yes,” he said, with no more emotion than if he’d admitted he was tired and wanted to sleep. “My grandfather judged my father guilty of treason, said he had been sending information to the British and that he would die for his crimes. My father didn’t deny it. He asked the general not to hang him in front of his son. It was then that general looked at me and realized who I was. Then he laughed.” Elias’s chin tightened involuntarily. “He laughed and denied my father’s request. I stood there and watched my father die…I watched the life drain out of his eyes and his body twitch as he swung from a tree.”
Tears were streaming down Máira’s cheeks, but he couldn’t see them. All he could see was the vision of his father’s feet swinging and hear the horrific sound of the soldiers laughing.
“He left me there with my father, said I must be the one to deliver the news to my mother. So, I climbed the tree to cut him down. It took me three times because I kept falling, and once I lost consciousness from the pain in my arm. When I finally got him down, I made a sling out of that damn military jacket they forced on me, and I…I used the rope that had taken my father’s life to drag him back to Le Conquet. I reached the house just as the sun was rising in the most glorious burst of color I’ve ever seen.
“My mother wailed her grief when she saw me drop to my knees in front of the house. She’d been waiting up, knowing that something was seriously wrong when my father and I hadn’t returned the previous night. She used her wrapper to cover my father’s body and took me inside to tend to my arm, and the ropeburns on my other hand and back. She listened to my recounting of the events with her eyes growing colder and colder with each word I uttered. By the time I finished telling her of what my grandfather had done, I no longer recognized the woman who raised me.
“In my grief and pain, I didn’t know she had put laudanum in the tea she gave me to drink while I told her what happened. While I slept, she washed my father’s body and buried him behind our home in her garden.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I have no idea how she did it, where she obtained the strength to dig his grave and bury a man so much larger than she, but she did. Then she put me on a ship the very next day bound for England with a letter to the War Office.”
“The next day? But your arm…”
“Mon grand-pèrehad told me he would come for me in one month, after my arm healed. She didn’t want to take a chance I was still there.”
“What happened to Claude?”
“I don’t know. The soldiers tied him to a horse and took him. Over the years I thought about Claude from time to time. I even asked Hag if she had heard from him, but as far as the people of Le Conquer knew, Claude was as dead as my father.”
He paused, then looked up at her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and the look on her face he would never forget. “Claude’s parents passed on believing their son to be dead, if not by the hands of the soldiers, then by the hands of war. I suppose we all died that day.”
As far as he was concerned, his owngrand-pèredied the moment he sentenced his father to death. He only wished he’d had the opportunity to return the favor to the bastard.
Thirteen
My dearest Simon,
I received word the brooch was destroyed. Regardless, I don’t want you to face unnecessary perils. Please come home to me.
Your loving wife
—A coded letter to Simon Clark, Earl of Astley, secret agent of the Crown, from Sir Robert Williamson, War Office London, England. It never reached the earl because double agent Henry Greasley killed the messenger, a young man with a son to feed.
The town was deadly quiet. Nothing stirred. No cats, no dogs, no owls hooted in the night air. Even the tavern was empty of no-good men and whores trying to survive. Elias kept their horse to the shadows, watching every doorway, every rooftop, every nook and cranny that did not waver with movement.
One of his absconded pistols was hidden in the skirts of Máira’s gown, ready to use on the first man to make a move, yet something told him no one in this village was a threat, at least not in the manner he was accustomed to facing. Theconversation of the couple came back to him. Hag’s warning of a deadly sickness made him want to turn back and forget his mission regardless of the cost to England and Astley. The silent woman wrapped in his arms was too precious to lose for a man who went on suicide missions for the Crown.
