Page 56 of The Rebellious Countess
A little girl. He’d never thought of having a daughter, a daughter like Máira, full of laughter and love he wouldn’t experience.
Over his dead body.
“Of course I will be there for my daughter. A girl needs her father.”
She didn’t argue, and he knew his misstep immediately. She had been very young when her father died, even youngerwhen her mother died birthing Máira’s youngest sister. “Máira, I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s nothing,” she lied.
There was nothing he could say. He knew her pain more than most. He had lost his father as a teen and his mother when she sent him away to live with his uncle in England. It was all to keep him safe, but it didn’t mean the loss of both his parents hadn’t affected him. It had, profoundly.
They rode on in silence for the next couple hours. Both trapped in the losses of their past and now their future as well. But as the forest began to thin and the brine from the sea seeped into the air, Elias’s senses alerted. They were close, which heightened the chances of running into more troops. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear and felt her body stiffen. How different it was from mere hours ago. “We are close. We must remain quiet.”
She acknowledged him with a nod and nothing more. Nor did her body sink back against his. She stayed rigid and as far away as she could get. Twenty minutes later, he caught sight of the Mill of Moidrey, the blades turning in the wind as the forest gave way to the rolling hills near the coast. He avoided the cottages of the town and directed their horse to a copse of trees near the mill where he lifted Máira from the horse. “I need you to hide in the woods. I will be back when I know it is safe.”
Her eyes widened as if she realized for the first time since they’d buried the bodies of the soldiers that the danger wasn’t over. “Don’t leave,” she whispered.
“I’ll be back. You’ll be safe here.”
She laughed a humorless laugh as if he’d said something ridiculous. “I’m not worried about me. We’re better off if we fight together as a team.”
“I will be better off knowing you are safe.”
“What about me? Do you think I’m better off knowing you’re in danger?”
“Do you care, Wife?” Could he dare to hope?
“Of course I care. I don’t want you to die.”
It wasn’t exactly a profession of undying love. “I won’t.” Elias turned the horse in the direction of the mill, giving her no choice but to get lost in the trees or stand out in the middle of the field and put them both at risk. He heard her huff and watched over his shoulder as she disappeared into the darkness.
Mon Dieu. Their marriage seemed like a real marriage, considering how much work it was taking.
He turned and focused on the horizon for signs of trouble, for shadows moving toward Máira or himself.
Nothing. Not even a flicker of light from the cottages they’d already bypassed.
The wind caused the leaves and grasses to dance as the mill twirled round and round at a slow lazy pace. An eerie calm filled night as he slowly made his way up the hill.
Once he was at the top, he could see Mont-Saint-Michel in the distance. The lights giving it an ominous appearance with its stone walls, gothic buttresses, and the golden form of Saint Michel brandishing his sword at the moon from the top of the tallest spire. As a boy, his family had made the pilgrimage to Mont-Saint-Michel, but that was a very different time. The sacred abbey was now a prison of the worst sort.
Elias allowed his shoulders to slump and his head to bob up and down with the fatigue he longed to give in to while he approached the windmill as if he were a weary traveler hoping for shelter. Dismounting, he purposely stumbled and then tied the horse to a fence that kept stragglers from inadvertently walking into canvas blades. From a distance the wooden skeletons which allowed the sails to capture the force of thewind, were invisible. Up close, one realized how deadly those blades could be.
He looked up at the stone building sporting a thatched roof, one window on the second story and two wooden doors down below. He hoped it was a one-monk castle as Hag had said it would be. Using the side of his fist, he pounded on the door.
The door slowly creaked open, the light from a candle illuminating his face, not the mill-keeper’s. “Who are you?”
It wasn’t exactly the greeting of a holy man. Elias squinted into the light, unable to see the man beyond the flame. “Hag sent me.”
“I know of nohag.” The man drew out her name as if it was filthy and disgusting, then moved to close the door, the candlelight withdrawing inside.
Elias shoved his boot into the opening and said, “Aventine sent me for Father Charles.” The door still slammed against his foot. He ground his teeth, but didn’t remove his foot.
The glow of the candle felt warm against his face as once more the man lifted it to look into his eyes. He could feel the man study his features as the light shifted back and forth across his cheekbones. “Elias?”
“Yes, I am Elias, her son.”
“You’re a soldier?”
