Page 61 of The Rebellious Countess
Father Charles closed his eyes and scrunched up his face like he’d swallowed something bitter.
Elias stepped closer to the man, crowding him, his own anger and frustration boiling to the surface as he bumped the priest’s chest with his own. “Out with it.”
“The Minister of War is your grandfather,” Father Charles said it so fast, it took a moment for the words to penetrate Elias’s anger.
Máira gasped.
Elias looked between her and the priest.
“Mon grand père?” It wasn’t possible. Hag had said both her parents were dead. The only grandfather he’d ever known had been a general, but he’d died while Elias was in England. He trusted her word to the point where he had not even looked for the man to kill him. “That’s not possible,” he insisted, but the look on the priest’s face told him it was. “Why did she tell me her parents were dead?”
The priest shrugged. It was Máira who filled in the answers that made the most sense. “Her parents probably disowned her when she married an Englishman. The same thing happened to my mother when she married a Scotsman in trade. It’s all in their hatred of bloodlines.”
“No,” he said, slowly shaking his head. The feelings of betrayal washing back over him after years of dormancy as he remembered his father pleading withmon grand pèreto take Elias away before the general killed him.
“That’s not it.” He dared to expose his pain to Máira as he looked into her deep blue eyes for an anchor to ground him as he explained. “It’s because I swore to her that I would kill him.” The hatred he’d felt for the man years ago returned with each word he uttered. When she reached for him with tears welling in her eyes, he knew she felt the waves of grief washing over him, threatening to drown him. He should have grabbed hold of the lifeline she offered. But he couldn’t. He’d taken an oath, and as captain, he was going down with the ship he’d sworn allegianceto years ago. He would not, however, take her with him. He didn’t see the pain his rebuff caused her as he turned toward the door. He was too caught up in his thoughts of revenge against the brutal French military man who still lived.
“I made a promise to my dead father as we fell from that tree together. I vowed the bastard who killed him would die by my hand. I made it once more to my grieving mother as she cried over his body. And it’s a vow I mean to keep.”
Fifteen
Dearest Iseabail,
I am told that you have been advised of the circumstances surrounding my marriage, but what you cannot possibly know is that my feelings for my husband have only grown. I would not change one moment I have spent getting to know this incredible man who owns my heart completely. I will not seek an annulment as he has suggested. If our union is to be dissolved, it will be done by him, not me.
Do not think that I have been absconded or abused in any manner. On the contrary, my husband has treated me with caring consideration. Beyond love, no woman could ask for more. Our honeymoon has taken on the greatest meaning a person could hope for. Do not fret, I am well and I will see you upon my return.
Your loving sister,
Máira
—A letter written to the Duchess of Ross, from her younger sister Máira Blair Collins, or Lady Drake. The letter was never sent by the young bride, however. Hag found it and sent it to the Duchess. It arrived one day after the letter from Elias.
Despite Elias’s desire to immediately storm the abbey and rescue Astley, the tide had not cooperated. They’d discussed the plan over and over until Máira had made him stop. Father Charles was dead on his feet, and so was she. He relented and was somehow able to sleep the rest of the night on the bed next to her, while the priest slept in the hammock he’d moved to the second floor of the mill.
The entire next day was spent preparing. Father Charles had introduced them to intricate maps of the island he’d created in preparation for the rescue. Although Hag had not told the priest about the rescue, Father Charles had anticipated it, as there was no other reason for Elias to want to visit the prison.
The abbey was surrounded by battlements all along the Mont Saint Michel Bay. To the west, craggy cliffs rose up to a less guarded wall that was hidden from the main outlook, Gabriel’s Tower. There was also a small stone chapel, dedicated to the priest who was directed by the archangel Saint Michel to build the church. Elias had wanted to enter the abbey through the staircase leading up the mountainside from the Chapel of Saint Aubert, but Father Charles rejected that immediately.
“I do not know what is happening at the Chapel of Saint Aubert, but whatever it is, it has become heavily fortified in the past several weeks. We would be caught before we arrived.”
This had caused another argument about Máira’s participation, but Father Charles had stood his ground. “Their presence makes our need of her ability to break into places that much more important. She will cut down our exposure and the noise of you muscling through every gate and door.”
Elias scowled, but in the end, agreed when they were ready to leave as the cloud cover disguised the sunset, and the tide began to ebb. Dressed in borrowed clothes from Father Charles she’d spent the day altering to the best of her ability, Máira secured her hair with twine and hid it under a farmer’s hat the priesthad in his barn. Father Charles had a fairly small foot, but she’d stuffed the shoes with remnants from her altered clothing into the toes to help with the fit.
Then she gathered supplies for injuries Simon may have incurred at the hands of the French and stuffed them in her satchel. Elias and the priest carried bags over their shoulders full of weaponry chosen because it was silent but deadly. Why a priest would have such a collection, Máira didn’t know and she didn’t ask. Elias, however, had been rather pleased.
Elias led the way as they traveled across the hills to the Couesnon River with Father Charles in the rear. From there, they followed the cold waterway to the Bay of Mont Saint Michel. Their pace was uncomfortable, but necessary to take advantage of as much low tide as possible.
As they reached the bay, they removed their shoes and the men stuffed them in their bags. Walking across the mud and muck of the bay at low tide felt as if the earth would swallow her whole if she stood in one place too long. Yet when the voices of the guards on the ramparts of the abbey carried to them on the wind, they were forced to stop. Máira wiggled her toes, and panic nearly overtook her as she began to sink.
“Don’t wiggle, you’re making it worse,” Father Charles scolded, his voice barely audible over the breeze. “The more you wiggle, the more you sink and the more you sink, the more you get stuck.”
Elias turned to look at her, his shock and the whites of his eyes flashing in the moonlight as he quickly took in how far she’d sunk in the muck.
She whimpered.
“Do not move.” The priest hissed.
