Page 72 of The Rebellious Countess
“Never—”
Máira gasped. “Father Charles was headed to the chapel.”
Elias threw his hands in the air. “Stop talking.”
Sébastien shook his head. “A terrible spy.”
Máira looked at the two of them and then directed her argument to Elias. “You’re the one who said the fool was headed toward a den of angry men.”
“You’re the one who gave away the identity of your accomplice,” Sébastien interjected as if she’d been arguing with him. Which she certainly was not going to do. He was a child.
Elias raised his right hand, palm in the air as if he were serving the boy’s words on a platter. She stuck her tongue out at the two of them and turned to gather her satchel and supplies. A giggle sounded behind her, the joyous noise as strange as sunshine in the dark gloom of the diseased prison.
“He’s ready,” she told Elias, who closed the door and then moved over and sat down on the floor next to Simon. With Simon’s good arm draped over one shoulder, Elias leaned over and pulled the earl up across his back, lifting one of the earl’s legs over his other shoulder. Elias pushed to his feet and held Simon as if the earl was a cape covering his shoulders. She expected Simon to cry out in pain or at least moan, but nothing fell from his lips.
Sébastien looked out the door and then opened it. Elias followed with Máira picking up the rear, watching Simon for any sign of pain. They moved swiftly and entered the refectory and Sébastien went to the right, not toward the cloister where they’d entered. She watched the room, her nerves on edge as she waited for someone to yell, “Stop, they’re escaping!” No one even glanced their way.
A raspy cough drew her attention to a soldier sitting up against the wall. His finger was raised in their direction…pointing. His mouth was open as if he was desperately attempting to raise the alarm, but the cough racking his body refused to allow him respite. She paused and leaned over the man, but before she could utter a word, the soldier grabbed her by the front of her shirt. Her hat tipped, her hair threatening to tumble out for all to see.
As if sensing she was not following him, Elias stopped and turned around slowly with the earl hanging like a limp rag doll on his back. His expression was as cold as she had ever seen it and she was afraid he would kill the soldier where he sat.
Máira took control and said in a loud voice, her tone turning scratchy as she attempted to deepen her words to sound like a young boy on the cusp of manhood. “The English scum died. He’s going to burn the body so he can’t have a proper burial.” Her French was flawless.
The soldier looked at the unconscious earl, his eyes squinting to clear his unfocused gaze. A small lift of the corner of his mouth signified he believed her lie, before his coughing consumed him, his odorous breath worse than the air around them. He released her shirt and bent over in desperation to catch his breath. Too involved in his own fight for breath, the soldier paid no heed to their departure.
Sébastien waited for them at a doorway, then held it open for them to pass into the fresh night air.
“Where are we going?” she asked, as she quietly closed the door behind them.
“A different route.” Elias gave her no hint of where or why they weren’t returning the way they came.
“But—”
He stopped, turned around and glared at her. His left hand held the earl’s wrist and ankle together, his knuckles white with the strain. Then she saw the pistol in his right hand, not directed at her, but ready to face any threat with deadly force.
He had been ready to shoot the man in the refectory…for her, he had been willing to risk his rescue mission, himself, the boy—everything. She understood the anger radiating off him and the death glare that said,don’t push me.
She nodded, and he turned back toward Sébastien as they made their way along an exterior covered walkway on the north side of the abbey. The sea breeze struck her in the face, fresh, briny, the weather cooler than it had been when they arrived. Clouds still covered the sky, making the full moon completely invisible. The motion of the tide hitting the rocks below made her pulse quicken.
They were late. Their pace increased, each one of them aware of what the crashing waves meant. They reached the opposite end of the abbey, and at the corner of the cloister, Sébastien turned toward the sea, and crossed the open piazza that ran almost the entire length of the north side. He stopped when he reached the wall. A heavy iron gate barred them from exiting. She quickly moved forward and bent down to look at the lock mechanism. It was similar to the lock that had broken her tool. It was also in similar condition, if not worse.
Her satchel clinked as she set it down, and she suddenly remembered the bottle of holy oil she’d picked up off the ground and shoved in her bag when the Elias and the priest were carrying the dead soldier’s body. She pulled it out and stared at it for a moment, wondering if she was damning them to hell. She shrugged. They were damned if she didn’t.
She popped the cork from the bottle with her teeth and dribbled the oil slowly into the lock and then on the end of her tool. Inserting the pick into the lock, she wiggled back and forth. She pulled it back out and poured more oil on the tip. Poking and turning until she found the right position and felt the mechanism tightening around it. Slowing she pushed, but still,it wouldn’t budge. She pulled out the pick and ran her fingers down the length of it, afraid she would find a stress fracture.
“You know how to tease a man,” Elias said from directly behind her.
She met his gaze over her shoulder, and for one blessed moment she swore she saw love in its depths. Then he winked and she remembered the mission. The mission that started with a wink and a dropped package. That wink had stolen her heart the very first day they’d met, and she suddenly realized the fissure wasn’t in her tool, but it would be in her heart when this was over.
“You can do it. I have faith in you.”
He did. She looked at Simon who was on the ground leaning against the wall to her right while Sébastien stroked the hair from his face. She steeled her heart and refused to let it break. Simon was the reason they were here. It may not have been her mission in the beginning, but it was now. She would get him home.
She nodded and refocused on her task. She thrust the tool in the lock and turned, attacking the lock with as much force as she dared, and just as she suspected the tool would break, the lock snapped open, iron slamming against iron. It would have been loud inside the abbey, out here at the sea wall, the noise was drowned out by breaking waves as the door creaked open.
Elias turned toward Sébastien his voice low and steady. “This is where we must part, Sébastien. I cannot take you across the bay. Tell the women you could not make it across before the tide came in.”
She stepped in front of him. “What? We can’t leave him behind! That soldier saw him with us,” she whispered.
