Page 73 of The Rebellious Countess
“That man will be dead before dawn,” Elias countered.
“I want to go with the earl.” Sébastien pleaded. “He needs me.”
Elias bent down and met the boy’s pleading stare. “I cannot help you across the bay. The sea will be too rough.”
Tears filled the boy’s gaze as he looked at the earl, and Máira’s heart nearly broke. He had lost his father, and God only knew the circumstances with his mother. The earl owned this boy’s heart.
“I can take him.”
Elias’s jaw tightened. “You will barely be able to make it across the bay yourself.”
“I can swim,” she insisted, as Sébastien looked on pleadingly with big, round eyes.
“This is not a Scottish loch. This bay has some of the most dangerous currents known. We will be lucky if the three of us make it across.”
“The boy comes, or I stay.” The three of them turned to look at the man who had brought them to this holy place that was more hell than heaven. Simon’s soft, shaky voice held his conviction as he looked at Sébastien. The effort to lift his head seeming to take every bit of the strength he owned. The boy hugged Simon, who gifted him with the briefest of smiles from within his scraggly beard.
“We won’t leave him behind,” Máira assured him.
“He is French. They will not hurt him,” Elias argued as the muscle in his jaw ticked.
“His father…was French.” Simon’s voice was but a whisper. “And he betrayed his country.”
“The boy did not,” Elias argued.
“I have an aunt and uncle who promised my father they would take me in if anything happened to him,” Sébastien interjected, hope evident on his face.
“His father…was caught with a letter…” Astley’s voice faltered. It was taking every ounce of his strength to argue with Elias. His last statement also took all his fight away. His gazeslowly traveled to Sébastien, and what Máira saw in his eyes was unmistakable. Guilt racked his soul, but the fondness for the boy was his saving grace. “Your aunt and uncle can’t take the risk, Sébastien.” The earl’s words were hard to hear, even harder to deliver for Simon.
“He could stay with Father Charles,” Máira suggested.
“No.” That one word held more passion than Simon had yet to demonstrate. “He returns home with us.” His eyes closed for the briefest of moments before staring Elias down. “I will not leave him to die or to be raised by strangers.”
A single nod from Elias was all it took to calm him and send Simon into a deep sleep. It was as if the earl had used every drop of fight he had within him to argue for Sébastien. Máira bent down and checked his breathing, then she reached into her bag and pulled out her flask. She had a bit more of the elixir. If he could take a bit more now, it would help him and give him strength for their journey.
“Won’t his stomach reject that?” Sébastien asked.
“No, it will soothe it and help him consume soup when we arrive at?—”
“After we cross the bay,” Elias cut her off before she could say where they were going.
Sébastien grinned. “You are a bad spy.”
Elias squatted down in front of Astley. His irritation and resistance gone, once the decision to take Sébastien with them had been made. “Help me get Astley on my back before you blurt out any more of our plans.” He winked at Sébastien, who grinned in return as they turned toward the steps.
“Stop! Identify yourself!”
They froze at the French command to stop. None of them had seen the large burly guard approaching them with a pistol in his hand. He held it across his chest with the barrel pointed in the air as if he were on a casual midnight stroll. His navy-coloreduniform blended amongst the shadows, but as he walked toward them across the piazza, a scabbard holding his long-curved saber slung low across his left hip. It clinked against his leg, the golden braids of his uniform glistened across an imposing barrel chest.
Máira swallowed hard. This man was dangerous. Leather lined the inside of his pant legs, identifying him as one of Napoleon’s reputed hussars who feared nothing and didn’t plan to live past the age of thirty—an age he’d well surpassed.
Máira wanted to curse the bloody island where they stood.
The man's tall fur hat with more gold braiding and a thick frond stood nearly a foot off the top of his head. He didn’t need the ridiculous hat to make him appear large. The closer he got, the more obvious the inches he had on Elias became. She’d never seen a man of his stature in her entire life.
Elias remained silent, yet with the man’s demand to know who they were, was a question only Elias could answer. For two boys to respond instead of a soldier would be completely out of place. Elias stood rigid and tall, looking absolutely magnificent as he turned toward the new obstacle to their escape. The corner of the soldier’s lip rose along with the corner of his long mustache, as if he suddenly relished the challenge in her husband’s stance. He pointed his pistol in the middle of Elias’s chest, and Máira was certain the man would shoot him with the least provocation. His actions might make one think he was afraid of Elias, except for the unabashed joy written all over his face at the prospect of killing.
If the soldier felt a drop of fear, she could not see it. Nor could she see one in her husband’s hardened gaze.
