Page 23 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
But Henry only looked down at the long fingers Léon held out, his own not moving, his expression darkening to grave with every passing second. He, appearing deep in grim thought, said softly, “Will you take her something from me?”
Léon’s hand curled into a slow, discarded ball, and he pulled it away, embarrassed. “Of course.”
Henry crossed the room and took a small scarf from his bag. It was silk, finer than anything Léon had ever seen up close, but Henry didn’t hesitate to sticky it with one of the small cakes he’d bought for Émile. He folded it in carefully, then came around behind Léon and Émile. He held out the parcel, which Léon took carefully, feeling the tremble of Henry’s fingers.
Then Henry’s hand pulled away, and his gravelly voice revealed, “It’s her favourite. She’ll know it’s from me. And she’ll trust you. Please tell her…” He thought it over, pain etched into every line of his face, which Léon saw him try to wrestle down to a blank canvas of angry reserve. “Tell her I won’t let her go like that. Tell her to stay brave and keep doing what she’s doing. Tell her…” Here his voice broke, and he turned his head away, the handsome brow contracting above shaking lips that he grimaced into submission. His voice came back hard and strong. “Tell herI’m working on it. And I’m sorry, Léon, truly, I am, but…” With a sharp glint of fading sunlight, a knife slid deftly beneath Émile’s chin, eliciting a sharp scream from the boy. Henry pulled his head back against his chest, lifting it so Léon could see the blade pressing into his throat. “I’m sorry. You understand.” His eyes searched Léon’s, terrified, desperate.
It took Léon a moment to process the act—for his mind to obliterate the just-formed notion that Henry was in any way like himself—to wipe clean the picture he’d begun to form of him as sympathetic, maybe even kind.
This man was a killer.
He was a killer, and he had a knife to little Émile’s throat.
Émile let out a whine, tears running fast down his cheeks as he struggled uselessly against Henry.
Henry’s dark eyes watched Léon’s hesitation, and a cruel sneer crept over his face. “If you’re not out that door by the time I count to three, I’ll do it right here, right now, and I’ll take the keys, and I’ll break her out myself.”
“I’m trying to help you,” Léon whispered, disbelief thickening his barely audible words.
“Three.”
Léon’s feet started backwards automatically, moving towards the door, Léon barely conscious of the flight.
“Henri!” Émile snapped. He stomped hard on Henry’s foot, but Henry’s grip was firm and precise, and he didn’t flinch no matter how roughly the boy fought.
“Two,” Henry ground out.
Léon’s mouth set firm, twisting itself back into a symbol of hatred, one that Henry was sure he had no chance of coming back from after that. He had nothing left to lose but his sister, which was exactly how things needed to be, and to firm that resolve, to do her the honour and the justice that he had promised he always would, he drove the final wedge betweenhimself and Léon with clear and foul words: “If you bring anyone else back with you, I’ll paint the floor with his blood before you get a foot inside.”
Léon shot one final, frightened, betrayed, heart-rending look at his brother, then was gone.
Just as quickly, Henry slammed the knife down on the table with all the revulsion of a man who’s found a leech at his vein, and he dropped to his knees, pulling Émile into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Émile smacked a palm into his shoulder, shoving him off, but keeping his voice quiet enough to avoid Léon’s hearing. “What did you do that for, you idiot?”
“I don’t know.” Henry sank fully to the floor, dropping his face into his hands, his words coming out muffled and miserable. “God, this is all so fucking awful.”
In the blackness of his eyelids, all Henry saw was Léon’s beautiful face, and that last glare of utter hatred. Then that look burning up into a vision of his sister’s execution, the sound of her screams, the visceral pain he felt in his own limbs at the thought of the fire touching her. Then, several seconds later, he was wrenched out of the lot by the feeling of a small hand running over his ear, and the tug on a stand of his hair as a finger twisted into it.
Henry looked up to see Émile’s round face, tear-stained, all soft sympathy under a mess of blond hair, just like his brother’s.
Émile offered up a slight smile, dimples winking at him, and he said, “That’s going to cost you ten livres.”
14
CATHERINE
Léon had never run so fast in his entire life. His body ached in every muscle with the lack of sleep and the strain of the night and the day and the burning fire of adrenaline that hadn’t let up in so long. He pushed on and on until he stumbled back through the door of the prison, slamming a hand down on Mollard’s desk, heaving out the words, “The girl’s papers. Give them here.”
The dull mouth slopped open at the sight of a sweaty, dishevelled Léon. “What?”
“The girl!” Léon snapped. “The one from this morning. Give it to me.”
Mollard did it slowly, begrudgingly, every treacle-like movement seemingly designed to set Léon closer to the edge, but he finally turned back with the papers, which Léon snatched from him.
“I don’t know what you want them for,” Mollard prodded. “It’s not like you can read.”
Léon didn’t hear him. He was already fast at work, taking the bundle to a corner of the room, pulling Émile’s note from his pocket, and searching the mess of ink for something that looked like the same letters. The first letter of the word, he found easily,over and over as his eyes roamed the page. He was no more schooled in the idea of reading left to right than he was in the practice of reading top to bottom, but he searched on and on, and soon found the letters there, all shaped in a bundle in perfect correspondence to Émile’s.
