Page 33 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
Léon seemed nicer than he would have thought he was. Smarter. Kinder. More astute. Just as damnably beautiful up close as he had been across the town square, up on his scaffold, the first place Henry had set eyes on him.
He felt sick that he’d pulled the knife on Émile like that. He wanted to prove to Léon that he wasn’t going to hurt Émile in any way, to meet him on some level. So he’d spoiled the kid rotten, and while he’d more than made amends with Émile, all it seemed to have served to do with Léon was to piss him off even more. And that should have been a good thing. Henry wanted—no,needed—to keep Léon at arm’s length. It was bad enough that he knew who Catherine was. He must have known who Henry was by now, too. Or he could find out easily enough. And Henry had one chance to save his sister—that very night.
Yet, even if he knew it was for the best that Léon despised him, actively repelled him, he couldn’t help but move a little closer, sitting on another log that he’d pulled up to the fire earlier, saying quietly, “I am sorry. For all of it. I’ll be out of your way in a matter of hours. If you could…” How to ask him to stay out of the way? How could he trust that he would? Maybe he should have drugged Léon’s water, like he had the wine ofÉmile’s babysitter. Then Léon wouldn’t have been able to leave. Not until Henry had escaped with Catherine. That or they were both dead. He edged a little closer, finally catching the wary eyes. “Do you understand why I’ve done this?”
Léon’s gaze dropped to the boy, right on the cusp of sleep, his only family, precious beneath his fingertips. “I do.”
“I’ll go to the prison. Soon. Please don’t get in my way. You’re planning to kill her in the morning, anyway. What difference should it make to you?”
Léon made no reply, which set Henry on his guard. Why hadn’t he simply acquiesced? Did he know something Henry didn’t? Was he planning something?
But there was Léon, at the crossroads he’d been dreading all day. Should he tell Henry the truth, that the keys were fake? Risk his anger? What time was it? After ten? Was Mollard still there? Did Henry have time to shoot both Léon and Émile, run fast to town, shoot Mollard, kill the guards, break his sister out, and get away?
“What time is it?” Léon asked.
Henry frowned at him. He took a moment to do it, but he pulled his watch free. “A little after nine.”
He could make it. Unless Léon stalled him. “Then it’s to Paris? If you get her out?”
Henry stared at Léon, taking his measure. He’d already told him that was the plan. Why ask again? But what did it matter? These people wouldn’t be able to touch him in Paris. “That’s right.”
Léon gave a small nod. “Because you’ll both be safe there?”
“That’s why we came here. We were making for Paris when… the incident happened.”
“From England?”
Henry was hesitant to answer, to engage with the unexpected flurry of questions, but when he did, he made sure his French accent came back thicker. “That’s right. Just a visit.”
Léon, with a glance towards the path back to town, asked, “What’s it like there?”
Henry’s left eyebrow twitched, but he wanted Léon onside, so he answered honestly. “It’s lovely. Quite beautiful. Where I’m from— I mean to say, the-the part where we were, Catherine and I… It’s very beautiful. Green fields and flowers and fresh air. It’s… a sort of paradise.”
With a touch more interest than just stalling conversation, “Then why on earth would you leave?”
“I ask myself that most days now,” Henry joked, offering a melancholy smile while taking up a long stick to poke at the fire.
“Probably because of all the English people,” Léon also joked. It was a small and deadpan one, but to Henry, it felt as though his heart had been dipped in honey.
He laughed. “Worst people I know.”
“No doubt.” Léon took some meat from his plate and pulled it apart, strand by strand. “Were they nice to you?”
“Hmm? The English? Um… Yes. They were nice to me. Mostly.”
“Funny, isn’t it? The things they do to our people, then you can walk amongst them as though it’s nothing. I don’t know how you controlled your anger. I don’t know if I…” He trailed off, having let himself come far too close to showing anger when he was supposed to be fooling Henry into thinking they were getting along.
Henry caught the animosity. “If you what?”
“Nothing. Just…” He couldn’t help himself. “I don’t know that I could look those people in the eye. The stories I hear from Toulouse. The atrocities those people commit. If I found myself in the presence of one of them, I don’t know if I could controlmyself.” Henry, knowing very little about Toulouse, besides the fact the English had been fighting bloody war there for years, searched around nervously for something to say, but Léon saved him with, “Is that why you left France? The war?”
“No. No, we left…”What to say?“Before the fighting broke out.” That sounded well enough. He went on quickly, “We’ve been in England for some time. And it was calm there. For a while.”
Genuinely interested now, Léon’s eyes met Henry’s, unguarded. “Then why Paris? It’s probably the least calm place you could possibly go in all the world.”
“That’s exactly why we were going there.” Henry lit with a fresh and confiding enthusiasm, giving Léon the impression he had inadvertently stumbled upon a beloved topic of conversation, particularly when Henry didn’t hold back on his well-trodden thoughts. “In England, the enlightenment’s still working its way into public consciousness. They have their men of letters and their academics and their poets, and those people all see sense well enough. But the monarchy are on their guard now, and there’s an old-world way of thinking about things over there that’s being shoved down the throats of anyone who will listen.” With a bitter grimace and a disparaging glance around the forest, “It’s every bit as backward as it is out here in the countryside.”
The comment ruffled Léon, Reims being, to him, and to many others, a prosperous and forward-thinking city. “What makes you think Paris will meet your high standards?”
