Page 72 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
He slipped his key into the lock of Henry’s prison cell and turned it slowly, ever so slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible. His hand shook with the tension, gripping the key desperately tight, awaiting the slide of the lock.
Clank!It slipped with an unearthly bang that ricocheted about the tall and steep walls of the tower. Léon froze, expecting twenty guards to come running up the stairs, or at the very least, for Henry to call out. But not a sound came back other than the bats he’d unsettled with the noise.
Tentatively, he pushed the door open. It made a monstrous grunt as the ancient hinges creaked the door into place.
And there he was, huddled on a pile of straw, covered in a thin, dirty-looking blanket, his back to Léon.
“Henri?” Léon whispered, terrified of the state he must be in. “Henri, wake up.”
Léon picked his way across the floor, as though the straw strewn about the dirty stones might crackle and alert someone.
Henry lay still, like he didn’t hear him, but also like he wasn’t sleeping. As though… something was wrong. The thought hit Léon like a club—that something even worse than the cold had happened to Henry in here. That he’d taken a beating thatleft him barely breathing, or that he’d somehow managed to kill himself.
He wastoostill.
Léon held his place a step away, watching for a breath—praying for a breath. Because if he’d done this, put Henry here to be abused, hurt, worse… he would never forgive himself.
“Henri? Can you hear me?” Léon knelt by his side. He reached out a slow and tender hand for that strong arm.
A crack against his chin threw him back, and his head hit the floor, saved from being pulverised against the stone by a lucky clod of straw. But the next fist was in his stomach, slamming his shoulders forward with a gasp and a retch. A flat palm smacked into his arm, and he was on his side, gasping for air, pain coursing through his body, barely registering the rattle of keys as Henry picked the ring of them up off the floor.
Léon lay there, aware of Henry’s movements as he unlocked his shackles, as his chains clanked to the floor.
It was only fair. The things Léon had said—had done to him. Even as his cheek purpled and his lungs gasped for oxygen, his heart pulsed with the sum of pain he’d inflicted. He’d been so awful, but somehow, he’d thought Henry would understand. It horrified him to realise that every cold night Henry had spent alone in this cell, he’d spent the lot meditating on his hatred of Léon.
But Léon still had a job to do. He pushed himself up on one hand, ready to plead his case, and summarily found the other grasped. He was wrenched to his feet and thrown against the wall, his body like a rag doll. “Henri, I’m sorry. Please stop!”
All the violent and angry masculinity of Henry moved in one silent block, coming at Léon like a sledgehammer. Henry’s chest pressed against his, pinning him to the wall. His face, pure malevolence, such as Léon had never seen before. His lip, arched with a current of rage shaking it, was millilitres from his own.Léon forced himself to look up into those hate-filled eyes. He couldn’t fathom how to start. All he knew was the overwhelming desperation to make it better—to be liked, no,loved, by this man, whose hatred was so thick it suffocated him. He reached his hand out for Henry, and in the same instant felt the hot spit from Henry’s lips on his cut cheek. His face flinched away, eyes closed against the tears that burned in them, and his hand was caught.
He looked across in shock. “What are you doing?”Clack!The shackle closed on Léon’s wrist.Shink!The chain being wrenched through the loop, and Henry’s imposing body reaching to secure a link over a hook high in the wall, that Léon could no longer reach with his arm pulled taut by the chain. “Henri, stop it!”Clank!The other wrist was secured in the same fashion as though Léon hadn’t made a word of protest. “Henri!”
Henry leaned in close, the heat of his skin burning Léon’s cheeks. “Fuck you, Ange.”
His bare feet made a silent path to the door, where he began sorting his way through the keys, trying one after another. Léon would have told him if he’d asked. In a heartbeat. But Henry was too stubborn, too furious, to ask him for a thing. And Léon understood, so he told him the one thing he needed to know. “She’s in Amiens.”
Henry’s broad back stopped in the dim light, his hand stilling on the key in the lock.
“Or she should be. By now. They’re to wait for you there, at an inn on the far side of town. I told her you were coming.”
Henry turned dark eyes over his shoulder. “What?”
“With Souveraine. She’s safe. And they’re with Émile. And Henri, I can’t blame you for this, but, please… I’ll try to think of something—some excuse to explain to them why I’m here, when they come for you…” He glanced anxiously up at his binds.“Tell Émile I’m coming. And… If not… Please tell Souveraine I’m sorry.”
“Amiens?” Henry whispered.
“Then you can set sail if you want. Just get out of France. Because you’re, um… You’re quite famous. And you need to move faster than the news spreads. And once they know you’re on the run, it will spread faster still.”
Henry’s lips parted, deep breaths raising his shoulders. His eyes darted about the cell, over Léon, over his chains. His brow drew tight as he put the pieces together.
“Henri, wake up!” Léon snapped. “You have to go now. You have to run. Destroyer, he’s waiting, three streets from here. Go right, until Rue Saint Denis, a few doors down. Take him and run.”
“You brought Destroyer? For us?”
“Just how did you think we were to escape?”
“Escape?”
“Stop repeating everything I say! You’re due to burn three hours hence. The pyre, it’s enormous. They’ve been building it for days. I’ve been building it! The crowds that are coming to watch you— You need to go. There’s a hood in the saddlebag?—”
