Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) (26 page)

Within it lay a small woman, dwarfed by the size of the bed.

Cosette laughed shortly. “This old woman and I, we are enemies to be feared.” She shook her head at the nonsense.

“Cosette? Cosette, who is there?” Beth’s grandmother called out feebly, in French.

Cosette moved forward and looked down upon the face of the woman she had loved for more than seventy years. “Elizabeth is here, Denise. Philippe’s daughter.”

Shock outlined the small, pale face framed by two long, thin white braids. Denise’s hand groped the air futilely, searching for a hand to touch.

“Elizabeth?”

Cosette inclined her head toward Beth, “She cannot see,” she whispered discreetly.

Her heart bleeding, Beth drew closer to the bed and fell to her knees beside her grandmother. She took the fragile hand reverently in hers and pressed a kiss to the translucent skin.

“Right here, Grandmere.”

The old woman felt the tears that were staining her hand. Very gently, she felt along the girl’s face, trying to see her in her mind’s eye. Blindness was only the last of a long line of indignities she had been made to suffer these last five years.

“You have grown to be beautiful. No, no tears, little one,” she chided. “But why have you come here? It is not safe. Not safe.”

Sorrow clawed at Beth’s throat, but she forced the tears back for her grandmother’s sake. “I’ve come for Father.”

The old lips trembled as Denise fought back tears of her own. Too much, it took too much from her. She
could not cry now, for she would fall asleep. And every
moment lost to sleep was a moment closer to everlasting eternity. She did not want to leave Cosette to bear this all on her own.

The words were barley audible. “You are too late.”

Beth’s great-aunt had said he’d been taken. “Where did they take him, do you know?” Duncan asked urgently, as he stepped forward.

Denise turned her head at the sound of a new voice. “Who is this?”

“A young man who has come with Elizabeth,” Cosette explained tactfully.

“Duncan Fitzhugh, Madam Beaulieu.” Duncan touched Denise’s hand.

She grasped it and his heart was heavy at the feeble
strength he felt there. Her hold on life was but a thin
thread now, he thought. He knelt beside the bed and al
lowed the old woman to glide her fingertips along his face.

“A fine man. A strong man,” Denise pronounced, satisfied with what her hands saw. She dropped them to her side. “Your husband?” she asked Beth.

“Her protector,” Duncan informed her easily, sparing Beth the awkwardness of attempting to explain why they were here together.

“Then you have your work cut out for you, monsieur,” Denise said quietly. “For there is much here to protect her from.” She turned her head in Beth’s direction, and urgent expression on her worn face. “Go back, Elizabeth, go back.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Her grandmother’s softly voiced entreaty hung in the air between them, but Beth could not find it in her heart to obey.

“I cannot leave without Father,” Beth told her.

Denise moved her head from side to side. “Stubborn, just like Philippe. I told him to leave, but he would not
heed my words, either. And now,” tears choked the very
words from her, “it is too late.”

Duncan looked from the frail woman in the bed to the
one at his elbow. Of the two, he knew that Cosette would have the sharper mind. He asked his question once more, hoping this time to receive an answer.

“Do you know where they took him?”

Cosette could not tell him and her helplessness angered her.

“No. I have attempted to discover that, but I can find no one who knows.” Cosette drew herself up as if to brace herself against the mere memory of that day. ‘The rabble came to our door one morning at dawn almost four months ago. Robespierre was at their head.” Her mouth twisted as if she had tasted an unripened apple.

“The evil spawn of Satan seized my good nephew, saying that he was to stand trial for his family’s crimes against the people. Crimes.” Her voice shook as she repeated the word. “It is they who are guilty of crimes, not we. We have done nothing against them.”

Her eyes grew darker still. “The servants were given a choice of joining the Revolution, or going with Philippe.” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “Andre chose to go with him. Robespierre ran Andre through with a sword before my eyes.”

“Andre?” Duncan asked.

He restrained his inclination to draw the old woman into his arms and give her comfort. He knew she would surely lose the last of her strength if he did, and he could not strip her of that. So he remained where he was, and ached for her grief.

“Our steward,” Denise replied, her voice filled with pity, with tears. “He had been with the family since my wedding day, oh, so many years ago.” She sighed deeply, mourning the loss. “He should have not said what he did, but gone with the rest. Andre was a foolish, foolish old man.”

Cosette waved a tired hand at the memory, at all the
memories that crowded her mind, fervently wishing them gone.

“Now he is a dead foolish old man.” Her eyes turned toward Duncan. “As they hope we will both soon be. They left us alive, my sister and me, hoping that we would starve to death.”

She raised her chin proudly, and Duncan immediately
thought of Beth.

“So far, we have not.” Cosette looked from Duncan to Beth. “There is not much to offer you, but what we have, we will gladly—“

“No.” Duncan was quick to silence the old woman before her offer was completed. “Thank you, but we
could not take a morsel from you, Madam Beaulieu,” he
took Denise’s hand in his. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“You are leaving?” she asked, pleased that he at least
was heeding her advice after all and would surely be taking her granddaughter away with him.

“For a moment only.” He took a step toward the door,
aware that Beth had risen to her feet and was watching
him intently. “Stay here, Beth,” he cautioned when she
crossed to him. “Jacob and I will go into Paris—“

Oh, no, she was not about to be left behind like so much baggage to be discarded at will. “If you leave, I will go with you.”

She would only get in the way. He and Jacob could move more stealth fully without her.

“A little hunting venture, Beth, that’s all.” He saw
that she was waiting for more. “I want to see for myself what there is to see and how the winds of war are blow
ing.”

But Beth was not so ready to let him out of her sight. If there were dangers for her, they existed for him as well. And he had a further disadvantage. “You said you did not even speak the language.”

That was not altogether true. He smiled at her confidently. “I know a few words.”

And she knew exactly what words they were. “Je
t’aime will not help you get by,” she retorted knowingly,
her hands upon her hips.

Duncan saw the way she fingered the hilt of her pistol and laughed. “Who knows? Perhaps Robespierre’s first lieutenant is a woman.”

“Then I will cut her heart out,” Beth assured him. “One piece at a time.”

“Stop, Beth, you are frightening me.” He winked, then brushed a kiss quickly to her cheek. He noted that her great-aunt was watching them in reserved silence. “There are ways of gathering information that do not always involve long, flowing words. I am not a babe in the wood, Beth. Streets are streets and men with dark hearts and dark secrets are the same whether they speak English or French.”

He saw the concern in her eyes and it pleased him. So
she did care a little. “I shall return by dusk, I promise.”

If something happened to him because of her, she
would never be able to forgive herself. Beth bit her lip.
“And what if you do not—?”

If they had not been in the presence of her great-aunt and her grandmother, he would have swept her in his arms and reassured her with a kiss instead of words.

“I will not leave you here alone, Beth.” Duncan touched his hand to hers to seal the bargain. “That I swear to you.”

Beth watched with a heavy heart as he kissed her great-aunt’s hand and slipped out of the room. Worry
became her pitiless companion even before his footsteps
faded down the hall.

Beth forced herself not to think of all the things that could befall him while he was away from her. Instead,
she looked upon her grandmother again. The old woman
looked so lost within the bed, like a tiny drop of blood upon a snowbank.

Beth placed her hand upon her great-aunt’s. Cosette’s slanted toward her.

“What is being done for her?” Beth whispered.

Cosette shrugged helplessly. “She is eighty-six, Elizabeth. What can be done for her?”

The question only reinforced what Beth feared in her
heart. “She is dying?”

Cosette knotted together her long, thin fingers before her. In her mind were many scenes. She remembered best when she and Denise were young. Her most treasured memory was the first ball their father had taken them to, and how they’d danced the evening away. The memory made the answer that much more painful.

“Yes.”

Was there a sickness that was afflicting her grand
mother? A disease, perhaps, something she could try to
treat? “Why?”

It was a foolish question asked by the young of the old, Cosette thought, but she answered patiently. The child had come a long way and endangered herself because she still had ideals.

“Because she is eighty-six.”

Cosette saw that Denise had fallen asleep. She leaned over her sister and tucked one cold hand beneath the covers, then lovingly adjusted them about the fragile body. It was summer, but somehow it felt cold. It always felt cold these days.

“Because her heart is broken,” she continued in a whisper. “Because the France she knew has died, and her only son has been taken prisoner and perhaps died as well.” She turned to look at her grandniece. “There are many reasons.”

Cosette spread her hands airily, like thin, denuded
branches swaying in a storm. “Which reason would you
prefer?”

Beth drew her shoulders back. “I would prefer that she was not dying.”

“Yes.” Cosette nodded and pressed her lips together to hold back a sob that had risen to surprise her. “So would I.” She adjusted the covers once more, though there was no need. “I will be alone when she goes.”

Beth laid her hand on the old woman’s arm. “Never again,” she vowed softly. “Not while I am alive.”

Cosette placed her hand over Beth’s and smiled as she drew comfort from the young girl’s warmth.

Dusk swept over the grounds with a dusty straw broom, covering everything in gray.

Beth looked out the window for the dozenth time. She was very near to leaving her mind. Where was he?

The question repeated itself endlessly in her mind like the stubborn staccato of the rain when it beat against a windowpane. But there was no rain now, no reason given by nature for his delay.

Only one, she thought, created by man.

“He will come,” Cosette told her knowingly. “Your young man seems very capable to me.”

Beth turned from the window and attempted to seem
carefree. She was not successful, even in her estimation.
“He is.”

Cosette rocked slowly in her chair, the chair she spent most of her evenings in now. “But yet you worry.”

“Yes.”

Cosette sighed. “I understand. Capable or not, it makes no difference these days.” Her face contorted with the memory of that morning. “They come and they come and they come and still there is no end, no res
cue.” She looked into the empty hearth as if she saw the
ghost of flames there. “They come until we are no more.”

There was a noise at the back door and Beth’s pulse began to drum.

“What—?” Cosette began, her hands gripping the arms of her chair as she moved to rise.

Beth motioned her aunt to be silent as she listened for
the sounds. Someone was entering the house through the kitchen. She drew out her pistol and slowly cocked it. But she could only fire once, and there might be more than one of them. Quickly, she caught up a poker
from the fireplace and only wished that it was glowing
red-hot.

Her breath lodged within her throat, Beth whispered,
“Stay here,” to Cosette and stole quietly out to the
kitchen. Before she entered, Beth saw shadows upon the
wall. There were two.

With a cry, she leaped into the room, ready to fire upon the first who would make a move toward her.

Her knees felt weak with relief. “Duncan!”

The look of surprise on his face quickly melted into amusement. He gently nudged the muzzle of her pistol away from him and looked respectfully at the poker. “Were you thinking of running me through with that?”

She placed the poker upon the wooden table. Though her heart was glad to see him, she looked at Duncan accusingly for he had startled her.

“I thought you were some of the rabble, breaking in.” She glanced toward the parlor where she had left her aunt. “The stories my great-aunt and grandmere have been telling me have brought a chill to my blood.”

Duncan could well imagine what they might have said. “And they probably don’t know the half of it. It is just as I’ve heard, and worse.”

But he did not want to talk of what was befalling the countryside tonight. There was time enough for that to
morrow. Tonight there were stomachs to fill.

“Here.”

Duncan and Jacob opened the cloaks they held before
them. Beth’s eyes grew wide as she saw what tumbled out onto the table.

She looked at Duncan in wonder. “Where did you find all this?”

Jacob grinned foolishly at her as he bent to pick up the potatoes that had fallen to the floor.

Duncan shrugged carelessly, though he took pleasure in her look of amazement.

“We collected a little here, a little there. Surviving in the streets is not something that easily leaves you just because you have on a pair of polished boots.”