Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance) (34 page)

Evan parried and stepped aside, then threw the jacket in Villars’ face as he came about.

The Frenchman sputtered, flung the jacket to the ground, and then began to circle.

Evan had practiced sword fighting since he was ten years old. He had fought over a dozen actual duels that had ended in bloodshed, serious injury, even accidental death.

But all of that was a distant memory, childish play-fighting in well-lit corridors and mist-shrouded meadows.

For the first time ever, Evan was fighting furiously for his life.

Feint, advance, attack, parry, riposte. Their swords clanged together and flashed in the moonlight.

Villars was good – quite good. And Evan’s swordplay had suffered during his drunken year of solitude.

But the terror coursing through his veins brought it all back.

Villars lunged.

Evan slapped away the blade and riposted.

Villars parried.

Evan stumbled.

Villars rushed in and was clumsy in his effort to exploit his foe’s momentary weakness.

Evan recovered, whirled around, and slashed the blade as he went.

Villars cried out as the steel cut his arm. He grasped his shoulder – and in that instant, Evan knew he had him.

He attacked relentlessly. Villars, with one arm crossing his body, was unable to respond as smoothly. By the time he had regained his stance, Evan’s blade circled around and whipped to the left –

Villars’ blade went flying off to the side.

Evan’s sword darted forward.

Villars stumbled back onto the grass –

Beaten.

Except that he had landed only two feet from one of the pistols.

Both Villars and Evan saw it at the same second.

Villars rolled, grabbed the gun –

Evan’s sword jabbed where he thought the Frenchman would wind up. The tip pierced his shoulder, but not deeply enough to do more than wound him.

The Frenchman cursed, staggered backwards, and raised the pistol.

He cocked the hammer as Evan stood there, sword in hand but out of range, looking down the barrel of the gun.

“Too bad, Englishman,” Villars hissed. “May you rot in Hell.”

Suddenly, Villars’ body jerked as though he had been struck from behind. He cried out in agony, dropped the gun, and toppled onto all fours in the grass.

A silver handle jutted from his back.

Evan gasped.

It was the gift he had given Marian almost two years ago – which meant that a six-inch blade was now buried in Villars’ body.

Marian stood behind him, her face twisted in horror and anguish. Behind her on the ground, the cloth bundle laid undone. Amongst the loaves of bread and bottles of water lay a lambskin sheath, now empty.

A circle of red quickly spread across the back of Villars’ white shirt.

“No!” he choked out as he collapsed to the ground.

His body twitched, his eyes stared out into nothingness… and then he was still.

Evan dropped his sword, rushed to Marian, and gathered her into his arms. “Thank you.”

“I… I didn’t want to kill him…” she said, her voice trembling.

“I know, dearest, I know,” he whispered into her ear. “But you saved my life. You saved my life.”

She burst into tears and sobbed against his chest.

Dawn broke. The shadows began to recede as dim light filtered through the treetops.

Evan hid the body under a pile of leaves far from the gap in the wall. After he was finished, he put on the sword belt and jacket, tied up the bundle of water and bread, and went to collect Marian.

She knelt by a small stream that trickled through a mossy ravine. She was washing the knife in the water, though it looked like it had been clean long ago. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

“Darling, we should go,” he said softly.

She did not seem to hear him, but kept on washing the blade.

He went down to the water’s edge, gently took the knife from her, slipped it into the sheath, and put it inside his jacket.

“We should go,” he said kindly.

She nodded, her face pale and wan, and stood up. He kissed her lips softly, dried her tears, then walked with her through the woods, her hand clasped in his.

She leaned against him, and his arm encircled her.

The sky turned pink as the sun rose in the distance.

They discussed their circumstances as they walked, and decided it was too risky to endanger Dardanelle and his family. Instead of going to Meudon, they continued on, until they came to a small village where Evan was able to rent a two-seater carriage.

The man at the stables seemed as though he had questions, but one look at Evan’s uniform – and another at his money – convinced him to keep his inquiries to himself.

They reached Calais in two days.

Unlike when Evan arrived in France and spent four days getting to Paris, the uniform sped his way faster than even he could have guessed. The provincial soldiers were incredibly deferential, the stable masters even more so. The one time he was challenged by some haughty local mayor, Evan produced the paper Villars had signed and was ushered immediately through, with apologies and cringing bows.

Outside the carriage, Marian was ‘the prisoner.’ One look at her wan, worried face, and everyone was completely convinced.

Inside the carriage, Evan would close the shutters and hold her in his arms. She slept fitfully, dozing as the carriage clattered and jolted its way down the rutted roads towards the coast.

They did not even stop for the first night. Evan was afraid that if Villars’ body were discovered, word might fly out from Paris to be on the lookout for a lone soldier escorting a young woman.

He did not think it likely to happen, but he had not thought that Villars would ambush them at the gap in the wall, either.

Marian did not protest. She was exhausted, but more than that, she was frightened.

And so they continued their journey non-stop, swapping out their horses for fresh ones every fifteen miles or so, long through the dead of night and into the next morning.

When they were twenty miles out of Calais, Evan decided they could take a risk. They boarded in a small inn where Marian tossed and turned with nightmares. Evan slept a few hours, though he barred the door with the wardrobe in the room, and kept both pistols by the bed.

They reached Calais late the next morning. Evan settled up with the driver, then led a dazed Marian down to the docks.

There were no hissed asides of
“Sacre Anglais”
from the townspeople as he passed. If anyone said anything at all, it was “Vive la Nation” or “Vive la Revolution.”

They were in luck. The tide was in, and the winds were good. They looked among the ships until Evan found a merchant ship bearing the Union Jack. To be absolutely sure, he asked in French, “Where are you headed?”

The captain, a truculent little man with a black beard, snapped, “What’s it to you?”

Evan looked around to make sure no one was near enough to hear him, then dropped the French and spoke in a proper English accent. “Just wondering if the lady and I could buy passage on your ship.”

The man looked thunderstruck. “Who the hell are you?”

“Evan Blake, good sir, son of Lord Blake, and I need your help. Where are you sailing?”

“Dover – how the hell did you come to be wearin’ that costume there?”

“I’ll tell you once we’ve set sail. May we come aboard?”

“It’s a half pound apiece,” the captain grumbled.

The price was outrageous.

“Done,” Evan agreed, and handed over a sovereign.

The captain looked sideways at Marian. “I’m not transportin’ any Frenchies.”

“Good, because I’m English through and through,” Marian said in her London accent.

Evan looked over at her.

“After yesterday I am, anyway,” she said, and squeezed his hand as they shared a smile.

“Welcome aboard, then,” the captain chuckled. “We set sail within the hour.”

Evan produced another gold coin. “Can we leave a little faster than that?”

The captain’s eyes widened, and he pocketed the coin.

“We sail in ten minutes,” he said, then turned and began yelling at his crew.

Evan and Marian stood at the stern of the ship, his arms wrapped around her from behind, and watched as the coast of France receded from sight.

“I wonder if I shall ever see it again,” she murmured. “Something tells me I never will.”

“Thank God for that,” Evan said. “If I never set foot in France again, it will be too soon.”

“
You
didn’t just lose your entire life.”

“Neither did you.”

She thought about that for a second, then broke into a wan smile. “Poor choice of words on my part.”

“I have bested
la Parisienne
at wordplay? This is one for the history books.”

“I’m not
la Parisienne
any longer… only
l’Anglaise,
” she said sadly. “And perhaps not even that.”

“Perhaps you should just be Marian Willows.”

She rested her head against his chest. “Perhaps.”

“Or…” Evan continued cautiously, “…perhaps Mrs. Evan Blake.”

Marian’s eyes opened wide, and she jerked her head away so she could stare up at him. “What?!”

Evan grinned, then slowly got down on one knee before her. “Marian Willows… will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

Her eyes filled with tears and she clasped her hands to her mouth. “What are saying? Why are you doing this?”

He took her hands in his and kissed them. “Because I love you. I have always loved you.”

“This isn’t because I… because of what happened at the wall, is it?” she sobbed.

“Because you saved my life? No. As you’ll recall, I saved yours by getting you out of Paris,” he said cheekily.

She burst into laughter. “I recall hiding you in a bed.”

“All right, you may be one up on me.” He grinned, then grew deadly serious. “Do you know what I was thinking the entire time I was trying to reach you, through all that death and suffering I saw in the streets?”

She shook her head.

“I was thinking, ‘Please God, let me reach her safely, and make her come home with me. If not, I would rather die here in Paris than be forced to return to England without her.’”

Tears streamed down her cheeks faster than she could wipe them away.

“I was a fool two years ago, Marian, and I lost the only woman I had ever loved. Please… don’t make me live through that twice.”

She looked up to the sky as though beseeching the heavens for strength, then back down at Evan. “But what of your inheritance?”

“Damn my inheritance.”

“What of your titles, society – ”

“Damn them all, if I can’t have you.”

He pulled her hand back to his lips and kissed it.

“Please? Will you marry me?”

She looked down at him. Unable to speak, she nodded ‘yes.’

He bolted to his feet, happier than he had ever been in his entire life. “Yes?!”

“Yes!” she sobbed with a smile, and threw her arms around him.

The wedding was tiny but beautiful. The ceremony was held in a small, centuries-old chapel. Marian was the picture of beauty in a simple white dress and a bouquet of white roses. Sunlight poured in through stained glass windows, lighting her and Evan in a thousand colors as they kept breaking into smiles despite their solemn vows.

There were only a couple dozen people who watched from the pews, but from the cheers they let out as the couple exited the church, one might have thought a crowd of a hundred was in attendance.

The newlyweds and their guests retired to Pemberly’s house, where they ate a sumptuous feast and drank far too much.

As the day wore on into evening, the guests – old schoolmates of Evan’s, friends of Mr. and Mrs. Willows, dear Mr. Powell of the scandalous library – said their goodbyes, one by one. The most distressing goodbye came courtesy of Marian’s parents as they waited for a carriage out front.

“Have a wonderful honeymoon, dear, and write us when you arrive!” Mrs. Willows instructed.

“Yes, Mum,” Marian said dutifully.

“My, but this is a grand house!” Mr. Willows said for the hundredth time, goggling up at Pemberly’s residence in awe.

“You never wrote at all when you were in France,” Mrs. Willows sniffed.

“That’s not true, I wrote you every month!”

“You write that scandalous nonsense,” Mrs. Willows said, dropping her voice, “and you could only write your dear mother once a month?”

“I’ll do better,” Marian promised grudgingly.

“How much does a place like this go for, do you think?” Mr. Willows asked his son-in-law, who was waiting for them.

“I could not tell you, sir,” Evan said.

“Will you write something I could read, for once? A book, I mean,” Mrs. Willows asked.

“I’ll consider it, Mum,” Marian said through gritted teeth as the carriage rolled up.

“Are you moving into a place like this?” Mr. Willows asked as he helped his wife in.

“No, I fear we’ll be living a bit more modestly,” Evan answered as he paid the driver.

“And when might I expect my first grandchild?” Mrs. Willows inquired as she leaned out of the window.

“Mother, we just got married!” Marian blushed.

“Right away I hope!” Mr. Willows interjected.

“Father!”

“That’s what honeymoons are for, you know!”

“FATHER!”

Marian just held her forehead as the old couple’s carriage drove away. Evan waved goodbye.

“I need another drink,” she muttered as the carriage sped away.

“As long as you’re still able to start on that grandchild tonight,” Evan grinned.

She swatted him on the shoulder as they returned inside.

The evening wore on until there were only four left: Andrew, Pemberly, Evan, and Marian. They sat around a table on the stone terrace, enjoying the cool September night.

“I want to apologize once again,” Andrew said. He was quite drunk at this point, and mawkishly sentimental about the entire wedding.