The Tide Watchers (8 page)

Tavern Le Boeuf, Abbeville, France

August 26, 1802

T
HE STRANGER WAS BACK.

For the past seven nights a different man waited outside Le Boeuf beside the horse. When she'd backed away the first time, he'd said the words
tide watcher
and handed her a note.

Madame, please accept John's escort for a few days. I will return soon.

This John was a man of few words but kept his pistols ready. As they walked home, he constantly watched for signs of trouble, but there had been none. At the door of the
pension
he'd helped her off the horse, bowed, and vanished into the night.

But tonight
her
stranger sat at a well-lit table by the fire. He'd left his cloak on, probably so she could identify him. He couldn't know she'd already recognized him by his height and breadth, and the slight hunch of his left shoulder she'd noticed the other night.

Seeing her watching him, he moved his cloak to reveal the knee breeches, waistcoat, and cravat of the socially conscious, up-and-coming businessman. His waistcoat had too much embroidery on it. He ate ragout and swallowed ale with seeming gusto, yet the effect was the same: no sense of belonging. A purebred Arabian in a peasant's stable. Nothing but the cloak sat right on him.

Why was he showing her his face? What had changed?

Though she sensed a trap, she kept looking whenever she passed. She held him feature by feature in her memory, as if putting a puzzle of the world together.

He was younger than she'd supposed, perhaps thirty. His black hair was thick and tumbled, caught back in a naval riband. In the shadows cast by the warm, dark room and his hair it was hard to tell, but she thought his heavy-lidded eyes were brown. His brows soared toward his temples like raven's wings. He had a heavy nose, sharp-defined cheekbones, and a tense mouth above a chin with a cleft.

It was a striking if not handsome face. The scars on his cheeks drew her gaze. The left side had the worst injuries, with slashing cuts and the melted flesh of imperfectly healed burns concentrated near the ear. The other side had older cuts close to his mouth, and one by his eye.

A brave face with haunted eyes. Did all King's Men have that on-the-road-to-damnation look? How many times had she seen the self-loathing and desperate need to forget on her father's face whenever he came home? She'd never understood the expression until she married Alain. Until her first beating. Until she came to France and saw her first beheading. Until she could give no more than a pittance to hollow-eyed soldiers' or guillotine widows and their begging children because, if she gave more, she'd have to whore herself to survive.

Until Alain took Edmond from her, and in the mirror, she'd found her father's eyes in her face. Now she saw Papa reflected in the eyes of a stranger with lies on his tongue and suffering in his soul.

Her gaze flicked left. LeClerc and Tolbert were still at their table. During the past week they hadn't approached her, hadn't insisted she serve them, or even attempted to touch her. But they watched her, and the encore of their attack crept up on her from behind. She'd felt it all week, even with John in the tavern, or walking home beside her.

As if they'd waited for the stranger's return, she knew it would happen tonight.

After his meal, the stranger sat back in his chair, drinking ale, in no hurry to leave. Louise flirted as she served him, but his gaze remained on Lisbeth. Fear slow-dripped down her back, tossed from the guarded expression in his eyes. Whatever he wanted from her in exchange for his protection hovered on his tongue.

Not without Edmond. Never without Edmond.
The thought strengthened her.

At closing time he put a handful of coins down on the table, pushed back his chair, and crossed the fire-warm taproom to her. “I'll wait outside for you,
ma chère
.”

The low tone had a carrying quality, again spoken with the subtle Spanish accent.

She heard chairs scraping back. Without hurry, he turned to LeClerc and Tolbert. She couldn't see his expression but could visualize him smiling, fingering his pistols.

They hurried from the tavern.

“They're planning something,” she murmured. “Be on your guard.”

He looked down at her, conveying something with those shuttered eyes. “I'm glad your throat has healed.” Still without urgency, he left the tavern.

Louise came to help her with stacking glasses. “So that's why he wouldn't look at me.” The buxom, dark-haired girl grinned at Lisbeth and winked. “Smart girl, keeping yourself for him. There's something about big, fighting men, isn't there? And his accent . . .”

It came to this. Either she accepted his protection or fought the likes of LeClerc and Tolbert alone. Either she accepted his proposition, whatever it was, or waited for Alain to find a way to kill her. She smiled at Louise, quick and unhappy, and kept stacking the glasses.

An hour later, she stepped out into the cool air of a dying summer night. Within seconds the stranger appeared on the path beside her. “Good evening, monsieur.” Since marrying Alain she'd learned to sheath her sword. She still had Alain fooled that she was her mother's daughter, a gentle and refined lady well out of her depth, lacking intelligence and strength.

It was time to test this man out. To learn what he saw in her, what he wanted.

“Good evening, madame.” Again, as soon as they were alone, the Spanish accent vanished. “Allow me.” With cupped hands he lifted her onto the horse, now equipped with a sidesaddle. She settled onto it with
an odd sense of happiness. It felt nice. Almost like she'd returned to the girl she'd been before she'd run off with Alain —Mama would say, the girl she
ought
to have been. A low-lit lantern hung from a short rope tying it to the pommel. A rifle hung beneath that. He was well prepared. “They've gone?”

“For now.” After fishing in his cloak, he held out his hand. “I believe you know how to use this.”

Not startled by this knowledge of her, yet disturbed, she glanced at the pistol. It was the daintiest she'd seen, with pretty swirling patterns engraved on the handle. “Is this—?”

His smile sat oddly on him, a door where a window should be. “A lady's muff pistol, yes. It's for you.”

The sense of wrongness reached down into her heart like an ice blade. Testing him was no longer an amusement. “Monsieur, while I am grateful for—”

He shook his head, with an imperative air that made her indignation wither half spoken. “If you cannot name me Gaston, call me by an endearment. We want people to believe I'm your protector.” When she opened her mouth again, he lifted a hand. “
Protector
is a word with two meanings, madame. Be sure I will never ask you to be my mistress. I will only protect you from the likes of them.” That dark, heavy-lidded gaze met hers, older than his years: the wounded warrior enforced her reluctant belief. “It's primed. You have only one shot. Make it count.”

Unsettled more than she cared to admit, she nodded. Last time, he'd saved her from the unspeakable. Tonight he led her on an unseen dance into a storm. Riding while holding a pistol and looking out for attackers—what had happened to her? Every time this man came near her she fell into emotional and physical quicksilver.

At a crossroads, she had a choice: to follow his lead, to fall in with him, or to back away from the poison. She had the right to say no—and she would, if he asked the wrong question.

“Be prepared,” he murmured as he led the horse toward the town.

“Nobody will believe you're my protector if I know nothing but your name, monsieur.”

“That's reasonable.” He sounded restless, dissatisfied. “I am the son of Abbeville's former mayor. My parents and sister were beheaded early in the Revolution. I escaped to Spain and served in the naval forces. I rose to the rank of first lieutenant. I returned to France a few days ago. I plan to become involved in local government like my father.”

“An interesting history,” she murmured in polite disbelief. “Do you know local politics?”

His gloved hands moved like a shrug. “I haven't lived here since I was a child. Any ignorance on my part will be excused for a few months. In any case, I won't be here long.”

Everything he said tonight left her unsettled. “How many times have you needed to adopt another life?”

“Choose your endearment,
ma chère
. I believe our furious friends are watching us from the alley to the left.” His hands held his pistols, straight and steady.

She glanced over and shivered. “Does this pistol throw at all,
mon coeur
?”

He glanced up, the hood falling back. His eyes gleamed with approval in the light of the fuller moon. “A little to the right, at this distance perhaps two inches. Can you compensate?”

“I hope so,
mon coeur
.” She let the reins fall. Holding the pistol, she used the left wrist as balance as she took aim at the men, controlling the tremors in her hand.

He aimed both pistols with his feet planted apart, left in front of the right. “Annoy my woman again at your peril, messieurs.” The words rang across the street, Spanish accented.

LeClerc stepped into the light. “You won't shoot us for the sake of a stupid English bitch—”

The pistol dropped, aimed. The stranger pulled the hammer, tensed his body, and fired.

Lisbeth rocked back in shock with the explosion. The horse didn't flinch at the sound or rear when the air filled with acrid smoke. Obviously a trained battle horse. Was the stranger cavalry, then?

A scream split the night. When the smoke thinned, she saw LeClerc sprawled on the cobbled street, holding one foot and howling.

Candles lit in windows all along the street. Silhouettes appeared at windows, but in seconds the curtains pulled back together. Memories of the Terror were slow to vanish. Nobody would risk becoming involved.

“You're crazed!” Tolbert shouted. “Why did you shoot him? We only wanted some fun with the girl. If you're happy to share, we can—”

The stranger dropped the second pistol to Tolbert's feet. “Find your fun with a willing woman. This one doesn't like you.”

Tolbert bolted, leaving his friend on the ground, moaning and weeping.

The stranger strolled toward LeClerc. “Are we done, m'sieur?”

“You wait until I . . .” When he saw the pistol turning to his other foot, LeClerc cringed further into the road. “Yes, yes—take her, I don't want her!”

“Good choice.” He stooped, pocketed LeClerc's pistol, and returned to where Lisbeth waited on the horse, openmouthed. “Take the reins,
ma chère
.”

Lisbeth scrambled to obey. Again he led her on a dance too intricate and changeable for her to follow with any grace, let alone attempt to change direction; but she hadn't agreed to live the lie yet.
A lady must always be honest.
Somehow she couldn't separate herself from Mama's little truisms. He stubbornly remained
the stranger
in her mind. She couldn't think of him as Gaston when it sat on him as ill as the overdone, merchant-class clothing.

“If they hadn't told Delacorte about the other night, they will unquestionably tell him now,” he murmured. “Will he object to your having a protector?”

She blinked. “I don't know.” She didn't know how Alain would react to anything, because she'd never known him. She'd only seen the pretty façade he'd chosen to show her before their elopement, and the violent, angry man after.

He kept walking beside the horse. “You're not safe here.”

Her heart took off at a gallop. “I told you, he burned my travel papers. Soldiers patrol every road in and out of town. The
gendarmerie
keeps watch on all foreigners.”

“I have travel papers with a name no one will connect to you. I can get you out of town. You can be in our homeland within the week.”

Our homeland.
Although he'd slipped into his role hand into glove,
this
was why she'd felt such a sense of wrongness seeing his clothing, watching him eat, even hearing the name he'd given her. Whatever his name was, Gaston Borchonne was not it. This man was thoroughly British, and a gentleman.

Whatever he wanted from her, it was time to push her own agenda.

“Is this my father's plan? Where have I been the past year—Scotland? That's where the fallen girls go during their nine-month illnesses, isn't it? You know I have a son, don't you—
Gaston
? You seem to know everything else about me.”

“Yes, I know about your son.” He didn't say anything else. The sounds of booted feet and slow-clopping hooves filled the silence until she wanted to scream. “Perhaps I presumed too much, too soon. If you wish for your husband's return—”

She shuddered. Alain might appear like a medieval troubadour with his blond curls, blue eyes, and dimpled smile, but there all resemblance ended. God knows his absence from her life was a blessing; but while he had Edmond she'd play the cowed girl, the helpless lady, the tavern wench, even the supplicant—anything to stop him from taking her baby beyond her reach. “I won't leave without my son.”

There was a smile in his voice. As if he approved. “I rather thought you'd say that.”

She didn't know how to answer. Waiting for the terms to come.

When they reached the
pension,
he lifted her off the horse. As they stared at each other after the awkward intimacy of strangers, he dropped his hands from her waist. “I hope John gave you the tincture of arnica for your bruises.”

“Yes, he did, thank you. Why do you bother with me, monsieur? Why do I matter?” In her experience, altruism didn't exist. He was
here because either Papa sent him or he needed something from her, and she was tired of waiting.