Surrender to a Stranger (13 page)

“When did the National Guard come?” he demanded.

“About an hour after you left,” Jacqueline told him sulkily. If the man had been hired to rescue her, why had he left her alone for so long in the first place? The fact that while she was alone she had decided not to go with him to England, and might very well have climbed out that window even if the National Guard had not shown up, was conveniently pushed aside.

“How many were there?” he continued, still trying to decide if she was lying to him.

“Eight,” she replied. “Once I made it out the window and onto the ground, I went to the front of the inn and watched them leave. I thought I would have a better chance if I mixed in with the crowd.” She felt a little foolish as she said that. Her plan had severely backfired, to say the least.

“You should have stayed in the room and let them arrest you,” he informed her brusquely. “At least then I would have known where you were. As long as I knew where you were, I could have taken measures to rescue you again. Out on the streets, how would I ever have found you?” His voice was shaking with rage.

“How should I know?” she flung back at him heatedly. “You’re the one who is supposed to be doing the rescuing, not me.”

The two of them locked glares. She noticed that when he was angry his eyes flashed like brilliant chips of silver, obliterating all trace of the blues and greens she had seen in them before. Momentarily fascinated by this discovery, she focused on those intense silver chips, and forgot what they were fighting about.

“You are right,” he finally conceded. He pulled his gaze away from her in a conscious effort to keep his anger sharp. For some reason her glare had softened, losing its icy determination in favor of a more curious, questioning look. Her pale gray eyes had suddenly become younger, more naive, as if for a fleeting moment all the pain and suffering that had made her as she was today was washed away, revealing a girl who was gentler, younger, unscarred by anger and hatred. This glimpse of her unsettled him. He preferred it when she was angry.

“I should not have left you unattended for so long,” he admitted. “Rest assured, it will not happen again.” It sounded more like a threat than an assurance.

“I am not a child that needs to be watched every moment,” she pointed out tartly, wondering how she could possibly have found anything in that cold, hard glare of interest. Once again there was a need to put him in his place. She summoned her frostiest demeanor. “The fact that you have been hired to rescue me does not place me under your control.”

“You are wrong, Mademoiselle,” he countered evenly. “The fact that I am risking my life to get you the hell out of here places you exactly under my control, and you would do well to remember it.”

She found his rudeness appalling, but she reminded herself that she would not be in his company much longer. Perhaps until they parted ways it would be best simply to ignore his obvious lack of breeding. She regarded his outfit curiously. “Why are you dressed like that?”

He looked down at his ragged uniform with irritation. “It was my plan to appear at the inn and arrest you myself,” he told her dryly. “It was the safest way I could think of to remove you from the inn.”

She looked at him with astonishment. “Then it is just as well you did not tell me of your plan, or I would have sat there and calmly waited for you to appear behind the seven guards who came to make the arrest.”

“None of them could have made a positive identification of you,” he pointed out. “They would have had to take you back to the Conciergerie, and I would have returned to get you out.”

There was something in the finality with which he said the words that made her feel strangely confident that was exactly what he would have done.

“Nicolas was with them,” she reflected. “He would have made the identification and I would have been taken straight to the guillotine.” The thought of Nicolas inflamed the anger within her once again.

He shook his head. “No, Mademoiselle. They would have taken you in for questioning first. I am sure they are most anxious to find out who helped you to escape in the first place.”

“Well, if they had, I would have told them nothing,” she assured him defensively.

“Perhaps,” he allowed with a shrug. “But then again, thus far there is very little of value that you could tell them.” He began to undo the tarnished buttons on his jacket. “At any rate, I have no intention of letting you come so close to being caught again. We are leaving for the coast tonight. We should reach Boulogne by tomorrow evening, and if the winds are with us, we will set foot on English soil the following day. Then you will be safe.”

The time had come. She had to make her intentions clear to him. “Citizen Julien, I am not going with you to England,” she informed him calmly.

Annoyance darkened his eyes. “We have been through this before, Mademoiselle,” he told her impatiently. “I do not have time to discuss it again. You are coming with me.” He turned to leave the room.

She shook her head adamantly. “I do not belong to you, Citizen. You have saved my life and for that I am grateful. But it is up to me to decide what I will do with this new chance you have given me. And I have made my decision.”

He looked at her with disgust. “Then your decision is a poor one. It would be far better for you to help your sisters heal than to sacrifice your life to this empty cause of vengeance.”

“How easy that is for you to say, you who cannot possibly understand the losses I have endured!” she burst out furiously. “Can you not see that I have nothing left to give my sisters, except for pain and rage and a hatred so intense it threatens to crush me beneath its unbearable weight?” She wrapped her arms around herself and began to pace the length of the room. “What could I bring to them but anger and resentment? How could I ask them to heal when I myself cannot?” She stopped pacing and faced him squarely. “Feeling as I do, what good could I possibly be to them?”

“Perhaps,” he mused quietly, “they would be good for you.”

“I do not want them to be good for me,” she snapped. “I do not need anyone to be good for me. What I need is to kill Nicolas Bourdon, and after that, I truly don’t care what happens.”

He studied her for a moment. He realized she was deadly serious. And that was going to make his task considerably more difficult.

“I will write a note for you to give to Sir Edward, informing him that you did rescue me from the Conciergerie and that you should be paid your entire fee,” she continued, pacing again. “I will make it clear that remaining in France was entirely my decision. You can tell him I have gone to stay with friends. He need not know what my intentions are.”

“You will be killed.”

She stopped pacing and looked at him calmly. “I know.”

Perhaps it was the peaceful tranquillity that surrounded her as she spoke the words, almost as if the idea appealed to her. Or maybe it was the fact that as she stood before him, her back straight and her head held high with purpose, he found himself imagining her in another time and place, wrapped in a beautiful silk gown, with her hair pinned up amid delicate sprays of fresh flowers. In her ragged clothes, with her coarsely chopped hair and her swollen, bloodstained mouth, there was an unmistakable quality to her, a resolute determination, a firmness of spirit and daring that, were she a man, would have been applauded as courage. But she was a woman, and her need for vengeance was impossible, reckless, desperate. He did not doubt that were she given the opportunity, she would not hesitate to kill this man on whom she had decided to focus her rage. But he also knew that regardless of whether she was successful or not, she would be captured. And executed. He could not let that happen. He did not risk his life to save people so they could take his gift and throw it back into the jaws of death. He had taken on the task of saving her, and like it or not, she was damn well going to be saved.

“If you please, Mademoiselle,” he said firmly as he grabbed hold of her arm and began to walk with her to the door.

“Where are you taking me?” she stammered, suddenly confused.

He did not answer, but gripped her forcefully as he escorted her down the stairs.

“Justin!” he called out when they reached the main floor.

“Citizen Julien, I insist you unhand me,” ordered Jacqueline as she struggled to free herself.

His response was to increase his grip until it was painful. “Justin!” he repeated loudly.

The young man who had let them in appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “I was just preparing some food for you—”

“Where is the cellar?” interrupted Citizen Julien.

Justin looked at him in confusion. “Through a door leading off the kitchen.”

“Any way of entering or exiting other than the door in the kitchen?”

“No,” replied Justin blankly.

“Any windows?”

Justin shook his head.

“Perfect,” commented Citizen Julien. “Would you be kind enough to lead the way?”

“You cannot mean to lock me in there!” protested Jacqueline, staring at him in shock.

“Only until I return,” replied Citizen Julien calmly.

“No!” she cried as Justin held the door open. “No, you cannot do this! You have no right!” She began to squirm wildly in an effort to break his hold on her.

“Justin, I think perhaps we will need a candle,” suggested Citizen Julien as he pinned both of Jacqueline’s arms behind her back and forced her to walk in front of him down the dark stairs.

The air in the cellar was musty and damp, but not foul like the air at the Conciergerie. Citizen Julien continued to hold her as they stood in the darkness waiting for Justin to appear with a candle. She decided to quit her struggling and try reasoning with him.

“Citizen Julien, you cannot keep me down here forever,” she began.

“Of course not,” he agreed pleasantly. “This is merely an unfortunate precaution so I can be sure you will still be here when I return.”

“But I am not going with you.”

“Well now, that is where I have to disagree. As far as I am concerned, you are coming with me, whether you like it or not.”

“All right then,” she hastily agreed. “I will go with you to England. Now can we go back upstairs?” she asked sweetly.

“Come now, Mademoiselle, you will have to do better than that,” he told her with amusement. “To fool your opponent you have to be convincing, not simply tell him what you think he wants to hear.”

“No, truly,” she protested, desperate for him to believe her. “What you have said makes sense. I belong with my sisters. They need me. So I will go with you to England.” She was certain her voice rang with sincerity.

“I am glad to hear it, Mademoiselle,” he responded dryly.

“Besides, I doubt that I would be successful in my mission,” she continued, with what she felt was just the right amount of feminine helplessness. “I don’t think I could ever actually kill someone. I would probably faint.” She tried to make her voice sound a little weak on that last part. She had never fainted in her life, but she knew that lots of women did, or appeared to anyway.

“Now that was truly marvelous,” he told her with admiration. “Right up to that last bit, you really were most convincing. The only problem, Mademoiselle, is that I was at your trial, and I heard what you did to that captain of the National Guard.” He felt her stiffen in his grip and he had to struggle to keep from laughing. “Also, during our skirmish with those thugs, I watched you smash a bottle over that poor chap’s head, and I must say, fainting looked to be about the last thing in the world you would do. Ah, here is Justin with your candle.”

Justin descended the stairs with a candle and placed it on an overturned crate. “Will there be anything else?” he asked Citizen Julien, his eyes completely avoiding Jacqueline.

Citizen Julien released his grip on her and stood so his massive body blocked her access to the staircase. “No,” he replied. “The boy will be fine down here until I return.” He motioned for Justin to mount the stairs ahead of him.

“I will not stay down here!” shouted Jacqueline. “You have no right to make me! I am not your prisoner, Citizen!”

Citizen Julien ignored her as he shut the door, plunging the basement into darkness, except for the meager glow of the candle.

“Come back here! Wait!” shrieked Jacqueline. She raced up the stairs and grabbed hold of the handle. It was already locked. She beat her fists against the door.

“Do not open the door for any reason,” said Citizen Julien loudly. “If he does not settle down within five minutes, you have my permission to take a stick to him when I get back.”

Jacqueline listened as his heavy boots thudded across the floor and a door banged shut.

“Justin, you have to let me out,” she pleaded. “This is all a terrible mistake. Citizen Julien is kidnapping me. Please, you have to let me go!”

“Save your breath, boy,” replied Justin. “Whatever he tells me to do, that’s what I do. It won’t do you any good to make a noise about it.” She could hear him begin to walk away.

“If you let me go I will see to it that you are rewarded,” she cried out desperately. His footsteps stopped. “I have some valuables hidden away. If you help me they are yours.” How she would get them she had no idea. The most important thing was to get out of this house before Citizen Julien returned.

“You’re not listening, boy,” replied Justin. “I only follow his instructions. And he said you were to stay down there.” His footsteps receded into another part of the house.

Temporarily defeated, Jacqueline slowly descended the stairs and looked for a place to sit. She started to dust off the top of an old trunk with her sleeve, but quickly decided that given how filthy her clothes already were, a little more dirt could not possibly harm them. She sat down heavily, crossed her arms, and stared into the faint glow of the candle.

Being locked in the cellar was a delay to her plans, nothing more, she told herself flatly. Regardless of Citizen Julien’s plans for her, two things remained certain. She was not going to England. And Nicolas Bourdon was going to die.

The candle had burned down low by the time Jacqueline heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open. Stiff and sleepy, she opened her eyes to see the tall, dark silhouette of Citizen Julien filling the doorway.