The Return of the Prodigal

And laid the gad’s twin beside it…

WHEN THE DOOR to his bedchamber finally opened some ten minutes after two o’clock in the morning, Rian was there to grab Lisette by the elbow and pull her quickly into the room, shutting the door behind her.

“You’re late,” he told her once he’d kissed her roughly, released her. “I was about to come hunting you.”

Lisette put up her hand, stroked his cheek. “Such impatience. I had to wait until the house was quiet. Cook was fussing about in the kitchens, demanding my help as she prepares vegetables for the Comte’s return. Word was sent ahead. He arrives as early as tomorrow, so we have almost left it too late. You feel feverish. Are you certain you can walk to the place where I have decided to rent the coach? It is a distance of at least two miles across the fields.”

Rian knew he was far from well, but he didn’t need to hear Lisette say so. “I’ll be fine. What’s that?”

“This?” She held up the small portmanteau. “You expect me to travel without fresh linen? Without tooth powder? I think not, Rian Becket. I have provided for you as well.”

“Yes, you have. I hope the Comte wasn’t too fond of these breeches. Give me that.”

She held the portmanteau away from him. “Don’t worry, Rian Becket, I will carry it. But you, the man, should take charge of this, yes? There will be less questions that way.”

He watched as she reached into the pocket of her cloak and extracted a small bag. It was heavy with coins as she placed it in his hand. “Your Comte may not come after us in particular, Lisette, but he might be tempted to retrieve his coins. Do they hang thieves in France?”

She shrugged. “Madame Guillotine, I would suppose. Every village still has her. Much neater, or so I’ve heard it told. But he will not find us, not if we move quickly. Where is the cloak I brought you this morning?”

“On the bed, beneath the covers, in case anyone decided to come check on me,” Rian told her, and then watched as she uncovered the thing and brought it to him. “And the food, Lisette. It’s wrapped inside a pillowcase and in the drawer beside the bed.”

“You make a very good conspirator, Rian Becket,” Lisette told him, retracing her steps and returning with the pillowcase. She opened the portmanteau and shoved the case inside, redid the straps. “And now, if there is nothing else, I suggest we use the front stairs, to avoid any of the servants who might still be awake.”

“Leaving by the front door? That’s daring. And a good suggestion, if you have the key.”

She smiled and pulled a large iron key from that same pocket in her cloak. “It hangs on a nail with all the others, on a board just outside the kitchens. Or it did, until I plucked it up. Are you frightened, Rian? I’m frightened. What will they do if they catch us?”

Rian had thought about that for most of the day, and didn’t much care for any of the answers that had occurred to him. Mostly, having poured his daily draught of medicine into the top of his boot as he’d distracted Lisette by asking her if she heard carriage wheels outside the window, he felt alert, much more awake than he had in weeks. If the fever was also back, that was a small price to pay to feel more in control of himself.

He’d have no more of draughts, of vile-tasting medicines, for now. Time enough for both once he and Lisette were safely at Becket Hall, and Odette was fussing over him like a hen with one chick.

He was glad he was going home, after avoiding even the thought of his return for so long. His brothers, his sisters. Ainsley and Jacko and all the others. Yes, they’d fuss over him and make him uncomfortable, they’d look at him with sympathy in their eyes. But they could all move beyond that, someday.

But now was not the time to feel nostalgic. It was time now to ask himself some very important questions.

Why had he been brought here from the battlefield he felt certain had been many miles away? Lisette’s answer, that it was a matter of ransom, didn’t seem logical to him, not when his thinking was clearer.

Who, precisely, was the Comte Beltrane?

Was it happenstance that Lisette had come to his bed?

Was it convenient that she felt this need to escape the manor house, even more convenient that she had chosen to take him with her?

Who was it, he tried to remember, who first suggested she help him return to his home?

Most importantly—could he trust her? Could he trust his family’s safety to her?

“Rian? You stand here like a statue. Are you afraid to leave? Because I will go without you.”

He looked at her intently. “You’d do that, Lisette? Leave without me?”

“Absolument!”

And he relaxed. “I believe you would. What a heartless little creature you are,” he told her, smiling as he depressed the door latch. “Now hush.”

He stepped into the hallway, listened for a full minute, and then motioned for her to join him. Together, careful to keep to the carpets laid not quite end-to-end along the hallway, they made their way down the long staircase that was broken by a marble landing.

They were halfway down the remaining stairs when it was Lisette who grabbed his arm, held him back.

Rian listened, and heard it. Voices, coming from the drawing room directly across the width of the foyer from them.

French. Two men, speaking French. Well, a fat lot of good that was going to do him, Rian decided, looking to Lisette.

She put a finger to her lips, leaning her head forward, as if to hear better.

And then she turned to him, her eyes wide and frightened, her cheeks so suddenly pale he worried that she might be about to faint.

“Le Comte,” she whispered, and then pressed her hand to her mouth as if holding back a sob.

Rian looked to the slightly opened doors. Damn. He wanted to see the man for himself. Confront him. Thank him, play the grateful guest—but also confront him. Attempt to take his measure. Measure his motives.

He started forward, managing to go down two more steps before Lisette nearly tackled him, trying to hold him back.

“I want to see,” he told her quietly.

“And me?” she asked him, her whisper fierce. “You’d do this to me? You’d be so cruel?”

“Damn.” With one last look toward the drawing room, Rian took Lisette’s hand and they made their way quickly and quietly to the large double front doors.

Lisette’s hands were shaking so badly that Rian took the key from her and inserted it in the lock, alternating his gaze between the lock and the open doors to the drawing room.

The latch, when it turned, sounded to him like cannonshot.

They both held their breath. Rian counted to ten, slowly, before he moved once more.

Then they were outside, the door closed once more behind them, and Lisette was pulling him down the few marble steps to the gravel drive. “Hurry, hurry.”

This time Rian did shake her off, pushing her as she frantically kept trying to drag him away from the manor house, so that she landed on her rump in the gravel, the portmanteau beside her.

“Sorry,” he said shortly, moving to his right, toward the well-lit windows that fronted the drawing room. But it was no good, the windows were too high. He stood very still, attempting to marshal his thoughts. Looked all around, for something to stand on. There was nothing.

Except that tree, on the other side of the gravel drive.

Rian ran for it, stood beneath it, measured his chances of reaching that first low branch and swinging himself up onto it.

With two good hands, he could do it easily. With one?

“Help me,” he told Lisette, who had picked herself up from the gravel and was now glaring at him as she held the portmanteau in one hand and slapped at the back of her skirts with the other.