“Of course. I’ll have Paul bring one around for you,” he said unquestioningly.
Remi thanked him and offered him the tea in her stead. While she was away, he could have the morning off.
Hurrying up the stairs, Remi found stray pins on the bedside table in Ben’s room. She twisted her hair up, pinning it in place. It had been a long time since she’d been on a horse, and with the weather as unsteady as it was, she might get caught in another storm. She ran down the stairs in a simple wool coat, her boots clattering on the hardwood, and hoped that she would make it to Ben before the rain caught her.
Remi burst through the front doors, the horse already waiting. But before she could reach it, a figure stepped out from the garden and blocked her path.
“Where are you going?” Hugo asked.
Startled, she took a step back. “Hugo, my goodness. Where did you come from?”
He squared on her, his mouth bowing into a hard line. He asked again, more forceful than before, “Where are you going?”
Remi tensed.
“Do you plan to see him?” Hugo asked, nostrils flaring. He did not seem like himself at all, and the harder she looked, the more maniacal he seemed—as if some vital piece was missing. He took a step toward her, cracking his neck in a volatile fashion, and sighed. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“It’s none of your concern, Hugo,” Remi said, backing up another step.
“You’re a good girl, Remi.” He licked his lips.“My good girl.”
The stone wall of the manor collided with her back, and Hugo pressed himself closer. A loose strand of hair had come free from her pins, and he snapped it up in his fingers. He leaned forward and brought it to his lips, whispering, “Always good, so well-behaved.”
Remi froze. “Hugo…”
“Soft, sweet...” He hummed lowly in his chest. “Nothing like Elise. You would listen to me, obey me, like a proper wife.”
“You’re out of line,” she said, trying to stave off the fear she knew could be heard in her voice. “Let me go.”
“Invite me inside,” he snarled, pulling at the hair in his hand.
“No,” she yelped, pushing her hands to his chest and shoving him.
He stumbled back and caught himself before falling. “What’s gotten into you?”
Where she expected to find rage, Remi saw only hurt. He held out his arms for her, an awaiting embrace. “Don’t you know? Haven’t you read my letters?”
The hair on the back of Remi’s neck stood on end. A sickly chill coiled around her body with a serpentine grip. “I hope you jest.”
“I love you, Remi,” he professed. If it wasn’t for the soulless look in his eyes, she would have believed him.
The violation she’d felt in finding the letters among her things grew; he’d seen a part of her that no one else had without her permission. She shook at the thought. When she didn’t answer right away, his frustration grew crazed, breaking past the serenity of his false calm.
“I said I love you,” he snarled. “I have confessed!”
“I do not owe you a reply.” Remi summoned all of her strength and willed herself away from the wall, forcing her feet to move as she walked past him. “I suggest you find a place to hide away, Monsieur.”
He followed her, hot against her heels. The force of his strength fastened around her right wrist and stopped her dead in her tracks. Through bared teeth, he growled, “Is that a threat?”
Remi whipped her head around and mirrored his scowl. He was a brute. No wonder Sylvie could not tell him no. He would have done much worse to her if she had not done as he instructed.
“Yes,” she hissed. “Make no mistake that my family will hear about this, and you will lose everything you might have ever had with my cousin. Now, release me, sir.”
He reluctantly released her.
Remi spared him nothing else. She instructed Martin’s son to run straight inside and tell his father what happened, then climbed atop her horse and made haste down the hill to the gaol where Ben waited.
BARRED
BEN
“I spoke with Madame Leone,” Inspector Marceau had announced upon his return to Ben’s cell. “She’ll be here presently.”
It was the first good news he’d received in days.
The days had felt like months, with the silence dragging on. He swore he heard whispers at night, even though he’d only seen rats scurrying from hidden corners in the walls. His conversations with the inspector had been conducted at certain hours of the day, but little strategy had been devised. The person he truly needed was Remi—and more than that, he missed every second he couldn’t see her.
On the first day, he felt desolate.
By the third day, he’d dizzied himself with enraged pacing.
But the news Marceau had delivered some twenty minutes ago had lifted a weight from his chest that had settled there overnight. He paced the cell like a madman, jumping when he heard voices or footsteps. Doubt that she would not show snuffed itself out when her blue-green eyes and wind-blown red cheeks appeared in the hallway. He collapsed against the bars, pressing himself as close to her as he could through the iron barrier.
“You came,” he breathed.
“Elise said…” Remi gasped, curling her fists into his dirtied shirt. “...it doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”
Between the bars, Ben kissed every inch of Remi’s face, until he reached her lips. He never thought he would know desperation so intimately as he did when he clung to her warmth through the bars of his cell. The echo of a strangled cry left his chest, and he would have reduced himself to tears if she had not been crying herself. He pulled away and lifted her face up, cradling it in his palms.
