Read Chapter 21: The Convent in the Hills

They moved north through the pre-dawn gray, the road little more than a cart track winding through low hills. Whitmore bled through the field dressing Élise had pressed against his shoulder outside the cave, and every dozen steps he leaned more heavily on her. She said nothing about her own side, the dull fire that licked at her ribs with each breath, or the dizziness that came in waves, turning the hedgerows soft at the edges.

“The convent is three miles,” Whitmore said, his voice a dry scrape. “Sister house of the Order of the Visitation. Poor Clares took the old abbey after the Revolution sold it off. The sisters bought it back—quietly. It’s the kind of place no one notices.”

“Your sister-in-law chose well,” Élise said, catching him as he stumbled over a root.

“Mary chose nothing. She was hidden there. By the man who took her, or by her own hand—I don’t know which.”

The road climbed and the trees thinned. Below them, a smudge of smoke rose from a farmhouse chimney, and beyond that, Élise saw the dark thread of riders moving along the main highway south of Paris. Royalists, by the white cockades on their hats—or Prussians hunting deserters. Either way, they were not friends.

“They’re sweeping,” she said.

Whitmore followed her gaze. “Then we go faster.”

They left the road and crossed a pasture, keeping the hedge line between themselves and the highway. The convent appeared at the top of the next rise: a squat stone building with a bell tower and a walled garden, the plaster peeling in patches like old skin. A crucifix hung above the gate, and behind it, the morning light caught a row of small windows, dark and shuttered.

Whitmore reached the gate first and leaned against it. His face was the color of candle wax, and when he raised his fist to knock, he had to try twice before his hand obeyed.

The door opened a crack. A young nun peered out, her face round and frightened.

“We are travelers,” Whitmore said, “seeking shelter. My companion is wounded.”

“Sister Marguerite,” he added, when the door began to close. “Tell her Julian is here.”

The nun’s eyes widened and she disappeared. Whitmore’s hand found Élise’s shoulder, gripping it harder than necessary.

“If she turns us away,” he said, “I do not know what I will do.”

The door opened again, wider this time. The nun motioned them inside.

The vestibule smelled of beeswax and old stone. Candles burned in a niche by the stairs, and beyond that, a corridor stretched into shadow. Élise helped Whitmore to a bench, where he sat heavily, his head dropping forward.

A woman in a grey habit appeared at the end of the corridor. She walked toward them with slow, deliberate steps, her hands clasped at her waist. She was younger than Élise had expected—perhaps thirty—with sharp grey eyes and a face that might have been beautiful before it was honed into severity.

She stopped before Whitmore and looked down at him.

“Julian,” she said. Her voice was flat. “You found me.”

Whitmore raised his head. The resemblance was there in the line of the jaw, the set of the mouth. “Mary. You took the papers.”

“I burned them.”

Whitmore’s hand tightened on his knee. “Did you?”

Mary—Sister Marguerite, Élise corrected herself—did not answer. Her gaze moved to Élise, taking in the bloodstained dress, the hand pressed to her side.

“You are both wounded,” she said. “I will fetch bandages and clean water. Then you will tell me why you have come, and you will leave.”

“Mary.” Whitmore tried to rise and failed. “Please. The papers—if you burned them, what is Étienne looking for? Why is he tearing Paris apart?”

Sister Marguerite’s face did not change. “Étienne is looking for what I hid. And if he cannot find it, he will try to take the one person who knows where it is.” She looked down at Whitmore. “He already tried.”

Whitmore’s jaw went tight. “The convent. He knew you were here?”

“He suspected. He sent men two weeks ago. They searched the garden, the chapel, the cells. They found nothing.” She paused. “I am not afraid of Étienne. I am afraid of what the papers would do if they fell into anyone’s hands—his, yours, the King’s. They would ignite a war that would drown everything we have rebuilt.”

Whitmore struggled to his feet. He swayed, but held. “Those papers belong to my family. To my brother’s memory. Whatever you think you are protecting, Mary—you are hiding the truth about how he died.”

“I am protecting the living,” she said. “Your brother is dead. My husband is dead. I will not feed more bodies to their memory.”

Élise stepped forward. The movement sent a spike of pain through her side, and she bit back a hiss.

“Forgive me,” she said. “Your husband—was he with the Duke of Wellington’s staff?”

Sister Marguerite’s eyes slid to her for the first time. There was no softness there, only a sharp, assessing attention.

“Lieutenant Ashworth. Yes.”

“My brother knew him,” Élise said carefully. “André Delacroix, a mapmaker with the French army. He spoke of an English officer who argued for peace before the battle. Who said the killing had to stop.”

Some of the hardness in Sister Marguerite’s face flickered. “André,” she repeated.

“You knew him.”

The nun did not answer. But her hands, which had lain still at her waist, curled slightly.

Whitmore watched both of them, his eyes narrowing. “Mary. What did you not tell me?”

Sister Marguerite turned away. “I will bring you to the infirmary. You will rest. Tomorrow, you will leave.”

“Not without the papers,” Whitmore said.

“The papers are not here.”

Whitmore opened his mouth, then stopped. Élise followed his gaze. Sister Marguerite stood at the end of the corridor, her back to them, but her head was turned slightly, as if listening—not to them, but to something beyond the walls.

Then she heard it too. Hoofbeats. Many of them, coming fast up the hill.

Sister Marguerite’s face went very white.

“They came early,” she whispered. “He was not supposed to come until Pentecost.”

Whitmore moved toward the window, pushing aside the curtain. Below the convent wall, a column of horsemen had gathered at the gate. Their leader wore civilian clothes, but the men behind him carried carbines, and at their head, a tall figure in a dark coat sat his horse with a patient stillness.

Étienne.

“He has not seen your face,” Sister Marguerite said to Élise. Then she looked at Whitmore. “He has seen his. Julian, you will come with me. There is a passage behind the altar that leads to the cellar.”

“And her?” Whitmore gestured at Élise.

Sister Marguerite hesitated. Then she reached into the folds of her habit and withdrew a small leather pouch, which she pressed into Élise’s hands.

“If Étienne finds no one but me, he will leave,” she said. “If he finds you, he will kill you and search the house anyway. Go into the garden walled garden. The gate at the back leads to a grove. Hide there until the riders are gone.”

Élise looked at Whitmore. He shook his head once, sharply.

“I do not leave companions to be slaughtered,” he said.

“And I do not let the man who murdered my—” Sister Marguerite cut herself off. Her jaw worked. “Go. Both of you. I will hold him at the gate.”

Whitmore opened his mouth to argue. Sister Marguerite stepped close and took his face in her hands. For a moment, she was not a nun but a woman, her eyes bright with something that might have been tears.

“I am sorry for Pierre,” she said softly. “I have been sorry every day since Quatre Bras.”

Then she turned, gathered her long skirts, and walked toward the front door, where the first voice—Étienne’s voice—was calling through the wood.