Read Chapter 25: The Road to Namur

Dawn came grey and cold over the rolling hills south of the Sambre. They had walked through the night, keeping to the edges of fields and the cover of sparse woodland, and now Élise’s legs trembled with exhaustion. Her shoulder throbbed beneath the fresh bandage Marguerite had pressed into her hands before they left—clean linen, at least, though the wound beneath it still wept.

James walked ahead of her, his stride steady but his face pale. She had seen him wince when he thought she wasn’t watching, his hand drifting to his side where the bullet had grazed him three days ago. He hadn’t complained once. He wouldn’t.

“We should rest,” she said.

He stopped, turned. The morning light caught the hollows under his eyes. “There’s a farmstead ahead, half a mile. We can barter for bread, maybe a cart if the farmer’s generous.”

“And if he’s not generous?”

“Then we take what we need and leave coin on the table.”

Élise pulled her shawl tighter. The gold in her pocket—Marguerite’s parting gift—was enough to buy passage, enough to feed them for a week if they were careful. But it would not buy silence, and silence was what they needed most.

They moved on. The farmstead was little more than a stone cottage with a sagging barn, but the farmer’s wife took one look at Élise’s bloodied sleeve and ushered them inside without a word. She fed them warm bread and weak ale, and when James asked about a cart, she nodded toward her husband, who was mending a wheel in the yard.

“He’ll take you as far as Givet,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “No further. The roads beyond are full of soldiers.”

“What soldiers?” James asked, his voice careful.

The woman shrugged. “Who can say? The Prussians, the French, the ones who change their coats depending on the weather. All the same to us.” She looked at Élise. “You’re not from here.”

“Liege,” Élise said. Close enough to the truth.

The woman nodded, accepting the lie as currency. “You’re a nurse, then. I can tell by your hands.” She turned to James. “And you—you’re a soldier. Not French.”

James didn’t answer. The woman’s eyes flicked to his coat, faded but cut in the unmistakable style of a British officer. She said nothing more, but her silence was heavy.

They left within the hour, riding in the back of the cart beneath a pile of straw. The farmer drove slowly, whistling tunelessly, and Élise watched the sky wheel overhead through the gaps in the covering. She counted the miles by the changing light. By midday they had crossed into French territory proper, and the fear settled deeper into her chest.

She thought of Pierre. She had not seen his face in three years—not since the night he had kissed her forehead and told her not to worry, that he would write, that he would come home for her wedding. He had never come home. Now she knew why.

“You’re thinking about the letter,” James said.

She blinked. They were alone in the cart, the farmer’s back a wall of wool and silence. “I’m thinking about my brother.”

“You haven’t read it.”

“I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

Élise turned her head. James lay on his back beside her, his eyes closed, his arm folded beneath his head. He looked younger in repose, the lines of pain smoothed away. She thought of the letter he had given her—the one he had written months ago, before he knew her name, before everything. She had carried it inside her dress for two days now, and she could feel it against her skin, a small square of paper that held words she wasn’t ready to hear.

“Because if I read it,” she said, “I might not want to leave you.”

He opened his eyes. The cart jolted, and the straw shifted around them. “You’re planning to leave me.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Pierre is in that fortress. I won’t ask you to come.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I don’t have to. The scarred man saw your face at the convent. He’ll recognize you. If you’re caught with me, they’ll hang you for a spy.”

“They’ll hang me for a lot of things,” James said. He sat up slowly, careful of his side. “I was a spy. That’s what I was trained to do, what I did for four years in the Peninsula. I’ve been behind enemy lines before.”

“Not like this. Not alone.”

“I’m not alone.” He said it simply, without drama, and that made it worse.

Élise looked away. The cart lurched down a rutted road, and she steadied herself against the rail. The countryside had changed again—flatter now, the fields broader, the farmhouses further apart. The sky was a hard, bright blue, and she hated it. She wanted rain, rain to hide them, rain to wash away the blood that seemed to follow them wherever they went.

That night they slept in a hayloft. The farmer had gone on ahead with promises of discretion and a handful of francs. Élise lay in the dark, listening to the soft rhythm of James’s breathing, and she felt the letter burn against her skin.

She rose before dawn.

She moved carefully, silently, her boots in her hand. James slept with his back to the wall, his face peaceful. She placed the letter on the floor beside him—not the one he had given her, but her own. She had written it by lamplight in the farmer’s barn, using a stub of pencil and the back of Marguerite’s directions. It was brief. It was honest. It said goodbye.

She slipped out of the hayloft and into the grey pre-dawn. The road to Namur ran east, through the Ardennes, through the forests and the valleys where the Château de Bouillon crouched above the river. She had studied maps in the convent. She had memorized the route. She would walk if she had to, steal horses if she could, and she would find her brother or die trying.

She had gone half a mile when she heard footsteps behind her.

She did not turn. She did not need to.

“You’re a stubborn woman, Élise Delacroix,” James said.

She stopped. She closed her eyes. When she finally turned, he was standing in the middle of the road, looking ragged and determined and very much alive.

“You were supposed to stay,” she said.

“I read your letter.”

“Then you know I meant it.”

“I know.” He walked toward her, his boots crunching on the gravel. He stopped a pace away. “Do you know why I didn’t let you go?”

She shook her head.

He reached into his coat and pulled out the letter she had written. He held it up. “You said you were going to save your brother because you owe him your life. You said you couldn’t ask me to risk mine for a debt that wasn’t mine to pay.”

“It isn’t.”

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t. But I’m not here because I owe your brother anything. I’m here because I’m in love with you, and I won’t watch you walk into a fortress alone and get yourself killed.”

The words hung in the cold air between them. Élise felt something crack open in her chest—a wall she hadn’t known she’d built.

“You don’t need to read your letter anymore,” he said. “I just told you everything it said. I wrote it before I knew you, and I’d written it a hundred times since in my head. Every version ends the same way. I love you. I’m not leaving you. And if you try to shake me again, I’ll only follow you faster.”

She should argue. She should tell him he was a fool, that his wound was still open, that he was a deserter and a fugitive and they would both swing from the same gallows if they were caught. She opened her mouth to say all of it.

Instead she stepped forward and kissed him.

He made a sound—surprise, or pain, or both—and his hands came up to her face, cradling her jaw like she was made of glass. The kiss lasted three heartbeats. Four. When she pulled back, his eyes were wet.

“Don’t do that again,” he said quietly. “Don’t leave me like that.”

“I won’t.”

He took her hand, and they walked together into the grey, the road to Namur stretching before them.

They had gone perhaps a mile when James stopped, his head tilting. He had heard something behind them—the distant rhythm of hooves, not one horse but several. He turned, and his face went still from the sight.

On the rise behind them, outlined against the pale sky, came four riders in dark coats. Their leader wore his hat low, but as he crested the ridge, the rising sun caught his face, and the scar that ran from temple to jaw gleamed like a river of fire.

The scarred officer stopped. He raised a hand, and his men halted beside him. He did not reach for his pistol. He simply looked at them, across the cold distance, and then he smiled.