“I do hope you like it,” Charles urged. “I’m rather proud of myself, I’ll admit.”
When are you not?Simone thought cattily.
After unfolding first one flap of leather and then the other, Simone gasped at the package’s contents. Her hand flew to her mouth.
A short wooden sword, tiny leather shield, and a leather coif lay before her—a soldier’s kit, made for a little boy.
With a single white feather laid across it all. Simone’s breath caught in her chest.
Charles frowned, picked up the feather between his thumb and forefinger as if it were an insect. “How did that get in there?” he mumbled, and then tossed it away.
“Charles, it—” She took the kerchief he offered and blew her nose. “It’s perfect.” And Simone thought, for just a moment, that if Charles Beauville could have purchased this for her, life with him as her husband may not be as hellish and unbearable as she’d feared.
He was not Nicholas, but then again, what man was?
“You like it, then?” Charles asked, leaning forward with a pleased grin.
Simone ran her hand along the smooth, wooden sword blade. “I do. I love it.”
“I am glad.” A pause, and then, “Perhaps one dayourson might find sport with it.”
“Perhaps.” Simone picked up the small coif, and a handful of feathers drifted to the floor. Simone huffed a small, bemused laugh, but Charles only muttered about the ill-kempt shopkeep and his habits.
Simone looked at the coif for a moment and then set it aside with a little frown. “How could you ever think to seek this out? How could you know how much it would mean to me?”
“I know you, Simone, better than you think I do.” He gave her a sly wink. “I was determined to secure one before we set sail. It cost me a great deal, but when I saw how deeply you still grieved, I wanted you to have some small thing to remember him fondly.” He reached out and took her hand. “Since Didier’s own playthings were lost in the fire, I thought you would appreciate this.”
“And I do, very much,” Simone assured him, and then as she smiled at Charles, her blood froze in her veins. Her smile fell from her lips.
Charles leaned forward, a concerned look on his face. “Simone, what is it?”
“How…how—” She stopped, tried to fight past the tightening in her chest. “Charles, how did you know Didier’s soldier things were with him in the stables?”
The man drew back as if she’d punched his nose. “Why, you told me.”
But Simone was already shaking her head. She pulled her hand free and stood. “Nay. Nay, I did not.”
“I’m certain you did, Simone,” he insisted, his eyes narrowing. “How else could I know?”
She continued to shake her head, backing toward the small cabin’s door. “I toldno one,” she whispered, a panicked tear sliding down her cheek. “Only Nicholas. How could you know, unless you…unless you were there.” She gasped. “You were!”
In an instant, Charles’s face had changed into a twisted mask of fury. He bolted from the chair and leaped toward her.
Simone screamed and turned, grasping for the door handle, but Charles was already upon her, pulling her from her escape and flinging her onto the narrow bedstead.
“You don’t understand,” he gasped, coming toward her with his palms out. “Didier was not supposed to return to Saint du Lac. He was supposed to remain with you—safe at my home!”
Simone scrambled backward into a corner of the cot. “You knew what Armand had planned,” she accused. “You let him kill my mother, and you let an innocent boy die!”
Charles crawled onto the cot. “You must stop saying such things. Listen to me, Simone, Portia lied to you your entire life. She was not a good mother,” he insisted desperately.
“Get away from me!” Simone shrieked, kicking at him.
Charles flailed at her legs, grunting. “Would youstop?” He tried to catch hold of her, finally seizing her ankles and jerking her onto her back. He leaned over her, and she tried to slap at him, push him, but he pinned her to the thin ticking.
“I was only trying to secure our future,” Charles said, breathing heavy. “I knew what Armand had planned,oui,but there was naught I could do to stop him. I didn’t know that your mother had hid Saint du Lac’s fortune in Marseilles with Jehan—I wanted to be assured that Armand would not abscond with our coin in search of his treasure.”
“My coin!” she spat at him. “Mine! Did he see you in the stables, spying? Didier? Did Didier see you after Armand had set the fire and locked my mother’s body inside?”
