With no smile now, Malcolm looked entirely serious.
“Utterly in love,” he confessed. “Am I alone in that sentiment?”
A veritable flood of relief washed through her. Unable to stop the warm tears down her cheeks, she let them fall.
“Dammit!” he said, releasing her. “Iwaswrong.” Running his fingers through his hair, he started to pace. Then he stopped.
“It doesn’t matter. I will still marry you if you let me. I’ll make you a good husband, I swear. I have decided to put my days as a despicable rake behind me. Eventually, you may grow to love me. I’m not all bad, I assure you. I—”
“Stop,” Serena said, silencing his rambling which she realized was from nervousness. Delightfully, this experienced man had been anxious, too, worrying over whether she cared for him. “You’renotwrong, nor are you alone inthatsentiment. I’m simply so overwhelmed right now.”
He remained quiet, his arms by his sides, looking unsure. She immediately switched to English.
“I love you, Lord Branley.”
His face broke out in a radiant smile. Then he laughed and answered in his native tongue.
“I was so used to it, I forgot we didn’t need to speak in French.”
“Let’s hope your English is better than your French,” she teased. “I would like to hear some of your stories again without the strange instances of cows’ udders and fence posts and pineapples where they don’t belong.”
“Am I that bad?” he asked, pulling her to him.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t try to do anything silly like be an English spy in France.”
They grinned at each other like children.
“I’m so glad you’re coming on the boat with me,” she said.
He nodded. “I don’t ever want to let you out of my sight.”
***
“HELL!” MALCOLM SWORE, making Serena jump. Ahead of them was a barricade.
Already anxious, she was growing more uneasy by the moment. The trip to Saint-Malo from Saint-Rémy had been smooth enough until they were about two miles from the port. Uniformed men were everywhere. In the gathering dusk, the lights of their torches created an eerie scene.
“Why are there so many soldiers?” she’d asked a man going in the opposite direction. After all, there was unlikely to be any fighting with enemy forces in the small coastal village.
The answer had been unwelcome. As long as the British were part of the Seventh Coalition, the emperor didn’t want them having the benefit of French wine. Apparently, even the smugglers’ vessels were now in danger of being stopped and their contraband reclaimed for Bonaparte’s empire. Only the captains who could pay off the guards were able to leave.
And of course, every wagon heading toward the coast would be searched, too.
“That should not matter,” Serena said. “We aren’t smugglers. We shall pretend to be a married couple, and you must play a mute again.”
“I don’t think this is going to be as easy as it was a few weeks ago, my sweet.,” Malcolm said. “The soldiers aren’t going to like seeing a couple leaving France. Naturally, they’ll assume we’re royalists. And I have no baggage to speak of, a saddle bag with very little, while you have two trunks full of clothing and belongings. Any way you look at us, we are either suspicious or the enemy or traitors.”
“What do you propose we do?” She hated the tightness in her chest and the persistent fear she’d been living with since that awful day at the Palais des Tuileries.
“How attached are you to the contents of your trunks?” He drew the wagon over to the side of the dirt road.
Shocked at the notion of suddenly losing all her possessions, she wanted to cry.
“If I’d only known,” she wailed, “I would have left my things at the Defleurs’ home.”
“If we’d known, we would have left your things at your family’s winery,” he reminded her. “We should dump your trunks in the woods and continue on as if we aren’t going anywhere except to look at the sea.”
“I suppose, if we must.” It made her ill to think of the things she had brought from Mémère to give to her mother, not to mention baubles and bits that had been in the Elmstead family for years, which she’d brought with her from England to make her room in Paris feel more like home. And she had a few precious books, too.
