But he would not consent. The melding of his old life and his new life was a collision he wouldn’t survive. He didn’t want his sister to see what he’d become—he didn’t want to be seen by anyone. It was simpler and less painful and safer for all of them if he was left entirely alone.
I want to be alone, he thought.
Behind him, the woman called out, “I cannot keep up with you, sir.”
Good, he thought.
“I’m usually not so feeble.” Her voice was winded. “My legs are not as long as yours. And I’ve not slept. Nor eaten. And I’ve been lost in a wood. Also—attacked. You, yourself, have bothabductedme and now, ironically, arefleeingfrom me.”
“I’m taking you to the village,” he called, not looking back.
It was another lie. He had no idea where he was taking her. They might’ve been walking in circles. Or off the ridge into the river. Or into a bog. Gabriel was lost, and found, and falling, and drowning, and losing his bloody mind.
He stopped rushing away and turned. She trudged to him with determined strides, her cloak fanning out behind her.
“Why,” he demanded, “would the fiancée of Gabriel d’Orleans travel from... from...” He stopped, trying to remember the details of the betrothal.
“Guernsey,” she provided, coming up to him. “I’ve traveled from Guernsey. My name is Lady Marianne Daventry. I’m called ‘Ryan’ by those who know me.”
Her shoulders rose and fell with the force of her breathing. She staggered sideways and, on reflex, he reached out a hand.
Instead of clasping it, she took it up and shook it. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr.—?”
Gabriel frowned. “Why did you travel from Guernsey to meet a dead man?”
“Oh, right.That.” She retracted her hand. “Well, I came because I didn’t know he was dead, obviously;and it was my very great hope that he would address the very troubling—to put it mildly—matter ofhis cousin.”
“His cousin?”
“That’s right.”
“What problem is caused by his cousin?”
She sighed. “Well, the cousin of the prince—”
She stopped. She swallowed. “I might as well tell you, this man I seek, Gabriel d’Orleans, is French royalty. Or he was when France was ruled by a royal family. He is, in fact, an actual prince. His title is—was...”
And now she paused and looked upward, affecting the expression of someone reciting from memory. “I believe the full title is ‘His Serene Highness, Gabriel d’Orleans, Prince of the Blood.’ He was nephew to King Louis XVI. He went missing in the wake of France’s Revolution, and no one has seen him for more than fifteen years.”
She raised her eyebrows as if to say,Can you believe it?
Gabriel said nothing. In fact, hecouldn’tbelieve it—couldn’t believeher. And yet—
“Prince Gabriel’s father was executed in the Revolution,” she explained. “His mother fled the country. And he and his sisters were separated and exiled to England for their safety. He was a boy at the time. I was a year younger—nine years old, perhaps?—and I grew up knowing that the missing French prince to whom I was betrothed, had, for all practical purposes,vanished.”
“Did you mourn him?” Gabriel asked from the bottom of the well.
“Mourn the prince?” She frowned. “Well, I did, actually. If I’m being honest. I’d only met him twice, and he was a boy and I was little girl but he...” and here she took a deep breath “. . . he’d written me letters in the years before he vanished. Not a lot, but enough for me to develop a fondness for him. I replied to his letters and—” She paused again, as if to collect herself. “Well, even as children, we acknowledged the strangeness of an arranged marriage. But he hadn’t seemed to hate the notion and neither did I. He seemed very wrapped up in the duty of the thing. There was an earnestness to him that I admired; I’ve never been much for cynics. And I lived on a remote island but had been engaged to an adorable prince—what’s to hate in that? Very little if you were nine-year-old me. I would be lying if I said I did not worry for him when he fled France; nor that I didn’t feel very great sadness when his letters ceased. It was a girlish affection, perhaps. But it felt very tragic at the time. Itwastragic, honestly.”
Gabriel breathed in and out, searching her words for judgment or callousness. Searching for truth.
She tugged off her glove and smoothed back her hair with a small pale hand. “These days, I’ve no remaining energy to mourn the past—not when the present is so very distressing. Any sadness spared for the missing prince is inconsequential compared to theimposterprince.”
“What imposter prince?” asked Gabriel, annoyed at the man, whomever he was. He’d wanted to hear more about her girlish affection for the adorable prince.
“His cousin,” she reminded, sounding annoyed.
“Why do you call him an imposter?” asked Gabriel.
