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Hooves sounded in the distance. Rodrick rose. The movement gave him something to do with his body before it betrayed him further.

Louise pushed herself upright with a wince. "Rodrick—"

"A French detachment is approaching. It is the Seventh."

She looked toward the road. "How do you know?"

"Because they have been informed that they would find their Emperor this way."

Her head snapped back toward him. Her gray eyes widened with something close to wonder, and the look sliced through Rodrick worse than a dagger.

Now that the evidence lay all around them—the Royalist dead, Napoleon safely ahead, French cavalry summoned to extract him—she could see that Rodrick had never intended to deliver her father to the Allies.

Apparently trust required documentation.

"Up."

Louise obeyed slowly, one hand braced against him as she found her feet. Pain tightened her mouth. Rodrick noticed and refused to permit himself to react.

He stripped Napoleon's coat from her shoulders and tossed it over his arm. Then he removed the bicorne from her head. Her hair broke free, black strands whipping across her face.

"Rodrick, I need to—"

"Hold still."

He gathered her hair at the nape of her neck and began braiding it with the same concentration he might once have applied to assembling a cipher. Over, under, pull. Keep the hands occupied. Do not lean closer. Do not breathe deeply enough to catch the scent of her hair. Do not put your mouth against the place behind her ear where the pulse beat.

"I must thank you," she said, and her voice trembled. "You could have earned your name back. Your commission. I know you say you don't care about honor, but—"

"There." He tied the end with a leather strip. Her face was smudged with earth, barely recognizable anyway. "You are Jean d'Arc again."

The first riders emerged, green uniforms moving through the haze. Rodrick stepped away from her.

"And you?" Louise asked, trying to catch his gaze.

Rodrick looked past her shoulder. "You are wrong. I wanted the honor back." The admission scraped beneath his sternum, but he forced himself to meet her eyes. "But I had already given my allegiance elsewhere."

Louise's lips parted, and her hands lifted toward him. A bitter pressure rose behind his ribs. He had wanted her trust before the evidence. He had wanted her to look at fifteen years of treachery, lies, aliases, betrayals, and blood and still believe he would rather cut his sword arm than kill her kin.

The vanguard of the Seventh cantered closer. Rodrick put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. Brutus had been grazing several yards away. He lifted his head at the sound and crossed toward Rodrick.

The road behind them was disintegrating. French fugitives streamed westward in scattered groups while Allied cavalry pushed after them wherever the ground permitted. Somewhere beyond the trees rode the remainder of the force sent to kill Napoleon, and those men would soon discover that six chasseurs had been lured across half the countryside by a woman in an oversized coat.

Rodrick put both hands around Louise's waist. She inhaled sharply as he lifted her.

He ignored the tragic hero's wish to press her tight against his chest and settled her into Brutus's saddle.

Louise caught the pommel. "I can't take Brutus. He is yours, Rodrick. I—"

"Keep him. I seem to be divesting myself of attachments."

Pain moved through her eyes. Rodrick felt the answering twist inside his chest and held himself perfectly still. A clean break required a blade sharp enough to cut.

Louise looked down at him. "You don't mean that."

Rodrick adjusted her stirrup instead of answering. If this went badly, she should be on the horse most likely to bring her home. Whatever that place would be.

The remnants of the Seventh halted beside them. No more than fifteen riders, uniforms muddied, horses blown from the day's fighting. At their head rode de Brissac, the Gascon's mouth set, his face gray with exhaustion. At least Gaetan had been spared the slaughter.