The Silver Rose (16 page)

Simon vented a wearied sigh and lapsed into silence, the agitation of his thoughts only betrayed by the way he flexed and unflexed his hand at his side. Miri maintained an aura of calm indifference, although her heart raced, wondering what she would do if Simon refused her offer, if she truly would have the courage to go alone. His dark eye probed hers as though testing the measure of her resolve. She forced herself to steadily meet his gaze.

At last he said, “If I was mad enough to agree to this alliance, as you call it, there would have to be certain conditions.”

“Such as?”

“I will be the one in charge of our hunt, the one who has the final say in how we proceed. If I ever order you to remain behind, you’ll do it, no arguments. If we ride into danger and I command you to flee, you will, no hesitations. Even if it means leaving me behind.”

Miri frowned, not at all liking these terms, but realizing from Simon’s grim expression that she had little choice but to accept them. She nodded. “All right. But I also have conditions.”

When Simon arched his brow questioningly, she went on, “You might find my methods of tracking a little, um, unorthodox and disconcerting. You must promise not to ask questions about my ways or about any of the people I might contact en route.”

“And if these people of yours are in league with the Silver Rose?”

“They won’t be. You will have to trust my judgment for that.”

Simon looked no more pleased with her conditions than she had been with his. He finally conceded, “Very well, damn it.”

Miri held her breath, scarce able to believe she had won. “Then—then we are agreed? We continue on together?” She tentatively held out her hand. Simon gazed at it for a long time before encompassing her fingers in his strong, steady grip.

“Together.” He added grimly. “And may God help us both.”

Chapter Eight

T
HE
B
RASS
H
ORSE
was like many of the hostelries situated along the Cher, a modest inn that catered mostly to the river traffic, merchants, and watermen moving goods up and down stream. But the dire events that had resulted in the infant Luc’s death had left a permanent pall over the establishment run by the Paillards, the innkeepers among the first families to be devastated by the sinister designs of the Silver Rose.

Once a jovial bustling man, Gaspard Paillard’s movements were lethargic as he wiped down tankards and replaced them on the cupboard shelves. When Simon entered the taproom with Miri trailing in his wake, no sign of welcome flickered in the innkeeper’s dull eyes.

Paillard had been grudgingly grateful to Simon for doing what he had lacked the courage to do himself: defy the local priest and see that his grandson was properly laid to rest instead of being burned as the spawn of a witch. But Simon was a bitter reminder of his cowardice, and Paillard would have been relieved to never clap eyes upon the witch-hunter again.

Simon would as soon have stopped elsewhere himself, but with night falling, he had only one aim—to get Miri safely bestowed within four walls.

“Monsieur Paillard . . .” It would be an insult to ask the man how he was faring. Simon contented himself with a curt nod.

“Master Witch-Hunter,” the landlord replied sourly. “What ill wind brings you back to my door this time?”

“Only the need for a light repast and a night’s lodgings for myself and—” Simon hesitated, trying to decide how to account for Miri.

“His cousin Louis,” Miri spoke up in a husky voice that Simon feared would fool no one.

“Er—yes, Louis.” Simon gave her a warning frown. He had ordered her to remain silent and let him do all the talking.

She adjusted the brim of her hat lower over her face, but she needn’t have bothered. To Simon’s relief, Paillard did not cast so much as an inquisitive glance in her direction. The man seemed to have lost all interest in anything beyond his own misery since the winter his only daughter Lucie had sold her soul to the devil and abandoned his grandson to freeze to death.

“I’ll see what’s available in the kitchen for your supper,” Paillard said. “As for the room, you may take your pick. It is not as though we are swamped with custom since—since—” He paused, his throat working in a rare display of emotion.

“First room at the top of the stairs is ready and clean,” he concluded gruffly.

As Simon thanked the man, he was aware of Miri regarding both of them, no doubt sensing the undercurrents. Her gaze moved on to the inn itself, the gloom-shrouded walls, the tables and chairs that would still look just as stark and empty even after the candles were lit.

Simon was quick to gather up their saddlebags and hustle her toward the stairs. A maidservant toting a jug of hot water appeared to usher them to the landing above. The young strawberry blonde was no one Simon remembered from his previous visits. Doubtless she had been engaged to replace the pair of hands lost when Lucie Paillard had vanished. The presence of the new maid suggested that the Paillards had finally accepted the fact that their daughter was never coming home.

As the chambermaid escorted Miri up the stairs, Simon prepared to follow. But a hand reached out to pluck at his sleeve.

“Monsieur Aristide?”

Simon’s gut knotted as he turned to face the wraith of a woman who had melted out of the shadows. Once as pretty and youthful as her daughter, Colette Paillard looked like a lovely gown that had been worn too hard, faded from too much washing and bleaching in the sun. As much as her husband abhorred the sight of Simon, Simon dreaded encountering this woman with her tremulous mouth and tragic eyes.

He ducked his head in a curt bow. “Madame Paillard.”

“Forgive me, but I was wondering if anywhere in your travels you had heard anything of—of—” She stole an anxious glance into the taproom, where her husband was serving wine to the river men. Gaspard Paillard had forbidden his daughter’s name to ever be spoken beneath his roof again.

Colette sank her voice to a whisper.
“Lucie.”

“No, madame. I am sorry. I have not.”

Miri and the chambermaid had already vanished up the stairs. Simon tried again to follow, but once more Madame Paillard detained him.

“But if you did learn anything—if you ever found my girl—”

Simon adjusted the weight of the saddlebags across his shoulder, his mouth tightening. Did not this pathetic creature understand what would happen to
her girl
if he did find Lucie? That he’d be obliged to see her tried and hung for witchcraft and the murder of her child?

“It—it is just the never knowing that is the worst,” she quavered. “Always wondering what’s become of her that keeps me awake of nights. So if you did know, if you would promise to be kind enough to come and tell me . . .”

Simon thought he would sooner have hot spikes shoved beneath his nails than be the one to inform this mother of the fate that was bound to befall her only child. But when Colette’s eyes filled, he said gently, “I promise.”

She blinked back her tears, made a pitiful attempt to smile before she faded back into the taproom. Simon stalked up the stairs, not for the first time cursing his profession and witches like Lucie Paillard and this damnable Silver Rose who made his work necessary. As he gained the landing, there was no sign of Miri. But the chambermaid emerged from the first door to his right.

“This way, monsieur,” she said, bobbing a nervous curtsy, taking such obvious pains not to stare at Simon’s eye patch, he nearly snapped at her to take a good long look. But he restrained himself. He was accustomed to the stares his scarred face attracted, and it was not this girl who disturbed him, but coming back to this cursed place. He should have tried harder to find somewhere else to safely pass the night. He had to have been mad to bring Miri to this inn, haunted with its weight of bitter memories and despair. No, he decided. When he had truly lost his wits was back there in the vineyard when he’d agreed to let Miri accompany him at all.

As soon as the maid ushered Simon into the room, the girl was quick to make her escape. The Brass Horse was not the roistering place it had once been. Even so the silence seemed deafening to Simon when the door closed, shutting him in alone with Miri. He dropped the saddlebags to the floor with a loud thud.

Someone, either the maid or Miri, had already lit the candles, fending off the twilight shadows. Most likely it had been the maid because Miri stood poised in the center of the room like a woman who had not made up her mind to stay. Her face still half obscured by the flopping brim of her battered hat, she seemed to be taking stock of their surroundings.

Not that there was much to see beyond a pair of wooden stools, a small round table, the washstand, and . . . the bed, a thick feather mattress covered by a worn counterpane, not very wide, with two pillows nestled side by side, close, intimate as any two people would be who crowded into that bed together.

After an initial protest at his decision to stop for the night, Miri had said little since crossing the threshold of the inn. But now she turned to frown at him. “You seriously expect the two of us to share this one room?”

“Well, it would look damned odd if I told the landlord that we lads required separate rooms, wouldn’t it,
Louis
?” he asked caustically. “Unless you expect some sort of royal treatment because you adopted the name of kings?”

“No, I don’t and I didn’t call myself that because of any king.” She ducked deeper beneath the brim of her hat, saying in a quieter voice. “Louis was my father’s name.”

Simon winced, feeling like a complete bastard. He was as edgy as she was regarding this situation, but that was no excuse. He should have remembered. Miri had spoken of her father often enough that first summer they had met, so fiercely proud to be the daughter of the bold Chevalier Louis Cheney. When they had wandered the shores of the hidden cove, how often had her gaze strayed wistfully to the channel waters, as though expecting at any moment to see the billow of sails wafting her father home.

“Sorry,” Simon muttered, sagging back against the closed door. “But this is one consequence of our little pact neither one of us paused to consider, that we will be thrust intimately together for the duration of this journey, both day and night.”

“We—we will manage somehow.”

Simon wished he was as sure of that. After another moment’s hesitation, Miri stripped off her hat and tossed it on the bed. As she bent to retrieve her saddlebag, her tunic rode up, the fabric of her breeches drawing tight over the full curve of her derriere. Simon looked frantically around the room for something to do, anything that didn’t involve staring at Miri’s shapely arse.

He stalked over to the window and peered down into the yard, just able to make out the outline of the well and the stables where Samson and Elle were housed. All seemed quiet and deserted, but he ought to sit up all night watching, with a loaded pistol at the ready—

Simon checked himself with a heavy scowl, realizing he was being ridiculous. None of the Silver Rose’s agents had been seen here since the night Lucie Paillard had vanished. It was unlikely they would decide to put in an appearance tonight. Never once had the witches attempted to attack him when he was at an inn with other people around.

He wasn’t thinking straight and he knew why. Miri. The woman’s mere presence unsettled him in more ways than he could count. He was far too aware of her moving about the chamber behind him, the splash of water as she dipped into the wash basin, cleansing away the dust of the day.

When he breathed in, it was as though her scent pervaded the room, something warm, enticingly feminine. A far too seductive aroma. He leaned out the window to clear his nostrils. A light breeze coming off the river tickled the ends of his beard. With the onset of twilight, the air had cooled, but not nearly enough, it seemed to Simon.

He should have tried harder to dissuade Miri from coming with him, he berated himself. But he knew the woman’s stubborn resolve all too well. She had meant it when she had threatened to go after the Silver Rose alone.

But that had not been what had really swayed him. It had been the earnest way she had looked up at him when she had said,
“I am a true daughter of the earth, and this evil woman defiles all the goodness and harmony I believe in, every principle that I hold dear. It is my duty to stop her as much as it is yours. How can I make you understand?”

She couldn’t. Simon had never been able to fully comprehend the distinction Miri made between wise women and witches. Any dabbling with magic and the ancient lore seemed to him dangerous and forbidden. And yet Miri was so passionate about what she declared to be the true way of the daughters of the earth, she was willing to risk her life in its defense. He might not like it, might not understand it, but by God, he respected her for it.

And she was right when she said that he required her help. He’d had no success defeating the Silver Rose on his own and Miri had more abilities and connections among the community of wise women than he had ever suspected. He needed whatever knowledge and skill she possessed, needed her with him however long it took to hunt down this sorceress.

But the upcoming days and nights were going to be damned difficult if he didn’t manage to draw rein on the other emotions and desires the woman roused in him. He swept one last searching glance over the stable yard before closing and fastening the shutters. When he came about, he wished that he had kept his gaze trained outside a while longer.

Miri had unpinned and unbraided her hair, the silken tresses cascading like a waterfall of moonlight about her shoulders. As she groped beneath her tunic, he caught a flash of creamy white skin. She struggled to undo the thick strip of linen she had used to bind her breasts. As it came free, she pulled the length of cloth from inside her tunic with a soft sigh of relief that whispered over him, as seductive as a caress.

With the neckline of her tunic loosened, the folds parted enough to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of the valley of her breasts, and the desire that pierced Simon was as swift and sharp as the bolt of an arrow. He knew he ought to drag his gaze away but continued to watch her as though mesmerized.

Completely oblivious to the effect she was having on him, Miri dipped a sponge in the washbasin and stroked the cool, cleansing water over her neck, her eyes closing in an expression of almost sensual delight. Droplets trickled over her delicate collarbone, past the silver chain she wore, disappearing into the soft swell of her cleavage.

Difficult? Simon gritted his teeth, feeling himself go hard. These next days and nights were going to be pure hell. As Miri toweled herself dry, she finally seemed to remember she was not alone in the room. As she came about to face him, she adjusted her neckline to a more demure position.

“We should not have come here, Simon,” she said gravely. “This hostelry has an unhappy aura.”

He regarded her incredulously. They were embarking on a hunt that imperiled both their lives. They were pent up in a bedchamber that seemed to him to be getting smaller by the minute and
she
was worried about the inn’s blasted aura?

Miri shuddered. “It is as though some great sorrow presses down upon the very rafters.”

Simon was surprised that she should have sensed that, but he supposed he shouldn’t have been. Miri had always possessed a heightened sensitivity, an uncanny sympathy with her surroundings. Simon had told her nothing of the Paillards and their tragic history. He was in no humor for another argument and he feared that Miri would attempt to convince him that like the Moreau girl, Lucie Paillard was only
misguided.
Simon knew better. But at least a discussion of the shortcomings of the Brass Horse might serve to put a damper on the heat stirring in his loins.

“I admit this isn’t the cheeriest place,” he said. “But it’s clean, comfortable, and more important, safe. And it is only for the one night.”