“It’s a chance I have to take. Kit would do the same for me.” He held her gaze. There was so much he wanted to say, but now was not the time. There might never be a right time. “If something goes wrong—” he cleared his throat “—Alejandro will take you straight back to Scovell. You take my ship straight back to England.”
“Don’t you dare get yourself killed, William Ravenwood.”
He gave her an elegant ballroom bow. “Of course not, my lady.”
She stepped up close and put her hand on his cheek, cutting through his flippancy. He couldn’t stop himself from leaning into the touch, trying to absorb some of her softness, her goodness. Without a word he took her into his arms and felt her lean against him. It wasn’t even a sexual embrace. He simply held her, offering mute comfort, willing the warmth of his body into hers, barely aware of what he was doing, just conscious of the need to hold her.
After an endless time the tension flowed from her limbs and her shoulders relaxed. He drew back reluctantly and paused, hovering over her mouth as if waiting for permission to kiss her.
She closed the distance between them. It was a brief, hard kiss, tasting of sweetness, regret, and despair, and he had to force himself to step back.
He pushed her from his mind as he rode out of camp with Alejandro and Carlos, both of whom were wearing the distinct bright red uniforms of officers in His Majesty’s armed forces, provided by Major Scovell.
They reached the ruins around midday and made certain they were the only ones there. The exchange had been set for one o’clock, so they took up a position inside the church and waited.
The ruins had been a good choice. The French border was just over the next pass, and the remoteness of the location ensured there would be no accidental interruptions. The little church had been abandoned for some time, and had obviously been the site of various wartime skirmishes. The blinding white stucco was pitted and pockmarked with shot; inside, the wooden pews had been toppled like dominoes and lay strewn and dusty under the arched roof.
Anything of value had already been looted; empty niches and the bare altar showed gaps where statues and ecclesiastical plates had once sat, and the leaded windows were riddled with bullet holes. Intense rays of sunlight shone through the jagged glass and the shards that littered the floor crunched beneath his feet.
Raven had just checked all the doors when Carlos’s whistle came. A horse-drawn cart was trundling along the valley floor, flanked by four men on foot and one man, clearly the leader, on horseback.
Raven squinted, trying to make out the features of the sixth, a huddled figure, lying prone in the back of the cart, but they were still too far away to confirm his identity.
Alejandro fastened a pair of metal cuffs around his wrists. The deception was necessary to maintain the illusion that he was a prisoner, but Raven’s stomach still churned at the feel of them binding him. Now was not the time to remember his imprisonment. He needed to do this for Kit.
He felt naked and horribly vulnerable without his pistols, but at least he had his knife, hidden under his shirt. If things went wrong it would be three men against five. He’d survived worse.
The cart rolled closer.
—
Heloise had watched Raven ride out of camp with a sinking feeling.
The thought of him facing his enemy almost completely unarmed made her stomach churn. She didn’t doubt his ability with a knife, but what good would that be against a loaded pistol? And surely there would be more than just three Frenchmen at the exchange. He’d undoubtedly be outnumbered.
She resisted the urge to follow him for a good ten or fifteen minutes. But then a flock of birds darkened the sky overhead, cawing and screeching, and she’d taken it as an ominous sign. The man she loved was out there, facing the enemy. If he thought she could just sit here and sew something pretty while she awaited his return then he didn’t know her at all.
She beckoned Rafael over and began drawing in her sketchbook. It took quite a few scribbles for him to understand where she wanted to go, mainly because she had no idea what the ruined church looked like, and the concept of “the next valley over” was surprisingly difficult to convey.
Her English churches with pointed spires met with blank stares. And then she remembered the little church she and Raven had passed outside Santander. She drew a simple box with a bell in a niche at the top and a cross on the door.
Rafael nodded enthusiastically. “Ah!Quieres ir a la iglesia en las colinas! No está lejos. Vamos.”
“Sí.Raven. You must take me to Raven. Now! This instant.”
Worried that she might be under a polite form of armed guard, Heloise decided not to risk informing the others. She didn’t want an escort. If the men Raven was meeting heard a large party approaching they would no doubt assume they were being attacked and react badly.
She managed to persuade Rafael to take their two horses and ride a little way up the track while she slipped out of the camp under the pretense of going to the stream.
At Heloise’s urging they kept away from the road that led into the valley and made their way through the forested slopes until Rafa pointed out a tiny whitewashed church in a clearing. He seemed perfectly content to remain with their horses while Heloise crept forward to the edge of the trees, keeping as quiet as possible.
She couldn’t see anyone outside the church, but a flock of birds had perched on the roof and sat, as if waiting for something. Heloise shivered with a strange sense of foreboding. The clearing was eerily quiet. And then came the sound of a rattling cart, horses, and marching boots.
She ducked down to watch.
Chapter 38
“Here they come,” Alejandro murmured. “I don’t recognize the leader.”