The Return of the Prodigal. Кейси Майклс

      “Yes. Filthy words. They are not enough.”

      Rian smiled, remembering the days he would sit with some of the Becket crew who spoke French, and the words he had learned. Like merde. Gautier had invoked that word often as he attempted to untangle fishing nets snarled in the frequent storms off the coast of Romney Marsh. “Perhaps you’re right, Lisette. I only know how to insult the French.”

      “Your English victory insulted us enough,” Lisette said, sliding from the bed to retrieve her night rail, slip it over her head. “But I am happy now, Rian. I will take you to your family, see you safely there. It is agreed.”

      “It is agreed. I’ve already asked you to come with me, remember? Before you began arguing with me. You could stay with us for as long as you like. Indefinitely,” Rian said, coming to a decision even as the words left his mouth. The Beckets were careful who they invited to live at Becket Hall. The outside world had been given very limited access to their stronghold for almost twenty years.

      But Lisette? No one had anything to fear from her.

      And he would miss her, if she were gone.

      “Stay with you?” Lisette pulled a face again. So comical in such a pretty face. Almost delicious. “As your servant?”

      “Only if you wanted to, Lisette. Nobody at Becket Hall forces anyone to do anything they don’t wish to do.”

      “Then this Becket Hall of yours must be tumbling down around its own shoulders. Do you all laugh and sing and play the grasshopper, Rian? There are no industrious ants?”

      It was a simple question, but Rian ignored it, as he had learned to do concerning any question about Becket Hall or the people who lived there. “Once we’re there, you can decide if you want to stay.”

      “And if I wanted to leave?’ she asked, her head cocked to one side.

      “Then I would miss you,” he told her, realizing it was true.

      “Thank you, that is very nice.” She lowered her gaze, as if unsure of how to respond to his statement. “The Comte will be in residence before the week is out. I told you this, yes? We should go now. Tonight.”

      “Tonight?” Rian laughed. “I don’t think so, Lisette. Tonight I want you here, beside me. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

      “No!” She rushed back to the bed, climbed in beside him. “They watch in the daytime.”

      “What? Who watches?” Suddenly Lisette didn’t seem to be an asset to him, not if she believed such nonsense. She spoke like a child living in a fantasy world, or one who saw bogeymen where there were none.

      “I tried to leave, months ago, just before you came here, you and the other soldiers. They stopped me, said I was ungrateful. They took all my wages that I had hoarded, and no longer pay me. I so want to be far away from here.”

      Rian rubbed at his suddenly aching head. Prolonged thinking was still beyond him, damn it. Feeling, touching, desiring, indulging his senses—those worked for him, quite nicely. But to think, really think? That wasn’t so easy. “Far away from here, you said. That brings us to another question, Lisette. Where, exactly, is here? I should know, but I don’t.”

      “Valenciennes, of course. We are closer to Valenciennes than anywhere else. I told you that, yes?”

      “Probably,” Rian answered, cursing himself for not paying more attention when Lisette spoke to him. But it was so much easier to drift, to think of nothing of any consequence. Although he felt more alert tonight. Perhaps making love to Lisette helped to concentrate his mind? He could think of worse ways to nudge his brain. “I’ll need a map, Lisette. To see how far we are from the coast.”

      “There is no need,” she told him quickly. “I have been planning this for some time now. Since the day the Comte stroked my hair and asked if my hair was this same color…everywhere. He is a filthy man, Rian, and I must be gone before he returns. And if he knew that you…that you had gotten to me before him, your life would be forfeit, no matter his plans for you. You see that, don’t you? For all of this, we must go. I have sneaked into the Comte’s study, I have seen a map. I have a route already decided.”

      “He asked you such a crude question? Bastard. No wonder you’re frightened,” Rian said, his right hand balling into a fist. He would like to linger, to thank his benefactor, and then knock him down. How long had Lisette lived with this fear? “Are we within walking distance to the coast?”

      She shook her head. “Not if anyone were to come looking for us, no. We would needs must move faster than that. But I have a plan for how to get the money we will need for the journey.”

      “Of course you do. You have a head full of plans, don’t you, Lisette?”

      “Do not laugh at me. You could no more fight off the Comte than could I. Oh! Je suis très stupide! Don’t frown! I’m sorry, Rian. I didn’t mean that. I really didn’t.”

      “So you don’t see me in the role of protector? How shocking. Never mind, Lisette. I know my worth as a protector now. I know how useless I am. Tell me about your plan.”

      “I am so sorry to have said that, Rian.”

      “Lisette, enough. The plan.”

      “If you’ve forgiven me? Very well. I will steal from the Comte, of course. I volunteered to houseclean his private chambers this past spring, and that lent me the excuse to rip and tear everywhere, to find every last bit of dirt. I am very good at finding dirt. I found a leather purse at the back of his wardrobe.”

      “And you took it? That was dangerous, Lisette.”

      She looked at him as if he’d just told her he could fly. “Of course I didn’t take it, Rian. I left it just where it was. After I’d counted the coins inside it. Gold coins, Rian Becket. English coins. Worth even more than their weight in gold now that the French treasury is in shambles. The purse is still there, and still full. I checked on it tonight, to be sure, before I came to you. That is why I was so late.”

      “You’ve thought this out well, Lisette,” he said carefully. “There’s only one thing I don’t understand. Why would you wish to slow your escape by taking me along with you?”

      “I said I was sorry, Rian Becket. I didn’t mean that you are helpless.”

      “Yes, thank you yet again, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

      “You said…you said you would miss me. I would miss you, too.”

      Rian smiled, relaxed. This was what living with secrets did to a person. It made him leery even of people whose only thought was to help, to be a friend.

      But then he thought of something else. Something Lisette had said to him that afternoon, something he’d forgotten until now, and her mention of ransom. “You think the Comte took me in because he might have some use for me?”

      “I said that?”

      “You did. More than once. Don’t dissemble, Lisette, I need to hear the truth. You said this employer of yours does nothing unless there is a reason. I don’t have my head completely up my— I do remember some things, even when my mind insists on wandering down its own paths.”

      “Your mind dances in mists, Rian, but that is only because you nearly died. And you are better each day. This past fortnight, you have been very much improved. Very well. There are rumors—rumors only—that the Comte finds different inventive ways to keep himself wealthy. As a traitor to France, I am convinced, tossing his hat into whichever camp he sees most likely to benefit him. I can only think he means to ransom you, now that you aren’t going to die. It is not all that uncommon. Others have done this.”

      Her explanation seemed reasonable, to a point. The Comte couldn’t know for certain, simply because he’d worn the uniform of an officer—granted, one especially tailored