Page 10 of Misadventures with a Duke

Tonight, I’m going to love all of me—exactly the way I am.

Chapter Three

Bastien

“Bastien! Are you listening? I said leave her, boy!”

Leave her.

Does Carl understand what he is demanding? Does he not see the grief that tears me apart like a morning star jammed down my throat? That walking away from Magique would be like ramming that spiked ball to the middle of my gut and then twirling it?

I tell him all of that and more with the violent lift of my head and the fierce grimace on my lips. He ignores it all and somehow hauls me to my feet. Kavia sweeps in too, speaking hideously soothing words while prying my fingers free from my beloved’s lifeless form.

Magique slips to the floor with a sickening thunk. The sound is final and heavy, as if I have sobbed enough tears to soak her through. Perhaps I have. My sorrow eclipses my strength, rendering me useless against their pulls and prods. They guide me down the shadowed hall and the narrow back stairs. We cross the empty kitchen, not stopping until we reach the alley behind the inn.

The midnight air hits me in a chilled blast. It jolts me to a semblance of alertness, making me stare at the faded fichu in my closed fist. The scarf that once graced my lover’s neck.

When I stare at the blood spatter on it, my other hand twists into a shaking fist. Chunks of my shattered heart pierce every inch of my heaving lungs. My steps are wooden as Carl and Kavia pull me farther down the alley.

Night creatures, still shivering in the shadows, scuttle into damp shadows at our rushed approach. Silently, I beg them to take me with them. The litany ends fast, as soon as we turn into the shallow inlet beside the inn’s stable.

Unsurprisingly, the shallow bay is consumed by the girth of Carl’s field wagon. I am stunned by what is occupying the majority of its broad bed.

“Why…” I blink, wondering if my addled mind has produced a skewed view. But no. Nothing has changed. “Carl? Kavia? What are you doing with the wardrobe from the grande chambre?”

Oui, this is indeed…that. The huge chest is not difficult to identify, despite having been laid down on its backside, so to speak. The pearl inlays along its doors reflect the few stars persisting overhead.

“Hush now,” Kavia rebukes. “Please, boy!”

Her exigence is not in vain. Marq and Lonzo’s compatriots are surging the main avenue like a rage-swollen river. For all I know, the pair of them are hiding in the depths of that flow: a couple of cowardly trout beneath the sharks who bellow and scream beneath their pennants and torches. That possibility actually brightens me. The mere idea of getting to sprint out there and tear the crowd apart to find them…

Kavia cuts the fantasy short with a jerk at my elbow. Damn it. The woman knows me too well.

“Come.” She drags me to the cart bed. “Up here. Now.”

I hesitate. “Because you actually mean to get through that throng in this?”

“We will worry about that later.”

I narrow an incredulous stare. “There is no later.”

She only harrumphs while hoisting herself onto the cart’s bed alongside me.

“Kavia. Are you listening to me?”

“She hears you.” Carl takes a position on the other side of the wardrobe. “But right now it is your turn to listen. Clearly and carefully.”

The confused cotton in my mind thickens into down. “What are you talking ab—”

Kavia whomps a hand over my mouth. The top of her finger wall crowds the low end of my glare. “Hush,” she grits out anyway. “But only if you value your neck half as much as we do.”

I almost laugh. I want to, more than anything. To toss off her reproach with a smirk on my lips and a salamander in my pocket, as I did during simpler times. But there is no slimy little crawler to help me now. And the world is far from simple. I doubt it ever will be again.

“Get in,” she dictates, preventing me from making the choice either way. She nods toward Carl, who swiftly swings open the wardrobe’s doors. It’s empty inside. I am not as bewildered about that than by the ongoing mystery of their ultimate plan.

“I still do not understand,” I say, despite complying with her order. “If you want to smuggle me back home, there are easier means of—”

“You are not going home,” Carl says.