Not ever.
I was sitting in a chair in the library, looking through a picture book that had pretty enough pictures but captions in another language when I heard boots coming down the hall.
Setting the book aside, I stood and faced the door, pulling in a deep breath, turning my head this way and that looking for escape.
There was one door and the boots were approaching it.
But my deep breathing didn’t work this time. My heart swelled in my throat, cutting off my breath.
I heard one set of boots but the children still might be with him.
His children.
His children with Ilsa.
His children that could have been mine.
He strode through the door, his dark brown cape flying behind him. He took six steps in and stopped, his cape swaying forward, enveloping him briefly as if it was a living thing giving him an embrace, before it settled.
His eyes roamed me top to toe swiftly then they locked on mine and he announced, “I’ve left the children at the house in Benies. Since they’re prepared to travel and you must wait for your garments to be completed, and”—he threw out a hand— “anything else you need to acquire, they will be away by ship tomorrow and I’ll be with them. I’ve men in Benies. They’re trained, talented, loyal and trustworthy. They will arrive in the morning and when you’re ready, they’ll take you through Fleuridia and the Vale, you’ll board a ship there and sail the rest of the way to Lunwyn under their guard.”
I would?
Alas, I thought this question. I did not ask it out loud nor did I say anything fast enough to get it in before he went on.
“Now, do you have any questions?” he asked.
Did I have any questions?
Was he insane?
“Well…yes,” I answered then all the questions I had crashed into my brain. There were a lot of them and I couldn’t get a lock on a single one so I quit talking.
The impatience hit his handsome face.
“Ilsa, I have little time. I wish to be back to Benies before the children go to bed and it’s an hour’s ride.”
I caught a thought and shared, “I…well, I have a slight problem. No one here understands me. I don’t speak the language.”
His head cocked sharply to the side. “You don’t speak Fleuridian?”
“Uh…no.”
He righted his head and declared, “Valentine speaks Fleuridian.”
She did?
It must be full on French then. Or she spent a lot of time here.
“Well, I don’t,” I replied.
His eyes flashed before he continued. “Ilsa’s father was from Fleuridia. She was fluent in both Fleuridian and the language of the Vale.”
I had no idea what he was talking about but I thought it important to cautiously and thoughtfully point something out.
So, gently, I said, “I’m not her.”
His eyes swept me again before locking on mine, whereupon he stated roughly, “This, I know,” in a way that felt not-so-vaguely like an insult.