The Road to Ruin by Bronwyn Stuart

Author:Bronwyn Stuart [Stuart, Bronwyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Romance
ISBN: 9781951786946
Google: C1LZDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B086H5TWZX
Goodreads: 23609702
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2014-12-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

When James heard a strange sound during the night, he opened his eyes, his senses on full alert in the darkness. A sliver of light fell across his boots from the end of the bed but didn’t provide enough illumination to see what or who made the sound. In the back of his mind he knew something wasn’t right.

In the distance a loud pop was followed by a whistling sound and then a bang that shook the walls around him. He was on his feet and at the window in less than a heartbeat. The acrid stench of smoke filled the air as yet another booming explosion shook the floor. James ducked, thinking the next cannon ball would be aimed at his head.

He tried to peer out of the window but the smoke was too thick, the night too dark. At his back, a muffled thump was followed by a curse and he couldn’t believe his stupidity. He had let his defences down and someone had found them.

His hand went to where his dagger was always strapped against his leg but he found only the fabric of his trousers.

“Who’s there?” he called.

“Did you think we would never find you, Monsieur Boucher?”

The woman’s Parisian lilt sounded at once both familiar yet not. “Who are you?”

“You do not remember killing me, monsieur?”

His eyes stung and his mind reeled. Was this his day of reckoning? “I won’t apologize, milady, we were at war.”

“Does that give you the excuse to kill women and children?”

Memory once again stirred as she stepped into the puddle of moonlight. Long dark hair billowed down her back and around her face. “Marie?”

“Ah, so La Boucher does remember one of his victims? What about the others? Do you remember all of their names?”

“I did not know all of their names.” His chest hurt and his throat filled with lead at that admission. A single tear rolled down his cheek when he closed his eyes. He blamed the smoke. It was thicker now.

Marie withdrew her hand from behind her back to reveal a long sword, its sharp-edged blade glinting as she advanced.

He did not retreat. Not this time. “You are a ghost: you cannot hurt me.”

She laughed, the sound still in the air as her form disappeared before his eyes as though it came from the very smoke around him. When next he heard her voice, it was from the direction of the bed. “It isn’t you I was thinking of hurting tonight.”

He followed her. “You must stay out of my dreams, Marie.”

“You wanted me in your bed, James. Do you no longer want me?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, Marie lay there on the covers, nude but for the blood covering her chest up to her neck, the gash deep, wide, fatal.

“Get out of my head!”

“Do you recall the night you took my life, James?”

“I remember the night you tried to kill me, yes.”

She pulled the blanket up to her chin and stared at him, her big brown eyes now wide and scared.

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