If they didn’t get on a boat, he expected they wouldn’t survive. Once the dead man in their room was discovered, people would be looking for them. If whoever had set this up was clever, as he suspected, they’d be waiting for a maid to find his and Sophie’s bodies. Which should give them until breakfast before it was discovered they were gone.
But once that news was out, Eloisa wouldn’t be slow to act. And she could draw the same conclusions that Madame de Montesse had, that the wisest thing for Cameron and Sophie to do would be to try to get to Illvya. She wouldn’t want to let Sophie get away even if it wasn’t her behind the attack. A royal witch fleeing the country? Going to the enemy? Eloisa would send soldiers to every portal in Anglion if she had to. If she wasn’t the one behind the attempt on their lives, then her bringing them back to the capital would just give whoever it was a second shot. And if it was Eloisa, well, then they wouldn’t make it back to the capital. Their bodies would merely be discovered somewhere in circumstances that would be explained away. There was nowhere to hide.
They had to leave tonight.
He registered sand rather than stones beneath the soles of his boots as they came around the last curve of the path.
“This is it,” he said. He looked around. “Triple rock. Madame de Montesse said there was a triple rock.”
“There,” Sophie said, pointing. Her voice rasped through heaving breaths, but she followed when he started for the rock as fast as the sand allowed. He fell to his knees and started digging where they’d been told. When his hand touched leather, the relief was so overwhelming, he almost lost control. But his training and his need to save Sophie overruled his emotions.
He tugged the leather bundle free, sliced open the thongs that held it closed, and pulled out the lantern inside. He recognized the design. Shuttered on all four sides, it offered the ability to open just one panel so the light was limited and directed. They used such things in battles sometimes.
This one had a peculiar grid pattern in the lead separating the glass panes, which was how the smugglers would know this was their lantern, he supposed. He wondered if there was some sort of magic involved as well. Something that alerted the smugglers that the lantern had been lit in case they weren’t looking for it.
Chloe hadn’t mentioned it if there was. So they would just have to take their chances.
He reached into his pocket for the matches he usually carried when Sophie grabbed at his wrist.
“Wait,” she said.
“There’s no time.”
Her grip tightened. “There is. I want you to listen to me. You don’t have to come with me. You can go back. Tell them you found me gone and tried to look for me to bring me back but couldn’t find me. You don’t have to lose your family because of me.”
He stared down at her, disbelieving. Did she really think he would abandon her? That he could let her walk away from him after everything they had shared? “You think I’m going to leave you? To let you do this on your own?”
Her eyes were wide in the moonlight, shining with what he was sure were unshed tears. “This is my fault. If you hadn’t saved me in Portholme, none of this would be happening to you. You can still have a life here.”
He laughed then, the sound wild and bitter. “If you think that, then the last few weeks haven’t taught you much. Do you really think they’d believe I didn’t help you? That the Domina wouldn’t suspect? Wouldn’t try to use me to find out where you are?”
“But your family.” She was crying now. Shock, most likely, and the strain of it all overwhelming her.
“My family will be fine,” he said fiercely. “So will yours. Once they figure out where we’ve gone, there’s no point in doing anything to our families. It won’t bring us back. At worse, Eloisa can banish them from Kingswell for a time, and being out of the capital right now is probably the best thing anybody can hope for. She can’t take Liam’s title away from him. It’s too soon in her reign for her to attempt anything so risky. It would likely backfire on her and make the lords band against her. Same thing if she tries to arrange any convenient accidents. The suspicion would fall straight on her. She needs to consolidate power, not destabilize it.” He held her tighter, hoping she was listening, willing her to believe him. “Liam will protect your family. You’re a Mackenzie now.”
She made a noise that was half sob, half laugh, and lifted her head.
“I won’t leave you,” he repeated. “Body and blood, remember? Shield and shelter. Always.”
She nodded and wiped her face with the back of her hand. Then she straightened her shoulders and stepped back, standing small and resolute on the sand, one hand clasping the strap of the satchel draped over her shoulder. Her cloak fluttered gently in the wind from the water, and her hair, so hastily tied up back in the palace lifted as well, shimmering in the moonlight.
She was beautiful, his wife. And he was going to keep her alive if it killed him.
“All right. Good girl.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Now be a clever wildcat and light this damned lamp for me because you made me drop the matches.”
That made her laugh again, the sound genuine this time, and the lamp sprang to life in his hand.
He put it on the top of the highest of the three rocks, as Chloe had told them, wrapped Sophie up next to him under their cloaks, and settled in to wait.
It took nearly an hour by his reckoning, and his nerves stretched and tightened with each passing second as he stared at the dark water and dark sky, trying to determine whether the latter was lightening or if it was just his imagination playing tricks of him. He strained for any sound of a boat, and then, when it finally came, he wasn’t sure it wasn’t just another wave. He leaned forward, which made Sophie, dozing against his shoulder, come awake.
“What?” she said sleepily.
“Ssh,” he said softly, trying to hear. Then it came again. So faintly he still wasn’t sure. A creak of wood, a splash that was out of time with the rhythm of the waves. The sound of a small boat being rowed to shore.
“Merciful goddess, thank you,” he muttered, and ran down to the water to meet the boat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE