no choice.
Michel drew his knife from the sheath at the back of his waist as he crept silently behind the sailor. Briefly he wondered who the man was, and why Jerusa had chosen him to trust. Whatever his name, he would be the one who suffered for trusting her. Another fate, another death to lay to the name of Sparhawk.
The man jerked only once as Michel’s knife found its mark, his own knife falling harmlessly from Jerusa’s throat to the ground with a thump. While Michel stepped away, back into the shelter of the shadows, the man swore, his voice thick and his eyes already glazing with death. As he staggered backward, he pulled the girl with him, and they fell together in a tangle of arms and legs.
Gasping for breath, she struggled frantically to free herself, still not aware that the grasp she fought belonged to a dead man. Unsteadily she tried to push herself up onto her hands and knees, and at last Michel reached down to pull her roughly to her feet.
“You see what you have done, ma chérie?” he demanded. “No, don’t try to look away. If you had not run from me again, that man would live still.”
Her eyes wild with terror, she shuddered and tried to break free. But Michel held her tight, turning her face so she was forced to see Lovell’s body and the spreading dark pool of blood around it. She had to understand what she’d done. She had to know the smell and feel of death, or she’d never understand him.
“He—he was going to kill me, Michel,” she rasped, her voice ragged from fear and the pressure of the man’s knife against her throat. “He was going to rob me, and—and use me, and kill me.”
“Then it was you or him, Jerusa,” said Michel relentlessly. “Because of what you did, one of you would have died here tonight. Was leaving me worth your life? Think of it, ma mie. That could be your blood.”
“It would not have been like that, Michel, I swear!”
“It couldn’t have been anything else.” He grabbed her hand and thrust it downward, into the warm, sticky puddle of Lovell’s blood. “Did you wish to be gone from me that badly?”
She gasped and jerked her hand free, but not before her palm and fingers had been stained red. She stared at her hand in horror, her fingers spread and trembling.
“What have you done, Michel?” she whispered as the horror of what had happened finally grew real. “God help me, Michel, what have you done?”
He smiled grimly, his pulse only now beginning to slow. “Only what you drove me to do, Jerusa,” he said softly. “And God help you indeed if you ever leave me again.”
“You’re fine, ma chère,” said Michel again as he carefully sat Jerusa on the edge of the trough beside the public well. He’d gotten her away from the alley by the rum shop as quickly as he could. He’d taken care, too, that no one had seen them come here, and at this time of night, the market square was empty except for a handful of yowling, skittering cats, but still he kept to the shadows. “I swear it, Rusa. You’re fine.”
He smiled at her again, his face tight with forced cheerfulness. She didn’t look fine now, no matter what he told her or how much he wanted to believe it. Her eyes were wide and staring, her face pale even by the moonlight, and her hands and forearms were scraped raw from where she’d been shoved against the brick wall. Though she’d stopped gasping, her breathing remained quick and shallow, and Michel still wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t faint. Quickly he dipped his handkerchief into the cool water and stroked it across her forehead and cheeks.
She closed her eyes and shivered, but the cool water seemed to calm her, and gently he touched the cloth to her cheeks again.
“Right as rain, ma mie, I swear,” he said softly. “Isn’t that what you English say? Though how an Englishman reared in your infernal Yankee weather could ever make rain and right equal one another is beyond reason.”
Gently he took her hand and lowered it into the water, rubbing away the stains left by the dead sailor’s blood until her fingers were once again white and unblemished. He had wanted to make her understand, that was all, to understand what he suffered every day of his life. But what demon had made him do it so shockingly? Not for the first time he wondered with despair if he, too, were touched by his mother’s madness.
Jerusa sighed, a deep shudder that shook her body, and slowly opened her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I should never have left the inn.”
“No apologies, Rusa,” he murmured. “No apologies.”
She shook her head. “I’m not a child. I should have known better.”
“You haven’t made things any easier for me, true enough.” Morbleu, was that an understatement. By some quirk of the winds he and Jerusa had arrived in Seabrook before Gilles Rochet’s sloop. Michel would have been willing to wait for him here a day or two—his confidence in Gilles was worth that—but now they would have to leave Seabrook immediately, this night if possible. With any luck the dead sailor’s body wouldn’t be discovered before dawn, and by then he intended to be long gone.
He took the hem of Jerusa’s skirt and swept it back and forth through the water, trying to rinse away the bloodstains.
“You don’t have to do that now, Michel,” she said. “I’d rather go back to the inn, and Mrs. Cartwright can tend to those—those spots there.”
“Not if I can help it, she won’t. Right now you’re the one who’s in the greater danger of meeting Jack Ketch.”
She looked at him uncertainly, remembering what he’d told her in the alley. “Don’t be foolish, Michel. What have I done?”
“Not a thing, ma petite, but the constable will trust his eyes and ears more than your word,” said Michel bleakly. “I had no choice but to kill the man, Jerusa. I couldn’t put you at that risk, not with his knife at your throat. It had to be quick.”
Briefly she closed her eyes again as her throat tightened at the memory. Michel accused her father of being a murderer, but was what he’d done himself any different? She didn’t want to consider how deftly, how deliberately Michel must have thrust his knife into the other man. Yet if he hadn’t, she would be the one who’d died instead. Dear God, why was it all so complicated?
“I had no choice,” said Michel again, desperate that she understand. He had killed the man to save her. If he had to, he would do it again. In his world, the difference between life and death could often be measured by a second’s hesitation, and tonight he had nearly been too late. “You must believe me, Jerusa.”
Troubled and confused though she was, she still nodded. “Mr. Lovell—he’s dead, then?”
Michel sighed. “Sacristi, did he know your name, too?”
“I had to tell him,” she said softly, her shoulders drooping. “I didn’t see the harm in it. I wanted his captain to take me back to Newport, you see.”
“At least he’s past telling anyone else.” Michel sat back on his heels and whistled low under his breath. “All we must contend with now is that half the town knows your face.”
“And because I’m a stranger in this town, and because I was the last one to be seen walking with Mr. Lovell and I’ve his blood on my gown, then everyone will think
