Free The Escape by Kristabel Reed Page A

Gabrielle’s gaze.
    Instead she scanned the crowed before calling out to someone she clearly recognized. “The man was unstable and paranoid,” she told her acquaintance, loudly enough for the entire block to hear her. “I feared he’d harm someone.”
    Mutterings from the crowd seemed to agree with Margaux, spreading faster than word of the disturbance between her and Theodore. A man in the middle of the crowd shouted his agreement, addressing Margaux formally. Of course they knew who Margaux was; of course they knew General Fortier’s daughters and would believe whatever they said.
    Annette pulled her back, away from Eric, André, her dead brother, and Margaux who continued to speak to the crowd as if addressing a gathering of friends.
    “Go off to your life, Gabrielle,” Annette whispered. The other woman embraced her tightly, kissed her cheek. When she looked back at Gabrielle, there were tears in her eyes. “We’ll take care of this.”
    Gabrielle nodded, stunned. Everything happened so quickly, she couldn’t do more than that. She wanted to promise to write, to visit them again, but knew both to be impossible. She couldn’t tell either sister her plans to leave France, make a new life for herself and her lovers in London.
    Instead, she squeezed Annette’s hands and, her own voice choked with emotion, whispered, “Thank you.”

Epilogue
    Gabrielle felt as beaten and worn as she no doubt looked. The journey across France had not been easy, but they’d mercifully not run into any Revolutionaries. Or for that matter, she thought as the carriage rocked along the streets, the motion lulling her into a light doze, Royalists.
    She rested her head on André’s shoulder, felt his arm come round him and finally relaxed.
    It wasn’t until now, finally in London and on their way to the townhouse André and Eric had purchased, that she felt safe. The Channel crossing hadn’t been difficult, though Gabrielle had discovered a sincere aversion to sea travel. London Hellfire representatives met them at the port in Dover and they’d crossed England in a blur of motion.
    Now, with safety and freedom all but theirs, Gabrielle found she could barely stay awake to enjoy it.
    “We’re here,” André whispered, gently urging her to sit up.
    Gabrielle nodded and opened her eyes. Exiting the carriage into the darkened, and nameless, London street, she wondered where their new home was located. Anywhere not Paris, indeed France, suited her perfectly well. Still, with fatigue tugging at her, she found herself very curious as to her new home. Eric let the door knocker fall against the heavy oak, and they waited several moments for the butler to open it.
    “Yes?” the man snapped, looking down his formidable nose at them.
    “Reynolds,” Eric snapped back in English, “let us in.”
    It took the poor man, Reynolds, several seconds of scrutiny to recognize Eric but, when he did, the butler bowed deeply and gestured them all inside. Gabrielle couldn’t blame the butler. Grime covered every inch of the three of them, their clothes were torn, travel worn, and just plain used. If she never saw this gown again, Gabrielle would be all too happy.
    She didn’t know what the townhouse looked like, and while she knew Eric and André had already spread word about Eric’s marriage to her, at this precise moment she couldn’t remember any of it.
    “The servants are well paid,” Eric was saying as they led her up the stairs. “None will utter a word as to our…peculiar living arrangements.”
    “Though I do object,” André said with a hint of his usual wicked wit, “to being the cousin, forced upon my dear relatives.” He leaned closer and whispered into her ear, sending a shiver or arousal sparking through her. “However it does give me the utmost pleasure to be the wicked tongue at balls. After all, is that not the intruding cousin’s requisite occupation?”
    “No.” Gabrielle peered up at André and gave him a wicked