Page 91 of Dagger’s Shield

When the treatment began, Bertrand read to her from her favorite book until she slept to the sound of his voice.

Nobody left the room.

That evening, after we’d returned to Valais, Maëlle took the serpette I’d given her for Christmas from its box and asked me to walk out to the vineyard with her.

“You said you wanted me to teach you. This is winter pruning, and we’ll start with my least favorite varietal rather than my father’s.”

She fit the blade to a cane and showed me where to make the cut. I butchered my first three, and she fixed them without laughing at me, then took a man’s knife from her pocket and handed it to me.

We worked up the slope until the light faded. At the top of the rise, we stopped and looked out over the valley.

“Marthe told me that it was here my father asked if you loved me,” she said.

“I told him the truth.” I gathered her in my arms. “I dreamed this, Maëlle. You and me, in the vineyard, gold light shining on the rows of grapevines. I knew then, before you even agreed to my scheme.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Do you think Marthe taught me nothing? Why do you think I became a spy?”

“I should’ve known she trained you.”

“There’s more. She swore to me that you were always this man. Everything else was a shield you used.”

“She’s right. I didn’t change, mon feu. I put the shield down. It took finding the woman who made me want to be the man behind it.”

“I spent a year believing I knew exactly who you were.” She reached up and cupped my cheeks. “I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.”

“Stay wrong. When you’re one hundred and I’m one hundred and four, I’ll still be saying, ‘Good morning, my love.’”

“It’s evening, Killian.”

“I’m getting my practice in early.”

We laughed, and I kissed her in the row we’d pruned together, under the last of the gold.

“Tell me how the dream ended,” she said.

“You were mine.”

“I am. And you?”

“Yours,” I said. “All yours.”

EPILOGUE

MAËLLE

My mother’s six cycles of chemotherapy had ended in April, and two weeks ago, her scans came back clear. The doctor didn’t go so far as to say it was a miracle that she was in remission, but silently, I did.

“You look so beautiful,” she said as she fastened the last of the tiny pearl buttons at my wrist. Three generations before me had worn the dress made of ivory silk, with lace as fine as frost at the neckline, and now, it was mine.

She turned, picked up a box, and lifted the locket from it. Her eyes met mine as she fastened it around my neck.

“There is a truth I promised myself I would deliver today,” she said. “Your father gave this locket to me before Christmas. I had never seen it in my life. He told me about his grandmother, and he said, ‘Maëlle looks so much like her.’ Then he asked me to give it to you, but not to say it was from him.”

“And you didn’t argue.”

“As I told you, I love him, ma chérie. He was not ready to swallow that much pride in one Christmas.” She smoothed the lace at my shoulder. “He’s learning.”

Beacon stuck her head in the door. “It’s time, ladies.”

I’d asked her to stand up with me. Killian had asked his sister, Alena, to be beside him during the ceremony.

Everyone who’d been with us at Onteora was with us today. Doc Butler had arranged for the K19 jet to bring them all.

At the edge of the garden, the young cherry tree we planted for Rémy had chosen this week to bloom.

He’d spent nine years working for the people who nearly killed me, and when Géraud had a gun on me, my cousin had gone for it with his bare hands. Like Killian, my cousin had wanted to save me. Despite his crimes, I believed he was in the garden with us and that he loved me.

Papa met me at the garden gate and offered his arm. He walked me as far as the first row of chairs, kissed both my cheeks, and stepped in beside Maman.

The rest of the aisle was mine to walk alone. Nobody was giving me away. I was giving myself to the man I loved.

Killian took both my hands when the priest announced our vows. When Killian spoke, it was only loud enough for the officiant and me to hear.

“Maëlle. They gave you a code name that means frost, and they were wrong the day they chose it. You’re fire. You were fire when you fought me, fire when you outworked me, fire in a blue car, racing to beat my train. I hid behind a shield for years because it was easier than being known. You saw straight through it. So here is my vow, mon feu, made in front of God, your family, and the best-armed wedding party in France. I will love you in harvest and in frost, in cover and in truth, in this life and whatever follows it. You gave yourself to me today, and I will never let you go.”