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house of God. Not
even in the worst days of the Terror did they go that far.”
    Forli
nodded. “The good father is correct. Bonaparte has issued a decree protecting
all clerics from harm at the hands of his followers—an obvious bid for support
of the church in his efforts to regain his throne.
    Madelaine
stared at the orange window over the cleric’s head. Even through the stained
glass, she could see the flames leaping from the roof of what had been her home
for so many years. She felt choked with grief and despair. “I will not stay in
Lyon if I must go into hiding to do so,” she said bitterly.
    Tristan
Thibault nodded. “I, too, am anxious to leave, and Bonaparte’s decree could be
our ticket to Calais—if you will help us Father.”
    Father
Bertrand leaned wearily against one of the marble pillars supporting the vast
nave of the church. “I will do anything in my power to help the petite fille of my old friend,” he said gravely. “Still, I cannot like the idea of an
innocent young woman of gentle birth traveling without a chaperone.”
    “I
am afraid the times are too desperate to worry about propriety,” Tristan
Thibault declared in a voice sharpened by impatience. “But if it is any comfort
to you, I guarantee I will guard the honor of my employer’s daughter with my
life.”
    The
priest sighed. “I can ask no more. Take this grandchild of my old friend then,
monsieur. Help her to find a new life in a land where the soil is not saturated
with the blood of Frenchmen killed by Frenchmen. Tell me how I may help you.”
    “I
shall need a priest’s cassock—a large one—and a razor, if possible. Mine is in
my saddlebag. Thank God, I kept my papers and money on my person.” Thibault
glanced at Madeleine. “And a shirt and trousers such as a young paysan might wear.”
    Father
Bertrand’s eyes widened. “You plan to travel as a priest and his acolyte? But
is that not risky? What if you are found out?”
    “I
think that is less a risk than the one we would face traveling without a
disguise.” Tristan Thibault ran his fingers through his unruly black hair.
“Thank heavens the priests of your order are not tonsured.”
    His
silver eyes swept Madelaine with an assessing look that made her feel as if he
could see into her very soul. “But we shall need a pair of shears nevertheless.
I believe mademoiselle will make a very handsome boy once we bob her hair.”
    “Bob
my hair?” Madelaine heard the shock in her own voice. Instinctively, she
reached up to touch her one vanity—the dark brown, waist-length tresses that
were coiled in a neat chignon at her nape. She had lost everything else; now
this insensitive lout, who rejoiced that he need not shave his own head, was
insisting she must chop off her crowning glory.
    Tristan
smiled to himself. The lady’s gesture and her look of abject horror when he suggested
cutting her hair were so feminine, so vain, so sweetly vulnerable, that he felt
the first glimmer of hope for success of his thankless mission. He’d almost
begun to think he was transporting a bloody saint back to London to become his
brother’s wife—a fate worse than death for any man, to his way of thinking. But
she was just an ordinary woman after all.
    With
Forli’s help, he finally convinced her of the logic of his plan. Then, with
Father Bertrand in the lead, they trooped into the rectory to do the deed. In
tight-lipped resignation, Madelaine seated herself on the stool provided,
removed the kerchief she’d worn on her head when she’d knelt at the chancel
rail and then one by one the pins from hair.
    Tristan
felt his breath catch in his throat as the gleaming silken mantle spread down
her back to graze the curve of her slender hips. Suddenly the shears the
priest’s housekeeper had pressed into his hands felt like instruments of
torture. He stared at them, nonplussed, unable to bring himself to use them to
mutilate such beauty.
    “I
will cut it if you wish, milord,” Forli