* * *
Michel stared at the beautiful woman lying in his brother’s bed and rubbed his hand over his chin. She hadn’t awakened long enough to get some broth or water in her. And now she lay still, drawn into a little ball as though defending herself against something he couldn’t see. He took a step closer, ran his eyes over her.
The quilt rose and fell ever so slightly along her side.
At least she breathed. At least she hadn’t curled up and died on him.
What’s your name? Where are you headed? Is someone expecting you? Questions warred inside him, but she wasn’t awake to ask.
He walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Her silver-and-emerald pendant lay atop her neatly folded clothes. He reached in and held the precious metal against his palm until the necklace heated with his touch.
If only the thieves had found and taken the pendant. If only he didn’t know about her heritage.
The woman sighed, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. He dropped the necklace and waited for the words that were sure to come. Mumblings and shouts about someone named Marie and soldiers, a mob and parents.
And then the tears of delirium.
He turned toward the girl, but she didn’t move. Only sighed again. Mayhap the dreams were done haunting her now that she’d awoken for a bit. God, please keep the dreams from her. She may be an aristocrat, but she’d suffered through enough dreams during the past weeks to last the remainder of her life.
Leaving the girl, he went into the main chamber and found it empty. Mère must still be in the yard. He ladled some broth from the soup simmering over the fire and poured some water before going back to the girl and setting the tray on the bedside table.
The sturdy bed frame didn’t so much as creak as he sat beside her. She groaned but didn’t wake when he rolled her toward him and propped her head and shoulders against his arm.
Her body felt slight in his embrace, as though her bones would shatter if he squeezed too tight. Her eyelids rested peacefully, and she breathed deep and evenly, not with the erratic, shallow breaths that plagued her when he first brought her home.
Unable to resist, he wiped a tendril of silky black hair from her brow, then jerked backwards.
What was he doing holding her, smoothing away her hair? He laid the girl back on her pillow and raked a hand over his hair. He had managed to bring her back from death, and nurse her to health. But that was no reason to grow soft over the girl. It mattered not whether she was beautiful or helpless. She deserved a taste of the misery her kind had caused him and his family.
Didn’t she?
Oui, of course she did. Her ilk had been taxing and oppressing people like him for centuries.
The girl writhed on her bed. “Marie! Non, don’t take her. Take me instead. It’s my fault. My fault.”
The familiar words washed over him, then dissipated into silence. How many times had she cried something similar over the past weeks?
He stood and tightened his jaw. Whatever she dreamed, whatever she remembered, he had to get her well and on her way before anyone found her. But he couldn’t send her forth before she healed.
Not after how he found her in his woods. Not when God told him to take her.
But his obligation to restore her health didn’t explain his urge to run his fingers down the slender column of her bruised neck. To smooth away the fading green-and-black splotch on her cheek.
He stalked from the room, leaving her broth and water on the bedside table.
Better to let Mère feed her. He’d get himself into trouble if he stayed any longer.
Chapter Three
Isabelle’s life spun before her in traces and glimpses, impressions and feelings. Faster and faster the scenes swirled. She tried to latch on to the pleasant memories from before the Révolution arrived—to catch that last view of Christmas with her family, to relive the day Père gave her the pendant, to remember the walks she and Mère once took in the dandelion field.
Instead, she stood in the shade on a warm summer day, lush with the scent of wildflowers and earth. Sunlight filtered through the rustling oak leaves and bathed the world in its warmth.
“This is for the best, Isabelle.” Marie didn’t look up as she plunged the shovel into the earth beneath the tree. “If someone discovers us, the money will be hidden far from the cottage, and we can still escape to England.”
Isabelle bit her lip. England. Reaching that land seemed little more than a wish. Even as Tante Cordele awaited them in London, they lived in the broken, leaking groundskeeper’s cottage on their aunt’s ruined estate.
“Here, let me dig.” Isabelle reached for the shovel, clasping a palm over Marie’s dry, lye-scarred hands. “I wish you’d found different work.”
Marie shrugged off Isabelle’s hold. “I haven’t your hand for needlework. Besides, my job as a washerwoman is only for a time. Once we reach Tante Cordele, I’ll soak my hands in scented water for a month. They’ll be soft as new.”
Marie was right. They needed money. Now. After they’d earned enough for two passages to England, they could stop their backbreaking work.
Marie rested the shovel against the tree and reached for the box Isabelle held, but Isabelle clutched it to her chest. The simple wooden square held no resemblance to the elaborate ivory jewelry box she’d left at Versailles, but inside rested the few earnings they’d scraped together and the coins she had hidden on her person before they’d been stranded.
Laying their treasure in the cold ground seemed almost cruel, but she knelt and placed the box in its new home.
Marie crouched on the opposite side of the hole and grasped Isabelle’s hand. “Swear that if I am caught, you will take this money and flee.”
She jerked her hand away and shook her head. The idea didn’t bear thinking of. “Non. You won’t be caught. We will get to England together. We must. I won’t let the Révolution take you from me.”
“Anything could happen to me, to us. We’ve no guarantee of reaching England.”
“We’ve been hiding for nearly a year, and no one has discovered us. ’Tis guarantee enough.”
“We’ve no certainty of earning money for a second ship fare, no promise that we can evade the soldiers and mobs forever. If I am caught, I will be killed.”
Isabelle’s breath caught. They’d not spoken of this before—one of them dying. Her chest felt as though she were being held underwater, and no matter how hard she fought to draw breath, the substance that invaded her airways grew thick and deadly.
“Izzy, look at me.”
She brought her shaky gaze back to Marie’s.
“If I’m caught, you take the money and map, and you go. Without looking back, without thinking of me. You flee to England. One of us will survive. We must. Whatever happens, we won’t let the mobs destroy the last La Rouchecauld.”
She longed to tell Marie not to be daft, yearned to promise they’d both see England’s shores. But Marie’s eyes, dark and serious, kept her from speaking such things. “And if I am captured, you do the same.”
And there, beneath the shade of the oak, they sliced their thumbs and pressed them together in that ancient ritual of binding a promise.
“Can you hear me, girl? Are you awake?”
The deep voice filtered through Isabelle’s haze of dreams, reaching, clutching, tugging, until it pulled her up, into the bare room lit with day. She blinked at the farmer who towered over her.