Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6

by Lise McClendon

  Odette listened carefully. “You were there, in Paris lately?”

  “In the summer.” He looked away, his brow darkening.

  “Before you deserted?”

  His gaze spun back. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’re a soldier, aren’t you? And you’re not with the troops. Pardon, monsieur. It seemed obvious.”

  His shoulders sunk a little in defeat but he didn’t answer. He stared into his tea cup instead. Odette felt she had insulted him but didn’t know how to make it right.

  They ate in silence. When the maid returned she took away their dishes. Odette dabbed the fine linen napkin to her lips. “Is he returning? I should go see to my goats.”

  “Don’t go,” Ghislain said desperately. “Please.”

  Odette’s eyes widened at the emotion in his plea. “But I must, monsieur. I have duties.”

  “I’m sorry, of course.” He held her gaze and she felt her stomach turn over. “I— Of course you must go. But will you come back? Another day, not too long in the future? The Count is very solicitous to all my needs but I keep thinking of you by the fire. It was so cozy and warm. I liked it better there but I couldn’t stay. You see that, don’t you? Say you understand.”

  “I understand the food is much better here, and there are servants to see to your wound, I suppose. You must have a large room with feather pillows and a grand view.” She leaned closer to him and whispered. “Are you in hiding?”

  “Until my leg is strong and I figure out what to do. I may go south, to Spain. The republic is hard on men. Many will die in these wars.”

  “The Spanish are fighting near the border. It would not be safe.”

  “Then Bordeaux and the sea perhaps. Safety is elusive, Mademoiselle Odette.”

  He said her name with such gentleness, she wanted to cry. It had been so many months, years even, since someone said her name that way.

  “Of course I will come back to see you, Monsieur Leclair. If you wish.”

  “I wish one thing, that you call me Ghislain.”

  “All right— Ghislain. It sounds like the name of a gallant knight.” She smiled into his eyes.

  His voice was as soft as a breeze. “Just a man, mademoiselle. Just a man.”

  THIRTEEN

  The arrest of Estelle who sold the eggs at the market was a shock to everyone. She seemed like such a nice girl, sweet to customers, kind to her flock of chickens. Stories soon swirled about the reason for her arrest by Republican soldiers.

  The officers and their small company of soldiers had marched into the village with vengeance on their minds. That was clear to all the villagers by their scowls and rough language. Odette heard that much almost immediately as it was another octidi, the market day. She was tending the Daguerre wagon of late melons and goat cheese and butter again. A housemaid had been given the honor today as well, but she was a silly thing of nine or ten and needed supervision. Odette was the only one available. The rest were helping with the grape harvest or picking apples.

  Odette couldn’t believe it. Even after the hair-cutting incident with the brute Toussaint she had mostly pleasant feelings toward the villagers. Yes, they were ignorant of outside events and superstitious and uneducated, but she had little call to feel superior. She was just a goat herd after all. That she had lived in the capital and witnessed earth-shattering events there was not something she could claim as her own doing. She was on the run, much like Ghislain, who occupied her thoughts these days.

  She was in the midst of a daydream about him when the market erupted. Estelle’s stall was on the opposite end of the plaza in front of the church from Odette but she could see three soldiers there with bayonets and red coats. A little scream then a scuffle. Estelle disappeared behind the church with the men.

  The housemaid, Clare, pulled on Odette’s sleeve. “What did they do with her?”

  “I don’t know.” Odette looked around at the other stalls. At a cart nearby stood the wife of mayor, a stout woman in a mob cap with a blue bonnet over it. “Go ask madame la mairesse,” she whispered to Clare.

  The girl skipped over to the mayor’s wife and listened as she spoke to several people in a huddle. Clare returned shortly.

  “She’s been arrested!” the girl cried, her eyes ablaze. “I can’t believe it. Will they chop off her head?”

  “Arrested? Impossible.”

  “Madame said it was so.”

  “Why was she arrested? Did madame say?”

  Clare pouted. “I didn’t understand the words.” Odette prompted her to remember. “Something about an enemy. And a harbor.”

  Odette’s mind shuddered. “Harboring an enemy of the state? Was that it?”

  “What does that mean?”

  Was Estelle hiding a royalist in her chicken coops? It was ridiculous to think that she would, but then the Daguerres had helped Ghislain, not knowing if he was a traitor or a royalist or a deserter. Odette recalled Estelle’s glee in recycling that story around the village. Who would turn her in? Which of the villagers was so uncaring?

  “Who was she harboring, Clare? Go back and ask madame.”

  “I don’t want to. I’m supposed to stay here anyway. You go.”

  Odette turned to the melons, still a big pile on the wagon. No one had money for melons today. She picked one off the top of the pile and rolled it in her hands as she eyed the crowd, all busy marketing, gossiping, arguing, wondering about the fate of Estelle. It took a minute or two for someone to stop at the wagon and admire the melons.

  “Are they sweet?” the woman asked. She was someone Odette didn’t know, a merchant’s wife perhaps, in a fine blue dress with lace at the neckline.

  “Very sweet. They melt in your mouth like sugar. Remember sugar?” Odette asked with a smile. She had been offered exactly one small bit of melon so far but it was tasty.

  “Every morning, in my tea. I’ll take one then. How much?”

  As they negotiated the price the little housemaid watched with her small dark eyes. As the woman put coins back in her purse and snapped it shut, Clare blurted out: “Estelle was arrested!”

  “So I’ve heard,” the woman said, juggling her new melon. “Shocking, isn’t it.”

  “Why was she arrested, madame?” Odette asked in her mildest voice, as if it was only a matter of idle curiosity.

  The woman’s eyes flashed. “They say two men were found in the farm’s coop. They were from the Vendée, from the royalist uprising.”

  “Bad men?” Clare asked.

  “Very bad, ma petite. They don’t like the new republic. They want the King and Queen to come back on the throne and rule the country like the old days. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  Clare shook her head violently. “The Queen is horrid.”

  “What will they do to Estelle, do you think?” Odette asked.

  The woman was turning away. She paused, tilting her head in thought. “They say the men have already been shot by the firing squad. These republicans aren’t much for taking prisoners.” With that she waved at a friend and hurried away.

  Odette glanced down at the little girl. Was she thinking about the man they had nursed to health by their fire? If the village knew about Ghislain would the soldiers come for them too?

  She bit her lip, worrying. Ghislain was no longer with them so what could the soldiers do? But would they go to the Count’s château and search for Ghislain? What then— would everyone there be arrested— or worse? Would they put the Count on trial or even take him straight to the guillotine?

  She turned to Clare. “Time to pack up, child.”

  FOURTEEN

  Ghislain sat in the morning room. The sun felt good on his legs but he was not well. The poison had returned to his leg, just as the nurse had predicted, and he waited for it to overtake all of him. He would die for that splinter, that much was obvious to him.

  But today he had cause for hope, or at least a respite. She was coming to visit.

  Odette.r />
  He said her name silently as if a whisper could bring her closer. Why was he so drawn to her? He still didn’t know. She wasn’t as pretty as the girls in Brittany with the apples in their cheeks and their dark, flashing eyes. Her eyes were intelligent, kind, but guarded. She’d been through as much as he had, in her way. He could tell that.

  The door opened finally and the housekeeper ushered her in. Odette stood awkwardly behind him until the housekeeper offered her the blue chair and asked if they would like tea. And biscuits, he added, remembering the look on Odette’s face as she ate one last time.

  He did not rise. Again. It pained him that he couldn’t show her all the courtesies that were due a lady such as herself. She would laugh at that description. How he longed to hear her laugh.

  “How are you feeling?” Odette asked, hands clasped in her lap, leaning toward him.

  “Gaining strength every day,” he lied, smiling thinly.

  She frowned, seeing through his ruse. A long pause ensued, broken only when Odette said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He nodded. He had been expecting this. She would want to know about his leg. Everyone wanted to know.

  “How did the Count get that terrible injury?”

  Ghislain blinked and chuckled. “Ah. It is a conversation piece, is it not?”

  “It is hard to dismiss.”

  “Well, mademoiselle, he has not told me its secret. So I cannot share it with you. If only I could.”

  She smiled. “Would you— ?”

  “I would share anything with you,” he said before realizing what he was saying. But she did not follow up. She only glanced at the blanket over his knees. “I wondered if you would come again. Your note from yesterday was unexpected and most welcome.”

  “You made me promise.”

  “I would not hold a lady to that.”

  Her eyes widened with mirth. “A lady? I am just a goat herd and milk-maid.”

  “For the moment. Just as I am an invalid for the moment. We don’t let the moment define us for all time, do we?”

  “That would preclude the future.”

  “And what does the future hold for a goat herd?”

  Her bottom lip pouted as she thought. “If only I had a crystal ball.”

  “That would make things easier. We wouldn’t have to toss and turn all night.”

  Her ears turned red. What had he said? “Do you do that too?” she asked.

  “Sleep and worry do not mix well.”

  Her eyes softened into him. “You are worried about the future?”

  “Not really.” Another lie.

  “C’est la guerre? That is all?”

  He tried to look nonchalant and knew he did it poorly. The maid entered with the tray and poured them both tea. Odette paused before taking a biscuit. That little moment seemed precious to him.

  When the maid left, she asked, “Have you heard, monsieur—“

  “Ghislain, please.”

  She smiled. “Have you heard, Ghislain, that there are soldiers in the village, arresting people who harbor royalists, and executing the royalists themselves?”

  “I was made aware. Le Comte told me.”

  “My friend Estelle—“ She stopped, her throat closing and she looked as if she would cry. Then she rallied. “My friend Estelle who sells eggs— she has been arrested. We have heard that she has gone to Périgueux and that she may take a visit with ‘madame guillotine.’”

  “Surely not?!” he cried. Odette nodded solemnly. “For what reason?”

  “She hid the royalists in her chicken coop.”

  “Or perhaps they hid themselves there. Like I did at your farm.”

  She paused, assessing him somehow. “You don’t remember.”

  “Your barn? No, I was quite out of my head.”

  “I found you, Ghislain. In the woods. I put you in the wheelbarrow and wheeled you to the fruit store where the men found you the next morning. I should have moved you at first light but I didn’t. I was busy in the milking shed.”

  He was shaking his head as if to clear it. “I— I thought that was a dream. You— you helped me. You saved me.”

  “I put you in the fruit store with the fermented plums. That is all.”

  “That is much.”

  She hitched one shoulder. Her neck captivated him. Her strong chin. Was this the reason he felt so drawn to her? She had found him, saved him. A thought occurred to him then and he leaned toward her, wincing as he moved his leg.

  “You aren’t concerned that someone will find out you helped me? That you too will be arrested?”

  She stared at him, her back straight. “I told Estelle about you. I told her I found a stranger in the woods. When they torture her she will give them my name.”

  “Oh, mademoiselle. No.” He wanted to rise and take her in his arms but he sat, inert and helpless. She did not cry.

  “You must go,” she said. “You are healthy now, yes? You must flee this place before it is too late.”

  “Mademoiselle Odette, your imagination runs away with you. They will not torture Estelle. If anything they will simply— send her to the guillotine.”

  “And that is preferable?”

  “To torture, to the rack— yes. That is why it was invented.”

  Odette nodded, swallowing hard, lips in a tight line. What her composure must have cost her. “But you still must go. If they torture anyone at all, or offer them a bribe, they will tell. People sell their mothers for a livre of sugar, Ghislain. The people who work here in the château or out in the fields, who have family in the village, everyone knows you are staying here. They say you are a deserter, or a thief. They have no loyalty to you, or the Count. They burned down half his château while he was gone.”

  Ghislain listened. “I am not a royalist, nor a thief. I am not a deserter.”

  “Then why—“ She dipped her chin. “Forgive me, I promised myself I would not ask about your wound.”

  He made a decision. He owed her this.

  He set his cup and saucer aside. “I was captured. By the royalists in the Vendée, the same sort of men who hid in the chicken coops. The details of my capture don’t matter, but I will tell you they don’t reflect well on me. I became separated from my command and that was that. As a captive, the royalists starved me for several weeks. And worse. Then as they were being overrun by Republican forces they used gunpowder to explode a cache of ammunition in the cottage where I was held prisoner. The explosion brought down the walls and roof around me. A wooden beam fell on my leg. I was out of my senses for a long time. I don’t know how long. Days perhaps.”

  He gazed out the window, remembering those terrible hours, the dust and debris in his nose and eyes. The stones that hit his head. The sound of the blast that would live forever in his mind. The darkness and despair.

  “I heard the Republican soldiers arrive. My company perhaps, I don’t know. They searched the estate but never looked at the debris where I lay. I tried to call to them but I could not. My throat was clogged with dust. I heard them leave, the sound of the hoofs fading away.” He wiped his brow with his handkerchief. The telling of his story, so long denied, made him sweat.

  “I thought I was dead, mademoiselle. I had no doubt that I would die. I had no water, no food. I was pinned under the wooden beam. Then, one day, I decided not to die. Not like that, in a pile of stones. I gathered my strength and pushed the beam off my leg. The wood had broken and splintered and some of it had entered my leg. I tried to get out all the pieces. I dragged myself to the well and drank for the first time since the explosion. I searched the château for food, stuffing all I could into my clothes. I took clothes from the château to disguise myself in case I ran into my captors. Then I left. I just began walking.

  “I was sure the Republicans were close by. I could hear cannon fire and gunshots in the forests. They would find me, help me. But they were nowhere to be found. My company had given me up for dead. I don’t blame them, this is war. As you
say, c’est la guerre. I did what I could do. I hid in the forests, unsure if this was royalist territory, unsure whether my own company would shoot me. Unsure where they were, what had they done, where had they gone. I had so many questions, all alone each night in the forest. All I knew was I had to keep moving. All I could do was walk.”

  Odette had been still, listening raptly, her eyes steady on him. She swallowed again, licking her lips as if she too had been thirsty for days. The look on her face was both the reason he never told this tale to anyone, and the reason he told it to her. She didn’t pity him but she understood his pain. She had walked from Paris, she’d told him. A very long distance, with no direction, no friends, no real hope of finding shelter.

  In a small voice she whispered, “And then I found you.”

  FIFTEEN

  The Count of Beaulieu was reading a broadsheet from Paris at the breakfast table four days later, examining each article with a magnifying glass. Hidden meanings, dark doings, all sorts of things could be written there and only understandable to a few. He’d been gone from the capital for months but he liked to think he could still read the tea leaves of the Revolution.

  The meeting with the steward yesterday weighed on his mind. Things were coming to a head, with the poor harvest and the revolutionary Army nearby. He had fed the small company two nights before and they warned of deserters and traitors in the region. They did not ask about his house guest, and he didn’t volunteer any information. They were wary of him, as a noble, but had orders to move out. He heard they were gone in the morning and he was glad.

  The day looked rainy again, the skies slate gray. This unusual weather must change soon or they all would starve. His grape harvest was pathetic. His vintner had declared fewer than 50 cases would be produced from all these hectares of vines. Laurent remembered his father rarely sold his new wine. He let it age in barrels then bottled it, watching the prices and selling when the time was right.