Love's First Light

by Jamie Carie

  She trudged through the weed-clogged path toward the crumbling entrance. She passed the two famed walls, an outer wall and a lower inner wall. There used to be a watery moat, but no more. It had been dry, with only river rock to fill it for some time. Her footsteps took her into the inner chamber of the grand hall. Here, she paused, catching her breath, looking up into the dark ceiling. What was she doing? It seemed someone was guiding her tonight. Was it God?

  A sound, a spark of light, had her spinning toward a long, narrow hall.

  She veered toward it and saw a room where a light was flickering. She came to the door and stood at the threshold, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Slowly, carefully, she pushed the door open. She stood blinking in the darkness. A cold shiver raced up her spine as she took a step forward and looked about the room.

  He turned. Dressed in nothing but a pair of ragged breeches, his long, blunt hair fell like a curtain over his intense gaze. He turned further toward her, impaling her with those sapphire-rimmed eyes that seemed to belong to another world—and suddenly Scarlett could neither move, nor think.

  CHRISTOPHÉ SPUN AT a sound behind him, knocking off a bottle that flew to the stone floor and shattered. He dove for his pistol, rose up with it, and held it trained on the intruder.

  Her features overwhelmed him, made his hand shake as he lowered the weapon. He couldn’t seem to get his breath as his mind wove its way back from calculations to this pale, frightened face staring at him with huge eyes. “Scarlett?”

  She was gripping her rounded stomach, blinking at him in the dim light of the room, looking like she’d walked out of his dreams so that he woke up to find it was real.

  He went to her and cradled her face in his hands. “Scarlett.” His lips lifted and he was smiling, glad she was there. “You are shivering. Come. Warm yourself by the fire.” In an underbreath he added, “Heaven knows it is the last stick of wood.”

  A hint of fear shone in her eyes as she followed him toward the tiny fire he’d set up to do his experiments. If only he had something to offer her, other than his scattered wits and dusty home. But he didn’t. He hadn’t eaten anything in days so that he could buy the wood and candles for this night. He’d barely slept since he last saw her. He’d only worked.

  And he was so close! Light’s mysteries, the splitting of white light into color and then back into white light with naught but specially cut glass was something that could be expressed with inked-out equations. He knew it. But there was so much yet to be written out mathematically—in calculus. He had to find the answers. Answers were the only thing that could set him free.

  “What are you doing?” Scarlett’s voice was filled with shock as she gazed about the room.

  He shook his head and looked down, not knowing how to explain his life as he now lived it. “It’s an experiment.”

  He looked up to see her reaction to his odd words, afraid she might laugh or run away.

  She had her back to the flames. He only just noticed that she stood in her nightgown, a dark cloak, and thick-soled shoes—like that first early morning they met. Her stomach protruded through the cloak, a streak of white against the dark folds. She must have seen his appraisal for she looked down at herself, then looked back at him and in a voice that sounded hesitant and brave at the same time stated, “I should like to see an experiment.”

  She held tight to the cloak as she took a few steps toward his makeshift work table. “What will you discover?”

  It wasn’t a question. It was an expectation that his discovery would happen at any moment. Such faith in him caused him to take a long look at her and reach for her hand.

  It didn’t matter anymore that they were strangers, that any who came upon them now would consider them dressed as husband and wife. It didn’t matter that they had only met a short time ago. It didn’t matter that she was pregnant with a dead husband’s child and he was a runaway aristocrat with no future, no hope for anything aside from these experiments.

  The only thing that Christophé was sure of, now that he’d found her, was that he never wanted to let her go.

  Chapter Eight

  Their heads bent over the crystal prism, so close his forehead almost brushed hers. A combination of fear and exhilaration rose in Scarlett’s chest. What was she doing? Letting a man take hold of her mind and heart so sudden and sure, like the last time. With Daniel. Had she learned nothing?

  She forced her attention from the man to his experiment. Christophé held a candle high in the air, directing Scarlett to hold the prism up, just so, to isolate the candlelight. The light coming from the long, rectangular window interfered with their attempts to catch a single ray.

  As she gazed at the window, she saw the pure, true light from the sun creeping into the room and lighting Christophé’s tired eyes and unshaven cheeks. Suddenly she shrieked with an idea.

  Christophé turned toward her, clearly alarmed, but she rushed over to him. “What if we designed a curtain, something to block the light coming in?” She pointed toward the window. “Then cut a tiny hole, so that only one beam comes through. What if we held the prism up to that?”

  He looked at her, delighted and astonished. “Can you sew?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t any thread.”

  Christophé turned away from her, picked up his long, dark cloak. “This is all I have.”

  She bit her lower lip. If she were home it would be easy to find an old sheet or blanket to use. All she had was what she was wearing. Wait! Her cloak! It lay where she tossed it, across the back of a chair. She rushed to it, held it next to Christophé’s cloak and smiled. “This should be enough. Though I must have something to sew with. Do you have a needle and thread?”

  He shook his head, then paused. “Wait here.” Before she knew what he had in mind, he had disappeared into some other part of the castle. While she waited, she spread the two cloaks onto the floor, side by side. Hers was shorter by several inches so instead she arranged them end to end. The window was long and narrow. It just might work.

  She turned as he came into the room, the glinting silver prize pinched between his thumb and finger. “I never throw anything away.”

  She held out her hand for it. “Now. What shall we do for thread?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked momentarily crestfallen. It made her heart ache to see that look. She looked down . . . and smiled. She lifted the hem of her nightgown and saw the long, white thread holding the hem together. “Do you have a knife?”

  He brought her a small knife from the work table, wiping it on his breeches as he walked toward her. She tried not to look at his bare torso as he leaned down to hand it to her. She’d been trying not to notice his shoulders and ribs and back and chest with its light scattering of dark hair, this whole night. He was thin, but muscular and strong in a wiry way. He’d not thought their whole time together to find his shirt.

  Oddly enough, that fact didn’t disturb her. And she didn’t think twice about sitting on the floor and lifting her hem high enough to see over the mound of her babe . . . that is until he stared at her bare, curled legs.

  Heat surged into her face. “Turn away, if you please.”

  He did as asked, but seemed somewhat perplexed by the request. She bent over the tiny stitches, cutting into the thread. Slowly, with painstaking care, she pulled the thread loose from the fabric. It was strong and came free in one long strand.

  Christophé looked back at her over his shoulder and grinned. “Are you sure you don’t need help? You shouldn’t be sitting on that hard floor, you know.”

  “Oh, now you are concerned for my well being.” She grinned back at him, flicked down her hem, and held out the long thread. “Come and help me up.”

  He held out his hand and hauled her into his arms. Her stomach was so large between them that no other part of her touched him. “Are you tired?” Sincerity and sudden worry lit the blue depths of his eyes, turning them as dark as molten silver. “You seem so able. I . . . I for
get. You should sit down and rest.”

  Scarlett pursed her lips together, delight filling her. Once he came out of his intense distraction, he could be quite intuitive and caring. “Now you want to coddle me?” Her gaze held his—and something inside her shifted. This was what marriage was. This sudden longing in her heart to make his passion her own. This feeling that he would watch over her and care for her, that he would leave his world behind if need be, for her. The connection was overwhelming.

  Her next words were soft with new conviction and wonder. “I can’t rest now, we have light beams to catch.”

  Christophé stood in front of her looking like a still, frozen painting of a man come alive, like Adam after God breathed into him, when he stood for the first time looking at his Maker and the world He had created for him. Christophé looked at her—and into her—like no man ever had. She didn’t pull away when his gentle hands took hold of her shoulders, his touch feather light as if afraid she might break or disappear.

  “Scarlett.” His hands moved down her arms, a simple caress that left her feeling light-headed. “You will not want me to say it, but I’m glad you are free.”

  “Free?”

  “To love again.”

  Yes . . . Oh, how she wanted to say it. But the minute she let herself think, guilt overwhelmed her, burying her beneath its cursed weight. She should have felt this way for Daniel.

  He leaned close, and again, she didn’t withdraw. She caught her breath as his lips touched hers and held there for a long moment. Neither moved as their breath intermingled and their lips barely brushed.

  Then Scarlett’s sorrow escaped, whispering against his mouth. “Not quite free yet.”

  HER WORDS HELD such sadness, such grief . . .

  Christophé pulled back. He was frightening her. It was just that he had never felt this way before! She brought him bread when he needed it. She brought him thread when he needed that. She showed up in the middle of the night when he thought he might drown in the darkness. She showed him light, the pinhole of discovery, the source of which he’d sought for years.

  His whole being longed to take her rounded, sweet body into his arms. He wanted everything she thought or ever imagined to be in his safekeeping. He wanted her trust.

  But he freed her and backed away, putting the distance she needed between them.

  She held his gaze for a moment, then turned back to her sewing. “There.” She said a few minutes later, holding out the heavy folds of the cloaks sewn together into a dark curtain. “Can you hang it?”

  Christophé was sure he would find a way. There was an old ladder he’d found in the castle many days ago. “I will be right back.”

  As he went into the room where he slept, he looked around at the piles of miscellaneous things he’d found in the castle. Upon arriving, he’d risked life and limb scouring the place for anything worth keeping. He’d found this ladder among the rubble, along with some other tools, things that the thieves of long ago had missed or thought worthless. He’d stacked them into piles in the two rooms he designated for his sleeping quarters and laboratory. It was a hodgepodge of items. Weren’t there some iron nails too?

  Digging in an old wooden pail, he found the nails. They were large and heavy. A hammer or sledge was not among his treasures, so he picked up a large stone, one of many that lay all over the floor of the crumbling edifice, and made his way back to the laboratory.

  Scarlett was sitting on a chair, the cloaks draped over her lap, her eyes closed. She looked to have drifted off to sleep, her head leaning against the back of the chair. Christophé crept over and slid the cloak from her slack fingers. He paused for a moment to take in her creamy skin, the dark waving hair that framed her face. He found himself bending toward her, studying her red, red lips—a color that couldn’t be matched or mixed with pigment and oil to dash across a canvas. And then, there were the dark shadows of her eyelashes against her high cheekbones. His hand went out to the babe, an involuntary reaction. “You will be my family.”

  He pulled back, embarrassed that again he had given his innermost thoughts voice. When would he learn discretion? When would he learn the cool manners of his brother, Louis, the tact that should be the bulwark of the remaining St. Laurent? He could only stand and stare, the cloak and nails and stone grasped in his hands, as he marveled at this woman.

  Move, fool, before she wakes and you frighten her yet again.

  As quietly as he could he positioned the ladder. He gathered the stone and nails into his hands and climbed the great height. He banged the nail with short thwacks, hoping not to wake her as he impaled the dark cloth through the nails into holes that were already in the stone wall. Someone had hung curtains over this window before. Thanks be to God.

  With one side up, and a glance at the sleeping woman, he moved the ladder to the other side of the window.

  Another few, short whacks of the stone and he had the other side up and in place. The cloaks hung together perfectly. A perfect fit.

  Christophé stood back and admired their handiwork. The room was back to the dim light and shadows of the guttering candles. With a glance toward Scarlett, he blew out each candle in the room. Next he poked at the dying embers of the fire, sending sparks flying up the chimney, until there was only the dull red glow of ash.

  Now for the hole. It was her idea. He was loathe to do it alone. Christophé went over to her and stared for a long moment at her loveliness. He whispered her name, leaning in to touch her rounded cheek.

  Instead of turning away as he expected, she reached for him in her sleep, grasping hold of his arm.

  “Daniel.” She said the name as though she’d been dreaming of him.

  He reared back, his heart torn, the pain so sudden, like a sword thrust, that it shocked him.

  Her eyes fluttered open. He stared down at her until he saw the realization of what she’d done in her eyes.

  Those huge eyes filled with regret. “I’m sorry.”

  Christophé knew he didn’t have any right to an apology. She was a widow. A pregnant widow. Why wouldn’t she love the husband lost to her? If anyone could understand that, he should. He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I was only trying to wake you.” He smiled what he hoped was a gentle smile. “Come and see what we’ve done.”

  Scarlett turned in her chair and then rose with a delighted cry. “You’ve done it!”

  “Well. Not yet.”

  He led her over to the window, then went back and took up a sharp knife. With the point he lifted the bottom part of the curtain and held it out. With one hand on the outside and one on the inside he reached up and poked the knife through, turning it and twisting it into a neat hole. A tiny shaft of light filtered into the room. “Get the prism.”

  Scarlett went to the table for the triangular cut glass. She came back and held it out to him.

  Christophé let the curtain fall back toward the window. He took his time, found the beam of dawn’s light, and traced it through the air with one finger. Then he took a few steps away.

  They both paused, their gazes meeting, then Christophé smiled. “To my new friend and assistant,” he whispered. He held the prism up and up until it caught the light.

  They both held their breath and then let it out in a simultaneous rush as the prism caught, held, and then split the light.

  The colors of the rainbow arched around the stone room and them.

  Red. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo and Violet. Six colors.

  He tilted the prism this way and that so that the colors danced around them.

  Scarlett let out a peal of delighted laughter.

  His heart soared.

  Rainbow had always been his favorite color.

  And now he knew his favorite sound.

  A SUDDEN SOUND of a clock striking interrupted their world. Scarlett turned to him, the panic in her wide eyes sending his heart pounding. “What time is it?”

  He hadn’t paid attention to the time for days, weeks even, and fumbled for an
answer. “It must be six or seven in the morning.” They listened as the great bell in the town cathedral rang seven times.

  Scarlett sprang up from her chair. “I must return. They won’t know what to think.”

  Christophé moved from his place by the laboratory table and grasped her arm. “But you have no cloak.”

  Scarlett looked down at her nightgown and then back into his face. “I have to go.”

  “Of course. We’ll take down the cloaks.”

  “But you need them for your experiment. And I don’t have time to take out the thread.”

  Christophé walked over to the ladder, quickly climbed up and dislodged the cloaks. Folding the material in half, he was able to wrap the heavy fabric around Scarlett. She reached up and tied it around her neck. “I will bring it back.” She looked down and laughed at herself. “And next time, I will be dressed.”

  Christophé flashed a grin at her. “I like you in your nightgown.”

  Scarlett sputtered, a red flush filling her cheeks. “My mother will be furious when she sees that I’ve gone out in public like this again. I still don’t know how I will explain being gone so long.”

  Christophé took her hand. “Tell them you were extending a dinner invitation . . . to a mad scientist who lives in the crumbling castle, whom you met at the market.” He smiled down into her eyes. “Tell them you felt sorry for me.”

  A little chuckle escaped Scarlett’s chest. “I do have a soft spot for the downtrodden, that they well know.” She looked up into his eyes and he felt the immediate melting that always seemed to happen with her. “It might work.”

  In the distance they heard a distant rumble of thunder. Scarlett pulled the cloak closer and turned to go. “I must hurry. It sounds like rain.”