Love's First Light

by Jamie Carie

  “Would you like to hold him?” Maybe if she were nice enough to him, he might open up and tell her what she needed to know about Émilie.

  He looked startled and then pleased, giving her a barely perceptible smile. Scarlett eased her hand to the back of André’s head, supporting it as she passed the bundle into Robespierre’s arms. The man looked ill at ease and entirely frightened as he adjusted his hold.

  “Just hold his head, like so,” Scarlett instructed softly. “His neck is weak yet.”

  Thinking of his infant neck, the place where the guillotine sliced through, hearing the word spoken in the room, startled them both. Robespierre tried to cover it by nodding quickly, his lips pursed in concentration as he cradled the infant boy. He looked to be holding himself very still as he brought the bundle into his chest, the black waistcoat a stark comparison with the light blue blanket and innocence within.

  After a long, silent moment, Robespierre’s hand rose and paused. Then, with surprising gentleness, he touched the rounded cheek with the backs of his fingers. He looked up at Scarlett and blinked rapidly, then cleared his throat. “What have you named him?”

  “André. André Robespierre.”

  Robespierre tilted his head toward one side as if considering the name. Scarlett wasn’t sure if he approved, but it was her baby, she could name him what she wanted. The room became silent, as if neither of them knew what to say next.

  Scarlett recovered first. “Please thank the Duplays for allowing us to stay here. I know we will have to find other lodging soon. We are taking one of the daughter’s bedchambers. And now, with a baby that often cries, we are such a disruption to their household.”

  Robespierre’s lips pinched, clearly displeased at being reminded of his responsibility. “I will speak with my sister, Charlotte. She lives alone.”

  “Thank you, Uncle.”

  They fell silent again, and Scarlett wished she could snatch André back, but Robespierre just sat there, staring down at the babe. His intensity made her grow more and more uneasy.

  “Uncle, I know the monarchy had to be ended. But all the deaths. Tell me, please. What is this Révolution about?”

  She knew she risked much in the asking. He could accuse her of treason just for voicing a doubt against the new Republic. But perhaps this moment of new life would be her only chance to discover who this man really was.

  His face turned stern and unyielding. Her heart beat as his eyes, suddenly alight and fiery, met hers. “Daniel explained it to you. He explained it with his death. How can you ask such a thing?”

  Had she gone too far? Her heart galloped in her chest, but she raised her chin and looked at the baby. “I am a mother now. What lies ahead as the future of France will be his future.” She looked up at him letting the fear she felt for the future into her eyes and voice. “I find I care more than I ever did, as my life is no longer my only concern. Sir, look at him. Tell me his future.”

  Robespierre looked down and his features softened. Scarlett let go of the tight hold she had of the coverlet. She’d said the right thing. He understood. Robespierre bent and brushed his lips against the downy head, his voice a low, terse murmur. “His future will be the new glorious France. Virtue winning over vice.” He looked up at Scarlett, the fire and ice back in his eyes. “I am a Révolutionist, Scarlett, an agent of change for the common man. I am feverish with it both day and night. Révolution is the sounding beat of my heart, the flowing of my blood, the heated nature of my skin. I will not breathe without the intention of using that breath to enliven that great cause. Do you understand?”

  His voice, his eyes, his tense body, all bore the intensity of his words. His conviction. But there was something more. Something . . . strange. Something frightening burning in his eyes. A desperate, determined passion that seemed so all-consuming that Scarlett wouldn’t have been surprised if his eyes had rolled back into his head.

  So it was true.

  Robespierre was mad.

  Inwardly she shrank from him, wanted to snatch her baby back and run away to safety. Outwardly she lifted her brows and her chin in apparent accord with his thoughts. “Well spoken, Uncle. Thank you for reminding me of our cause and all that we strive to achieve. I can only hope and pray that André will grow up as dedicated to our France as his father was and as you, sir, are.”

  A look of pleasure quickly came and then went across his face, like a sudden happiness that had to be squelched. Looking back down at the baby, he gave him one more touch, his finger tracing the shape of the boy’s skull. Scarlett briefly closed her eyes as her stomach rolled within her.

  Thankfully Robespierre seemed finished with the visit. He held the child toward her, and Scarlett’s arms shot out to gather her babe close.

  “I will be gone most of the next few days as there are many tasks ahead of me. You will be all right? I know the doctor came to see you.”

  Scarlett nodded, a forced brightness in her eyes. “Ah, yes. He left me some medicines.” She motioned toward the table where a packet of tea and dried herbs rested. “I am fine now. I don’t believe I will need him again.”

  Robespierre rose from the bed, straightening his waistcoat with short jerks. “I will take my leave then, good citizen.” There was a subtle warning in the word. He was going to watch her closely. He looked once more at André. “Daniel would have been very proud. Congratulations, my dear.”

  “Thank you, Uncle.” She managed. Increasing fear filled her as he walked, straight-backed, from the room. As soon as the door closed, she took a long, shaking breath. “Congratulations, indeed,” she said on with a weak voice, leaning back onto the pillow, seeing the man’s face again as he talked about his only love, his lifelong passion. The Révolution.

  A sudden sound, a shadowed movement rising from the floor, made a startled scream rise to Scarlett’s throat. Just as she was about to let it out and into the room a hand clamped tight over her mouth.

  “Scarlett, it’s me.”

  Christophé’s image rose above her. She stared at him, her eyes still wide as he released his grip on her mouth. “Where did you come from?”

  “I was here, in the room, waiting for you to wake up.” He looked down, flushing a little. “I heard steps coming toward the door and hid beneath the bed.”

  Scarlett gasped. “You were under the bed this entire time?” She quickly tried to remember all that had been said.

  “Yes.” He looked grim as he settled next to her and reached out for André. He looked down at the baby, clutching him close to his chest, and then impaled Scarlett with those, pleading, light-blue eyes. “You cannot stay here, Scarlett. It isn’t safe.”

  He was right. Robespierre was feverish, mad with the Révolution. One misstep and she or her mother or sister could be in danger of the guillotine. No one was safe. Not even André.

  Especially André.

  “Yes.” She pressed her lips together. They had no money, no means of escape, only this day-by-day survival. “But how?”

  Christophé took up her hand with his free one. “Come away with me and Émilie. Once I have found her, and find her I will, we will go to England. I have friends there.”

  “Friends that will welcome a widowed woman and her child? What of my mother and Stacia? I could not leave them behind.”

  Christophé turned and sank down onto one knee, her baby clutched protectively to his chest. Oh heavens, what was he doing?

  “Scarlett, will you be my wife? Will you allow me the great honor of being André’s father?”

  Scarlett gaped at him, on his knee, holding her son like it was his son. “To save us?” She leaned up, melting at the desire and longing in his eyes. But he hadn’t said anything about love. “Are you doing this to save us?”

  “Yes! All of us. From the moment I saw you at the graveyard, when you turned and looked at me . . . you were so afraid and fierce and . . . all that is lovely. I knew I had found it.” He reached for her hand and kissed the backs of her fingers. Her heart
sped up, “Color,” she reminded him. “The first word you said to me. It was . . . color.”

  Surprised pleasure lit his eyes as understanding flowed between them. “The dawn in your hair. The color of your lips. Your name. You are my great discovery.”

  “Oh, Christophé.” She scooted to the edge of the bed, dropped to the floor in front of him, and reached for his shoulders. She wrapped her arms around him and leaned her face into his neck, the baby nestled between them.

  He rose, lifting her with him, laid André on the bed, and then pulled Scarlett into his arms. As his lips lowered, his husky whisper brushed her face. “Come away with me?”

  Scarlett leaned into his kiss. She was overwhelmed with the feel of his lips pressed against hers, his stubbly chin and cheeks rubbing the delicate skin around her mouth. Her hand touched his head where the dark hair was growing back. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, all the sides of him. The intense scientist who could be lost in a starlit night or the splitting rays of light. The gentle soul that grieved and yet believed in something greater than the here and now to carry them. The man who fought to find his sister, who wouldn’t give up until he did. The man that looked at her son, his adversary’s great-nephew, and yet wanted him as his own. This man had decided to love all of them, and she knew as sure as the sun would set and rise and set and rise that he would do so every day of their lives.

  She kissed him back as she’d never kissed Daniel. But then, Daniel had never kissed her with such abandonment and freedom. Daniel had never blocked all thought except that of her.

  She opened her eyes a little as Christophé kissed her, finding herself straining toward something she wasn’t at all sure existed. But she found exquisite satisfaction as she looked close, intent on his features. For there was no denying the truth.

  This unbelievably complicated, brilliant, and beautiful man . . . wanted her.

  Only her.

  CHRISTOPHÉ TRIED TO hold back the roar of blood that pounded like the sea and vibrated the tiny bones of his ears. He tried to temper the enchantment of her scarlet lips moving over his. He tried to bring reason into the equation so that he didn’t overwhelm her. He envisioned the stars through his telescope, their blurry diffraction of light, but could only equate it with the sensation of his spinning mind. His arms gripped her. Behind his closed eyes he saw sparkling, swirling colors in hues that he knew were not possible.

  He saw a heavenly kind of light.

  His breath was ragged as he inhaled the womanly scents of a body meant to give sustenance. He delighted in her rounded, full curves and lushness, like a garden. Life. Like the Garden of Eden in flesh and bone. He stilled with the thought, knowing a sliver of God’s thoughts when He’d made woman. What perfect, female, beautiful creatures they were.

  “Scarlett.” He took her more fully into his arms, reaching out to feel the contours of her shoulders, the slope of her back, her gown slipping down to reveal a rounded shoulder, unabashed grace in the light of midday. It was the time of day when people were honest. And in that light he sat back and stared at her, devouring her womanly perfection with the warmth of his gaze and touch. There was nothing flawed here. His Scarlett. His own special color.

  She let him look at her, turning pink, and then caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes. I will marry you.”

  He felt happiness flood his whole face and throughout his body. He let out a joyous laugh, knowing. She would be his. She would come away with him and follow him to a life of a new sunrise and sunset. He didn’t know how. He could not fathom how. But he would find a way.

  He would save them all from this inglorious bloodbath they called Révolution.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The man named Jasper, as he insisted Émilie call him, tucked her into the bed in his spare bedchamber. He was a little awkward in the way he pulled the blankets up to her chin, patted her arm several times and asked if she needed a light, the door open or closed. His spectacles fell low on his nose as he watched her, treating her as a child or a frail invalid. She assured him she needed nothing.

  She was used to the dark.

  He padded out, turning toward her one last time with concern weighing his bushy white eyebrows. “Well, good night, then, my dear Émilie.” He edged out of the door. “Tomorrow you will see your brother.”

  He left her with that thought. It brought a sob to her throat, but she’d grown so used to suppressing such things that she was able to force it back into the quiet rise and fall of her chest. The room flooded with darkness. But she wasn’t afraid.

  Robespierre had taken her that day. Taken her into a much deeper darkness than any light could dispel. He’d rescued her, or so he had insisted in a quiet hiss in her ear, over and over as his carriage conveyed them to his house. Once there, she had expected the nightmare to continue. What nightmare, exactly, she didn’t know.

  Before this daytime horror, she’d dreamed in the pastel colors of a girl wanting to become a woman.

  Since it, since the hiding place—as she thought of her and Christophé’s hidden hold that night and day—her nightmares had been of spiders crawling about her room and then in her bed. Or the one where her mother cried out and she’d been unable to reach her, some heavy, water-laden air keeping her from moving. Or the one when Jean Paul cut himself and bled all over their dining room carpet . . .

  But she had found a secret. It was a magic prayer of sorts, like a faded memory, a long-forgotten song God had sung to her before she was born. It was the only thing that had kept her feet moving forward each day, and her eyes able to close each night. Tonight it was habitual and the usual comfort. But tonight, she realized, it had come true.

  Our Father, who art in heaven,

  Hallowed be Thy Name.

  Thy kingdom come.

  Thy will be done,

  On earth as it is in heaven.

  Give me this day my daily bread.

  And forgive me my trespasses,

  As I will forgive those who trespass against me. As I will forgive Robespierre.

  And lead me not into temptation,

  But deliver me from evil.

  For Thine is the kingdom,

  and the power,

  and the glory,

  for ever and ever.

  Amen.

  She had changed it up a bit. But she didn’t think the Lord minded. She knew He heard her prayer every night. It was why Christophé had come back to Paris.

  “Thank You,” she whispered into the pillow, unable to keep a tear from trickling down her cheek. “Thank You, God of my strength.”

  THE MORNING BROUGHT Jasper with a tray. She’d spent so many years serving Robespierre, becoming his personal housekeeper and all that she learned that meant. Making sure his shirts were freshly ironed; his breakfast hot and waiting as he entered his private salon, where she faded in the background, hoping he wouldn’t try to engage her in conversation so that he might assuage his guilt and convince himself of his moral ground. The endless errands she ran with messages clutched, burning hot in her hand, messages she refused to read, reminding herself that the God of her prayer would save her and not any notion of her own. She delivered his messages, set his meals on the table at exactly the right time, had his clothes freshly pressed and then, day after day, minute by minute, waited. Her only personal activity was to pray each day, each moment, when she first saw his face, that she might forgive him.

  He must have seen it in her at times, for there were brief moments when the haze would lift from his shuttered eyes and he would look at her with such fear. Those were the times he banished her from the room and then avoided her for days. But he never banished her for long. And she never failed to serve him to the best of her ability. Even at her tender age, something, some woman part, knew that she had become his life. She was the one that kept him afloat when the madness threatened to take over. She was the one that listened and tried to love him, her enemy, as Christ loved His. She became his shadowed cross to
bear.

  And he, hers.

  Now, this day, they would go back. She was terrified, if she admitted it to herself. There had been that moment of freedom as her feet were flying out beneath her, as she ran from the marketplace and the beautiful woman with the red lips calling her to come back. She had imagined herself one of Christophé’s kites, bright and free and high enough in the wind that no one could catch her.

  The feeling hadn’t lasted long, though. It soon grew dark, and the citizens of Paris, ever watchful, were gazing overlong at the young girl in a servant’s dress who looked lost.

  The memory of the kite had taken her to the street where she and Christophé had hidden in the bushes . . . where he had promised to return, but hadn’t . . . where she had not been able to find the red door. She thought him captured by Robespierre and somehow, somewhere, dead and buried. But Jasper said Christophé was alive. And he seemed the kind of man who knew what he was talking about. She knew God had helped her find this place where she was now being served breakfast from an old, wondrous man who acted as if he moved too quickly she might break into shattered glass.

  He didn’t know how strong she was. He didn’t realize that she knew the source of her strength. He could not realize that she’d grown up overnight and no longer thought like a child.

  And he must not discover it. They would expect a reunion where she was small and helpless and thankful and bereft of any knowledge of how to take care of herself. She must slip back into the role of little sister as she feared Christophé wouldn’t know her otherwise. As she took up the honeyed bread and drank from the cup of chocolate, she decided that she could give them that. If only for a time.