At the edge of the settlement farthest from the river, Liam’s property came into view. He wondered if the pride Tara felt for the Four Winds Tavern could possibly compare to what he felt for this. Built with the same dimensions as those in Asylum, his house had four square rooms, two to each floor. Outbuildings included a spring house over a nearby creek, a barn with more space than his crops and horse currently required, a dining house, and a cookhouse he barely frequented, taking most of his meals at the settlement’s inn.
In the barn, the sweet smell of hay was made more pungent by last night’s rain. A mouse skittered into the shadows while he cleaned his tools and set them back in their places. Red, the farm horse named for his bright chestnut color, twitched his tail against flies, watching Liam from his stall. Red would never win a race against Beau and Cherie, Monsieur Talon’s surefooted Narragansett Pacers, but he worked hard plowing fields and pulling loads of hay or rocks or wood. Drawing an apple from his pocket, Liam offered it in his open hand, and Red took it, his dry and hairy lips tickling Liam’s palm.
Leaving Red to his feed, Liam took a brisk jump into the creek to wash away the residue of the day’s toil before entering the dining house. He spread the newspaper from Father Gilbert over his thick oak table. Tearing off a piece of bread, he turned his attention to the news as he ate.
What he found nearly caused him to choke on his food. Could this be right?
He lit the taper in its glass hurricane. A golden glow reflected off the whitewashed walls and gleamed on the pewter plate and cup sitting on a shelf. In the wavering circle of candlelight, two-inch columns of black text told a story in vivid color.
On August 7, President Washington issued a proclamation demanding that the insurgents end their resistance to the whiskey tax or face military action. On the same day, he called for a muster of 12,950 militiamen from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.
Insurgents. Resistance. Military action. Was this a revolution all over again, not twenty years after the first began? Liam’s skin crawled to think of it. No matter who was right, could this country survive another war? He could almost hear England laughing from the far side of the ocean.
Between his trips to the capital on the mail rotation, Liam relished living apart from politics and debates. Isolation did have its charms. But how set apart could he allow himself to be? In Philadelphia, there were certain aspects of the Quakers that he admired, but their stubborn neutrality during the American Revolution was not one of them. If there was a conflict, Liam Delaney always picked a side and prayed to God in heaven it was the right one.
Slamming the door behind him, he left the dining house and stormed into the main house. He climbed the stairs to his room, pulled off his linen shirt, and eased into bed. Outside, fireflies throbbed against a dark purple sky beginning to be studded with stars. Night draped the hills in a velvet mantle of deep green and gray. Sleep, however, did not join him.
He knew he could not stay neutral in this fight.
Chapter Fourteen
Philadelphia
September 1794
This isn’t working. Vivienne had only to look at Henri’s sharpening cheekbones and lusterless eyes to see that her best efforts for him were not enough. A late-afternoon breeze lifted the hair from his brow as they walked beneath burnished trees. The air held a note of spiced cider and roasting chestnuts, but autumn’s pleasures were lost on him. He curled inward like a drying leaf, clutching his stuffed horse Bucephalus to his chest.
His fingers were spindles in her hand as they crossed the street. He still wasn’t eating, and getting him out of the house was a continual struggle, as much from his disinterest as from the rickets in his legs. But what bothered Vienne most was the time he spent alone while she earned the funds to support them both. Though she did not fault herself for working, she could not help but be concerned that, according to Paulette, Henri stayed alone in their room for hours, missing breakfast, the only meal the pension provided.
By the time Vienne returned home each day, exhaustion combined with worry made her fractious—and unreceptive when Monsieur Lemoine came calling. “Has he said anything else about being Louis-Charles?” Always the same question. And always the same answer: “No.” There was a wall of mistrust between Vienne and Henri, and she’d not been able to breach it.
Tante Rose had been so much better at this. But then, she didn’t have to leave Vienne alone while she worked.
“Here we are.” Vivienne led Henri to the rear of the Four Winds Tavern, where the scullery maid scrubbed dishes near the pump in the yard. Food waste and grease floated in the trench near the alley.
Henri wrinkled his nose but said nothing as Vienne greeted the young woman, then pulled open the door to the cellar. “Come,” she told him. “You’ll get to see where I spend every morning.”
“Why did you bring me here?” He followed her down the stone stairs to a kitchen steaming and snapping with supper preparations.
“I need to make the sponge for tomorrow’s baguettes,” she replied. “It needs to rest overnight so I can work with it in the morning. It won’t take long.”
“I don’t see why I couldn’t stay home like I usually do.”
“Because I miss you.” Vienne smiled at him as they reached the cellar, but he did not look convinced. The ache she felt was familiar by now.
“Well now! Who is this handsome young man escorting you today?” Rachel called out from her place at the fire. She pushed a spatula through a pot of caramelizing onions. A soot-smeared girl next to her turned a spit of chickens and squab. Juices dripped into a roasting pan in the fire below.
Henri gave a charming smile while Vienne introduced him, but he did not bow. The kitchen hands eyed his courtly silk suit while their hands stayed busy whisking sauces and shaping salmon corn cakes.
“We’re just here to make the sponge, Rachel,” Vivienne said. “We’ll stay out of the way and be gone before you know it.”
Rachel dabbed the hem of her apron to her glistening brow. “You never in the way, sugar, and I’m pleased to meet your boy. Reckon Miss Tara will want the privilege, too, mind you, so if she don’t come down in time, go on up and find her.”
Thanking her, Vivienne gathered what she needed and scooted Henri toward a small table in an empty corner of the bustling kitchen.
“She called me your boy.” Henri peered up at her with an expression she couldn’t read.
“Did that bother you?” Vienne spooned yeast into a bowl of warm water.
He rubbed the ear of Bucephalus. “We don’t seem to belong together, do we?”
“Let’s talk about that. But in English, please. You can even correct me if I get the language wrong. How about that?” She smiled at him. “Your English is excellent, from what I heard earlier.”
“You see,” Henri said a little louder, still in French, “we don’t even speak the same language.”
Vivienne saw that very well. Fist on her hip, she looked him full in the face. “And we must. English, please.”
He screwed his little mouth tight, glaring at her. “Why do you get to decide? Don’t you care that I prefer French?” But the words he spoke now could be understood by the entire room. “I lost my country, my father, my mother, and now you take my language, too.”
The kitchen’s heat closed in around her. “I am sad for you. I miss your mother, as well. But this is our country now.”
“No.” He stomped his foot. “My country is France. I will go back there some day. I must.”
Suspicion needled her. “Why must you?” To rule as king?
Henri pulled a wooden stool from the wall and climbed up onto it. His dangling feet knocked into the rungs. “Paulette says we must not give up on France. She wants to go back one day, too. Did you know that? I miss Versailles. I want to go back as soon as we can.”
Vivienne clenched her teeth before responding. “We stay.” If he was the future of the monarchy, France was the most dangerous place of all for
him. Breathing deeply, she pressed floury fingers to her pounding temples. She had no evidence at all he was Louis-Charles. But what if he was? What if she had the next king of France right here in a tavern cellar?
She bent to look him in the eyes. She would not have chosen the kitchen for this conversation, but here it was. She lowered her voice. “Henri, I know you’re upset, perhaps even in ways you don’t understand. I am sad and upset, too. But we must try to get along. Your maman gave you to my keeping.”
“She would have wanted you to be nice to me,” he spat. His legs swung again, and he kicked her shin through her skirt. “Everyone at court was nice to me. They gave me whatever I wanted and let me do whatever I pleased.”
“Is that so?”
“It is so. Didn’t your maman give you what you wanted?”
“No.” She rested her hands on the table, where uncomplicated work awaited her attention. “She did not. And neither did my aunt, who raised me.” Hissing filled Vienne’s ears, but it was only bacon cooking in a skillet and husks being stripped from cobs of corn.
“So you were an orphan.” There was an edge to Henri’s tone she didn’t like.
“I had my aunt.” Vivienne added flour to the yeast and water and began to stir.
“If you really cared about me, you would spend more time with me and do what I wanted.”
Whether his blood was royal or not, this rudeness would not stand. She turned to him, her spoon resting in the bowl. “You are a big boy, and so I will treat you like one, yes? My job is to raise you to be a mannerly young man, not cater to your whims. Part of growing up requires you to accept facts, even the unpleasant ones, and adapt to them. And the fact is that I must work, as I have always worked. I work to pay for food and clothes and the roof over our heads.”
Henri flinched at the thudding of a knife on a chopping board nearby. “Maman didn’t work. I never knew anyone who had to, or wanted to.”
“Now you do.” She forced a smile. “I’m different from the people you knew in court. In Paris, you lived a different life. And as you pointed out, this”—she spread her hands—“is not Versailles. I will never replace either of your parents in your affections, but my dear young man, neither will I treat you like royalty.”
From some corner of the cellar, an eavesdropping kitchen hand grunted in agreement. “Ain’t no princes in America.”
“What if I was?” It was a whisper so quiet, Vienne wasn’t convinced it was Henri who had said it and not her imagination. And yet a charge went through her as she met the boy’s glittering blue gaze.
They were surrounded by people busy at work, a couple of them children. Work had been good medicine for Vivienne. It would be good for Henri, as well.
After covering the bowl containing her sponge, she placed it out of the way and whisked back to Rachel. “We have some time,” she told her. “May we help peel carrots for you? Not for pay. In fact, it will help me more than it helps you.”
Rachel glanced at Henri, who slumped on his stool, Bucephalus held to one cheek. “Busy hands make a happy heart. Good thinking, Mama.” Her smile dazzled white, all the more endearing for the small space between her two front teeth. “Go on and see if he don’t enjoy making those orange strips fly.”
Resolve steeling her spine, Vivienne thanked her, then carried what she needed to Henri.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “I thought you said we could leave after you made your dough thing.”
“Watch this.” She demonstrated how to set the peeler at the top of the carrot and slide it down in a long smooth motion, sending an orange ribbon curling into a pail. “Do you think you can do that? Look how shiny the carrot is beneath the peel. Once you get really good at it, look how fast you can go.” Turning the carrot, she shredded its outer layer with practiced speed.
He stared, a wrinkle between his brows, as she held out a new carrot and the peeler for him to try. “This is peasant’s work.” In perfect English. For the entire kitchen staff to hear.
Vivienne was mortified. “It is honest work. It is good work, and it is your work now, because I say so.”
Henri crossed his thin arms over his sparkling white blouse and silk jacket. “I won’t do it!” He clambered down from the stool, Bucephalus dropping to the ground.
She picked up the soft velvet animal in one hand, still clutching the hard carrot and metal peeler in the other.
“Give that back before you soil it!” Henri cried. “It’s mine!”
She straightened. “You need to find your manners again, young man.” Her thumb grazed the bottom of the horse’s hoof and recognized at once the feel of embroidery. She turned the horse over to inspect it and read in beautiful golden script, Louis-Charles.
The toy in her hand belonged to the child king of France.
Her gaze snapped back up to the boy before her, heart thudding against her ribs. “My name is Louis,” he’d once confessed. Every story she’d ever heard about Marie Antoinette’s missing son slammed to the front of her mind.
“This was—” she whispered, but she dared not say the name of Louis-Charles aloud with so many listening ears. “Where did you get it?”
“It was a gift.” He glowered.
Questions stalled in her mind. This was neither the time nor place to discuss them.
“I’m getting out of this filthy stinking place! I can’t believe you’d rather be here than with me!” Snatching Bucephalus from her loosened grip, Henri stumbled away on rickety legs.
“Whoa, lad.” Liam Delaney caught Henri by the arms. “What’s all this?”
Vienne had not seen him come in, but the sound of Liam’s voice nearly undid her. She dashed a tear from her cheek, set the carrot and peeler on the table, and tried to smile. “Liam, welcome back.” She should have remembered he was due this week for his mail run. She stifled a groan that it should be this particular moment.
Liam kept Henri in his grip as he knelt on one knee to speak to him. “My name is Mr. Delaney, and this ‘filthy stinking place’ is my sister’s property. That’s my friend you’ve just insulted with that smart tongue of yours.” He gestured toward Vienne. “Explain to me how such a lad as yourself could make a grown woman cry?”
When Henri was silent, Liam asked again in a tone that bespoke his days as a schoolmaster.
“Liam.” Vivienne placed her hand on his shoulder to stay him. “It’s all right.” Her questions about Henri’s identity nearly drowned out her dismay over the boy’s rude manner.
“Oh, to be sure. It looks just splendid from where I’m kneeling. Now answer me, lad, for I’m tired and more than a little hungry after four days’ riding to get here.”
Henri’s voice quavered. “She—she wanted me to peel a carrot. To work.”
“And so? What’s the trouble?”
“I don’t want to.” Tears glazed his wan cheeks.
Liam stood again and lifted Henri back onto the stool. Feet planted wide, he crossed his arms. “You don’t want to? Listen to me, lad. I—”
Oh, the kitchen staff were getting an earful tonight. Vienne touched Liam’s arm, and he bent low enough for her to whisper in his ear. “Henri is my charge. His mother died of the fever last month and placed him in my care. We’re still learning to get along.”
Liam stilled. She felt the tension leave his body and dropped her hand as he straightened. “Henri. Let’s go outside and have a talk.” Nodding to Vienne, he ushered Henri up the stairs.
Still buzzing from Henri’s outburst, Vivienne stayed and peeled the rest of the carrots while her pulse slowed and her cheeks cooled. When the chatter in the kitchen resumed, she cleaned up her table and, with Rachel’s blessing, packed a basket of food to take to Liam, whose hunger must surely be clamoring.
Tara whirled into the kitchen in a blur of aproned blue calico. “Going for a picnic, are you?” She eyed the basket at Vivienne’s elbow.
“Liam’s back.”
“Is he now!” A smile lit Tara’s face. “And he’ll b
e wanting his supper, is that it? Don’t let me stop you. He’ll come see me when he’s good and ready.” She winked.
“It’s not like that,” Vienne burst out, and then out tumbled a brief version of what had transpired. “Liam’s talking to Henri outside. Do you think—is it because the two of you lost your own mother to the fever?”
Growing serious, Tara touched a silver locket at her neck. “Partly. We lost her just last year, which isn’t near what it is for a child to lose a mother. Liam’s sympathy runs far deeper than that. Did you know our cousin Finn moved in with us after his own parents died? Four years old he was, and full of sass. If it weren’t for Liam, I don’t know what my widowed mother would have done. Poor Finn, grieving fierce—he didn’t know which way was up.”
Rachel’s voice cut through the kitchen as she called for fresh herbs. Tara wiped her hands on her apron, rubbed the side of her freckled nose, and went on. “The first time Finn disrespected our mother, Liam took it upon himself to steer the boy right, and fast. After that, Finn knew better than to try anything—with our mother or with me.” She smiled with the same tenderness in her eyes that Vienne had seen in Liam’s but moments ago.
“He sounds like quite a brother. And cousin.” Vivienne shifted the basket to her other arm with a pang of longing for the bond these three shared. And yet gratitude quickly followed that she should call these Americans her friends.
“A natural father is what he is. Has been since he was twelve. My guess is Liam has taken your Henri into his heart in the time it took you to pack that basket. Pity he has no children of his own. Yet.”
Ignoring the tease in Tara’s tone, Vivienne went to the pie safe and pulled out the last piece of the cherry pie she’d baked that morning. “For Liam. You don’t mind, do you?”
Tara raised her eyebrows. “His favorite. Good choice.”
Vienne tilted her head. “He’s hungry.”
“That he is.”
Outside, spokes of sunlight fanned down through the trees in the tavern’s side yard. Scarlet and saffron maple leaves glowed like pieces of stained glass. Liam sat with his back to a trunk, one leg stretched out, hands clasped atop a bent knee. Sitting cross-legged near him, Henri pulled a stick through the dirt and nodded at whatever Liam was saying.
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