A Refuge Assured

by Jocelyn Green

  Vivienne read the text of the documents once more. Each one detailed the location and size of the lot and specified that any resources already under cultivation on that land belonged to the new owner, Armand de Champlain. His signature scrawled across the bottom of each page.

  Doubt pulled at her hope. “You’re sure he meant one of these for me?”

  Sebastien fished another leaf of paper from his satchel. “See here. A copy of the note he left.”

  Should Mademoiselle Vivienne Rivard inquire about a lot, please inform her I’ve taken the liberty of procuring one for her and her young charge. Please arrange transportation if it becomes necessary.

  “He says nothing about transfer of ownership to me.” Across the room, domino tiles clattered onto a table.

  Sebastien spun the paper around and read it for himself. “No matter. It can be done, I’m sure. The fact that he forgot to mention it is no cause for alarm. The important thing is that he purchased two lots and two houses. He can’t very well occupy both.”

  Vivienne’s misgivings bowed to her desperation to leave the city. “When can we go?”

  “Now that winter is upon us, the next convoy of refugees will have to wait until spring to go north. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’re stuck here. Plenty of time to reconsider my proposal, as you have reconsidered Armand’s. Unless you’ve given your heart to someone else?” He narrowed his gaze.

  She shook her head, though her face warmed at the suggestion. What she needed was a home, and now she had one. If she and Henri could only survive the wait.

  While most people were finishing their third meal of the day, Liam was ready to start his first. Other than his complaining stomach, he felt better than he had in weeks, thanks to twenty consecutive hours of sleep. His only regret was that he’d missed seeing Vivienne in the kitchen this morning.

  Finding the first-floor dining room full, he placed his order with the barkeep and headed to the quieter second floor with a fresh mug of tea. He eased into a booth, grateful for the privacy, and tented his hands about the pewter mug, letting the heat radiate from the metal toward his palms. A waitress delivered a basket of bread.

  “Thank you,” he told her, ignoring the young woman’s doe-eyed stare at his scars. “If you see my sister, Tara, would you please tell her I’m here? I’d like to see her, if she can spare a moment.”

  She agreed and sashayed away with a flip of blond hair over her shoulder.

  Liam drew a warm sweet-potato pecan biscuit from the basket and popped it into his mouth, then helped himself to a thick slice of buttered corn bread. He wondered if Vienne had made it, or if she specialized in baguettes and pastries.

  From someplace unseen, a man spoke to his dinner partner. And then she spoke back.

  He knew that voice.

  Suddenly alert, Liam leaned enough to see the back of Vienne’s head. Rising, he began to move toward her, but her name stalled on his lips when he recognized the man she was talking to. Sebastien Lemoine.

  The scar on Liam’s cheek itched as he silently returned to his seat. Frustration smoldered in his veins that seeing her with another man should affect him so, but he could not convince himself that he didn’t care. He had waited this long to see Vienne. He could wait a little longer to talk to her alone.

  Liam’s gaze drifted until it settled upon a man playing solitaire in a booth along the adjacent wall. His bald head shone in the firelight, and his lips were wide, full, and flat. Prominent golden brown eyes completed his unfortunate resemblance to a frog. He shuffled the card deck, then flipped them thoughtfully into piles. But there was a joker mixed in, and the player didn’t seem to mind. He only had eyes for Vivienne.

  Something was amiss. Sliding from his booth, Liam ambled toward the frog-faced gentleman. How satisfying it would be to invite himself to a sham card game and interrupt his surveillance.

  Before he could reach the stranger, however, Tara swept into the room with a tray bearing a turkey pot pie and crisp potato cakes. “Next time you sleep that long, don’t lock the door,” she muttered. “I’d have liked to check and make sure you weren’t dead.” Her tone was void of levity. Pushing past him, she unloaded his dinner onto the table.

  He followed and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Tara.”

  “For what?” She hugged the empty tray as she waited for him to respond.

  “For Finn. For James. For you.”

  Her chin quivered as she sniffed. Liam watched the struggle between sorrow and resilience play across her features, and his heart pinched. She’d always hated to cry.

  “You could find love again, you know,” he told his sister. “You’d be a prize for any man.”

  She shook her head fiercely. “No, I can’t.”

  “You’re still young, and beautiful, and smart and strong—”

  “Liam,” she whispered, “I’m still in love with James. I don’t blame you for his death, but a love like that won’t come twice.” A sad smile broke through her tears. “I pray someday you’ll understand what I mean. Now eat, before it gets cold.” She whisked out of the room.

  Still standing, he glanced to where Vienne had been seated. Disappointment dropped into his gut to find that she had left while his back had been turned to her. Sebastien remained, buckling the straps on his satchel. Liam turned toward the card player he’d been about to investigate when Tara had come in. The booth was empty, but the solitaire game was still splayed over the table.

  His dinner untouched behind him, Liam crossed to the mess the watcher had left in haste. For the privy, perhaps? He trailed a finger over the cards and stopped, frowning, at the joker’s laughing face.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Unease tugged at Vivienne as she left the Four Winds Tavern. If Sebastien had not just renewed his ungallant marriage proposal, she might have asked him to escort her back to the pension. But she was humbled enough by accepting a home in Asylum from Armand, the one man whose generosity she had vowed never to need, much less use. Though relieved to have a way out of Philadelphia come spring, she clung to the shred of independence, however slender, that walking home alone afforded.

  The wind blew stronger now that the sun had set, but the hour wasn’t yet late. Gathering her hood tighter beneath her chin, she dipped in and out of lamplight pooling on the sidewalk, halting for those cutting across her path. A passing chaise clattered by, splattering slush over her cloak.

  She moved away from the curb, toward the middle of the sidewalk, to avoid being splashed again. A man wedged himself next to her, forcing her back toward the curb, until she walked mere inches from the street traffic. Through her hood, she heard the muffled hoofbeats of an approaching coach. As the matched pair passed, someone grabbed Vienne and shoved her right for the gap between horses and carriage.

  A scream ripped from her, and the horses veered away as she fell headlong onto the cobbles, the iron-rimmed carriage wheels narrowly missing her. Stunned and humiliated, she turned her palms and found them scraped and bleeding. Her knees felt bruised beneath her wet cloak and skirts.

  An age-withered hand appeared at her side, outstretched. “You must be more careful, young miss. That could have gone the wrong way in a heartbeat.” The old gentleman helped her to her feet, clucking his tongue.

  “I wasn’t careless, I—I—was pushed!” she stammered. Stepping back onto the sidewalk, she brushed bits of ice from her cloak. Her pulse racing, she scanned the sidewalk but saw nothing unusual among the passersby.

  “Is that so?” Frowning, the man looked around. “Well, then. Beware of others who are careless and steer clear of them.”

  Vienne nodded. “Good advice.”

  He tipped his hat to her and melted back into the crowd.

  Good advice, indeed. Whoever pushed her had done so deliberately. But why? Suspicions slithered over her. Any number of tavern kitchen servants might have said something about Henri’s outburst weeks ago. Had word finally reached Jacobin ears? Or was Sebastien orchestrating yet ano
ther danger, simply to convince her of her need of him? He was so convinced Henri was Louis-Charles. Perhaps he had boasted of his connection to the boy too loudly, or to the wrong person. Perhaps he had been followed. Shuddering, she looked around once more. A Jacobin would want her gone to clear the way to Henri.

  Henri. Was he safe still, with Paulette? Urgency propelled her toward the pension, and caution directed her footsteps away from the well-trafficked street. She knew better than to duck into an unlit alley, but a side street, surely, would be fine. Quickening her pace, she turned a corner, eager to be away from the press of the crowd.

  Footsteps followed. Long strides. Heavy gait. She looked over her shoulder but saw no one. Hurriedly, she kept on, though inwardly she railed against her shortsightedness in choosing this path. She hadn’t seen who had pushed her into harm’s way, but could he not also be the one trailing her now?

  Oh no. If Henri was his aim, she could not lead him to the pension. She could not go home, not yet. Her hood fell to her back, and every sound was an alarm in her ears. The squeak of a wooden shingle swaying on its iron hinge. The angry snarling of cats fighting over a piece of fish. The clang of a ladder against a lamppost as the lamplighter began his rounds at the far end of the block.

  Vienne’s face flushed with heat, but her fingers were freezing cold. She glanced behind her and saw only shadows beneath a deep purple sky. But there, across the street, a man walked alone, bald head shining. He looked at her, then straight ahead again. Surely he wouldn’t try anything with the lamplighter still here, lighting his wicks. One by one, the flames beat back the night.

  She reached the corner and turned again. The bald man’s footsteps were louder this time, faster. She only had to turn halfway to see he was mere yards behind her and not slowing down, his blue woolen cloak flapping against his trousers.

  Sweat beaded her brow. “Stay away from me!” She hoisted her skirts and cloak and took off at a dash down the unpaved road. Hard-packed wagon ruts and ridges of ice punched the bottoms of her shoes as she ran, throwing off her balance. She twisted her ankle in one of them and bit down at the searing pain when she tried bearing weight on that foot.

  “You break my heart! You’re irresistible!” The words were in French and spoken with a pronounced slur. But the man walked with purpose, and he certainly wasn’t after love.

  “I said leave me!” she screamed. An uproar from the direction of Market Street spun her attention behind her.

  “No need to worry, that’s just Père Noël making his first appearance of the season. All that cheering you hear—that’s the sound of happy families. I guarantee they aren’t interested in one lone French girl taking the wrong road home.” He was close enough for her to smell the cognac on his breath. His eyes were too large, his face too hard. Wide, flat lips too assured. He was dangerous, and she could not run. Her screams would not be heard.

  “How do you know this is the wrong road?” she asked.

  “I know.” He leered, turning his lapel to show her his tricolor cockade.

  His hand shot out and grasped her throat, shoving her up against the nearest wall. He squeezed, trapping her screams.

  She couldn’t breathe. She clawed at his hand, his face. Kicked his shins, jammed her knee upward against his body, but he dodged the blow. She thought she heard shouting, but sounds became muffled. Black spots crowded her vision.

  And then suddenly she was gasping, coughing, breathing, though raggedly, and rubbing at her neck. She heard the sound of knuckles on bone, and of air being knocked from one’s lungs. Then the man who’d assaulted her collapsed, unconscious, at her feet, bleeding from his nose.

  Only when strong arms came under hers did she realize she’d dropped to her knees, her twisted ankle throbbing. Her rescuer’s jaw brushed her cheek as he lifted her to stand. She kept her injured ankle off the ground.

  “Vivienne,” he said, “let me help you.”

  “Liam,” she gasped, and he captured her to his chest. Overcome, she sank into him, grasping the arms that held her close. The air she labored to draw in felt like shards of ice. “When did you—” But she had neither the time nor voice to spare. “They know where we live. They know . . . I must get to Henri.” Her speech concluded in a fit of coughing, and she leaned away from him.

  “They. Who is they?” He brushed a curl from her face before placing a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  She pointed at the man’s cockade. “Jacobins.” Her voice was reedy and unreliable. “They think Henri is Louis-Charles, but he isn’t.”

  Only then did she notice the slash across his left cheek pointing to a notch taken from the rim of his ear. “Oh, Liam.” She touched his face below the scar, mind racing with questions about who had done this, and what had become of Finn. “You’ve been gone too long,” she whispered and steered her thoughts back to Henri.

  Vienne’s fingertips on his skin drew Liam’s feelings for her dangerously close to the surface. He cast a quick glance at the scoundrel on the ground. Jacobin or not, he’d wake up soon. “Can you walk?” he asked Vivienne.

  “I twisted my ankle.”

  Without another thought, one arm went beneath her shoulders, his other came under her knees, and he scooped her up. She looped her arm about his neck, and he caught her looking again at the nasty scar on his cheek.

  “Cut myself shaving,” he joked rather than explain the truth just yet, but it failed to lighten the mood. Her neck had already begun to purple where that fiend had dared to squeeze the life out of her.

  “Please take me to the Pension Sainte-Marie. I need to—” From the rasping sound of her voice, her windpipe was injured.

  He carried her in the opposite direction. “To what? To put yourself where they may be lying in wait for you already?” He shook his head, marching a shortcut through buildings he’d grown up darting between in play. “We can do better than that.”

  “I need to get Henri,” Vienne whispered against his neck. “He’s in danger.”

  “I’ll get him.”

  When they reached the Four Winds, Liam took her in through the kitchen entrance in the rear of the building and set her down. She clutched his arm for balance.

  Steam billowed from a cauldron of pepper pot soup, scenting the air with beef, taro root, habanero, allspice, and greens. Lamb roasted on a spit, and potato peels littered a newssheet-covered corner of the floor.

  “What on earth?” Ladle in her fist, Rachel came toward them.

  “Evenin’, Rachel, you’re looking well.” He made to touch the brim of his cap before remembering he’d left the tavern without one. Nor had he taken the time to fetch a cloak. “Vivienne needs a room, a safe room, for herself and Henri.” Arranging lodging was not part of her typical responsibilities as head cook, but Rachel could manage a great deal for a soul in need.

  “You in trouble?” Rachel frowned, peering behind them. “Where’s Henri?”

  Liam answered before Vienne could strain her voice to be heard. “I’ve yet to get him, but first Vienne needs to disappear. Can you help?”

  “Mercy, child!” She stared at Vivienne’s bruised neck. “Why, if somebody didn’t get a hold of you.” Lips pressed together, her nostrils flared in sympathy.

  “Twisted her ankle, too, so if you could help her up to a room, I’ll explain to Tara when I can. One more thing. Tell the staff that if a bald man comes in here, with a scratch on his face and perhaps a broken nose”—he shrugged—“turn him away at the door.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “And if he asks why?”

  “He didn’t pay his bill before walking out earlier this evening.” It was only a hunch, though a strong one. “If he says he’ll pay his debt, take his money and have the barkeep throw him out on his ear.”

  “My lands, Mr. Liam, who’s running Four Winds now?”

  He turned to Vienne. “I’m off to fetch your boy.”

  “I’ll write a note for you, or they’ll never let him leave.” She grimaced as she spoke, and anger
coursed through him afresh at the man who had caused her pain.

  Rachel scurried off, returning moments later with paper and pencil on a platter, which Liam held while Vivienne wrote a note on its surface. A ringlet coiled against her cheek as she handed it to him.

  “Please hurry,” she whispered.

  He did.

  If Vivienne could have walked, she would’ve been pacing the small room on the third floor of the tavern. But as she couldn’t, she sat on one of two beds in the room, staring at the door. On the small table beside her, Rachel had left a mug of chamomile tea, but one sip had been all she could tolerate. Wonder, fear, hope, and dread flipped her stomach first one way and then the other.

  A knock on the door sent a jolt right through her. “It’s me. Tara.”

  Metal scraped the lock, and Vienne immediately envisioned a man on the other side of that door, forcing Tara to turn the key. A bald man with a broken nose.

  But when the door eased open, only Tara slipped through before latching and locking it once more. Relief flooded Vienne.

  “Ach, Viv. Rachel told me what happened, or at least what she knew of the story.” Her gaze dipped to Vienne’s throat. “So the devil did get his paws around you, then. ’Twas one of my own patrons, too, I hear! He’ll not be coming back if I can help it.” Tara towered above Vienne, unconcerned with the tendrils of burnished hair straying from her pins.

  “I don’t mean to bring trouble to the Four Winds. I’ll stay only until I have other arrangements. Take the fee for the room from my pay.” Vivienne hoped that would be enough to cover it.

  “Not to worry about that.” Tara chafed her arms, then rounded on the small hearth, knelt, and added more wood to the glowing embers. As she blew on them, flames leaped up again. “There now, that’s better.”

  Voices floated down the hall. Liam, Vienne thought. And a woman’s? Forgetting to favor her ankle, she swung her feet to the floor, winced, and hopped to the door.