“Is there nothing you can tell me?” His words were measured, but the tone was hard and impatient.
“What do I know? I’m just the maid.”
His shoulders slumped. He leaned back against the wall in the corridor and stared at a spidery crack in the plaster ceiling.
“I’ll see you to the door, then.” Let him mull and sulk in his own home. She still had work to do. At a flick of her feather duster toward the stairs, he trudged down to the parlor, and she followed.
But at the door, Sebastien turned to her. “Do forgive me, Paulette. I meant no disrespect to you. I don’t tell many people this, but my own mother was a maid back in France. My father a valet. So you see, you and I have more in common than you think.”
She squinted at him, from the top of his pomaded hair to the tips of his polished shoes. “Is that right?” Either he was lying or this explained why he worked so hard at his personal grooming and wardrobe.
A lump bobbed behind his cravat. “Yes, I tell the truth. We’re not so different, you and I. Both making our way in a new world. And we both care about Henri. Vivienne and Henri. This city is a dangerous place, so you can understand why I have been shocked out of my manners to find they aren’t here. If there’s something you aren’t telling me . . .” He fished a bill from his pocketbook. “Information is money, mademoiselle.”
The suspicion that had begun as a cold knot in her belly now snaked throughout her middle. She shoved the cash away. “Put that to better use and drink your troubles away like a normal man.”
“But that’s just it!” He shoved the money back into his pocket. “I’ve been to the tavern where she works, or used to work. She wasn’t there either, hasn’t been there for days.”
“What?” She dropped her duster into her apron pocket and set her hands on her hips.
“The bread has been awful, and when I asked the owner how to account for it, all she said was that they were looking for a new baker. Every other question I asked was soundly ignored.”
Paulette tucked a stray strand of brown hair up under her cap, absorbing this news without comment. Vivienne and Henri lived at the tavern now. Would Vivienne also have quit her job to remain even further out of sight? Even though she needed the money and enjoyed the work? Whatever secret Vivienne held, perhaps it was bigger than Paulette had thought.
“I worry for the child,” Sebastien said. “And for Vienne, of course. We had plans.”
Paulette looked at him sideways. That was the second time he’d mentioned Henri first. Odd priority for a jilted lover.
“Where is he?” Monsieur Lemoine asked again, this time grabbing Paulette’s arms.
She stomped on his foot with the heel of her boot and brought her other knee up hard to his groin. “Unhand me!” she cried out, though no one else was in the pension to hear her.
He did. Bending at the waist, he clutched his knees and trapped a whimper behind his puffed cheeks. How quickly he had resorted to a bribe and to physical force. Perhaps he really was a former street urchin, prone to violence and dishonesty, who tried to hide his past behind fancy clothes.
Sebastien slowly straightened and glared at her. “I’ll come again. If you hear anything about the boy—anything at all—I’ll make it worth your while to tell me.” Grimacing, he left the pension.
Paulette shuddered as she returned to dusting the parlor, feathers skimming Madame’s gilt-framed mirrors. She looked through her own reflection, inspecting the glass for smudges to be removed. What she saw instead was clearly blazoned on her mind. Sebastien Lemoine was not in love. Vivienne was an afterthought, Henri his main concern. The boy was in danger—she felt it in her bones. And Paulette aimed to find out why.
Asylum, Pennsylvania
December 1794
Vivienne’s head ached with cold and confusion as they stepped off the flatboat river ferry that had brought them across the Susquehanna’s horseshoe bend. Henri grasped her hand and asked where the settlement was.
Liam led the horses by their bridles off the ferry and onto the bank. “This is it.”
She flexed her fingers, coaxing them to be nimble again, and drew from her cloak pocket the map Sebastien had supplied. On the paper, neat black lines indicated a developed wharf right where now there was merely a narrow plank walk jutting from river to land. On the map, a grid of streets organized dozens of lots. She looked up and watched smoke lift from several chimneys in the distance, only to drop down to the earth, snaking among the cabins like sooty wraiths.
She tugged her muffler below her chin. “Liam, how do you explain this?”
He looked over her shoulder. His scar stood out more starkly against his cold-whitened cheek. “That’s the plan you’re holding. And that”—he gestured to a collection of log cabins—“is the current reality. Welcome to Asylum.” Remarkably, his tone held no sarcasm. “Well done, both of you. I know the journey was arduous.”
“How many houses are there?” Henri asked.
“Twenty-three, at present.” Liam patted Beau on the neck. “Did Monsieur Lemoine paint a different picture for you? Le Petit Trianon, perhaps?”
Vienne bristled at the mention of Marie Antoinette’s extravagant nature retreat, where the animals were shampooed for the queen’s royal eye, their droppings disposed of as promptly as they appeared. “Let’s just say Sebastien didn’t give this place its proper due in his description,” she replied, determined to adapt. She had not come here for ease of living, but to be safe from those who had designs on Henri’s life. If Asylum’s sole appeal lay in its remoteness and inaccessibility, that was enough.
“You’ll grow accustomed to it, I have no doubt.” Liam smiled, but the bands beneath his eyes revealed that the trip had taxed him, too.
The sun slipped behind the hills backing the settlement, darkening the sky from bleached linen to gray velvet. There were no lampposts here, but the stars piercing the cloudless canopy gave an ethereal light of their own.
Moments later, a lantern bobbed toward them through the darkness, and a shout split the night. “Two adults and a child! A boy! A boy!”
Vienne held Henri close as more lanterns joined the first, the lights resembling fireflies on a summer’s eve. In no time, eager white faces surrounded her. Silk gowns and embroidered suits hung loosely on their frames. A flash of panic shot through Vienne, for want of food was a terror to her and had been ever since the bread famine during the year of the Great Cold in Paris, when lacework stopped because fingers were too numb to move, and beggars died in doorways.
“Let me see him!” Thin hands reached out to Henri. Beneath formal white curls, their eyes were hungry. “Is it him at last?”
“Louis-Charles!” breathed another, reverently. “We’ve been waiting. Your room is prepared.”
Vivienne shook her head, chest constricting. She was about to dash their hope. “He is not the king,” she said, “I vow. His name is Henri Chastain.” Her words suspended in glittering clouds before scattering on the wind.
“Not Louis-Charles?” a woman asked. “We heard he was coming . . .” Her voice cracked and faded away.
“No, madame,” Vienne told her. “This boy is not the king.”
“I’m sorry.” Henri’s small voice spiraled up. “I would be your hero if I could.”
“Ach.” Liam scooped him up, holding him easily in one arm, and said in English, “Who says you must be king to be a hero?”
Henri’s smile shone to match the stars.
“Mademoiselle Rivard? Is that you? Saints be praised!” Father Gilbert pushed through the small crowd to stand, beaming, before them. He, too, had lost weight since last spring, but his countenance was as kind as ever. “And Mr. Delaney, too. Welcome home!”
Liam shook his hand in greeting.
“I don’t know if you ever met Henri Chastain,” Vienne added. “This is Martine’s son.”
Father Gilbert squeezed Henri’s shoulder. “This is just the place for you, I’m sure. How is your mother?”
> “With the angels now,” Henri replied.
Father Gilbert sighed. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m sure you miss her very much.” A moment passed in reverence before he turned to Vienne. “Madame Suzanne Arquette is here, too,” he told her, though she doubted the poor woman’s troubled mind would remember her. “You have a house, I take it?”
She told him she did, though her confidence flagged. Craning her neck, she searched for Armand among those who had gathered to welcome them. If he was there, she didn’t see him. “Do you know a Monsieur Armand de Champlain?” she asked.
Murmurs rippled through a few of the women present. “Who doesn’t?” one said in a tone that implied much.
Embarrassment scorched Vivienne’s face. She should have known Armand would create such a reputation for himself. And she should have used more discretion instead of inquiring about him so openly.
“It’s late,” Father Gilbert said. “Your house is likely bare and cold. Stay this first night in the Grand Maison, at least. Tomorrow, after you’re rested and fed, you can get your first look at your new home in daylight.” He leaned in and added in a whisper, “If you’ve business with Monsieur de Champlain, you’ll find him at breakfast, I’m sure.”
Liam set Henri down and began unstrapping the bundles of her belongings from Cherie. After handing his lantern to Henri, Father Gilbert took one bag from him, and Vienne took the other.
“Thank you,” she said to Liam. So inadequate, those two little words. “Thank you for bringing us home.”
The corners of his lips curved up. “I would do nothing less for you.”
She believed him. The journey now complete, Vienne suddenly wished they were not surrounded by others, and that his hands were not full of reins.
“You’re in good hands now, I see. I hope you find your house to your liking. I may have built it myself.” He touched his cap and led the horses away. As she watched him go, the ache between her temples sank to her heart.
“This way.” Father Gilbert’s voice recaptured her attention. Those who had lingered with their lanterns formed a guiding light as they walked in a wobbly line from the small wharf to the Grand Maison, the great house that loomed up ahead. “This was to be the queen’s house,” Father Gilbert whispered. “A shelter for her and her children.”
“So I’ve been told.”
In the moonlight, four brick chimneys rose from the roof, and the wood-shingled walls were pierced with many glass windows. She tried to imagine the queen and her children living here and failed. By the time they reached the enormous double doors, most of the others in their procession had dropped away to cabins of their own.
Inside, a wide hall ran the entire length of the building, with rooms opening to either side. She could tell as she passed that they were nearly bare, but the few furnishings she saw were reminiscent of Versailles. Oil paintings, carved sofas, plush chairs. In one room, a pianoforte. In another, a long, polished table topped with silver candlesticks.
“You will breakfast there in the morning.” Father Gilbert pointed to the long table, then led Vienne and Henri to a staircase of polished rosewood. The walls were covered in fleur-de-lys paper, which could have come only from France. But the symbols of the monarchy rippled, belying the hewn and squared logs beneath.
At the top of the stairs, Vienne found the layout of the second floor identical to the first. Father Gilbert led them to the second room on the right. “You may sleep here tonight. Keep the lantern.” He set her bundle on the floor. “The room across the hall was meant for the dauphin. Monsieur Talon, the colony manager here, handpicked the toys and furnishings he thought would please Louis-Charles. Perhaps Henri might enjoy playing in there sometimes.” He gave the boy a tender smile.
“Thank you,” Vienne said, quickly feeling the exhaustion of her journey. “Will we see you tomorrow?”
“My dear, you will see all of us, every day. Rest well tonight. God bless you.”
Vienne and Henri stood in the hall with the lantern until the former priest reached the stairs and called out that he could make his way from there.
“Come, Henri,” she whispered. “You can explore the toys tomorrow if you like. For now, it’s time to rest.”
The large room was cold, despite the four hearths to heat the house. Too exhausted to bother with the warming pan leaning at one end of the fireplace, they laid down on canopied beds fully dressed, their cloaks still on, and extinguished the lantern. Vienne barely had a chance to recognize that the curtains the starlight shone through were lace before she tumbled into sleep.
The aroma of coffee roused Vivienne from her slumber. Her eyelids fluttered. Sunlight, harsh and cold, streamed through the curtains. She stared at the scalloped edges and the sunflowers woven through a hexagonal ground. For a moment, she was back in her Palais-Royal apartment above the lace shop she shared with Tante Rose. She closed her eyes and slid back in time to a showroom that frothed with Alençon and Chantilly. There was Tante Rose having tea with a patron, while Vienne arranged samples of lace on deep blue velvet pillows. Then Rose’s hand went to her neck, and her fingers bled red.
No, it wasn’t her fingers that were bleeding.
Vienne’s eyes popped open, and she sat up, heart racing, chest heaving.
Henri awoke and looked at her. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’re safe now.”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Rising, Vienne went to the window to see what darkness had veiled last night. Fields silvered beneath winter’s breath, and the river curving through them was a satin blue-sky ribbon. Gray wisps curled out of chimneys like fragile flags. Scanning for a chimney not yet smoking, she wondered which log home would be hers.
They had slept late, she realized. Too late to make a good impression. But perhaps late enough to find Armand at breakfast. Availing herself of the washstand, she scrubbed Henri’s face and hands and performed her toilette as well as she could. Folding screens divided the room, and she used one for privacy as she changed into the freshest gown she had, which was still hopelessly rumpled and held the odor of the horse that had carried it. Henri changed his clothing, too, but his hair would not be tamed by brush or comb. Even without mirrors, she knew they’d done nothing to erase the evidence of their travels.
Downstairs, they followed the smell of coffee into the room Father Gilbert had pointed out the night before. Two women and a man were seated at the table, drinking coffee from their bowls and piling ham and yellow-hued biscuits onto their plates. Their hair was powdered white, and the women wore formal gowns of pastel silk.
“Ah,” said one. “Newcomers.” Her eyebrows were painted high on her forehead. “Children don’t eat at this table.”
Vivienne looked around and saw no other. “This one does.” She placed her hand on Henri’s back, and they sat.
Introductions were stiffly made. Born to nobility, the man was David du Page but likely preferred to be called “Count.” His wife, Aurore, had been the first to speak, and their daughter, Zoe, sat between them.
“I didn’t catch your title.” Aurore blinked with false lashes, drawing attention to the beauty patch near her eye.
Vienne smiled. “No title. Just Vivienne Rivard. I was a lacemaker. For the queen,” she added, though it was prideful to say so. “And more recently a baker.”
“A tradeswoman. At table. With a child.” Aurore wrinkled her nose with disdain.
Henri swung his legs beneath the table, moving his chair back and forth on the hardwood floor. Ignoring the glare coming from Aurore, Vienne gently placed her hand on his leg. “Be still,” she whispered, but she understood his nervous habit. The Du Page family did not exactly set one at ease. Quietly, she sipped her coffee.
And nearly spit it out when Armand blustered in. Vienne brought her napkin to her lips and forced a swallow.
He paled. “Vienne,” he breathed. Three powdered heads turned at the use of such a familiar name.
She smoothed her napkin over h
er lap. “Monsieur de Champlain.”
“You two are . . . well acquainted?” Aurore asked.
Ignoring her, Armand seated himself across from Vivienne and poured his coffee. “Forgive me, I was not expecting to see you so soon. Certainly not until the spring, at least. However did you manage to find transport from Philadelphia?”
“Mr. Delaney brought us on horseback!” Henri offered. “Mademoiselle and I shared Cherie, and the Irishman had Beau all to himself.”
Zoe’s eyes rounded. “Mr. Delaney? I’ve seen him around the settlement, building houses and clearing trees. He seems quite . . . strong.”
“And rough,” her mother added. “How inappropriate. I do wonder why you couldn’t have waited until spring to come in a larger convoy. It isn’t as if you were in danger of fever at this time of year. But then, some women’s virtue isn’t worth guarding as much as others’.” She dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
Anger surged through Vienne. “How efficient of you.” She sipped her coffee, then peered over the rim of the bowl. “My drink is not yet cold, and yet you’ve already determined my character.” And placed her in the same category as Sybille.
Count du Page buffed his fingernails against his waistcoat, then ran his thumb along their edge as he stood. “I believe we’re done here. Come, mes chères.”
They left the room.
Armand speared a slice of ham from a platter and dragged it onto his plate. “You must ignore Aurore’s cutting words. Everyone else has learned to do so, especially her husband. I can empathize. My own wife—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Forgive me. Now, let us begin again. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t changed your mind about my offer. Am I right?” He sliced his ham into small squares and ate.
“Yes.” She sighed. “Sebastien told me you purchased two lots, and I must say, I am grateful for your foresight. I do have need of a home.” The words sat bitterly on her tongue. Had Sybille said this to him as well, so many years ago? But this was different. “Philadelphia proved unsafe. Political passions still run high.”
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