Vivienne stayed quiet as minutes ticked by, but he knew by the presence of light that she remained. When he opened his eyes, he found her sitting on the bank beside the lantern, her dress tucked modestly around her. Her hair fell in a thick braid over one shoulder.
“What happened?” she asked.
He told her.
Moths fluttered against the lantern casing. “You were defending the tax collector?”
“I was defending a victim of pointless violence. He happened to be a tax collector.” Who also happened to be after his cousin to pay the excise.
Vivienne twisted the end of her braid around one finger. “I’m so sorry you were hurt. You were doing the right thing.”
“Aye.” Just like he was doing the right thing at Mingo Creek, right before a bullet tore a path through the side of his face. “It’s such a pain.” His lips twitched up, as did hers. But it could have been much worse. The tar had already cooled somewhat before he’d come in contact with it. Still, if he felt like this now, he could only imagine the agony Joseph Cowley would have suffered if the Schultze boys had managed to coat his naked body. “I’ve made more enemies tonight.” He climbed out of the water and sat on the bank beside her.
“Maybe so. But I’m on your side.” She took his hand in hers and bent her head to inspect the tar. A breeze stirred the lace at her elbows.
He tried flexing his palm beneath the shell of hardened tar.
“No, don’t,” she said. “Don’t pick at it or peel it off. It might take good skin with it. Wait until it loosens on its own. Does it hurt very terribly?”
Liam withdrew his hand and rested it, palm up, on his own lap. “Less terribly. It feels like a crust on a hand I’m rather fond of using.” He spread his good hand over the tar scabbing his side. “It’s a good thing I’ve never been vain, or I’d be disappointed at my diminishing good looks.”
A smile curving gently on her lips, she wiped the creek water beading on his scarred left cheek before tucking her hand back into the folds of her skirt. “Some of us are marked on the outside.”
“And some on the inside?”
“Yes.” She peered out over the creek, though he knew she couldn’t see a thing beyond the pool of lantern light they shared. He couldn’t see anything past Vivienne. He didn’t want to.
He skimmed her profile, from the dark eyelashes to the graceful arc of her neck. She’d taken the time to trade her nightgown for a dress before coming outside, but he hadn’t even bothered to grab a shirt. Their legs stretched out in front of them both, guiltless of stockings or shoes. With her ankles crossed, bare toes peeked out from beneath her hem.
Perhaps he should look away from her. He didn’t. “Are you scandalized, sitting in the dark, alone with me?”
“Only a little.” Her tone held no guile or artifice. “I’m not a maiden of tender years, all innocence and naïveté.”
He did not want a maiden of tender years, untested by life’s trials.
“I’m an old maid, at nine and twenty. And feel far older still.”
“As old as me?” he teased, for he had ten years on her. Sobering, he added, “I’m too old for games. There’s something bothering you, and I have a feeling it’s not an excise tax. Please, Vienne. Let us be honest with each other.”
She drew her knees under her chin. “You’re right. You need to know something about me, Liam, though I’m ashamed to make it plain.” She paused so long, he wondered if she had changed her mind about telling him.
“Is it something you’ve done?” he prodded gently. “I’ve made mistakes, myself. We all have.”
“No. It’s who I am.” A sigh lifted her chest and released. “I’m the illegitimate daughter of a courtesan, thanks to Armand.” A small laugh broke from her. “And there you have it. No wonder I have no shame in talking to a half-bare man, unchaperoned, by the light of moon and lantern.” She hugged her knees tighter. “I expect you think less of me now.”
Disoriented, Liam swallowed. “No. I don’t think less of you. You’re not stained by the sins of your parents.”
“I never wanted to take advantage of Armand’s guilt over—” She swirled her hand in the air, and he understood. “But then with the danger in Philadelphia . . . and my funds were running out as it was, even with baking at the tavern. I suppose we always have choices, but I felt it was the only decision I could make. So I let Armand provide for me, though it galled me then and galls me now. This is your land, Liam. Whatever any piece of paper says.” Her voice trembled with conviction. “And there’s the rub. I wish we hadn’t taken it from you. I’m sorry.”
“If there was anything to forgive, I would. You’ve done no wrong.”
“Thank you. But Liam, now that we’re here, I don’t want to live anywhere else,” she whispered.
“Then don’t.” Nothing mattered to him more than her, more than keeping her by his side. He angled to face her. Moved closer.
Vienne’s glance skittered over his chest before meeting his eyes.
The pain from the tar receding, Liam swallowed, trying to master the longing unfurling inside him. “I won’t steal from you what you aren’t willing to give, and I won’t take liberties that aren’t mine to take. So I’m asking for your permission. I’d like—I’d really like—to kiss you. Properly. If I may.”
Her breath shuddered as she gave the barest of nods.
Gently, he lifted her chin and bent his head to hers, his hand cupping the slender column of her neck before sliding behind her back. Vienne flattened a hand against his chest and kissed him tenderly, then with an urgency that felt like hunger. He felt her plunge her fingers through his hair at the back of his head. If she leaned in any closer, he doubted he’d have the strength to stay upright.
He trailed his lips to her cheek, then her earlobe, her jaw, her neck. Then broke away.
“Maybe we do need a chaperone,” he said, taking her hand for the simple pleasure of holding it.
Vivienne’s smile told him she agreed. “That was”—she paused to catch her breath—“proper.” She laughed and squeezed his hand.
A clover-scented breeze fluttered the leaves in the branches overhead, and a frog croaked from somewhere along the moonlit creek. At length, Liam mustered the courage to break the spell. “Will you stay, Vienne?” As the question left him, he realized how little he had to offer her. He had no land anymore, only hope and determination. She deserved more than that. “Will you remain, at least, in America?”
“This is where I belong.” But a shadow passed over her features.
“And Henri believes he belongs in France. When the time is right. Is that it?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He studied her for a moment before replying. “So will you do what’s right for you? Or will you do what a ten-year-old child believes is right for him?”
Her jaw set. “I will pray, mon cher, that God leads us on a path that is right for both of us. For all of us.” She placed a tender kiss on the scar on his cheek and stood. “I should go.”
And like a firefly whose glow vanishes into the night, she was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Paulette should have burned the reply she received from Philadelphia as soon as she’d read it. Perhaps she was weak, to need to read it so many times. Perhaps she was weak to be clutching it in the dark even now, when what she really needed was to sleep. Or to think. And right now, she could scarcely do either.
Starlight fell in fleur-de-lys patterns across the floor in her room through lace curtains. If Vivienne’s aunt had not been guillotined, and if Vivienne had not been charged with caring for a child raised at Versailles, perhaps she would be more sympathetic to the revolution. As it was, all that seemed to matter to her was a little boy who was not even her own son. Her narrow focus was foolhardy. The entire world was at stake. Even the American Thomas Jefferson had said so. Whatever blood must be shed would be worth it for the cause of liberty, for the rights of the common man.
And, of co
urse, the common woman.
Flipping her thin braid over one shoulder, Paulette slipped from bed and lit a taper, resolved to do what she’d said she would. Dipping the tip of her letter into the flame, she waited until it caught, then dropped it into the fireplace, where she watched the words curl and shrivel into ashes.
Kill him.
Bullfrogs twanged, and crickets sang. But those two words roared in her ears. She knew why it must be done.
Since Monsieur Talon had announced that the boy who’d died in prison was not, in fact, Louis-Charles, hope flourished in Asylum. Building supplies had been moved out of the dauphin’s room in the Grand Maison, and new furnishings were collected with an eye to pleasing the true Louis-Charles. All the while, the people here would ask Henri, “Would Louis-Charles like this? Would that suit his fancy?” And Henri replied with confidence. He knew every preference, every dislike, without hesitation.
It wasn’t long before more people than Suzanne Arquette were conjecturing that he might be king. And all they had to go on was circumstantial—his age, his coloring, his comportment. His rickets. They had no idea he’d also been custodian of Louis XVI’s signet ring and the boy king’s stuffed horse. Paulette had found the toy while cleaning Corbin Fraser’s room one day and recognized it as Henri’s at once. Only when she turned it over and saw the embroidery on the hoof did she realize its significance. Henri had lost it during an attempted abduction, she remembered, and it had found its way into Corbin’s hands.
While possession of the ring and the toy was not enough to prove without doubt that Henri was Louis-Charles, it was too much to ignore. The revolution is not yet over, Corbin had written from Philadelphia. If there is the slightest chance the boy could be Louis-Charles Capet, there must be an end to the matter, and soon. Kill him.
Paulette rose and walked to the washstand, where she laved clean water over her sweat-glossed face. In the mirror above the basin, she studied her shadowy reflection. Was this the face of a murderer? She looked at her hands, rough from scrubbing, washing, cooking, gardening. But could these same hands also kill a child?
Groaning, she sank onto the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands. All this agony over the fate of someone else’s child. Had anyone agonized when Paulette’s child had been killed? She clutched her middle, rocking back and forth as the pain of memory ripped through her. She had been a fourteen-year-old scullery maid when the master of the house decided to take her to his bed. An abortion ended the life he’d planted in her womb and obliterated the hope of ever having children of her own. She was not supposed to want her baby, and yet she had. With her parents dead, that little life had been her very own, her flesh and blood, and even that was stolen from her.
That was what she fought against. A system that created classes, that made the rich richer while taking from the poor. Just because she had fled her country prior to the Bastille’s fall did not mean she cheered for it any less. The poor bore the brunt of France’s financial burdens, while nobles and priests were never taxed—in coin or in any other way. That was why there had to be a revolution, and why the revolution must succeed. Somehow, she had known ever since her baby had been murdered inside her that she would atone for his life.
She just hadn’t imagined the atonement meant taking the life of another child. But of course it did. And what better child than one who might be king?
The taste of bile filled her mouth. Inexplicably, she felt an urge to pray—but she did not believe in God. “Reason,” she whispered to herself. “I believe in reason.” And what could be more reasonable than this? Still, she hoped for some sign.
Shouts from outside pricked her ears. Remaining still on her bed, she strained to listen. There it was again. From the next room, where Vivienne and Henri both slept, shuffling sounds betrayed that Vivienne was dressing. Footsteps faded down the hall. The front door opened and closed, and the cabin shuddered.
So did Paulette. She was alone in the house with Henri. A sign.
As if propelled by some unseen force, she quietly stole into the hallway and slipped into Henri’s room. Even in his sleep, he clutched that small whittled horse, a replacement for Bucephalus. His blond hair curled about his head like a halo. But he was neither angel nor saint. He was either the son of Martine Chastain, whose chief concerns before the revolution related to fashions and parties—or he was the son of Marie Antoinette. A likeable child, perhaps, but one who must be sacrificed for the greater good. The revolution must not fail. The royalists must not be given their king, or even one who may pretend to be king. They must not even be allowed to hope. Not at any cost.
With her pulse rushing in her ears and sweat dripping down her sides beneath her nightdress, Paulette could barely draw breath in the suffocating room. Her weakness appalled her. She loathed Charlotte Corday, who had assassinated Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat two years ago, but the action had taken strength and singleness of mind that even Paulette could admire. The twenty-four-year-old Charlotte had traveled from Caen to Paris, purchased a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade, and entered Marat’s home when he happened to be bathing. If her palms had been slick on the hilt of her knife, she plunged it into his chest anyway and made a martyr of the revolutionary leader, though she knew her action would send her to the guillotine. “To save your country means not noticing what it costs,” she had said in her trial, right before her execution.
On this, Paulette and Charlotte Corday agreed. But Paulette would save her country for the Jacobins. She would save the revolution from the royalists. And dismiss the cost. In the same way royalists esteemed Charlotte Corday, revolutionaries would remember the name Paulette Dubois. Forever.
The “Ça Ira” played in her mind. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. Vivienne’s pillow became a weapon in her hands. But would Henri awake, without air, and fight? She moved his arms to his sides as he lay on his back. A cloud passed over the moon, extinguishing the silver glow in the room. In that moment of utter darkness, she gathered her shift to her knees and eased herself onto his bed, straddling him, pinning him. She suspended the pillow above his head.
What? He died in his sleep? she would say in the morning to a weeping Vivienne. How tragic! No, don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known . . .
Paulette pressed the pillow over Henri’s face. Gently at first, then harder, until she thought she could feel the small protrusion of his nose beneath it. He struggled beneath her, legs kicking against the sheets, torso twisting. Ignoring his muffled cries, she held fast. She would kill this boy in his sleep, just as Charlotte Corday had killed Marat in his bath.
Charlotte had been ready to die for her crime. If anyone suspected Paulette, was she ready to suffer the same consequence? No one will ever know I did it. But another voice screamed louder: Maybe.
Henri was tiring, or losing consciousness, or both. Was she willing to die for this act? She did not fear the righteous judgment of a God who did not exist, nor did she believe in an afterlife. But she did believe in pain. What would Talon, former chief of secret police, do to her if he thought she had killed the sole heir to the French throne? Perspiration filmed her entire body. Her arms shook.
Downstairs, the door closed, its latch resounding in her ears with the force of a cannon blast. She rolled off Henri, placed Vivienne’s pillow back on her bed, and darted from the room. The tread on the stair grew louder as Paulette scrambled back to her chamber.
Henri roused and cried out.
Footsteps ran to him. “What is it?” Vivienne’s voice through the wall.
Crying and gasping. Words Paulette could not decipher. What did he know? What did he tell her? Paulette cursed herself for her sloppy half attempt. If he accused her—
“A nightmare,” Vivienne soothed, and the air whooshed back into Paulette’s lungs. “Another bad dream, but all is well. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. . . .”
A chill spiraled down Paulette’s spine as she heard in Vivienne’s consolation the chorus of “Ça Ira.” Ano
ther sign. She had failed tonight, but she would try again. Outside, the sky cleared, and shadows once more formed across her bed in the shape of the symbol of the monarchy. She traced the outline of the lily with her finger, an anthem on her lips.
Ah! It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine
the aristocrats, we’ll hang them!
If we don’t hang them
We’ll break them
If we don’t break them
We’ll burn them.
Vivienne sat next to Henri on the bed and swept the hair off his sticky brow. “It was just a nightmare,” she murmured to him.
“Yes, but it felt so real! It was one of those where I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t scream. I tried calling for you, but I couldn’t.” Madame Fishypaws leapt onto the bed and walked up Henri’s body, standing on the boy’s chest while he stroked behind her ears. “I couldn’t even breathe.”
“That sounds awful. I’m right here.” She hadn’t been, minutes ago, but it wasn’t as if Henri had been left home alone. If he had truly called out much longer, if he really had some need, Paulette would have heard him. Paulette would have come to his aid.
“Do you suppose Fishypaws had any role in this dream?” Vienne suggested. The kitten had a habit of insisting on attention at night, rubbing its body across Vienne’s face until she awoke and petted it. Perhaps Madame Fishypaws had draped herself over Henri’s face while he slept.
“Oh.” He yawned and rolled to his side, and the kitten tumbled beside him. After kneading her small paws into the mattress, she curled up beside Henri. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think I can go back to sleep if you stay here for a while.”
“I’ll be in my own bed across the room. That’s close enough, mon cher. You’ll be fine.” Rising, she stooped to brush a kiss to his temple, and his arm came around her neck and squeezed. “I love you,” she whispered.
A Refuge Assured Page 34