Soft lemon sun shone on the rainbow of silks the French wore and glowed on the plain linen shirts of the Americans. Vivienne remarked that the latter looked far more at ease with their axes and saws than their high-heeled, waistcoated counterparts, and Paulette, at her side, agreed. Not surprisingly, Henri had already dashed off and found Liam, who was walking him back to Vivienne.
“But why can’t I help?” Henri’s voice lifted, all sincerity.
“It would help if I didn’t have to wonder if you were about to be hacked by a wayward ax or smashed by a falling tree,” offered Vienne.
Liam grinned at her predictable speech, then turned to Henri. “Tell you what. I’m tasking you with an important job. Keep a careful watch on all the contestants.” Ever the schoolmaster, he pulled a piece of foolscap from his pocket, along with a stub of pencil. “Make a chart to track how long it takes each team to fell their trees. On axis Y, write the team names. On axis X, write minutes. Then shade in how long it takes each team to fell their tree.”
Henri accepted the paper and pencil with a wary frown. “Is this schoolwork?”
Liam laughed and handed him his timepiece to borrow. “We’ll clear some trees, and then we can eat.”
“Will you at least eat with us?” Henri asked.
“Of course.” Liam’s gaze lifted to meet Vivienne’s, smile lines fanning from his eyes.
“Liam, how is your hand?” she asked, ignoring Paulette’s bored expression. “Have you been using the ointment Jethro made?”
“Every day.” He spread open his right hand. The skin looked pinker than usual and lacked the callused ridge of his left palm, but the healing was remarkable.
“But will this hurt?” She waved a hand toward the trees about to be slain.
He flashed a smile. “Not until it’s over.”
Henri bounced on his toes. “I don’t see your cousin, Mr. Delaney. Is he coming?”
“Afraid not, lad. He has other matters to attend to. Besides, swinging axes is better left to those with both eyes. Here, I’ll show you why. Cover one eye, like this. Now—”
Monsieur Talon interrupted the impromptu lesson. Standing on a stump, he raised his arms. “Contestants, take your places!”
“Good luck!” Vivienne called as Liam walked away.
He turned and winked at her. “Don’t need it. But thanks.” He touched the brim of his hat and went to meet Jethro.
“Impertinent backwoodsman,” Paulette mumbled.
Vivienne didn’t bother to conceal a laugh. “The contest will be no contest.”
“Look!” Paulette whispered. “Do you see those two Americans over there? One of them just spit at Mr. Delaney as he walked by. Look how they glare at him. What’s behind all of that, do you suppose? Who are they?”
Vienne watched the two young men distort their faces while taunting Liam, who soundly ignored them. “Henri, is your chart ready?” While the boy knelt and drew his lines, she leaned toward Paulette and whispered behind her fan. “Those are the Schultze brothers, roughly your age. Derek is the one with red hair, and Ernest has black hair.” Derek was shorter and more robust, but Ernest’s wiry frame was likely equally strong.
“They look as though they’ve put a hex on the Irishman. Why?”
In hushed tones, Vienne told her about the confrontation surrounding Joseph Cowley. “Liam foiled their plans to tar and feather the tax man, and I suppose they’ve been riled up about it since.”
Paulette watched them with obvious interest. “Frustrated young men know how to hold a grudge.”
“Ready!” Talon’s voice boomed. Eight pairs of men gripped their tools, focused on the trunks before them. “Begin!”
Cheering erupted from women usually more prone to whispers as they clapped for their favorite contenders. Henri’s boyish shrieking drowned them out. The Frenchmen hopped all around their trunks, hacking in a ring around the tree.
“Which way is it going to fall?” Armand cried to David du Page.
“I don’t know! Just keep cutting all around and see what happens!”
“Ach! Look at your father, Zoe.” Aurore’s voice transcended the rest. “I haven’t seen him move that much in years. Like a little bird hopping about!” She and her daughter bent in peals of laughter.
Flying chunks of wood nicked the Frenchmen’s silk breeches and snagged their clocked stockings. Their faces grew red beneath crooked white wigs. But they were trying in all sincerity, and even Vivienne found herself lauding their efforts.
“Look at the Americans!” Henri pointed to an entirely different method. Rather than chipping away in circles, Liam and Jethro worked in an admirable rhythm, swinging their axes at the same spot on the trunk, first one and then the other, over and over. Liam’s shirt strained across his shoulders when he hefted the ax and swung it. Sweat darkened the linen over his chest and glistened at his temples, but his labor was precise and orderly. He knew what he wanted and how to get it.
“You’re smiling.” Paulette’s tone hinted at contempt, as if she’d added, Like a lovesick fool.
Maybe she was. Vivienne shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I smile?” Though she and Liam had had few moments alone together since that night at the creek, she still reveled in his company no matter who else was around.
Eventually, Liam and Jethro sliced a large wedge away. Then, on the opposite side of the tree, they notched the trunk with a smaller gash. Chests heaving, they stood back. “Timber!” Liam pointed to where the tree would fall, then they both pushed the trunk. With a great crack and a whooshing of air through the canopy of leaves, the tree crashed to the earth, exactly where he’d said it would.
“They won! Mr. Delaney and Mr. Fortune won first place!” Henri skipped around the blanket before remembering to check the timepiece and record the minutes on his chart.
Liam and Jethro shook hands, congratulating each other. Liam looked over at Vienne, and she smiled her approval. A grin on his face, he offered her a quick bow.
“As if he chopped down that tree just for you,” Paulette remarked. “How sweet.”
With a critical eye, Paulette watched Mr. Delaney and his friend Mr. Fortune hustle over to offer Armand de Champlain some advice. Liam, Vivienne called him. Well. Those two would be very happy together, she was sure. How nice for them.
“Look at those sore losers now.” Vivienne nodded at Ernest and Derek Schultze. Their faces looked like thunder as they gestured to the felled tree.
“Madame Arquette!” Zoe du Page screamed.
Paulette’s gaze jumped to where she pointed. Mad Suzanne Arquette levered an ax out of the tree stump and ran toward Mr. Fortune with it, blade out. “It was you!” she cried. “You killed my family, every one of them! Didn’t you?” Face purple with rage, she charged forward, tripping on her gown.
Needing no translation to understand her intent, Mr. Fortune shouted at her to stop, holding his ax at both ends of the handle, ready to block her blows.
Henri gasped.
“Suzanne, no!” Vivienne leapt up and ran toward Suzanne. “He didn’t do it. You’re confused. He’s innocent.”
“Then who did kill my family?” Suzanne raged. “Someone did. Many of them did. Slaughtered and burned them all! Where are the rest of the slaves?”
While Mr. Delaney, Monsieur de Champlain, and Monsieur du Page circled Suzanne, Paulette glanced around. Jethro Fortune was the only black man present. The rest of the slaves—or servants, as their owners called them—were likely laboring near their shanties. Scrubbing, cooking, laundering. Mr. Fortune was the scapegoat for them as much as he was for the slaves who really took the lives of Suzanne’s family.
“Calm yourself, madame.” This from the count.
“Calm?” Suzanne shoved her ax toward him in a jerky, thrusting motion. “Would you be calm if your family was murdered? No, no, I won’t be calm. I can see it now. I can see everything.” The ax wobbled in her grip. She was weakening.
“Be careful, Mademoiselle!” Henri cried out, but
he remained rooted to his spot.
Vivienne entered the circle of men and spoke to Suzanne in tones too low for Paulette to hear. Suzanne shook her head again and again. But the ax blade lowered to the ground, and the men wrested it from her grip. Suzanne shook with sobs, and Vivienne comforted her.
But it was people like Suzanne Arquette who’d made the revolution necessary. Oppressive rulers lording over their subjects. The classes must be equalized.
The revolution must succeed.
Resolve hardening her spine, Paulette returned her attention to the Schultze brothers. They, too, lost interest in the drama, gripped their ax handles near the blades, and stormed off.
“Where are you going?” Henri asked.
Paulette snatched a fresh baguette and a wheel of cheese from the basket. “I want to see if I can cheer those American boys up,” she tossed over her shoulder. But she didn’t look back.
Neither did the brothers. She had to run to catch up to them. Ernest, the dark, lanky fellow, moved like a catamount through the woods. But Derek heard her coming.
He wheeled around. “Who are you?” Freckles spotted his ruddy round cheeks.
“Your new best friend. Hungry?” She held out her offering. “I understand there’s something else gnawing at your middles, something bread alone can’t take care of. Or should I say, someone.”
Derek frowned at her. “Speak plainly, woman.” But he reached for the cheese, and she let him have it.
“Liam Delaney.” Satisfaction filled her as she watched scowls slash across their faces at the mere mention of his name. “I thought so.”
“That old man—”
She lifted a hand to stop his speech. “I have no interest in your complaints. Only in what you’re willing to do about it.”
The brothers exchanged a confused glance. Ernest swallowed and said, “He’ll get what’s coming to him sooner or later. You wait and see.”
But Paulette had tired of waiting. “Sooner is always better than later. Have you a plan? No?” She smiled. “I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Vivienne tipped her face heavenward, her straw hat falling to her back. Sunset spread across the sky in spills of burgundy and merlot, setting the river ablaze with its reflection. Liam’s oars dipped into the water, pulling their canoe in a slow, rhythmic glide.
“Don’t look now, mon cher, but they’re gaining on us.” A tease lilted in her voice.
He swiveled. Armand and Henri paddled a canoe behind them, both faces flushed with concentration and the lingering heat of the summer day. Armand’s silk suit shimmered as he shouted encouragement to Henri. “That’s it, faster now! Oh dear, we’re turning sideways—the other side, Henri, row on the other side! No, the other other side! We’ll catch them yet!”
Henri’s tongue poked from the corner of his mouth as he switched the child-sized paddle Liam had made for him from the right side of the canoe to the left. “We’re going to pass you!”
“Oh dear,” Armand huffed, resting his oar across his knees for a moment as the canoe spun toward a bank again. “Good effort. Let’s keep trying!” He plunged back into the race.
Something like joy swelled in Vienne until it broke free in laughter.
Liam turned to face her again, amusement dancing in his eyes. He moved his oars through the water, but he had turned them so the blades sliced the river without really moving them forward. “They’re catching up!”
A turtle crept along the cracked mud where the river had receded from the bank. Dragonflies flitted through a thatch of reeds. Almost at a standstill in the water, Liam and Vienne allowed Armand and Henri to near.
“Go faster!” she told Liam. “They’re almost here!”
Henri’s gleeful laugh bounced off the water. “Too late, Mademoiselle!” A smile wreathed his face as they passed.
Armand mopped his brow with a kerchief, chuckling. “How far did you say the wharf is from here?”
“Around the bend and straight ahead a little ways.” Liam gave him a reassuring smile. “You’re nearly there.”
“Ah. Good. Onward, my boy! We shall win this race home yet!” Tucking his kerchief into his pocket, Armand thrust his paddle back into the water and pulled.
Touched by Armand’s enthusiasm, Vienne waited until they had made some progress before leaning toward Liam and whispering, “Do you think they’ll get there all right?”
“To be sure. A little on the slow side, but they’ll get there. If there’s any trouble, we’ll come across it soon enough. But let’s give them some time to get ahead, shall we?” He rowed the canoe toward a weeping willow overhanging the river. As the water grew shallow, he pulled the vessel until it came to a slow stop, wedged into the soft riverbed. “That’s better.”
Wind stirred through the tree, and the branches dangled their fingertips in the water beside the canoe. Twilight fell in pieces through the leaves.
“You’re leaving for Philadelphia in the morning, aren’t you?” she asked.
He nodded. “If there’s no rain to turn the roads to mud, I’ll be back in ten days.”
Vienne checked a sigh. She did not begrudge him the chance to see Tara, and she knew the fee he earned would go toward buying back his land. “I’ll miss you.”
Fireflies throbbed among the branches that swayed behind him. “And I you. You make it difficult to leave.”
“Really?” She smiled. “How difficult?” The call of a loon floated across the river.
His lips curved as he reached for her. He gently drew her off the seat until they both knelt on the bottom of the canoe, his knees against the green-striped cotton dress puddling about her. “Very.”
Water lapped quietly against the vessel. Liam enfolded Vienne in his arms, and she molded into his embrace. Her hands moved along his arms and shoulders, then swept up to loop behind his neck as she answered his kisses with her own.
The canoe rocked beneath them. Crickets began to chirp. With effort, she pulled away, hand against Liam’s chest, where she felt a pounding beneath her palm.
“Vienne.” His voice was husky as he touched his forehead to hers. “When I get back from this trip . . . we should talk.”
“We’re talking now.”
After pressing a kiss to her brow, he sat back and shook his head, his expression soft and serious all at once. “That’s not what I mean.”
She tilted her head, imagination soaring. “Then what do you—”
“When I get back.” He took her hands in his. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself while I’m gone, and then we’ll have our conversation.”
She laced her fingers through his. “Of course. But it’s you who should take care. Your journey poses far more challenges than we face in Asylum. Hurry home,” she added with a smile. The next ten days would surely prove longer than she wanted to wait.
Cicadas whirred outside the windows while Vivienne sat stiffly in the music room of the Grand Maison. Sleeves sticking to her arms, she fanned herself, wishing her ocean-blue silk was as cool as the water it resembled.
“So nice of you to join us.” Aurore du Page’s tone was thick with sarcasm as she crossed to the pianoforte. It was expected that all would gather here in the evenings, and Vienne had skipped it too often to be polite, much preferring evenings spent with Henri, Liam, Jethro, and Finn. Instead, she was here, listening to Zoe sing, while Henri played with toys he’d helped curate for Louis-Charles upstairs, accompanied by Paulette.
Evelyne Sando lowered herself onto the velvet sofa beside Vivienne, face glowing with humidity almost to the shade of her rose brocade gown. “Never mind her.” She smiled. “How are you, Vienne? I haven’t seen you since the tree-felling and picnic, what, almost two weeks ago now? Poor Suzanne. You were so good with her. That aside, you seemed quite content with your company.”
Vienne raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean with Henri? And Paulette?”
Evelyne pursed her lips. “No. I mean the fellow who won first place and then gave lessons
to every Frenchman who cared to learn. Delaney, is it? Handsome. A woman could do far worse.” She took out her fan and stirred the air with it. “Will he come tonight?”
“Here?” Vivienne laughed. “You know Americans aren’t welcome at our events unless by special invitation. Like the contest, for instance.”
“I do know. I’m asking if you’ve given him a special invitation. It’s plain you’re smitten with each other, and rightly so. Why not be with the one you love?”
Vienne felt a flush creep into her cheeks. “If Liam were in Asylum, I would be with him right now, but not here,” she admitted. She favored the chorus of crickets and wind through the trees over the Du Page women at the pianoforte. The gurgling creek as it ran over her feet. The splash of stones as Henri tossed them into the water. Liam’s rich laughter. That was the music she craved on a late summer’s eve. Swatting away a fly, Vienne labored to pull a breath from the soggy air. “He’s gone on a mail run.” She hoped the evening in the Grand Maison would help the time pass faster. Liam was due back tomorrow.
“Ah yes. Perhaps we may hear something of Louis-Charles this time.” Across the room, Zoe hit a false note, and Evelyne cringed behind her fan. “And how is Henri, our Little Prince?” Her eyes sparkled. She was not the only resident of Asylum who had taken to referring to Henri in this way.
Vivienne took her cup of lemonade from the table beside her. Condensation beaded on the outside of the glass, soaking her palm as she drank. “Henri is overjoyed at the prospect of Louis-Charles arriving. But the nightmares he’s had lately—they seem as vivid as those he had in Philadelphia. I don’t know why, all of a sudden, these fears have roared back to life. Especially here in Asylum, of all places. Asylum is safe.”
“What kind of dreams?”
Vienne took one more sip, then licked the sweet-sour taste from her lips. “He said—he said someone is trying to kill him.”
Evelyne crossed herself. “In his dream, you mean.”
“Yes. It’s one recurring nightmare. He seems to be fine in the daylight, but he has the most difficult time at night. He won’t retire until I do, so I go to bed early and read while he falls asleep.” She smiled. “I’ve been getting a lot of reading done. But I confess, I grow weary of this unfounded fear. His mother was fearful, too.” But it wasn’t right to speak ill of the dead. Still, she wondered if Martine’s terror hadn’t somehow burrowed itself into Henri only to be revived again with this fresh dream.
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