His eyes became wide blue pools. “With both of you? Forever?”
“We’re getting married, lad.” To hear him say it sent a thrill spiraling through Vienne’s middle. “And we want to adopt you, officially. If that’s all right with you.”
“Could I call you Maman and Papa? Is that what it means? I’ll have parents again?”
“Yes, of course!” Vienne cried. “If you like.”
“I do. I will. I will like it very much!” He hugged her about the waist tighter than he ever had, and Liam enfolded them both.
Enveloped by the two she loved most, Vivienne realized Asylum wasn’t just a place on a map. It was wherever they were together.
Epilogue
Asylum, Pennsylvania
August 1802
Vivienne Delaney laid her lacework aside as a breeze whispered through the summer house, heavy with the fragrance of roses and clover. Closing her eyes, she let the air feather over her face and through her hair. The dress trim she was making for her daughters could wait. A deep and abiding contentment filled her, and she savored it.
“Sweet dreams, beloved?” Liam stepped into the summer house and bent to kiss her lips before holding out a teacup full of fresh, ripe blueberries.
“Getting sweeter all the time.” Smiling her thanks, she popped a warm berry into her mouth, relishing its perfect flavor. “These must be the last of the season, or nearly. Have some.”
Liam obliged, sitting beside her in a sunbeam that glinted on his russet hair. He’d been cutting and spreading hay to dry with Henri, and the scent of alfalfa clung to his linen shirt. “And how is our babe today?” His hand spread over her middle as the baby kicked. Liam’s laugh tumbled over her, as deep as it was contagious. “Active enough for the both of you, eh?”
“By October, it will be your turn to carry him. Or her,” Vienne reminded her husband.
Footsteps announced a visitor. Armand removed his bicorne hat from the gray hair crowning his head. The lines pleating his face carved deeper with each passing year. “I’m not interrupting?”
“Not at all. Come in.” She held her cup of berries aloft in offering, but he declined.
Liam shook Armand’s hand and bade him sit. While the men spoke of the harvest and market prices, Vivienne peered beyond them. At the edge of grass grown tired of summer’s heat, goldenrod and purple asters swayed in the wind. A fluffy little bluebird flitted from between the stalks, hunting insects.
“And how are Finn and Jethro lately?” Her father often asked after the two men who’d helped bring Corbin Fraser to justice. “Their own farms getting along as well as this one?”
Pride lit Liam’s eyes, and rightly so. Their land was the most fruitful of all the lots in this horseshoe bend of the Susquehanna. “Aye, the lads both had a good year. Jethro’s wife is doing a brisk trade in milk and cheese from their goats and cattle, too.”
“I’ve had some.” Armand licked his lips. “Delicious. And what of the one-eyed whiskey rebel? I’ll bet he’s rejoicing that President Jefferson just repealed that excise tax, is he not?”
Liam chuckled. “That he is.”
“Thankfully, he’s as committed to farming—and to being a good neighbor and uncle—as he ever was to distilling,” Vivienne added. She was glad Liam had Finn nearby, for visits to Tara were rare, though she was never far from their thoughts.
A joyful shriek split the air, followed by another. Vienne’s heart swelled as Henri strode from the direction of the creek, swinging four-year-old Kate and Rosalie, aged six, in the air. Vivienne set her teacup beside the lace pillow, saving the remaining berries for the children.
“Ah.” Armand regarded Henri. Light fell through the lattice upon his emerald green suit and white stockings. “My news will concern him, too. Perhaps it will affect him most of all.”
Uneasy, Vivienne waved a mosquito away before resting her hands on her belly. Liam called to Henri and the girls, drawing them all to the summer house. Rosalie flipped her dark braids over her shoulder and crossed her ankles as she sat by Armand. Kate pushed a copper curl from her freckled cheek and drew circles in the air with her dangling feet.
Henri’s brows knit together. His blond hair was pulled back in a queue, and his features were chiseled, like Martine’s had been. But his boyhood frame was transforming into a man’s. “Something’s wrong.” He glanced to where Vivienne had laced her fingers over her middle.
“No.” Smiling, she shook her head and grasped Liam’s proffered hand. “Please sit. Armand brings news.”
On the bench opposite her, Henri pulled Kate onto his lap and tugged her skirts down over her grass-stained knees. Rosalie sidled closer to him, nudging his elbow. Obeying her signal, he wrapped his arm about her shoulders, and she sank against his side.
Spine straight, Armand met Vivienne’s gaze. “It comes as a shock, even though it has been so long looked for, but we can go back. We can return home.”
“But we’re already home!” Kate declared. She slid from Henri’s lap to sit on the floor, and Madame Fishypaws climbed gingerly into her lap. With dimpled hands, Kate stroked the cat’s fur, and her purring mingled with the whirring and ticking of insects.
“You mean France.” Henri leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows on his knees, a habit he’d picked up from Liam.
“Napoleon Bonaparte has granted a general amnesty for us émigrés. We can go home. At last.”
Liam’s hand tightened gently over Vienne’s, and a rush of emotion and memory washed over her. The France she had escaped was not the same France now inviting its lost sons and daughters back home.
But neither was Vienne the same. The Lord had mended her spirit and reshaped her to fit a new place, with new hopes. New loves. This was where she was meant to be, with her husband and children surrounding her. “Kate is right. I’m already home.”
Armand’s lips pressed flat for a moment. “I agree.” A lump shifted between the cords of his neck. “I’ve heard from my wife and children, Angelique and Gustave. They are ready to make amends.”
Staring at him, Vivienne struggled to register his words.
“After all this time?” Liam asked.
“We have been corresponding.” Armand rubbed the light brown spots on his hands. “I am not young, I know. But—” He spread his hands, palms up.
“It is never too late to reconcile.” Vienne reminded him of the words he’d once told her.
“Indeed.” Armand’s voice quavered. “Indeed. And now I must ask forgiveness from you once again, Vivienne, for I have purposed to return to them. With the years I have left, I will be the husband and father I should have been all along.”
Vienne couldn’t speak right away for the sharpness in her throat. She rose, and he stood and took her outstretched hands. This man, whom she had been so determined to despise, had truly become her father. The blood that throbbed in her veins was his as much as it was Sybille’s. “There’s nothing to forgive, for it’s the right thing to do.” She managed a smile. “I wish you the very best.”
Rosalie climbed over to Liam, who pulled her close and kissed her cheek. A bullfrog twanged from the rippling creek.
Armand released Vienne. “I will take Henri. If he wishes to go.” He addressed her son. “If you wish to return to the land of your birth. Your heritage. We may be able to secure for you some inheritance, or at least a portion of it, that your father would have wanted you to have.”
Henri’s eyebrows arched. Slowly, he stood and paced the small summer house, each step a drumbeat on Vienne’s heart.
“You’re a man now, Henri,” Liam said. “Old enough to choose your own future.”
“What?” Kate looked up from petting the cat. “Henri, what is it?”
No one answered her.
“Maman?” Henri’s voice cracked as he faced Vivienne, questions swimming in his eyes. He would stay if she begged him to.
Instead, she took his smooth face in her hands and looked up at him, for he had long since surpas
sed her height. “Henri, you are our son. As much as Rosalie and Kate are our daughters. I know you. I love you. I want you.” She blinked back the tears that threatened, shoved away the knowledge that if Henri left with Armand, she would likely never see him again. “But you must choose what you want now.”
High above Asylum, wind flapped Henri’s linen shirt as he squinted at the sun-spangled Susquehanna hugging the settlement. There stood the Grand Maison, there was the market square and boulevard, there was the chapel, and there were the fifty houses lining straight streets between riverbank and fields. Easily he spotted his family’s farm at the farthest edge from the river, and Finn’s and Jethro’s, their fields a patchwork of rippling golds and greens. And there was the land Henri meant to claim as his own as soon as he turned eighteen.
Unless, of course, he was in France by then.
Mist snagged on tree-filled ridges that hinted at autumn’s coming fire. Henri’s thoughts winged over them, eastward, toward the ocean he’d crossed once before. Contemplating a return to France with Armand led directly to pondering the fate of Louis-Charles, the rightful king.
Muscles knotted in Henri’s shoulders. He scuffed his boot at a scattering of pine needles and sent a spray of gravel clattering over the ledge. He had come here to Prospect Rock so often to think, to pray, to watch for new arrivals—one in particular.
As he plunged his hand into his pocket, Henri’s fingers closed around the small wooden horse he had whittled during his first winter in Asylum. He knew every edge and curve, from the sharp points of its ears to the flanks worn smooth by his worrying thumb. How much smaller it seemed now that he was seventeen. How unlikely that he would ever give it to his friend.
A downy woodpecker drummed its beak against a tree. Below, the river roiled and purled around boulders and fallen trees. As the water curved around its bend, the past several years swept over him. While Henri had thrived in the love of his family, on land that healed body and soul, news had filtered in of a dozen young men who, one by one, had laid claim to France’s throne. All false. Hope, once bright, took on a mellow patina.
A squirrel scampered over the rock, bushy tail twitching, before scrabbling up a pine tree that grew straight to the sun from a small patch of earth between the rocks. Countless times, Henri had prayed that wherever Louis-Charles was, he grew straight and tall toward the sun as well.
Henri’s eyes burned. Bending, he scooped up a pinecone, turning it in his hand and pressing the scales with his thumb. Sap stuck to his skin and spiced the air, mingling with the smell of a rotting log.
He was done bargaining with God. And he was done being scared for his friend. Louis-Charles would never come to Asylum, nor would he ever assume his throne. But he found a refuge of his own, didn’t he, Lord? Henri felt it in his bones as surely as he felt the carved horse in his pocket and the pinecone sharp against his palm. No more secrets. No more plots or danger or hiding. Only heaven. And what better place for Louis-Charles could there be? He was with his parents, and with the King of Kings, in a place where no tears were shed, wrapped in love and joy and light.
And where was Henri’s place? Crickets trilling in his ears, he thought and prayed over the crossroads until fireflies pulsed in the gathering twilight and in the settlement below. Pinpoints of light to lead him home.
Henri reeled back his arm and hurled the pinecone over the precipice before beginning the rugged hike downhill. With practiced steps, he crossed roots and slid down slopes, jumped over cracks in the rocks and vaulted over fallen logs. The river’s rushing was music in his ears. He emerged at last into the clearing and, with wild grass tugging his trousers, threaded toward his house.
As he neared, his sisters’ laughter pealed. Maman stood when she saw him, her hand to her heart. Papa draped his arm around her shoulders. Rosalie and Kate raced from the summer house, knees pumping beneath their skirts, Madame Fishypaws bounding at their heels. Squealing, his sisters plowed toward him.
“First one to slap my hand wins!” Henri dropped to his knees, arms spread wide to either side. The little girls crashed into his arms, and peace billowed over him, an answer to his prayers.
Louis-Charles was safely home.
And so was Henri.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
While the main characters in A Refuge Assured are entirely fictional, the events and attitudes with which they interacted are straight from history, from prologue to epilogue. When I learned that lacemaking was deemed a crime worthy of the guillotine in 1794 France, I knew I wanted to tell the story of a woman who escaped her country’s revolution to find asylum (and Asylum) in a nation still finding its footing after its own.
Several historical figures appear or are referenced in A Refuge Assured, including the royal family of Louis XVI, the Marquis de Lafayette, radical French revolutionary leaders Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat, the young assassin Charlotte Corday, Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Eliza, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Anne Bingham, Senator Robert Morris, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Dr. Edward Stevens, French Ambassador Genêt, Albert Gallatin, David Bradford, and Monsieur Omer Talon, manager of Asylum.
Louis-Charles was one of the most tragic figures I encountered in my research for this book. I’m sure I was especially sympathetic to his plight because my eight-year-old son, Ethan, is the age Louis-Charles was when he was taken from his mother’s prison cell and isolated in his own until he died two years later. The mysteries surrounding his fate, laid out by Monsieur Talon in this novel, went unsolved for centuries, and the legend of the “Lost King” was especially popular after the restoration of France’s monarchy in 1814. By this time, close to one hundred claimants had come forward pretending to be Louis-Charles. But a DNA test performed in 2000 proved that the boy who died while imprisoned was, indeed, the son of Marie Antoinette.
The French Revolution affected America in integral ways, one of which was Hamilton’s sincere belief that the Whiskey Rebellion was a Jacobin attempt to overthrow the recently birthed American government. (Francophile Thomas Jefferson repealed the whiskey tax soon after becoming president.) For more on the link between France and America in the 1790s, read When the United States Spoke French by François Furstenberg and These Fiery Frenchified Dames: Women and Political Culture in Early National Philadelphia by Susan Branson.
The signet ring of Louis XVI was delivered to Marie Antoinette after her husband’s execution, and when she was sentenced to death, as well, she managed to smuggle the ring to her former secretary. The ring finding its way to a lady-in-waiting was my own fictional invention.
Asylum, Pennsylvania, was a real place, truly built as a refuge for Marie Antoinette and her children. The French who lived there did hire American laborers, though there was some disdain between the nationalities. There really was a tree-felling contest between them, and an express mail carrier for the settlement. Land disputes were also not uncommon. History buffs already familiar with Asylum, I hope you will excuse my decision not to incorporate more of the real people who lived there for the sake of simplifying the cast and story. After Napoleon declared general amnesty, most of the émigrés in Asylum returned to France, but some chose to stay in America. The site of French Azilum, or Asylum, can still be visited today. Many thanks to Lee Kleinsmith and Deborah L. Courville for accommodating my family’s visit even before the grounds were officially open for the summer season.
Readers who wish to dig deeper into the history behind A Refuge Assured may want to read Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser or The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland. Recipes for food mentioned in scenes at the Four Winds Tavern come from The City Tavern Cookbook by Chef Walter Staib. Visit the historic City Tavern in Philadelphia and taste them for yourself! I was fortunate that Chef Staib took time to talk with me when I went. Thanks also to Chef George for extending my tour of the building and for answering all my questions about eighteenth-century tavern life.
I also owe thanks to dear friends Lisa and Micah Rey
es, and Bettina and Rob Dowell, for hosting my family on my research trip/spring break “vacation.” (Psst, Elsa and Ethan, I know you didn’t love the historical stuff as much as I did. Don’t forget, we did take you to Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the Spy Museum in D.C. Remember how fun that was?) To my husband, Rob, thank you for joining in on my adventures and for supporting my efforts to get this book right!
I’m so grateful to my friend and fellow author Laura Frantz for partnering with me to subtly link our heroines. When we discovered we were both writing about lacemakers for our novels, we had fun creating a shared French ancestry for Vivienne and for Laura’s heroine Liberty in her novel The Lacemaker. Eagle-eyed readers will catch the connection tucked into each novel.
Thanks also to my agent, Tim Beals of Credo Communications, for unflagging support, and to my editors, Dave Long and Jessica Barnes, for their brilliant suggestions for improving this story.
Everlasting thanks to kindred spirit Susie Finkbeiner for walking with me through every stage of novel writing. Your encouragement is balm to the ragged writer’s soul.
For help with horse research, thanks to Pegg Thomas, Debbie Lynne Costello, Susan Page Davis, and Chris Jager, who also had the honor of naming Beau, Cherie, and Red.
I’m blessed by and grateful for my critique partner Joanne Bischof for her candid feedback; the Cedar Falls Public Library interlibrary loan staff, for securing every obscure volume I request; my parents, Peter and Pixie Falck, for watching the kids and giving me pie; my brother and sister-in-law, Jason and Audrey Falck, for prayers and French crepes; and Trinity Bible Church’s Pathfinders class for praying me through my deadlines. Special thanks to Trent and Jennifer Simpson and family for playdates and meals during crunch time!
Most importantly, thank you, Lord, for being a refuge for all of us, and a trustworthy heavenly Father.
If you remember nothing else from this story, I pray you remember this: No matter who you are, or where you’ve come from, God knows you. He loves you and wants you. If you are a follower of Christ, you are a child of the King.
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