Saving The Marquise's Granddaughter

by Carrie Fancett Pagels

  “Suzanne, why didn’t you let me help you down?” Johan’s loud voice scattered the chickens across the yard. He turned toward them. “Still afraid of me, are you, chickens?”

  She stared at the red farmhouse door, wishing his angelic spouse would appear.

  They paused under the small overhang by the door.

  “I, uh”—Suzanne loosened the tie on her cloak—“your wife.”

  “Your wife?” His mother gripped Johan’s arms. “You’re too young, Johan. How could you?”

  “What’s going on?” His father’s voice boomed like her father’s had when he’d discovered her plans to attend the ball at Versailles.

  Johan removed his hat and massaged his head. “Suzanne, what are you talking about?”

  Feeling foolish and uncertain, she shrugged. “I thought your wife would be waiting.”

  “He has no wife.” His mother’s plaintive cry of relief held an edge suggesting Suzanne lacked all common sense.

  “Not yet.” His father patted him on the back.

  “And no means to support one,” a cold male voice called out from behind Johan.

  If she thought Johan handsome, this man looked carved from the same mold and then gilded with golden hair, given more sharply defined features, and trimmed to a leaner physique. But when the artist finished his face, he forgot to smooth the edges, to soften it, and to turn his lips and eyes upward instead of down.

  ~*~

  Being clean had never felt so good. The simple dress Maria gave her hung like a sack, devoid of trim. Maria had gotten most of the dirt and debris out of Suzanne’s hair, but it had been an ordeal. Suzanne sat in the small parlor in the front of the house while her hostess cooked and the men finished their work. She counted the tomes in the book cabinet, stopping at one hundred.

  Rubbing a finger over the rough, worn and cracked leather of one of the dark covers, she contemplated reading one after dinner. Perhaps one of the great philosophers. Her stomach growled loudly and Suzanne stood, rearranging the fabric of the dress.

  Savory aromas of beef, salt, and herbs mingled and drifted toward the front of the house, drawing Suzanne toward the cozy room used for cooking and meals. Never had she been so hungry. She caught Maria’s eye.

  “May I?” When Johan’s mother nodded, Suzanne pulled a rush-seated chair from beneath the heavy wood slab table. It was squeezed in close to the wide, arched brick fireplace.

  “This is where you will usually find me,” Maria said. “After we break the fast, until the nooning hour, I prepare the midday meal. It has to last them through the rest of their afternoon chores. A long day.”

  For everyone. I pray I don’t collapse into my food and make a fool out of myself.

  Johan slid onto a trestle adjacent to her, and she jumped. His broad smile and eyes full of mirth mocked her. He patted the empty spot next to him. “My wife, she sits here.” He laughed. He lowered his voice. “I try not to sit on her, too.”

  Suzanne couldn’t stifle her laughter.

  “Johan, don’t tease.” Maria tried to be stern but she, too, started chuckling as Adam joined them, easing his way around Suzanne to the head of the table.

  “Might as well ask the cock not to crow.” He wagged a thick finger at his son. “Girls aren’t used to that. Be nice to our guest.”

  Setting the plates, bowed slightly up to contain gravy or juices, in front of Johan, Maria ladled out root vegetables in broth thick with chunks of meat. Johan’s fingers touched against Suzanne’s as he handed her a bowl, giving her a start.

  “Merci.”

  He waited expectantly. “You need to pass down the table to the end, to Papa.”

  “Oh, yes.” This was what she had observed in the servants’ kitchen when they’d allowed her access. She extended the steaming bowl to his father. Somehow, she must fit in here. Be absorbed into this family. At least until her brother found her or until she could get to Amsterdam to sail.

  Adam cut a loaf of crusty bread and placed the slices onto small blue plates.

  The door behind them opened. A cool breeze accompanied Johan’s brother.

  Her stomach churned.

  He came around the table and kissed Maria on top of her head. “Mama, how are you?” The young man’s gentle voice sounded nothing like his earlier growls.

  Suzanne wasn’t sure exactly what Johan and Nicholas had been arguing about after her arrival, but she suspected it had something to do with her. Well, not her exactly, but about Johan and why he couldn’t marry. She rearranged her napkin in her lap, suddenly mindful that she had no chemise on under her dress.

  “Did you wash your hands, Nicholas?” Maria patted her mouth with her napkin.

  Suzanne held back a giggle. He needed more than his hands washed. If she had her way, she’d dump the whole bucket over his head. How dare he talk to Johan that way in front of her when they had just arrived? Even if she couldn’t hear exactly what he’d said. How rude. Get control of yourself, you are tired and exhausted. Sit up and behave like a lady. The voice in her head sounded very much like her mother’s, and she complied.

  “Don’t ask him, Mama, he’s a grown man now.” Adam tossed two thick slices of yeasty bread atop Nicholas’s stew.

  Settling himself uneasily on the trundle bench across from Suzanne and Johan, the brother ran a hand through the top of his golden hair. It was gathered back into a loose tail at the base of his long neck. His dark-blue eyes were identical to his father’s, and his smooth skin was sun-darkened from outdoor work.

  Suzanne tried not to stare at him, but he was a most handsome man. Not attractive in the same way as Johan, but interesting to look upon, like an especially well-executed statue one might appreciate.

  Adam slid the fragrant bread in front of her.

  Suzanne smiled at him. “Merci.”

  He returned her smile with a grin.

  Across the table, Nicholas gazed at her in curiosity.

  Why do I expect he’d show me any interest? Devoid of jewelry and powder, with her hair coiled up like a commoner’s and in this sack of a dress, the only attention she would have received at court would be a cursory glance, perhaps an assumption that she was a street waif sneaking inside the palace at Versailles. Her cheeks burned.

  Johan’s father tapped a wooden spoon on the table. “Nicholas, will you say the prayer?”

  Suzanne wished Adam would say it. His rich bass voice eased her memory of her father. She blinked back tears.

  “Of course.” In a voice purer than his disposition, Nicholas recited an unfamiliar prayer, finishing with “bless this food. Amen.”

  Johan leaned close, his warm shoulder rubbing against hers, and whispered in her ear, “I wanted to say the prayer. To thank God for our safe homecoming.”

  Suzanne squeezed his warm hand. “Next time.”

  Nicholas glared at them.

  Stiffening, she sat straighter.

  Even with the disgusted look on his face, Johan’s brother was très beau. Perfect, even features were set in a square-jawed face. No Roman would have been prouder of his strong, straight nose. If Nicholas were at court, the girls would throw themselves in his path. Yet she found Johan more attractive, although not in a way she could fully describe.

  She wanted to melt into him. To disappear into his strength and allow him to carry her on to where she needed to go. He was nothing but kind to her, and undemanding. I really must get my sleep. Suzanne yawned

  Maria quirked an eyebrow. “We’ll get you straight to bed after dinner.”

  “Boys, you help your mother tonight. I’ll prepare the grandparents’ room for our guest.”

  Nicholas’s head jerked up from his plate. “You’re giving her grandmother’s room?”

  Suzanne flinched.

  A muscle in Adam’s jaw twitched, and he held his spoon in midair. “That’s what I said, son.”

  The muscles of Johan’s upper arm tensed against her own. His knotted fists were ready to deliver a blow. Would he hit his bro
ther? His thigh and knee brushed against hers, seeming to anchor him there so he wouldn’t strike.

  Their father rattled off something so fast that she could discern only the words sanctuary and mother. They were talking about her. Her German needed rapid improvement.

  ~*~

  Moonlight filtered through from the window on the far wall, touching a simple cross and trailing a pool of light across the heavy quilt. Yeasty bread was rising somewhere. She must have fallen asleep as soon as she’d been tucked into bed. Low voices woke her.

  Someone chatted in the kitchen on the other side of the fireplace, which supplied the heat for both rooms.

  “Did you talk to Nicholas?” a deep voice inquired. “About keeping Johan in the room?”

  “I told him to secure the door and he said he would.” Johan’s mother spoke.

  “Good. We’ll talk with her about his problem tomorrow if he gives Nick any trouble tonight.”

  “And we’ve got to tell the two of them soon about our decision, Adam. They need to know.”

  “This complicates things.” Suzanne heard Maria’s loud inhalation. “A French girl?”

  “Like you, mademoiselle?”

  Maria’s throaty laughter recalled Grand-mère’s.

  Suzanne scooted under her bedclothes.

  “As I was, you mean.”

  “You’ll always be that lost girl to me.” Adam’s rich voice reverberated through the wall.

  “I’m a woman now.” Maria’s breathy voice sounded young.

  “Ah, that you are.”

  There was a long silence. Might they be kissing? She pulled a pillow over her head—she shouldn’t be listening to their conversation.

  “So God is answering our prayers?”

  “For a daughter? Wife, it might be too late for that.” He chuckled.

  Maria’s throaty laugh echoed. “For a wife—for Nicholas.”

  The bed suddenly seemed to sink beneath her.

  “Maria…”

  Please, dear God, don’t let them think she was admiring that boorish oaf.

  “Nicholas needs settling down. A good wife would do that.” But the tremulous words rang false.

  “Maybe he needs help.” Suzanne almost felt the man’s loud sigh.

  “Our guest—have you considered that she might be an aristocratic lady-in-waiting to the Queen of France?” Maria’s voice took on a singsong quality. “Perhaps she worships as a Catholic? Or would consider our son like dung beneath her feet?”

  Suzanne stiffened and then sat up. What did they know of her? Nothing.

  “What about an operatic singer?” Adam’s tone was stern but held love. “A runaway from her parents?”

  “Oui, what would someone do with a girl like that?”

  Johan’s mother a singer? And French?

  A breeze rippled through the woven curtains at the tall window, bringing the sweet smell of wet earth.

  “Ah, who really knows why she is here, save the Lord himself.”

  “Exactly. Come on back to bed.”

  Steps groaned in the ancient farmhouse as the two climbed upward.

  Nicholas. Rude, coarse, and mean. She wanted to gag. Only a simpleton smitten with his handsome face could overlook those defects.

  She needed this place, was all. For now, until the next group of sojourners departed for the colonies. Why didn’t that seem like the truth, then?

  7

  Cobwebs and mist entangled Suzanne as she stumbled through the cobblestone streets of Paris.

  Guillame rode off through the crowd, away from her and Maman, who wore simple black woolen hooded cloaks covering their heads.

  Her mother pulled her close. “I love you, Suzanne.” The safety and security of her arms quelled Suzanne’s fears.

  Rustic smells distracted her—baked apples, bread, and eggs. Cringing, Suzanne kept her eyes closed. If she opened them, her mother would disappear.

  Steps drew closer, and with them the memory of where she was. And recollection that her mother was dead. The long trip she had made. And the young man who’d brought her to his home, avoiding the French soldiers. A rap on the door sounded and she yanked her quilt up to her neck.

  “Come eat,” Johan called.

  The door swung in.

  She stiffened. Although they’d traveled far together, he shouldn’t come into this bedchamber.

  Drawing near, his face moved dangerously close to her own. His clear blue eyes changed from aqua to gray, like a stormy sea. His eyes weren’t hungry, as Etienne’s, but kind. A sheet of golden brown hair fell toward her face, tickling her nose.

  Would he try to kiss her?

  Her heart performed a strange flip-flop within her chest.

  Pinning her with an arm on either side, Johan jostled the bed. “Be a good girl and get up.”

  From beyond him came the sound of a throat being cleared. Maria, whose dark hair and eyes seemed more like Suzanne’s than her son’s, stood in the doorway to the room.

  “Come join us for our morning meal,” she announced in French.

  “Oui, madame.”

  “You must excuse my son, he was accustomed to coming in and out of this room as he pleased.” Maria hesitated and then pressed her lips together.

  The thin chemise Suzanne slept in wouldn’t cover her, and her dress had been hung outside to air. Her cheeks flushed. “Une robe? To cover me?”

  Maria pulled a simple wrap down from a strip of pegs and handed it to her. “Can you help me with the chores after breakfast, Suzanne?”

  Chores? Dread slunk up and laughed in her face, spitting in her eyes. “Oui, madame,” she croaked as she stood and pulled the robe on.

  How long until they realized she knew nothing of housewifery? Well, perhaps then they would abandon the notions of her as a prospect for Nicholas.

  Maria straightened the quilt on the bed.

  Embarrassment stung her. She should have seen immediately to making up her own bed.

  “Suzanne, today is baking day. Can you make bread?”

  Johan answered for her. “What girl doesn’t know such a simple thing, Mama? You insult her. But I’ll show her how to milk a cow. She hasn’t done that before.”

  Cheeks heating, Suzanne kept her mouth shut. Maria would find out for herself. Feeling in her pocket, her hands closed around her beads. Her tension eased. I still have something of Grand-mère’s.

  Hours later, her rough dress scratchy, feet aching, and covered with flour, Suzanne was summoned by Adam to their tiny parlor, triggering a bout of irritability she tried to quench. She’d not slept through the night during her whole ordeal. Never had she been subjected to such conditions, which resulted in a short-temper she continuously had to keep at bay. Her fingers might wear out Grand-mère’s rosary.

  Adam gestured to a chair. “Sit down.” He and Maria exchanged a nervous glance and then sat across from her on the bench.

  “We need to tell you something about Johan.”

  What was so serious they needed to talk to her alone? “What is it?”

  “Do you know what is a schlafwandler?”

  “I have heard of people doing this, somnambule. A sleepwalker.”

  They’d slept alongside each other, needing each companion’s warmth through the night. Neither slept for long, disturbed by the woods’ sounds and their need to be on guard. If Guillame were here, he’d have pressed for wedding banns to be announced. But he wasn’t there, and Johan’s parents hadn’t asked. Why was that? They mustn’t have thought he’d traveled far.

  Adam eyes darted around the room and he shifted in his chair. “When my father died, my mother used to let Johan come sleep with her in the grandparents’ room downstairs.”

  Suzanne sank down in relief into the cushion on the seat. She’d been so worried they were upset with her. “Where I now sleep?”

  “Ja.” Adam cleared his throat. “We wanted to warn you. Johan walks in his sleep and ends up in that room.” He hurriedly added, “Not often…”

/>   Maria clucked her tongue. “Not in a long time.”

  “That we know of,” Adam gave Suzanne a cautionary look. “Don’t be alarmed if he rattles your door. It doesn’t lock, so place a chair underneath to keep him out.”

  “Should I be afraid?”

  “No.” Maria sighed. She rose and retrieved a platter of tarts from the sideboard before offering them to Adam. “He wouldn’t harm anyone. But having a grand homme suddenly in your bed, hugging you tight, might startle you.”

  Did she know how they’d had to huddle together at night on the trail to stay warm?

  At first shaking her head as Maria offered her the treat, Suzanne relented as Maria’s eyes begged her to accept one of the diamond-shaped confections they’d worked on together. “Merci.” She nibbled on the almond filling at the edge. She wanted to giggle at the idea of Johan coming into the room, swinging his hands as he tried to hug her. An unbidden thought sobered her. I trusted Etienne and look how he behaved.

  Adam clapped his hands together. “His brother will watch over him.”

  Johan hadn’t wandered away in his sleep, during their travels. Why would he start now?

  “I’d better go learn how to milk the cows. Merci for advising me.” Suzanne hitched up her skirts and headed outside. Chickens scurried past. She shuddered at the thought that she might have to prepare one for cooking.

  Johan headed toward her and clasped his large, rough hand over hers. “Come on, I teach you to milk.” He practically dragged her to the barn. Once inside, he pulled the milking stool close to the animal and sat down. “Watch.” He scrunched his long legs under him.

  She pushed his shoulders. “Let me try. You’re too big to sit on that stool. You’ll break it.”

  “I’ve been sitting on this thing since I was this high.” Johan held up his hand to Suzanne’s shoulder.

  “You’re not that short anymore.”

  He didn’t move, and when she pushed him again, he tipped over backward, bringing her with him. Horrified, she landed atop him with a thud. Heat coursed up her chest. Pushing with her hands against his shoulders, she tried to rise up, but her skirts were tangled in his boots. Preparing to apologize, she ventured a look at him.