Nonsense. A harmless shop boy like Léon couldn’t cause any trouble.
For as long as they’d been hiding, Isabelle had snubbed any man who dared look at her. She’d grown weary of putting men off while Marie wrote letters to her faithful fiancé in England. What harm would come from accepting a little attention from Léon? He was more friend than suitor. He didn’t look at her with a wicked grin but as though the sun rose and set on her face alone. No woman minded such overtures.
A voice. A shout.
The sharp sound resounded through the forest. Isabelle paused, her body tensing as she scanned the trees for anything amiss. Another male voice, coming from the direction of home, echoed through the woods. There shouldn’t be men at the cottage. Couldn’t be.
Yet even as she denied it, she knew.
She raced expertly around trees and over fallen branches, through dormant underbrush, slushy snow and deepening mud. The commotion grew louder as she neared home and Marie, and before the whitewashed wattle and daub of the cottage came into view, she glimpsed flickers of blue—soldats’ uniforms.
She stopped and doubled over. Unable to wipe away the indelible images visible through the trees, she wrapped her arms around her stomach. Flashes of white and brown and green mingled with the blue. And the red. The color brought waves of terror to her heart, would haunt her indefinitely. The army may have run out of funds for uniforms, but soldiers, whether paid or volunteer, always wore bloodred liberty caps.
One voice rang above the commotion. “Search the house. Find everything. Daughters of the Duc de La Rouchecauld living under our noses. On their aunt’s very estate!”
The words sliced her. She pressed her eyes shut against the burning tears. She should hide. Sprint as far as she could and harbor in the woods until it was over.
But Marie?
Isabelle left her home not an hour ago. Had Marie heard the commotion and escaped into the woods? Isabelle couldn’t leave without knowing.
She crept forward, her mind whirling. Running would be a wiser decision—Marie would have implored her to do so—and she would, as soon as she knew Marie was secure. Oh, with all their plans of escape, why had they never decided on a meeting place?
The hideous voices of soldiers bounced off the trees as Isabelle circled through the woods to the east of the cottage. The forest nearly engulfed the house there, and a little thicket lined the edge of the woods. At least the ragged brown cloak she wore would blend with the forest floor. The thicket soon grew too dense to walk, and she inched along the ground, using her hands and elbows to pull herself forward.
Something stung the back of her hand. She jerked it away and stared at the blood tricking from three thorn punctures. With shaky fingers, she pulled out one thorn still stuck in her flesh and slid her hand back beneath the briar bush. Bleeding or not, she had to know about Marie. Her cloak snagged on a branch, then made a ripping sound. A mixture of mud and melting snow dampened her chest and stomach and legs, but she clambered forward.
She barely recognized the yard. Nearly everything from inside the cottage had been dragged out of doors. Piles of food, blankets, the pots from beside the hearth, even their spare clothing and boots littered the ground. A soldier appeared in the doorway holding the quilt that graced her bed.
Hot anger balled in her stomach. The mobs had raided her family’s things from Versailles. Killed her parents and likely ransacked the Château de La Rouchecauld. And now soldiers took belongings from her cottage. Things she and Marie had worked for. No right of birth had given her that quilt. She had bought the fabric and stitched it.
But it made no difference to the wolves who devoured her possessions.
Some of the men sifted through her belongings, putting items in various wagons. She clamped down the desire to scream. She’d heard stories of how the soldiers stole everything they touched, but she’d not seen it happen until now.
At least she didn’t see Marie. Isabelle closed her eyes and let relief sweep through her. Bien sûr Marie had run. Now they need only find each other.
“The revolutionary tribunal in Paris will be happy to see you.”
The harsh voice jolted Isabelle. A moment later, a short, burly man in a National Guard coat waddled out the door of her house. He dragged Marie behind him, his hand fisted in her straight, ebony hair.
Marie! No! Isabelle tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat, clogged it. She tore at her collar, her breaths coming shallow and quick as her heart thundered.
She’d run out and save Marie. Tell the soldiers not to put their vile hands on her. But her arms shook, and her body sank into the ground with a weight so heavy she couldn’t move. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Marie had done nothing. Nothing! Except warn her to be careful. Now Marie would die, like her brother, like her parents, like thousands of other innocents led mercilessly to the guillotine.
The sour stench of death surrounded her, if only in her mind. She could almost hear the roar of the Parisian crowd as they cheered her sister’s beheading.
Isabelle swallowed another scream.
If only they could trade places. If only Marie could be free and she the one sentenced to death. She pushed herself up on her arms, but they collapsed weakly beneath her. She needed to launch herself from the ground, to race out and save her sister. She didn’t know how to stop the soldats from taking Marie, but she had to try something. Anything.
Instead, she crumpled in a fit of weeping. Here she—who boasted great things of their futures, who brought home pay and spoke of England with unerring confidence—lay helpless and in tears at her sister’s expense.
“Look harder. They’ve got to have money somewhere,” the lead soldier shouted at his men. “And spread into the woods. There’s another one somewhere. Isabelle. Short of stature, dark hair, brown eyes. Find her.”
He yanked Marie against him, his next words too quiet for Isabelle to hear, and then shoved Marie face-first onto the ground. He moved to a young man with an overly familiar profile and muttered something. The young man turned. Léon. An iron band clamped around Isabelle’s chest, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. A moment later, Léon bent over Marie and tied her hands behind her back.
Isabelle sank her forehead into the mud as a fresh tear trailed down her cheek. How she would change everything, if she could but go back in time. She’d never again look at the traitorous boy with the large gray eyes. Never again smile at him or converse about the weather.
She should be angry, filled with rage over Léon’s betrayal. Yet, she buried her face deeper into the dirt and sobbed.
She stayed in the bushes until night grew around her. Until the soldiers left their search for her and dragged Marie to a cart, taking her to face the military tribunal and guillotine nearly two hundred kilometers away in Paris. Leaving the ground where Marie had struggled, bare and cold.
What would happen if she never moved? If she just lay there, curled into a ball and vanished? She would not wish to die, for death equaled humiliation and failure. But to vanish, as steam from a boiling kettle? That wasn’t shameful or painful. The townsmen and soldiers would be back. All of Arras was probably searching for her, Isabelle Cerise de La Rouchecauld, the missing daughter of the Duc de La Rouchecauld. But how little everything mattered now Marie was gone.
Clawing and scratching, Isabelle dug her way out of the abyss of memories and stared at the bleak, brown walls of the cottage near Abbeville. She pressed a hand to her cheek and found it damp. If only she could wipe away the guilt over Marie’s death as easily as she could the tears.
She drew in a deep, liberating breath, but the air inside was stuffy and suffocating. She had to get out. Somewhere she could breathe the open, clear air of spring. She rolled to her side, pain hammering her ribs with the movement. How could she get out of bed in such a conditi
on?
Her gaze traveled to the windows. She couldn’t lie here, trapped in this bed. It seemed as though the chamber walls would close in on her if she stayed.
The main door to the house creaked open, then thudded shut. Jeanette or Michel? She listened for Michel’s heavy footfalls on the other side of the wall but only heard an off-pitch hum. “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past.”
Jeanette. Thank heavens.
Isabelle swallowed, and her eyes slid back to the window.
I think not.
Those had been Michel’s only words when she’d asked to sit out of doors. He hadn’t given a reason. Surely in such a situation, he would understand her need for some air.
“Jeanette!” Isabelle tried to calm her voice, hated the panic edging her call. “Have you my cloak and a spare blanket?” Isabelle spoke when Jeanette entered the room. “I thought I might sit out of doors for a time. Perchance the fresh air will help the ache in my side.”
Jeanette worried her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Do you think you’re well enough?”
She smiled brightly to cover her fluttering nerves. “I’ll be fine. I once knew a physician who said breathing fresh air can help the ailing.” The physician had been speaking of consumption, but cracked ribs were nearly as debilitating as consumption. Were they not?
Jeanette shifted her weight from one foot to another, then glanced toward the door and back. “Michel’s not here just now to ask.”
A sign from God that she was to sit outside a spell. “May I inquire of his whereabouts?”
“He headed to town, methinks…or, no…that’s not right. He’s planting the bottom field.” Jeanette nodded to emphasize her point, then wrinkled her forehead. “Or maybe it’s one of the upper fields.”
Isabelle displayed the sweetest smile she could manage. “If you could help me from the bed…”
The change in scenery instantly calmed Isabelle. Michel’s house rested atop a gentle hill covered with forest to the west and north. A stable and a second outbuilding also sat on the knoll, and at the bottom was a road—presumably the one that led to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.
To the east and south, the land gave way to bare fields. The dirt, dry and uneven, rolled over the not-quite-flat country. The ground to the east dipped down toward a line of trees and a stream or river, perhaps, before it rose to higher ground.
Isabelle sat on her blanket and tried to clear her mind from the memories lurking in its corners. Yet the image of Marie quietly whimpering while Léon tied her dominated Isabelle’s mind. She shoved it away, took a breath to calm her quickening heart and bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood. She’d not think on Marie, she couldn’t.
She drank in the fresh air and looked east. How much of the land was Michel’s? One man couldn’t possibly farm everything she saw.
She reached a hand over the edge of the blanket. The nubby grass, just coming to life, prickled her fingers. Whether her eyes lit upon the town and fields surrounding the Château de La Rouchecauld, the grandeur of Versailles, the quaint forest skirting the cottage near Arras or Michel’s bare and rolling farmland, this was France. Her France. And the countryside was beautiful.
England would have views such as this, would it not? Of course, not where she’d be staying in London. Isabelle ran her tongue over the side of her swollen lip. She’d simply have to marry a gentleman with a country home.
She dug her fingers deeper into the earth until dirt, French dirt, wedged beneath her fingernails. For how long would she take refuge in England? This wretched Révolution had taken her family and lifestyle and fortune, now her country.
Non. She must focus on getting to England, accessing her father’s money and marrying a powerful man.
She could loathe the revolutionaries and radicals from the safety of England. And once the Révolution ended, she would return to her beloved France and the Château de La Rouchecauld.
But not if she married an Englishman.
The air rushed out of her lungs. She couldn’t leave her homeland forever.
Isabelle held the threatening tears and lay back on the blanket. She worked the lump in her throat and watched as two birds chased each other across the expanse of sky. Just a few more minutes of sunlight and leisure, then I’ll return to the house… .
“What are you doing?”
Isabelle jolted awake. Shaking off the sleep she must have fallen into, she opened her eyes to the image of an irate Michel.
Chapter Seven
Michel towered over her, so furious and masculine Isabelle’s pulse raced. He looked more like a Greek god than a man—a god ready to strike her with lightning from the sky. His lips twisted in a scowl as he crossed his muscular arms over his chest. His massive legs planted themselves before her like pillars, and the collar and front of his shirt were damp with sweat. Clearly he’d been working in the field, those hard muscles creating enough heat to drench his body, despite the air’s chill.
She tried to swallow the dryness in her throat. How could a man be so simultaneously handsome and angry?
“Tell me, is defying my every word some game to you?” He spat the words.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No. I’m sure you didn’t. You just happened to wake from your nap and found yourself outside without any inkling of how you got here. Ma Mère probably carried you to the yard while you slept.” Eyes smoldering, he pointed toward the door. “I said to stay indoors. Get inside. Posthaste. This is my house, and if you cannot abide by my wishes, leave.”
Leave? The insidious wretch. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. As though she had a choice about leaving. “Think you I wish to be here? Trapped in a tiny room with—”
“Enough!” He made a slashing motion with his hand. “I’ve not time for this. Go inside now.” He turned his back and stormed toward the stable.
Well, if he wasn’t the most irritating man. She should race after him and give him his due, if only she could walk so quickly. Thought he to treat her thus and then stomp away? She balled her hands into fists. Once she was well, she’d stuff every tyrannical word he’d spoken down his thick, arrogant gullet.
She rose slowly to her feet, but when she stooped to pick up the blanket, her head spun. She leaned against the house and pressed two fingers to each temple, waiting for her mind to clear before inching indoors.
She knew not where to stow the blanket, but since Jeanette wasn’t in the main chamber to ask, Isabelle headed toward the bedchamber. The quilt heavy in her arms, she stumbled through the doorway. The room tilted, and she reached to steady herself on the dresser. Except her hand didn’t find a solid mass to which she could cling, but bumped the fragile porcelain of the pitcher and basin. The basin slid forward, and a sickening shatter filled the room.
She dropped to the floor, the blanket now balled like a babe against her stomach. Her head cleared the moment she sat. Her fingers skimmed over the scattered pink of the porcelain, the tiny, hand-painted flowers, as she picked up the shards. Such an exquisite set, now utterly destroyed.
She’d not have gone outside had she known this would happen.
Should she offer to replace the porcelain? If those soldiers hadn’t stolen her extra money, she’d find a new one, but with barely enough funds to reach England…
A shadow loomed over her. She sucked in a breath and turned.
“I’m sorry. It was an accident... I can replace the set, or…I—I can…”
Michel’s face, so hard and lifeless, could have been carved from stone. His fisted hands shook, a fierce tension radiating from him as he stood framed in the doorway.
Her throat burned as though the porcelain shards had been crammed down it. “I’ll speak with Jeanette, I promise.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. His hands clen
ched and unclenched. “Get back into your bed, and stay until I tell you otherwise.”
His voice, deathly quiet, rained down on her. Dropping the pieces she held into a pile, she scooted backward on the floor until her back bumped the bed. Then she climbed atop, more terrified of the quiet Michel who stood before her than the shouting Michel from outside.
“That pitcher and basin were Corinne’s. A wedding present from me. Some things, Isabelle, you can’t replace.”
* * *
Michel left the house and strode down the road. The girl, the land, the wheat—all weighed like anchors about his neck. He might be chained to the land, he might be forced to burn his wheat, but he didn’t have to keep the girl.
He followed the road toward town but veered left into the woods before the stone houses of Abbeville grew close. Footprints marked the well-trodden path through the dense woods that shrouded Father Albert’s cottage.
Last fall the beshrewed Convention had declared an end to Christianity and made the Cult of Reason the new French religion. A group of soldiers came and burned the rectory. Though the old cathedral still stood, it stored grain waiting to be shipped to the cities. Father Albert now had few possessions and little income, but the town still sought his spiritual guidance.
Pine trees shrouded out the sun above, and a sapling scraped Michel’s shirt as the cottage appeared before him. He knocked impatiently. Moments later the ancient door swung open.
“Michel.” The old man’s eyes lit with delight. “If it isn’t my favorite former pupil. Come in, my son.”
“I’m not keeping her.” He needed to voice the words to someone, anyone, lest he burst.
Father Albert stood in the doorway dressed in a thinning homespun shirt and baggy trousers. His brow furrowed. “Your mother?”
“No. The girl.” Michel pushed his way inside, and paced the tiny, one-room dwelling. “You must take her, or I know not what I’ll do.”
“I see.” Although the look on the father’s face clearly said he didn’t. “Sit down, son. You’re making me weary. Would you care for some tea?”
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