“Nothing for you to be sorry about. The Good Lord takes everyone home at one time or another.”
Oui, everyone did die at one time or another. And some before their time. Isabelle rubbed her arms. “Tell me more about your husband?”
Jeanette shuffled to the table and sat. “Well, now, my Charles was kind as can be. Loyal, quiet, the type of man people came to, seeking advice and such. The type of man who worked and laughed and lived as though each day were his last. His heart gave out working the farm, it did. Don’t think Michel’s ever forgiven himself for that.” Her eyes sharpened into focus with the memories.
“Michel?” Isabelle straightened. “Why would his père’s death be Michel’s fault?”
“Well, Michel went to Paris, you see. Wanted to make furniture for the king himself. The whole family saved nigh on two years to send him.”
Isabelle nodded. If the furniture in the bedroom was any indication, Michel should have done well in Paris. “What happened?” She clamped her mouth shut the moment the words fell out and glanced at the door. Hopefully the man wouldn’t barge in while they spoke of him.
“My Charles took on Michel’s chores while he was away, you see. Jean Paul was here, but newly married and a bit distracted from farmwork. And Charles, he wasn’t the type to tell a man to leave his wife behind and come out to the field. He simply did what needed doing, ’tis all, and Michel was gone nigh on a year.”
Isabelle ran her hand over the tabletop, silky smooth, with cornucopias engraved along the side. Had Michel made the table as well as the bedroom furniture? People in Paris would have paid well for his work. Why hadn’t he stayed?
Jeanette fiddled with her hands. “My Charles was worn through by the time Michel returned. Not a week later, Charles’s heart gave out working in the field.”
Isabelle’s stomach churned as Jeanette wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Jeanette, do forgive me for asking. I didn’t know it would be so painful.”
“’Tis all right, dear. Just give me a moment to remember mon amour.” Jeanette wiped another tear from her eye. “Charles led a long life, and the Good Lord called his time. My Charles was behind the plow, and Michel was over studying the dam. Michel said he tried talking his père out of the plowing, but Charles wanted Michel to have a look at the dam first.”
Isabelle’s mouth felt dry as breadcrumbs. Michel watched his father die while working? She’d not wish that upon her worst enemy. “Do you…surely you don’t think Michel…I mean…”
Jeanette smiled through her tears, then reached forward and patted Isabelle’s hand. “No. I don’t blame Michel. Couldn’t blame him for it any more than I could the field for needing to be plowed, or Jean Paul for working in the stable instead of the field. Or God for creating the field in the first place.
“Though Michel had a time blaming himself, as I recall. Talking about how Charles would still be alive if he would have forced his père away from the plowing, or sent Charles back to the house to rest sooner. Or not have gone to Paris at all.”
“Bien sûr.” How could Michel not blame himself? She knew how that felt—knew the hours spent regretting every decision she’d made that had ended in Marie’s arrest.
“If the Good Lord wanted Charles spared, he’d have been spared. I told Michel I forgave him, anyway. More because he needed to hear the words than anything. And Father Albert, our priest, talked with him some. Seemed to help, but the boy’s shackled himself to this farm ever since.”
Isabelle swallowed. How terrible for Michel. For Jeanette. For all of them. “Do you regret it? Letting Michel go to Paris?”
Jeanette patted the side of her hair, which loosened more strands rather than tucked the few errant ones away. “I’ve lived a long time, too long to have regrets. When I get to missing my Charles, I think about the twenty-six wonderful years I had with him, and the two strong boys he gave me.”
Isabelle looked at the woman who could barely remember the day or season. She’d had no trouble recalling the man she’d loved for a quarter century, almost as though the simple act of remembering healed her.
Would Charles have forgiven Michel for not plowing? Or loathed Michel going to Paris and leaving him with extra work? Work that ended up killing him?
Her chest weighed so heavy she could hardly breathe. And what about her? How did a person seek forgiveness from someone in the grave? From Marie?
Absently, she pulled the pendant from beneath her dress and ran her finger over the silver warmed by her skin. Jeanette hadn’t grown bitter or blamed Michel for her husband’s death. Was her situation with Marie as simple as Jeanette’s?
Certainly not. Michel’s father lived a long life and died in the same manner countless other farmers did, while Isabelle had ignored Marie’s warning and led the soldiers to their door.
She tried to suck in a breath, but the air was thick and sticky. In her mind, she could see Marie sitting at a scarred kitchen table, laughing, chattering as she chopped vegetables from the garden for that evening’s dinner.
Fighting back a sob, Isabelle pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Are you all right, dear?” Concern filled Jeanette’s voice.
Isabelle shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Non. She wasn’t all right. She’d never be all right again.
Not even in England.
Chapter Nine
Memories of Marie haunted Isabelle for the rest of the morning. She swept the floor, chopped vegetables and helped Jeanette make bread, though the older woman forgot how many cups of flour she’d added to the dough. Twice.
When her arm and ribs began to ache, she pressed through the pain. Anything to keep her mind off her sister. But nothing worked.
The midday meal came and went, but Michel never arrived to eat. With soup for supper simmering over the fire and bread baking in the hearth, Jeanette settled into her rocker with a thick, black Bible in her hand.
Was the answer to Marie forgiving her hidden somewhere inside the Book on Jeanette’s lap? She remembered some of the teachings from her childhood. Forgive seven times seventy. Forgive those who persecute you. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. But how could Marie forgive her when Marie was dead because of her actions?
Isabelle blew out a breath and blinked back more tears. She’d do something, anything else, to keep her mind off Marie. But everything inside the little cottage seemed in order. She could go back to bed and read or mend—if only the idea of bed didn’t repulse her.
She bit the side of her lip and stared at the covered window, the deluge still raging outside. Where could Michel have gone for so long? Surely he wasn’t in the fields. He’d be soaked and chilled by now.
She would simply go out to find him and ask when she could journey to Saint-Valery. She’d keep their interactions distant and proper. No intense looks or bumping hands or almost-kisses. If she was well enough to be about the house, she was well enough to walk twenty kilometers to the Channel. Even with a broken arm. Even in the rain.
If they argued about her leaving and he told her she couldn’t go yet—which the stubborn man certainly would—she at least would have something to keep her mind off Marie. “Jeanette, where might Michel be?”
“What was that?” Jeanette looked at Isabelle with glassy eyes.
“Michel. I need to speak with him. Where would he have gone?”
“Why to the fields. Always work to be done on a farm.”
“It’s raining.” Had been for four days.
Jeanette’s gaze shifted to the window. “Oh, dear me, I suppose it is. Is it Monday? Have to muck the stalls on Monday.”
“Thank you. I’ll check there.” She searched the pegs by the door for her tattered cloak and some solid boots. She slid her feet into a pair that seemed to be Jeanette’s, then looked back
at the peaceful woman rocking by the fire.
Traces of beauty lingered in a face faded with time and etched with wrinkles. Perchance one day Isabelle would sit in a rocker by a quiet fire, her mind brimming with memories of the man she loved. She swallowed. “Jeanette, when you married Charles, what color was your wedding dress?”
The woman’s creased face brightened. “Light brown. He said I looked right pretty, too. What with my hair and eyes and all.”
“I…think it’s wonderful that you remember such a special day of your life,” she answered softly—whether Jeanette remembered the rain no longer seeming important.
She found a worn, wide-brimmed hat she’d seen Michel wear. It flopped over her head, inundating her with the comforting scents of hay and dirt…and Michel.
And her thoughts were straying too far. First the rain, then his hat. Did everything make her think of Michel? How did she even know what the man smelled like?
“I’ll be back in a few moments,” she called, and headed out into the downpour. Wind pushed her sideways before she shut the cottage door. She clasped the brim of her hat so as not to lose it, but rain whipped into her eyes, anyway. Though she could hardly see through the stinging drops, she trudged toward the stable. The moment she pulled open the heavy door, she knew he wasn’t inside. The structure missed the unmistakable presence Michel carried with him. She looked for him, anyway, the warmth from the animals surrounding her, the aromas of straw and beasts filling the air. But as she suspected, no clear green eyes smirked at her, no lazy half smile greeted her.
Ignoring the biting rain, she stomped back outside, headed to the smaller building in the yard and heaved the door open. The wind caught it, sending it backward until it slammed against the side of the building’s outer wall.
Serenity enveloped her the moment she stepped inside. The smell of varied woods surrounded her, dry and tangy and intoxicating, while heat radiated from a small, open-back stove sitting on the hearth.
Lumber filled the room. Long planks lined the back wall, small scraps scattered over a workbench, sawn pieces piled on the sawdust-covered floor. The makings of an elegant table sat in front of the workbench, but in the center of a large open area rested an exquisite chest of drawers. Michel stood there, eyebrows raised at her, his chisel held against the wood.
The sight of him sent more heat through her than the fire in the stove. A calm expression masked the prominent bones and angular planes of his face. The ends of his brown hair curled against his forehead and neck in a way that made her fingers ache to run through their coiling tips. His broad shoulders spanned wide above the dresser, speaking of his strength forged by days upon days of hard labor. And his eyes glimmered with concern, making her think for half an instant he might care what happened to her.
She’d known he was attractive, handsome even. So why, standing in this little workshop, did one look from him give her trouble breathing?
She forced her breath out. “Bonjour, I, um…” The door behind her banged against the side of the building. How could she have forgotten to close it? She sloshed back into the rain and pulled it shut, then turned awkwardly to face Michel. “My apologies.”
A glint of amusement crept into his eyes. “Did you need something?”
“Oui. Non. That is, uh…” The beauty of the chest of drawers drew her forward.
Elaborate acorns and oak leaves wove their way along the top and down the posts of the dresser, the straight, clean lines of the wood contrasting with the elegant carvings. “It’s splendid.” All it lacked was some gilding over the exquisite design, then the piece would be fit for Versailles or the Château de La Rouchecauld. She reached out to touch an acorn, her wet finger leaving its print on the wood.
“I had no idea.”
“I assumed Ma Mère told you.”
“Yes.” But she hadn’t known, hadn’t understood, the scope of his abilities until she stood here, before a nearly finished masterpiece, with the scent of wood wrapping around her and the sawdust crunching under her feet. She cleared her throat. “You see, I expected—”
“That I couldn’t possibly have made the furniture in the house?” Frustration tinged his voice, but he didn’t step away from her.
She’d believed Jeanette’s story, somewhere inside she’d known the older woman spoke truth. She looked up, and he trapped her in his swirling green eyes. She moistened her lips and stared at his mouth, the firm, serious lips. What would it feel like to press her lips to his? A tingle? A wave of warmth? Nothing?
“Oui.” she murmured breathlessly, then took a step back. The furniture. They were talking about furniture. “Why is it that you farm? The sale of this one piece would equal a year’s crop or more.”
“Can’t sell it.”
“That’s preposterous. Of course you can sell it. Why, I would pay handsomely for the cornucopia bed I’ve been sleeping on. Others would, as well.”
“I wasn’t a member of the furniture-makers’ guild. I can’t sell it.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “The guild system was eradicated three years ago. Surely you knew.”
His hand tightened on the chisel. He turned away, strode to the workbench and tossed it down. “Think you it’s so simple?”
“What’s so hard? Put a sign advertising your furniture by the road.”
He whirled around. “Is everything always so easy for you? Have you never met a rule or stricture you can’t change?” Eyes hot, he threw the rag slung over his shoulder onto the floor. “Three years ago was too late to change anything. I went to Paris before the Révolution, showed the workers a small chest and got turned down by every master craftsman I met. Same thing happened to my father. The government limited the number of master craftsmen allowed to practice, and those master craftsmen have handed their furniture-making licenses to their sons for centuries.”
She raised her chin. “Nothing’s that impossible, especially not with talent such as yours. Half the furniture at Versailles isn’t as beautiful as this.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
But it did. It mattered more than he said. She read it in the way he hunched his shoulders, in the frustrated stomping of his boots against the floor, in the tightly coiled muscles along his forearms as he paced from the workbench to the wall and back.
“The farm is my responsibility, not making furniture.”
“Don’t you have a brother? Where is he? Why can you not give him the farm and live your dream?”
He turned to her. His eyes flat and dead. “What makes you think building furniture is my dream?”
“God wouldn’t give you such talent and then tell you to waste it. To hide it in a shed.”
She expected him to rage at her. To yell for her to stay out of his business, out of his life. But for a long moment, he didn’t speak, or even move save for the muscle working along his jaw.
“I admire that about you. Your determination. Your drive to get to England.”
She swallowed. He admired her? Surely not.
“Maybe if I’d gone to Paris with such purpose seven years ago, I would have succeeded in making furniture. But I’m here now. God gave me the farm. I’m the oldest son, not Jean Paul. It’s my responsibility.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Tell me, Isabelle, what would come of the farm, of Ma Mère, if I were not here?” Rain pounded against the roof as he stalked back and forth like a caged tiger. “I’m sure you would postpone your trip to England to care for my mother.”
A lump rose in her throat. She stood there watching him, his eyes aflame, his shoulders hard and straight, his chest straining against his shirt, his muscled arms rippling—and she couldn’t answer.
“And even if I could leave,” he continued, “it would do little good. Mayhap the guild has been officially dis
banded, but it still rules Paris. Do you think the men whose families have made furniture for centuries will let a peasant waltz into their domain and sell his work? Without the guild system, the furniture-makers will fight even harder to keep the trade in their families. The merchants would take an ax to my designs before I got them in the door of a shop. They’d beat me for stepping on their territory.” He watched her face. “You don’t believe me.”
“I—”
“A révolution, they said. ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity.’ How much equality has the Révolution achieved when after five years of upheaval and killing I’m still barred from working the job I desire? How much liberty do I have when not only am I forced to work the farm, but I’m forced to accept the price Paris sets on my grain? When I could be killed for saving a woman’s life, or for saying the representatives in Paris are blood-hungry leeches or for storing my grain until I can get a better price?”
He raked his fingers through his madly curling hair as his taut shoulders slumped, and his broad chest deflated. “Forgive me. I…I meant not to rail on you. It’s best if you return to the house with Ma Mère.” He looked toward the door. “Still raining out there. Don’t want to catch a chill.”
She stepped forward and laid a hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry for you, Michel. I am. This horrid Révolution has taken something from everyone. I forget that.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if the revolutionaries hadn’t promised freedom. Change.” His eyes were bleak, his voice raw. “I’m more trapped now than I was under the Ancien Régime.”
His gaze drifted to her hand, still resting against his arm. “Isabelle…” His throat worked back and forth as though he couldn’t say the words he wished to speak. “Merci for understanding.” He enveloped her hand with his own, raised it to his mouth and kissed it.
She could see nothing but him, smell or feel nothing but his scent and the brush of his lips against her skin. The press of his hand against hers.
He bent closer, his breath tickling her face as his free hand cupped her cheek. “I know the Révolution’s been cruel to you. Harder on you than it’s been on me. I haven’t lost my home, my name, my family.”
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