by Regina Scott
“Fine,” she mumbled. She was fine. Danielle need not worry.
But her word must not have come out as she’d intended, because Danielle’s hands were on her again, moving frantically over her body. “Don’t fret. Everything’s all settled. Citizen Belanger has gone for the physician, and Serge and Victor are playing in the corner. You fed Victor earlier. Do you remember? He wanted to eat and…”
No. She didn’t remember, but if her little son could find nourishment from her body despite its sickened state, then so be it.
“We’re going to have you up and about in no time. Please don’t get any sicker. We need you here, with us. Maman? Can you hear me? We need you.”
Brigitte tried to move her hand again, but as before, her limb weighed too heavily. She moaned something in response, yet her attempt at comfort hardly placated Danielle. Instead, a soft, warm lump rested on her stomach and quiet sobs filtered to her ears.
She slid her hand slowly along the blanket, forcing her wretched arm to move though doing so drained her last bit of strength. Finally her fingers touched the dense tangles that could only be Danielle’s hair. She stroked gently while her daughter cried.
This was wrong. All wrong. Danielle shouldn’t be crying on her stomach. She was the one who should worry, not her daughter. She was the one who only had a week to please Alphonse and had now fallen sick.
God, please heal me, she prayed against Danielle’s sobs. Please make me… But her thoughts drifted into darkness before she finished the prayer.
*
For the second time that day, Jean Paul hastened through the twisting path that led to the cottage. He’d sent the physician on nearly an hour ago then stayed and listened to the mayor natter about everything from the cost of bread to another widow to supper later that night. The more he attempted to excuse himself from conversation, the more the mayor babbled.
He let himself into the somber cottage to find the physician bent over his patient while Danielle looked over the man’s shoulder. The two boys played quietly in front of the cold hearth, the oldest using an array of spoons and forks as toy soldiers, and the youngest chewing on one such spoon—er, soldier.
“What’s wrong with her?” He stepped nearer Brigitte, her skin so pale a part of him longed to lean down and hold his cheek over her nose and mouth to make certain she still breathed.
The physician pushed his spectacles higher on his face and scratched the balding spot at the back of his head. “Nothing that can’t be fixed, Citizen, though I’m glad you sent for me. A fever this severe shouldn’t be left untended.”
“You can save her?”
The physician nodded, and Jean Paul blew out a long, slow breath.
A faint smile whispered across Danielle’s mouth, and she turned grateful eyes to Physician Trudeau. “Merci.”
“I merely need a few instruments from my bag.” The older man pushed to his feet and moved his heavy girth to the table. “Citizen Belanger, would you please position the chair by the pallet, next to Citizen Moreau’s arm.”
Position the…? Ah, he meant to bleed her. Jean Paul glanced at the deathly pale woman, then hefted the chair. Bleeding had done nothing to cure Corinne, but she’d been far gone by the time he’d found money to summon the physician. Perhaps letting a person’s blood earlier in the illness would be of more aid. He set the chair down with a thud.
“Yes, very good.” Physician Trudeau closed his bag and lumbered back toward his patient.
“What are you doing with that knife and rope?” Danielle stared at the instruments in the physician’s hand, her face as pale as her mother’s.
Physician Trudeau furrowed scruffy gray eyebrows at her. “Move away from the patient, child. I need to treat her.”
“Treat her? With a knife and rope? How will those help her?” She threw herself onto the bed, positioning her body between the physician and her mother. Red stained the cheeks that had been pale just moments ago, and she turned her glare on him. “Is this how you mean to help my mother, Citizen Belanger? By letting some stranger tie her to a post and take a knife to her arm?”
Jean Paul opened his mouth, but no words came.
“Now see here, Jean Paul.” Anger mottled Physician Trudeau’s face. “Remove this child, or I’ll refuse to practice here and this woman’s death will be on your hands.”
Another death on his hands? He swallowed. “Step aside, Danielle. The physician only means to help.”
“He means to use that knife on my mother.” Her voice grew high-pitched and panicked.
Serge dropped one of his fork-soldiers and came to his sister’s side. “You’re going to cut my maman? I thought you were a physician.”
Physician Trudeau drew up his flaccid chest. “It’s called bloodletting, and it’s an established medical practice. Now I’ll not let a bunch of younglings tell me how best to treat my patients. Jean Paul, what’s it to be? My services or the whims of these children?”
Serge flung himself forward, his fists clenching the front of Jean Paul’s shirt so tight they’d likely never let go. “Non! Tell him non. Don’t let him hurt Maman!”
Jean Paul glanced at the tick where Brigitte lay. He couldn’t let the woman die. What would happen to her children? They’d already suffered enough loss with their father.
But if the physician let her blood and Brigitte passed, anyway, how would he explain that to her children? What children wouldn’t be upset by the idea of cutting their sick mother? Danielle might be just a child, but in some ways, she was a woman already. This was a choice for Brigitte’s family, not some stranger who had met them only yesterday.
“Thank you for your service, Physician Trudeau, but we’re not going to let Brigitte’s blood.”
The physician turned as quickly as his heavy form would allow and stalked to his bag. “Then don’t come asking for my services on the morrow, or any day after that. When this woman lies dead in a cold grave, remember you were the one that killed her, not me.” He thrust the knife, rope and bowl back into his bag, clasped it shut and hastened to the door. The entire house shook as the solid wood slammed behind him.
“And good riddance. As though I would let some stranger cut my mother while she sleeps.” Danielle crossed her arms, her gaze still riveted on the shut door.
Serge tugged on Jean Paul’s shirt again, his chin trembling. “B-but what if the man’s right? What if we just killed Maman?”
“We didn’t.” Danielle sounded so confident. So sure.
But what if she was wrong? What if the boy and physician were right and Brigitte lay in the earth a week hence? Jean Paul stared down at his hands, large and scarred and capable of so much harm. It seemed no matter what he did, how hard he tried to help, he could do naught but hurt people.
Chapter Ten
Jean Paul trudged through the wooded path, no longer overgrown with weeds as it had been after half a week of use, but trampled and defined. His shoulders ached, his lower back throbbed, dirt caked his hands and sweat streaked the side of his face. What he wouldn’t give for a quick dip in the stream, a hearty meal and a long night’s rest.
Yet he couldn’t force himself to go home without first checking on her.
The delirious fever had clung to Brigitte Moreau for the past three days. If it wasn’t gone on the morrow, he’d start making arrangements for the children. Corinne’s illness had tarried a month, but after the first week, she’d been gone from him in every way but body. He couldn’t allow Brigitte’s children to watch death slowly claim her. Bad enough that he’d have to see it, himself. The last time had robbed the very life from his soul.
Not that watching the woman currently in his little hut die would rob his life. He didn’t know her, and hardly cared what happened.
Or rather, he shouldn’t care.
So why did he tromp to the forgotten house every night to see if she improved? Because of the children? Because she had that same quiet determination that Corinne had once possessed? Because she’d come to h
im tired and hungry, and he hadn’t met her needs?
Sickness plagued the countryside constantly, and with the Terror last year plus the wars France fought against Britain and Austria, Prussia, Italy and Spain, the loss of one more life should hardly matter.
At least that’s what he told himself. Now if only he could get his heart to believe it.
He stopped in front of the cottage and knocked on the door. A child wailed from inside, followed by the sound of Danielle’s sharp tongue.
He let himself in and surveyed the commotion with a single glance. The raspberries and salt pork he’d brought the children yesterday’s eve were scattered across the floor, the babe happily sticking the dirt-laden berries into his mouth. Meanwhile Serge cowered in a corner and Danielle stood above him, hands on hips, and a torrent of words pouring from her mouth.
“Why can you never do as I request? Don’t you want Maman to get better? If she’s ever to improve, we need—”
“Halt,” Jean Paul barked.
“Merci.” A quiet voice whispered from the corner.
A fragile hope kindled in his chest, like warm embers buried under layers of ash. He turned to find Brigitte sitting propped against the bed’s headboard, her hair a drenched mess of dark auburn and her brown eyes a touch too bright with fever.
But she was awake.
“I’m sorry you got woken, Maman.” Danielle hurried to her mother’s side. “It’s Serge’s fault. I told him to watch Victor…”
Brigitte held up a slim hand to stop the rush of words, but her daughter paid no heed.
“Serge was playing instead and…”
“Stop talking, Danielle.” Could the girl not see how her mother moved her hand to her temple and rubbed under the endless chatter?
Danielle’s words ceased for a moment, then started up again. “Am I upsetting you? Because it should be Serge who—”
“I said enough.” He stopped his teeth from grinding together. Barely. Brigitte’s eyes fluttered closed, and a faint wince appeared across her forehead. The woman needed calm and quiet if she was going to regain her strength—not something she was likely to have with three younglings about. “Danielle, take the children out of doors.”
“But supper—”
“Listen to Citizen Belanger,” Brigitte rasped, her voice far too quiet for the way her chest heaved as she spoke.
Jean Paul scooped the babe off the floor and plopped him into Danielle’s arms. “I’ll see to supper later.”
Danielle’s eyes darted between him and Brigitte. “Why do you want us to leave? So you can interrogate her?”
Jean Paul ran his eyes over Brigitte’s slender frame, her white skin, tangled hair and moist forehead. Interrogate her? He wanted merely to touch her. To make certain with his own hands that her condition had improved, that she wouldn’t be buried in a grave beside Corinne a week hence.
“Obey,” Brigitte commanded before sinking back onto the tick, her eyes closed.
Danielle sent him a dark look, then propped the babe on her hip and stalked through the door in a swish of skirts while Serge scrambled after her.
He closed the door and moved to the bed. “You’re better.”
She peeked a weary eyelid open. “The fever broke this morn, or so Danielle tells me.”
He crouched beside her and pressed a hand to her cheek. Still warm, but the raging heat that had emanated from her skin when he’d brushed her face last night was gone. Thank You, Father. He’d been so certain Physician Trudeau had been right, that he’d have yet another death on his hands.
But it seemed as though Brigitte would recover.
*
Brigitte smiled at the man hunched beside her, or tried to. Her face felt too tired to work properly. Citizen Belanger still looked a touch terrifying, with his black hair and dark eyes and the odd scar that bunched around his eyebrow. But there was nothing terrifying in his bent position, or in the way his eyes brimmed with concern as they ran over her.
Hadn’t Danielle told her as much? Her daughter had said something about Citizen Belanger acting more concerned than angry. Or at least she thought that’s what Danielle had said, but she could hardly be certain of anything after enduring such a fever.
“I see you found where the children and I were staying.” Her vocal cords, stiff from disuse, grated against each other as she spoke. “I thought it might be your property. I’d hoped not, but still I wondered.”
He scowled. “You should have told me about the children, about where you were living.”
She shrugged slightly and attempted to shift farther up on the pallet before falling back again, exhausted. Her fever may have broken, but her strength had yet to return. And the tiredness that had plagued her before her illness still clung to every pore of her body.
“Let me help.” Strong arms braced her back, and Citizen Belanger’s powerful body lifted her higher in the bed. Then he eased the two flimsy pillows behind her back.
“Merci.”
His face hovered a mere breath away from hers. This close, his eyes were no longer hard and dark, but that deep, warm shade of soil after a good rain.
He stayed in his position a moment longer than he ought, one arm still wrapped about her shoulders, his body leaning over hers. His gaze flitted across her face, settling on her lips for the briefest of instants.
Something inside her turned warm and soft, and then a wave of ice swept through her. What was she doing, lying here so close to the man she should be spying on? Staring into his eyes instead of wheedling some information about his past? She shifted away and cleared her throat. “I asked you for a post. Have you changed your mind?”
He leaned back, his gaze no longer resting on her dry, cracked lips. “I would have changed my mind long ago, had I known you had three children with whom you shared my food, or that you hadn’t money for the inn.”
She looked away. “My children were hardly your concern.”
And she hadn’t known whether she could trust him.
Yet he’d found where they lived and hadn’t kicked them out. From the mess of salt pork and raspberries on the floor, she could surmise he continued to feed them. And he was here with her now, was he not? Touching her face and asking how she fared, concern radiating from his gargantuan form. She might know little of his past, but he’d cared for her and her children rather than cast them out.
“A family living on my land is my concern. A family starving when I have food aplenty is my concern. A family—”
She held up her hand. “We were hardly starving. I have three children in my care, Citizen. I’m careful with whom I trust.”
He lurched back as if slapped, though she’d hardly the energy to lift her hand and attempt such a thing.
“’Tis nothing against you.” Though having Alphonse suspect him of killing Henri surely didn’t help matters. “I’m careful of everyone.”
“I understand,” he growled, his face an unreadable mask of dark features and angry lines.
“Do you? Have you any children of your own?”
“I had a wife once…we shared this very cottage. ’Twas why my family built it, for Corinne and I, but she died before she bore any babes.” His chest rose and fell with suddenly heavy breathing, and his eyes shifted away from her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. And she was. “I meant not to upset you.”
“I’m not upset.” Iron crusted his words.
She merely reached out and rested her hand atop his. A muscle in his jaw methodically twitched back and forth, but after another moment, he sighed and turned his own work-roughened hand over to squeeze hers.
“I lost my husband a year past. ’Tis a hardship I’d never wish on another.”
“Do you still love him? Even though he’s dead, do you still think of him as though he’s here…? Wish for him at odd times, like when you’re working in the fields or lying down at night?”
Brigitte swallowed and glanced down at her hands. ’Twould almost be easier to spout a
falsehood and bring the man a bit of comfort by sharing the sorrow he still obviously felt. But she couldn’t lie, not about something as sacred as the love between a husband and wife. “I don’t think it’s wrong if you still love your wife. But Henri and I…we weren’t like that. I stopped loving him years ago, if I ever loved him at all. The man had a golden tongue, but after we married, he didn’t treat me well.”
“You have three children to care for by yourself. Do you not miss him for that?”
She raised one side of her lips up into a half smile. “Five children. I’ve two twin boys in the navy.”
He sank back onto his knees, his gaze traveling slowly over her face. “I’d not have guessed you old enough to have sons in the navy.”
“I was young when I married Henri, and the twins followed soon after.” Heat stained her cheeks and she cleared her throat. “Quite soon after.”
“You’re blessed to have the children. You can’t understand how many times I’ve wished that Corinne, before she died…” His voice trailed off and he swallowed tightly.
“I’m sorry she died so young.”
He gave a slight nod but his eyes turned dark and distant, as though imagining another time, a happier time. A time when dreams still existed.
She nestled farther back against the pillows and yawned. The weariness was creeping back. Another few minutes, and she’d not have the strength to remember his words. “Speaking of children, you seem to have done an admirable job caring for mine. Thank you. I trust they are well?”
“As well as can be expected, if you don’t mind shouting voices and broken dishes and…” He glanced at the mess of food in front of the hearth. “Spilled food. I’ve put Danielle to work baking bread in your stead.”
“Danielle? Housework?”
“She gave me that very look.” He reached down and trailed a thumb over the wrinkles in her forehead.
She found herself moving toward him, the heat of his skin, the silent strength of his body. “She hates housework.”
Was she a fool for taking pleasure in the moment? Here she was, lying abed, her hair and clothing damp with sweat, her body reeking of sickness, and all she wanted was to roll closer to the man. To take comfort in the feel of strong arms around her and another heart beating beside hers.