by Regina Scott
Jean Paul pulled the wagon to an abrupt halt and jumped out, wedging his way through the throng.
“What if Jean Paul can’t save him?” Brigitte whispered, half to herself and half to Annalise. Or worse, what if the boy truly had stolen a livre from the lady and now had two?
“He can.” Annalise’s chin trembled, but her eyes glinted with a childlike faith as she watched Jean Paul, who now stood in the center of the crowd with Gaston and several others. “Come, we must get closer.”
Annalise took her hand and tugged her into the press of suffocating bodies, the foul scents of animal and sweat mingling with the strong odor of ladies perfumes to rob clean air from her lungs. Some citizens stepped aside when they saw Gaston’s sister while others seemed determined to stand in her way. Nevertheless, they wound their way blindly toward the center of the chaos.
“The rat stole my money, he did.” A woman’s voice rang out above the throng.
Brigitte wheedled her way through the last of the people until she glimpsed an old woman, her face an uncomely combination of prominent bones and sagging wrinkles.
The woman pointed a gnarled finger at Gaston. “Now I want him punished.”
Gaston stared at the ground, shuffling his feet back and forth. “I already told you, I didn’t take any money. Citizen Belanger gave the livre to me.”
Brigitte slid into an open space at the front of the crowd.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Jean Paul’s voice boomed loud enough for half the town to hear.
“Isn’t he magnificent?” Annalise nudged into the spot beside her and sniffed back a tear. “He can save anyone.”
Indeed, Jean Paul did look rather magnificent, with his broad shoulders and towering form giving him command over the situation. The same traits that had terrorized her when first they’d met now seemed a blessing. Even his scar made him appear experienced rather than frightening.
“Jean Paul.” A balding man with a protruding belly and a look of importance laid a hand on Jean Paul’s shoulder. “Good to see you, my friend. We were having a little dispute and sent Annalise to find you.”
“That’s Mayor Narcise. Citizen Belanger saved the mayor’s sister and niece from a gang of army deserters last year. He’s a hero.” Annalise’s voice ended on a sigh.
Yes, with the way every person in the crowd watched Jean Paul, it seemed he was quite the hero of Abbeville.
“Citizen Belanger,” a gendarme proclaimed, the badges on his coat indicating he outranked Alphonse’s gendarme. He might even be the captain Jean Paul had gone in search of. “Did you give this boy a livre?”
A muscle worked on the side of Jean Paul’s jaw. He looked down at the boy, then at the men. “Indeed. He helped me unload food today and then made a delivery.”
Gaston’s eyes came up for the first time, and he offered Jean Paul a wobbly smile. “’Tis as I said. I earned that money.”
The old woman crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what happened to my livre? No sooner do I discover I’m missing one, then this here urchin struts into my shop, wanting to buy a fichu for his maman. A new fichu when everyone knows they don’t have two sous to rub together.”
Gaston’s eyes dropped back to the ground and he dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt. “I only wanted to surprise her.”
“Wanting to buy a scrap of cloth doesn’t make Gaston a criminal,” Jean Paul growled at the woman.
“Right. Right. And now we have the truth of things. Sorry for disturbing your afternoon, Jean Paul.” The mayor smiled brightly.
Annalise was correct. He truly was magnificent. Jean Paul had barged into the situation, taking control despite the crowd of onlookers, and gotten the mayor and gendarmerie official to take his side. How many men could manage such a thing?
“So that’s to be the end, is it?” The older woman turned to the gendarme. “Citizen Belanger arrives and swears he gave the boy money and everyone believes him?”
The gendarme scratched his brow beneath the brim of his hat. “If Gaston can prove he came by his coin honestly—and he has—then I’ve no grounds to hold him.”
The old woman glared at Jean Paul. “Well mayhap I don’t trust Citizen Belanger’s word.”
A thick silence descended, all fidgeting and whispers ceased. Brigitte looked toward Jean Paul, waiting for him to declare the old woman a liar. Waiting for him to proclaim his honesty and uprightness before half the town.
But he didn’t speak, only held the woman’s stare with dark, haunted eyes.
Brigitte stepped forward. The mayor and gendarme turned their eyes to her, and a faint heat stole over her body, along with the desire to dart back into the throng and disappear. But ’twasn’t right the way this woman maligned Jean Paul.
“I was with Citizen Belanger and Gaston earlier.” She raised her voice, trying to make it loud enough for every last person in the crowd to hear, trying to eliminate its childish tremble. “I saw him give Gaston the livre.”
A faint smile tipped the corner of Jean Paul’s mouth, and her body grew warm yet again, but this warmth had nothing to do with the eyes of the crowd and everything to do with the approval written across one particular man’s face.
“And who are you?” the woman snapped.
“Brigitte Moreau.”
“My housekeeper,” Jean Paul boomed in a voice meant to frighten off further argument.
“How dare you slander Jean Paul and interrogate his workers?” The mayor’s face turned a deep red. “Surely you see the good he’s done since he’s returned. Why he saved my sister and niece from those deserters.”
“Deserters who happened to deserve the prison cell I threw them into,” the gendarme official added.
“And he brings us food,” the boy interjected.
“Oui.” Annalise stepped from the crowd to stand beside her brother while she glared furiously at the older woman. “You’ve no business making accusations against a man who devotes himself to caring for this town. Unlike you, who walks around pointing fingers at innocent people.”
The crowd erupted with cheers and shouts.
“You’ve no right to speak ill of Citizen Belanger.”
“Oui. See if we visit your shop again, Citizen Pagett.”
“He’s brought us food and money before. Are you going to accuse me of stealing, too?”
Brigitte slunk back amid the people as the cries continued. She now knew what Alponse’s man had meant when he’d said a person couldn’t simply kill Jean Paul. Too many people liked him. Too many people paid attention to his deeds. The haggard widow had only questioned whether he was trustworthy and people were threatening to protest her business. But if Jean Paul was found murdered in his bed one morn, this crowd would likely form a mob of vigilantes.
She glanced around the intent faces riveted to every word Jean Paul spoke. What would these people do to her if they knew the reason she was in Abbeville? Why she’d been so adamant about working for Jean Paul? Or about the proof she had to provide by tomorrow night? The air grew hot and thick around her, the press of bodies stifling and intolerable. She had to get away. Now.
*
“That’s enough.” The words rasped against Jean Paul’s throat. He shifted away from a group of women at the front of the crowd, only to find a man standing close behind him. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck, a drop trailing down between his shoulder blades.
These people didn’t understand. They looked at him with awe-filled eyes and hailed him as some gift from the Heavenly Father, when his past rivaled that of the vilest murderer. “I don’t do more than anyone else. If I see a need, I fill it, that’s all.”
Citizen Pagett harrumphed, her wrinkled, aging arms still crossed about her chest. “Maybe I don’t believe you were in Paris making furniture all those years you were gone. Maybe I think you were up to something else. Furniture doesn’t make a man enough money to come back home and buy up all the land you did. Furniture doesn’t give a man with a strong back enough c
oin to pay little urchins like Gaston a livre for work you could do yourself.”
Something thick rose in his throat. So Citizen Pagett suspected his lie. He shouldn’t be surprised. The flimsy tales of making furniture during the Révolution had held up too long as it was.
He glanced about the crowd of people, all so happy to see him come to Gaston’s defense. What would the townsfolk say if they knew the truth? What would they do? He deserved to be in a prison cell more than anyone else in this town. Oh, the Convention in Paris might look at his past actions as legal, as helping to maintain order during a turbulent time. But he knew the truth, and so did God.
He didn’t deserve to be alive after the crimes he’d committed.
“That’s quite enough.” The mayor waddled between him and Citizen Pagett, coming to his defense.
Always coming to his defense.
He’d done no more than any other man would have when he’d heard the screams of women and raced into the chateau after returning to Abbeville last year. Had given no thought to the importance of the women he’d saved. He’d have done the same for any street girl.
But those women hadn’t turned out to be street girls. They were the mayor’s relatives, and for the past year, he could do no wrong in the mayor’s eyes. Then when he’d let land to Pierre and taken that first load of vegetables to Widow Arnaud, the entire town had hailed him as a hero.
A killer turned hero.
His gut twisted, but he shoved away the sickening sensation and surveyed the faces surrounding him. Some old, some young, nearly all familiar and—with the exception of Widow Pagett—every last one elated with his actions. Then his gaze rested not on a face, but on a back. Brigitte Moreau need not turn for him to recognize her. He knew her by the subtle sway of her hips as she walked, by the tresses of auburn hair dangling from her cap to tickle the back of her neck. She headed toward the wagon behind the crowd, her arms wrapped around herself and her shoulders hunched.
What did she think of this spectacle? Of him?
And why did her thoughts matter? Because of the kiss she’d given him naught but an hour ago?
The feel of her soft lips against his cheek still lingered in his mind.
“Au revoir,” he whispered to Gaston and then started through the crowd. He had to get away from these people, away from the hero worship and looks of adoration. And Brigitte gave him the perfect excuse.
If only she didn’t intend to leave for Reims once she earned more money. Then he’d be alone again, bereft of her bright eyes and happy smile in the morn, bereft of children’s laughter echoing through the yard.
But then, he deserved a life of loneliness after the horrors he’d committed.
Chapter Thirteen
Jean Paul wiped the sweat from the back of his neck and opened the door to his house. His muscles ached, his head throbbed and his throat felt parched as a dry and crumbling well. A wall of heat hit him as he stepped inside, the warmth from the fire making the two-room dwelling nearly unbearable, but with the heat came the scents of fresh-baked bread and chicken.
He inhaled slowly, drawing the homey aromas deep into his lungs. He’d made bread and soup and fowl aplenty since he’d returned to Abbeville. But nothing he’d cooked—or that his mother had prepared before she’d passed—had smelled quite so good.
Why had he not hastened from the fields earlier? He well knew that no amount of back-straining work could rid his heart of the memories that plagued him, or he’d have worked the guilt off seven times over by now.
The children gathered around the table, Danielle and Serge talking quietly while Victor grinned and babbled. And there at the foot of the table stood Brigitte. Though her back was strong and proud as it had been that afternoon when she’d come to Gaston’s defense, she had a quiet grace about her. A soft efficiency that made her beautiful even while she did something so mundane as slicing bread.
Is this what he might have had if Corinne had lived? The sight of his own family awaiting him every evening? His own wife busy about the kitchen?
“Can I have another, Maman?” Serge nudged his plate nearer Brigitte and the bread.
Jean Paul moved farther inside and closed the door.
Brigitte’s eyes came up to meet his, her lips spreading into a soft smile. “You’re here. When you didn’t come inside after we returned from town, I thought…” Cheeks suddenly pink, she hurried to the hearth where she’d set a plate of chicken and turnips. “We’d have waited, but I assumed you meant to work through supper.”
“Don’t worry yourself. Just let me wash first.” He headed to the bedchamber, where he gave himself a quick scrub in the washbasin before heading back into the outer room. His plate sat in its usual spot at the head of the table, and he slid into his chair, the mere action of sitting making his muscles ache all the more for the weeding and hoeing and harvesting he’d put them through that afternoon.
Brigitte put a second slice of bread on his plate, then sank onto the bench in front of her own half eaten food. “Danielle, clear the table once you finish, please. After that, go back to your studies. We’ve yet to look at that question from your English lesson.”
He stared at Brigitte’s lips as she spoke, the same lips that had touched his cheek that afternoon. So soft. So warm. So sweet. Evidently the hard labor had done little to drive such thoughts from his mind. What might happen if she sent the children on their way a bit early tonight and they spent some time—
“I’d rather not.” Danielle speared a turnip with her fork.
Heat stained the back of his neck. What was he thinking? Brigitte had duties to see to, children to tend and little business kissing him again.
“The English or the table?” he asked Danielle, if for no other reason than to clear his mind of Brigitte’s lips.
Which were busy chewing at the moment.
Not that he’d noticed.
Because he certainly wasn’t staring at them again.
“The English,” Danielle muttered around her bite of turnip. “The table will take but a few moments.”
“Ah.” He drew his gaze up from Brigitte’s mouth and forced himself to meet her eyes. Unfortunately her eyes weren’t much easier to look at, as soft and warm as her lips. The memory of their dazed gleam after the kiss crept into his mind. Of course, she’d pulled away a moment later and then refused to look at him for the rest of the ride to the gendarmerie post. He shoved some food into his mouth. “English is a rather ambitious subject for you to take on with your daughter, think you not?”
“She doesn’t think anything’s too ambitious.” Danielle stood from the table and dumped her plate into the washbasin. “That’s what happens when your mother used to be a governess.”
Brigitte raised one of her eyebrows and gave Danielle a frosty glare. “Do not try me, daughter.”
“A governess?” A new image of the woman stole across his mind, one of Brigitte standing beside a globe, spectacles perched on her nose as she lectured her charges on geography. “I’d never have guessed it.”
“Oui. In Reims, before I met my husband and moved to Calais. For a time, my twins and Danielle attended the church school in Calais, but once the Révolution started and the schools closed, I brought out my old lesson books.”
“Your former profession has proved rather useful then.” He ate another forkful of juicy chicken.
“More like a means of torture,” Danielle retorted.
Brigitte shot her daughter another quelling gaze. The girl looked away and scooped up Victor, wiping the breadcrumbs from his mouth.
“What’s torture?” Serge asked, his mouth stuffed with food.
“English.” Danielle shifted the babe on her hip. “I—”
“Enough,” Brigitte snapped. Danielle’s mouth clamped together, and Brigitte rubbed her temples before turning back toward him. “Sometimes it feels as though I’ve lived two separate lives. One as a child in Reims and another as an adult in Calais.”
As had he, except his
life didn’t divide into time spent in two cities, but rather into time spent as a farmer and time spent submerged in darker activities. “Childhood and adulthood oft separate themselves on their own. One doesn’t need a move to accomplish it.”
At least he hadn’t. His childhood dreams had come crashing down the day Corinne took sick.
“Have you lived here your whole life, then?” Brigitte picked up a slice of bread and spread a smear of butter on it. “In the crowd today, I thought I heard mention of you leaving Abbeville for a time.”
Had she heard such a thing? He well remembered Citizen Pagett’s voice ringing accusations in front of the town. Maybe I don’t believe you were in Paris making furniture all those years you were gone. Maybe I think you were up to something else.
The mouthful of bread he’d been chewing stuck in his throat.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Brigitte laid a hand over his for the briefest of instants before sliding it away. “I simply thought to make conversation.”
He gulped in a breath and slid his chair back from the table, no longer hungry despite only finishing half his plate. Innocent questions, that’s all. She’d spoken of her past and now asked of his, all part of the normal give and take in a conversation.
Or maybe not. Had Citizen Pagett’s accusations from earlier aroused Brigitte’s suspicions, as well? Or mayhap she’d never heard Citizen Pagett’s words but the murmurings of another townsperson. At what point had she left the crowd and returned to the wagon? She’d stepped into the clearing and defended him, but he hadn’t noticed her again until she was nearly to the conveyance. Regardless of when she’d left, something about her trip into town had given her questions about his past.
Questions he dare not answer.
Then again, how could he lie when she asked him so directly? All the town already knew he’d left Abbeville after Corinne’s death.
“Oui.” His vocal cords ground against each other with the simple word. “I’ve spent time elsewhere, six years in Paris.”