by Regina Scott
Because the alternative was too wretched to consider.
Chapter Fifteen
The sun dipped behind the trees as Jean Paul trod back to his house, his feet weary and back aching. ’Twas two days in a row he’d worked past supper, and all because of the woman keeping house for him.
A fresh pang of hunger gnawed at his stomach, and he scowled. He’d not worked without sustenance all day because he enjoyed being hungry, but somehow the hunger seemed better than facing her. He only hoped she’d left a plate of food on the table.
He pushed the door open and stepped into the dimly lit chamber.
“Are you unwell?”
His eyes followed the soft voice to where Brigitte stood drying the last of the dishes and placing them on the shelf. Why was she still here? After everything he’d said to her this morn, the way he’d walked out on her before breakfast and tarried in the fields an hour later than yesterday, she should have fled long before now.
Yet she’d waited for him. He ran his eyes down her willowy form, so familiar as she stood in his house, puttering about with homey movements. A warm sensation started in the center of his heart and spread outward.
Something was changing between them, upsetting the precarious balance he’d instituted after his return to Abbeville. In the days and weeks they’d known each other, she’d become more to him than a mere stranger. She’d become someone he trusted; someone he cared for.
Someone he loved?
No. He couldn’t love her. He still loved Corinne.
Didn’t he?
Of course he did, and he always would. But his heart wasn’t full of only Corinne. ’Twas almost as though his heart had expanded and there was room for Brigitte, too.
“I’m glad you returned.” She came forward, her hair falling in wavy strands from beneath her mobcap and pink tingeing her cheeks from warmth of the dying fire. She was so beautiful it hurt to simply look at her. “I was worried.”
“I thought you’d be gone.” They were the only words he managed before he turned for the door, but her slim hand on his arm prevented him from heading out of doors. “I, ah…forgot something in the stable. I might be a while. Mayhap you should go home.”
“I waited for you. After you left this morn, I couldn’t…couldn’t…” She shrugged and looked about the house. “Please don’t leave again. Not without telling me what troubles you.”
What troubled him? The question brought memories of that morn flooding back. What was he doing standing alone with her, soaking in her company, enjoying her presence when he’d likely killed her husband? “’Tis best that I stay away.”
“’Tis not for the best when you starve yourself all day and then try to run the moment you see me.” Her worried brown eyes peered up into his face.
Did they see the horrors from his past? The evil things he’d done in the name of liberty?
“Come and sit.” She tugged on his arm. “Let me at least warm your food.”
No. She saw not the guilt, just his weariness and hunger.
He could well send her off and warm the food himself. But his feet throbbed, and sweat stuck to his back and face. His shoulders ached with the familiar pain of a day spent in the fields, and his head pounded.
What he wouldn’t give for the comfort that had invaded him yesterday, when her breath had feathered over his skin and her lips had touched his cheek for the briefest of instants. “Let me wash before I sup.”
A smile curved her lips. “Certainly.”
She moved away, puttering about the table and hearth with comfortable, familiar movements. He tore his gaze from the subtle sway of her skirts and headed toward the washstand in the bedchamber. He scrubbed the sweat from his neck, arms and chest, then pulled on his extra shirt, clean and soft from Brigitte’s laundering.
By the time he entered the common chamber, she had a warm plate of chicken, turnips, beans and bread waiting. He sank into his chair and pinned his eyes on the plate before him, lest they accidently drift to Brigitte and he start thinking about…well, things best left unthought.
“You must be famished.” She slid onto the bench across the corner from him.
He was. “You needn’t wait for me. Go home and see to your younglings.”
“Danielle’s putting them to bed, so I’ve a few minutes of time yet. I can wash your plate before I dump the water.”
“I can wash my own plate.” His words came out a little too rough, and he stuffed a bite of food into his mouth.
Her forehead drew down until those irresistible little wrinkles appeared in the center of her brow. He tightened his fingers around his fork lest he accidently reach forward and smooth the furrows away.
“Something’s still bothering you.” She tilted her head to the side. “Will you tell me?”
Yes. No. He knew not what to say or do with the confounded woman.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. He glanced at her lips as she nibbled on a single slice of bread.
He wanted to kiss her. To hold her in his arms and melt his lips into hers until she couldn’t breathe, to feel more of the warmth that had crept through him when he’d entered his house and seen her working there, waiting for him. To taste her mouth and discover whether it was sweet or salty, soft or firm, responsive or flat.
He’d bet his mare the kiss wouldn’t be flat.
“You’ve been upset ever since we returned from town yesterday afternoon.” She surveyed him with that puzzled expression on her face. “You didn’t like everyone watching you while you helped Gaston.”
He jerked his eyes away from her lips and shoved another bite into his mouth before he forgot why he shouldn’t kiss her.
Because he had a reason for not kissing her. Truly he did.
If only he could remember it.
“Jean Paul?” She leaned closer and pressed her slender hand, roughened from work, to his brow.
The calluses felt like silk against his skin.
His gaze fell back to her lips, close enough now for her breath to fan his cheek. He need only lean forward a few centimeters and…
“Non.” He jerked back.
Brigitte’s frown widened. “You’re certain you’re well?”
He swallowed. He hadn’t been saying no to that, but the word still served his purposes. He was as well as a man could possibly be when in the presence of a beautiful woman he could never permit himself to touch—even though his eyes kept drifting to her lips and his mind kept imagining how they would taste.
She rested her elbows on the table and shifted forward, bringing her face close to his yet again.
Torture. The woman was pure, simple torture.
“So if you didn’t like everyone in the crowd watching you, why did you barrel into the center of it?”
The crowd? Was she talking about yesterday and Gaston? He couldn’t seem to remember much of anything save the way her lips glistened in the light from the hearth. “The boy needed my help, so I helped him.”
Her eyes took on a shining look. The kind of look she’d likely give him right after being kissed.
He cleared his throat and scooted to the side, but that didn’t stop her from reaching out to rest her hand on his arm.
If she kept touching him, he couldn’t be held responsible for kissing her.
“The world needs more people like you.” Her gently whispered words floated through the cottage.
It was a lie. The world didn’t need anyone like him.
But Brigitte’s eyes still held that tender look, her hand rested ever so slightly on his arm, and her lips…
Her lips…
He clamped his hand over hers and leaned forward, just a centimeter, a millimeter, nothing more than the width of a hair.
But it was enough. His lips touched hers and nothing mattered but the softness of her mouth against his. The alluring combination of salt and sweet, the warm fever from her lips that spiraled inside him until the kiss echoed through every last crevice of his body.
�
�Brigitte.” He pulled back. “I can’t…”
But he could. And so could she. She left her place on the bench, coming around the corner of the table to curl against his chest. Her lips brushed his cheek and trailed feather-soft kisses along his jaw. He wrapped his arms around her and lost himself in the comfort, in the warmth, in a place with no memories of the past and no horrors in the future. In a place where love erased all burdens and guilt.
He pulled her closer and felt the heat of her breath on his lips, smelled the scents of sunshine and bread in her hair, tasted their sweetness on her skin.
She sighed softly, and her hands stretched up to curl in the hair at the back of his neck.
The back of his neck.
The back of his neck.
The very place where the guillotine struck its victims.
*
Brigitte closed her eyes and melted into Jean Paul’s arms. How long since she’d had a kiss like this?
Henri’s kisses had always been hard and fast, wanting something of her that she’d struggled to give.
But not Jean Paul’s. For a man so large and with such a forbidding scowl, one might expect his kisses to be harsh and forceful. But there was nothing demanding about his mouth on hers. His lips were soft and gentle, timid even. As though he was afraid she would shatter if he kissed her too hard.
But she wouldn’t shatter. Not here. Not now. Not with his arms wrapped strong and secure about her back and his soft breath fanning her cheek and neck. She burrowed deeper into his solid chest and stretched her hands up to toy with the hair at the back of his neck…
And then she was on the floor, her bottom landing hard against the packed dirt and her back jarring with the impact. She leaned back on her elbows and blinked up at him.
He no longer sat in his chair but towered above her, his gaze dark while the scar around his eyebrow tightened into a furious knot.
“Go.” He ground the single word through gritted teeth.
A hot wave of mortification swept through her. Go? He couldn’t tell her to go. He’d just taken her in his arms and kissed her as though…as though…as though he loved her.
And then he’d dropped her on the floor.
She scrambled off the ground. “I refuse to leave until you explain yourself.”
“I owe you no explanation. You can either remove yourself on your own, or I’ll throw you out.”
She stared into his face, the hard planes and austere lines, the dead, flat look in his eyes. Why was he so angry with her?
“Don’t try me, Brigitte. Just leave. Now. And…and…don’t come back tomorrow.” His chest heaved as he spewed the words.
She whirled toward the door and ran, barreling into the dim evening light. Her stomach churned as she stumbled across the yard, racing for the first shelter she spotted—the stable. The doors stood shut up tight for the evening, but she shoved the massive handle aside. Near darkness wrapped around her, mingling with rich scents of straw and animal as she rushed past the stalls and flung herself on the pile of hay at the back of the outbuilding.
She’d merely wanted a kiss, the feelings of belonging and rightness that had niggled through her yesterday when she’d kissed his cheek. He’d look so tired and weary, so needy sitting there shoveling food into his mouth. Was it that wrong to kiss him?
Evidently, seeing how he’d thrown her on the floor and told her to get out.
A cry welled in the back of her throat and moisture scalded her eyes. She pressed her hand to her mouth—the mouth Jean Paul had unapologetically claimed just moments ago—and attempted to stem the flood.
To no avail. A sob rose inside her, so deep and powerful neither her hands, her will nor her mind could stop it from bursting free. It tore from her chest in a deep, keening wail, and she buried her face in the hay.
She didn’t fight the torrent but rather let it come. She hadn’t cried like this when Henri died or when she’d sent her boys off to the navy or even after Alphonse had issued his ultimatum. She wasn’t even sure why she wept. Maybe she cried for everything, or nothing, or the parts that hurt the worst. It hardly mattered. In a few moments, she would drag herself up and walk home to her children, where she couldn’t cry, couldn’t be sad, couldn’t even state the reason she’d come to Abbeville.
So she burrowed deeper into the hay and let the tears flow until they dampened the bedding beneath her face. Until her head throbbed and her throat ached and her eyes were so swollen they could barely open. And then she lay there, still and exhausted in the sweet smelling hay.
The mare snorted from somewhere behind her, and a sow pawed at the ground of her stall. Night had nearly descended outside, making the stable almost dark. She rolled onto her back to stare up at the roof above, but her shoulder bumped against something hard. She shifted and frowned, turning toward the object. In the dim light she could barely make out the edge of a box as it poked through the strands of bedding.
She brushed some hay from the lid then sank back on her knees. It wasn’t a box, and it certainly wasn’t here by some accident or mistake. A trunk sat straight against the back wall of the stable, with a tight lock clasping the lid shut. When she tested the handle, she found it securely locked. She shoved more bedding away until it lay before her in its entirety, large and old and big enough to hold secrets from Jean Paul’s past.
She gasped. The meeting with the gendarme. How could she have forgotten? She’d woken with thoughts of it this morn, but when she’d arrived at the house to find Jean Paul so upset, the rendezvous had slipped from her mind.
Even if she left now, she’d not be able to make the meeting.
Not that she wanted to meet the vile man. She was better off never laying eyes on him again.
She swiped a stray tear from her cheek. Perhaps Jean Paul did have secrets, but who was she to delve into them? The man Alphonse had told her to spy on was supposed to be cruel and vicious. A murderer bent on killing. But Jean Paul was nothing of the sort. Alphonse had the wrong person, even if Jean Paul did have suspicious memories of Paris and a body so large and burly the mere sight of it would frighten most sane people.
But none of that explained the presence of this trunk, so oddly hidden beneath mounds of hay. And locked.
Who locked a trunk already hidden?
She fingered the clasp and glanced back toward the door of the stable. Surely a lantern hung just inside. She only needed to light it and find a tool of some sort to open the lock. ’Twould be easy enough to break the iron bands.
To be sure, it wasn’t her trunk, and whatever Jean Paul had hidden here certainly wasn’t her business. But then, she’d been snooping all along, hadn’t she? ’Twas the very reason she worked for him. And even though Jean Paul had told her to up and leave, she couldn’t. Not without putting her children at risk and chancing that Alphonse would come for her.
She shuddered and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had only one course of action: prove Jean Paul’s innocence.
Because once she proved it, she could leave.
And if she was so certain of his innocence, why did she hesitate opening his trunk? After she had proof, she could visit the gendarme and then wash her hands of both the guard and Alphonse.
Yes. By this time tomorrow, she’d be free.
She scrambled to her feet and found the lantern, lighting it and searching around before her eyes landed on an ax leaning against the side of the stable. She took it up and hastened back to the trunk. One brisk swing, and the bands on the lock split open. She dropped to her knees and shoved the lid up.
No. It couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t.
Her breath clogged in her throat and blood roared in her ears as she stared down at the items laid meticulously inside.
Chapter Sixteen
Jean Paul sank into the familiar rocker by the fire, the family Bible spread across his lap. Before her death, his mother had always taken this spot in the evenings. Now he filled it, reading the same book, page after page, night a
fter night. He flipped through the crinkled pages, but the image of Brigitte and the soft, hazy look in her eyes right before they’d kissed tugged at his mind.
As did her hurt and disappointment afterward.
He rubbed the back of his neck and groaned. He hadn’t been thinking. One look into her compassionate eyes, one touch of her lips to his, and he’d been lost. He couldn’t afford to lose himself like that again with her. ’Twould bring only pain in the future.
No, not even in the future. She’d had tears in her eyes when he’d sent her away. His chest had ached as he’d wrenched the bitter command from his mouth, but what else was he to do? He couldn’t keep her here, hadn’t the slightest inkling how he could face her on the morrow, so he’d told her not to return.
Would she come back, anyway? ’Twould be easier, much easier, if she simply walked out of his life and never returned.
A man like him had no business having feelings for a woman like Brigitte. He should have put a stop to them sooner…except he hadn’t any idea when they’d started. When she’d first approached him about a post? No, not that early. He’d merely felt sorry for her. But then she’d appeared the next day and again the following morn, until somehow, someway, she’d niggled into the place in his heart that had been hard and cold as stone since Corinne’s death.
Into the place he’d intended to keep frozen for the rest of his life.
How dare he let himself become so attracted to her when her husband’s blood might well be on his hands?
He shoved a hand through his hair and glanced down at the familiar verse of Scripture glaring back at him. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If only forgiveness was as simple as the Bible claimed. Then mayhap he could set his past behind him and move forward. But the verse didn’t work. He knew. He’d read it, then prayed it every night since he’d returned to Abbeville.