by Regina Scott
Yet he closed his eyes and whispered the prayer again. “Father God, forgive me. For the Terror. For Brigitte. For everything.”
But as usual, his words rose only to the ceiling before they fell back to taunt him, never reaching the ears of God.
*
Fresh tears blurred her vision as Brigitte stumbled up the little path leading to the hut. Her throat ached from keeping them pushed down for so long, and her head throbbed as the items of the trunk branded themselves repeatedly across her mind.
Jean Paul couldn’t have killed Henri. He simply couldn’t. The things in the trunk didn’t mean Alphonse was right. Surely they only proved…
But what if Alphonse was right? What if Jean Paul really had killed Henri?
It seemed impossible. How could such a kind, generous man like Jean Paul have a dark and murderous past?
Either way, she needed to learn the truth. Alphonse wanted information, and proving Jean Paul innocent now seemed nigh impossible. She’d no choice but to go to Jean Paul in the morning and ask him about the hidden things she’d found…
If he would talk to her after he’d already sent her away.
She wrapped her arms around her middle. Oh, goodness, she felt sick.
She should never have come here. She’d known it from the first, but as she’d sat across from Alphonse in that dimly lit warehouse, it seemed she hadn’t a choice. Be sure your sin will find you out. The verse echoed back at her, a haunting memory in the darkness.
She’d had a choice all along. She could have chosen right. She could have chosen not to spy. She could have chosen to walk away from Alphonse and whatever twisted justice he’d devised for the man who’d killed Henri.
But she hadn’t, and she was a vile, wretched person. Because now that she’d started down this dark road, how did she get out? This path of deceit hadn’t freed her. If anything, she was more trapped now than she’d ever been in Calais.
Up ahead, a dim lantern cast its faint glow through the window of her little hut. She dragged her feet forward, the throbbing in her head pounding harder and the ache in her heart deepening with each step she took toward the little house Jean Paul had so generously lent her.
Her children should all be abed by now, hopefully sleeping soundly enough to not notice her swollen eyes or tear-streaked face. But she didn’t have to dress for bed and lie down to know slumber and peace would elude her. She reached the door and groped for its handle in the darkness, but the rough wooden planks swung suddenly inward.
“You’re late.”
She jerked at the sound of the voice, irate and quiet, then trailed her eyes up the familiar blue and tan uniform filling the doorway. What was the gendarme doing here? In her home? With the children?
“You missed the meeting.”
She pushed against him, hoping for the barest glimpse of Danielle or Serge or Victor. But he grabbed her arm and used his wide body to block her view of the bed where her children should be lying.
“Unhand me, or I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” he growled. “Tell Citizen Belanger I was here?”
A cold edge of fear skittered up her back. She tried to shove past him again, but only ended up trapped against his chest. “I said let me go.”
“You’re in no position to make demands. Not after you missed tonight’s rendezvous.” His fingers dug hard into her arm. “Where were you?”
“I’ll tell you nothing until I know my children are safe.”
“And what if they’re not?”
The moisture leached from her mouth. She growled low in her throat and barreled into him. The gendarme’s sturdy form stumbled back, just a step or two, but enough for her to reach the inside of the cottage and glimpse her children, all sleeping in the bed.
“They’re fine,” she stated, more to herself than him.
“They won’t be if you continue dallying. I received word from Alphonse Dubois today. He feels the two of us have taken too long to complete our duties here. He’s sending men.”
“Men?”
Panic reignited in her belly. The arrival of more of Alphonse’s men could only mean one thing: her father-in-law intended to drag her and the children back to Calais.
The gendarme frowned at her. “You didn’t know.”
“Non. How would I know?”
He took hold of her shoulders, his hands strong and tight. “I assumed that’s why you skipped our meeting. That you’d found out about Alphonse’s men and had left town.”
She merely shook her head.
“Whether you knew or not changes nothing. I came for my proof. Where is it?”
In the trunk. A cold dread settled over her heart. “I told you before, I have no proof.”
Because maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation for the items hidden in the stable. Maybe Jean Paul hadn’t killed Henri but instead had—
“You’re hiding something.”
The breath froze in her lungs. Why, oh, why was she cursed with the inability to tell a lie?
His fingers dug harder into her shoulders. “What do you know?”
“N-nothing.”
“You’re lying again.” He jerked her nearer, so close his breath fanned against her cheek and the stubble from his evening beard stood out against his skin despite the faint light from the lantern. “Alphonse’s men are not a light threat. Tell me what you know, or you’ll get both of us killed.”
She raised her chin and clenched her jaw tightly.
“Do I have to hold a knife to the babe’s throat to get you to speak?”
“Non!” She fought against his grip and reached out to rake her nails down his cheek.
He spun her around and clamped her hard against his chest, using one arm across the middle of her body to anchor both her body and her arms against him.
“Look at your younglings.” He fisted a hand in her hair and jerked her head until she viewed the pallet where her three beautiful children lay. “Do you want them dead?”
She pressed her eyes shut. “Non.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
Father, forgive me, she cried silently to the heavens. How had she gotten here, to this place where she must choose between an honorable man or her own sweet children? She didn’t want to choose one over the other. She wanted to protect both.
But she’d lost the chance to protect everyone the moment she agreed to Alphonse’s plan.
“Well, what’s it to be?” the gendarme growled in her ear.
Moisture blurred her vision as she stared at her children. “Citizen Belanger…”
She couldn’t do it. Her shoulders slumped, and the air rushed from her lungs.
“Speak, wench.”
“He…He…” Her tongue fumbled thick and clumsily in her mouth.
The gendarme’s grip tightened around her middle, digging into her stomach until she could hardly draw breath. “I’ll not give you another chance.”
She swallowed and forced the words out. “He has a National Guard uniform hidden away.”
“Ha! So he is the man!” The gendarme released her at once, leaving her gasping for air as she spun to face him. “I’ll tell Alphonse to move forward.”
“Move forward? You can’t!”
A catlike smile twisted his face. “Can’t what? We finally have the evidence we need.”
“But…but…you have no proof Jean Paul is the man Alphonse seeks,” she blurted.
“Don’t be a fool. You saw the soldiers who travelled with the representatives-on-mission during the Terror. You know they wore the blue of the National Guard.”
“Yes, but there are thousands of men who have worn such coats for one reason or another since the Révolution started. It only means that he was once in the National Guard, perhaps even while he was in Paris. It doesn’t mean…doesn’t mean…”
He killed Henri.
For once, there was no sneer upon the guard’s lips, no cruel glint in his eyes. “Don’t allow yourself to feel g
uilt. ’Tis easier that way. Meet me tomorrow in the woods after dark. All you need do is bring me his uniform’s coat, and I’ll give you your money. You’ve done your job, now let Alphonse do his.”
“But you’re going to kill Jean Paul!” Her throat felt as though a liter of sand had been forced down it.
“Oui.”
“He doesn’t deserve to die.”
The gendarme took up a sack leaning against the wall by the door and swung it over his shoulder. “If Citizen Belanger had any part in the Terror, he deserves to die. You can hardly argue the point.”
“But you don’t know that he did. All I found was a uniform. Do your coat and breeches mean you were involved in the Terror?”
The gendarme’s jaw hardened. “’Tis evidence enough that you found the uniform hidden when you add it to Citizen Belanger’s disappearance from Abbeville, plus the exorbitant amounts of money he brought with him from Paris and used to buy up land. He probably got that money looting the dead.”
“Non. It’s not enough evidence. Not at all. I need more time.”
“For what? The coat buys your family its freedom to move to Reims.”
“I don’t want your filthy money, and I don’t want…” To move to Reims.
The thought struck her, hard and cold and perhaps a bit life-altering. She hardly knew when that had changed, but as she stood here this night, facing a man who might well kill her children if it benefited himself, she wanted nothing more to do with him or Alphonse—regardless of the gold-tinged promises they made.
“Don’t want what?” the gendarme prodded, one eyebrow cocked arrogantly high.
“Anything from you or Alphonse. Stop toying with my life. I’m a person, real flesh and blood. Not some puppet to be manipulated.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. We’re all puppets. Bring me the uniform at our usual location tomorrow night, and it might appease Alphonse enough so that his men won’t come for you. Either that, or tell me where the uniform is hidden and I’ll retrieve it myself.”
She’d never betray Jean Paul in such a manner. “You can’t make me do either.”
“You haven’t much choice. If I have to seek you out again, I won’t leave your children to sleep so peacefully.” He turned and stormed outside, the door slamming behind him with such force the entire house shook. Serge sighed and squirmed a bit at the noise before settling into stillness, Victor moaned, but Danielle sprang up from the bed far too quickly for a child who’d been sleeping.
“Citizen Belanger, Maman? You’ve been spying on him all this time? How could you?”
Brigitte sank to the floor, icy tremors racking her body. She’d just agreed to sacrifice the man she was falling in love with to keep Alphonse happy.
How could she indeed?
Chapter Seventeen
“Answer my question.” Danielle tromped to where Brigitte slumped on the dirt floor, her back braced against the cottage’s single chair. “How could you?”
“I hadn’t a choice.” She kept her gaze pinned on her hands, the very hands that had been running over Jean Paul’s hidden National Guard uniform a mere hour ago.
“You lie. Everyone has a choice not to play traitor.”
“You heard that man. He would have harmed you or your brothers.”
Danielle’s nostrils flared. “He only said it so you would comply.”
She let out a short, bitter laugh. “Your lives are not something I’m willing to risk.”
“Is that how you explain betraying Citizen Belanger?” Danielle tightened her fists into white-knuckled little balls at her sides.
Brigitte stared blankly at the packed dirt floor. ’Twas little point in hiding her doings now that the gendarme had appeared. “I’ve been on a mission for your grandfather, if you must know. He demanded I fulfill a task for him before we move to Reims.”
“What kind of mission?”
Brigitte looked away. Admitting her misdeeds wasn’t supposed to be so difficult, especially not to a girl of three and ten. But then, none of this was supposed to be difficult. Because when she first arrived at the farmstead two weeks ago, she should have found a hardened murderer, not a kind man with a gruff exterior. Not a man who gave them lodging and work. Not a man who cared for her children when she’d fallen ill and fed half of Abbeville’s widows. Not a man the town loved and respected and might well elect to be their next mayor.
She pushed herself off the floor and moved to where her night dress sat on the shelf. “’Tis not important. It’s nearly done, anyway, and then we’ll leave.”
Danielle stepped in front of her, the girl’s back rigid in the dim glow of the lantern’s light. “You just betrayed Citizen Belanger. I heard you! Is Grand-père why we’re here? Why you asked Citizen Belanger for a post when he’d never sought a housekeeper?”
Brigitte pressed a hand to her pounding temple. “I told you not to worry yourself, and I meant it. No more questions.”
“Grand-père wants Citizen Belanger because he thinks Citizen Belanger killed Papa, doesn’t he?”
“’Tis complicated, Danielle. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t?” Desperation crept into the girl’s young voice. “What is Grand-père going to do? I want answers.”
“And you’re in no place to get them,” she snapped, then reached around Danielle to grab her flimsy night rail off the shelf. “Now mind yourself, daughter. I’ll not tolerate disrespect.”
“Non. And you won’t need to.” Danielle reached up and yanked her own dress down. “Because I’m not going to stay here and help a mother who’s decided to hurt a man like Citizen Belanger.”
Before Brigitte could reply, Danielle turned and rushed out the door into the night.
*
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Jean Paul groaned and rolled over in his bed, then settled back into slumber.
Thump. Thump.
The annoying sound resonated through the house yet again.
He pried an eyelid open, glimpsed the gray light seeping in around the shutters then slammed his eye shut. Whatever the noise was, it could wait. He’d been up half the night, more than half the night, pondering what to do with Brigitte. Praying and praying only to have his words fall back around him like dried corn husks, useless and dead. He needed some sleep if he was going to face the fields in another hour or so.
If he was going to face Brigitte.
Thump. Thump. Thump. “Jean Paul?”
Brigitte. His eyes shot open and he propped himself up on his elbows. She alone could manage to say his name in that tone of voice. He’d half expected her to return and demand her old post back, but why was she here at this hour? The sky was barely light.
“Jean Paul!” The familiar voice shouted again, more panicked this time.
He jumped from the bed and yanked on his trousers.
“Just a moment.” He left the bedchamber and padded to the front door, then pulled it open. “I’m glad you came. I was worried after I sent you…”
His mouth ceased working as he ran his eyes down her disheveled form. A jagged tear marred the hem of her dress and mud coated her skirts. No mobcap sat upon her head, and half her hair tumbled haphazardly down her back while the other half looked about to fall from where it had been pinned up. She pressed a sleeping Victor to her chest and blinked at him through eyes rimmed with red and smudged with shadows. Serge, just as weary and dirty as his mother, had plopped himself onto the ground, closed his eyes and was leaning his back against the outer wall of the house.
Had he done this to her? Had sending her away last night transformed her from a woman with soft smiles and kind words into the distraught person standing before him now? “Brigitte, I’m sor—”
“You have to help.” She clasped his arm with her free hand. “Danielle ran off, and I can’t find her.”
Danielle had run off? The daughter who wanted to learn knife handling so she had a means of protecting her family had suddenly decided to desert them? �
�When?”
Brigitte’s chin quivered. “Last night.”
He reached out and took her hand between both of his, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “You’ve been wandering around in the dark looking for her?”
“What if she ran into trouble? What if someone found her and tried to…tried to…” Her eyes filled with tears, and the trembling returned to her chin.
“Come here.” He opened his arms and gathered her close. She felt right there, curled into his arms with her body snug against his. Even the sleeping babe fit easily between the two of them.
Her sobs came in little waves, and she buried her face in his shoulder.
He stroked her hair. “Everything will be all right. I’ll go search for her shortly. Just calm yourself first.”
But she only cried harder. He kissed the top of her tangled hair and tilted her chin up until her moist eyes met his.
“Y-you’d do that for me? After last night, I…”
“Hush.” He laid his finger over her cracked lips. “I was a fool last night. Forgive me.”
“But…”
“I told you to hush. Here now, come inside and rest a spell.” He led her to the rocker, and when she sank into the worn wooden chair, he pried the babe from her arms.
“It’s my fault, all my fault. I drove her off, and now I can’t find her.” She shuddered before sniffing back another bout of tears. “She might be hurt or captured. She’s probably scared and cold and hungry…”
He laid Victor on the bed nearest the door, then returned. “She’s a bright girl with more than a bit of determination in her blood. No one’s got reason to hurt or capture her. She’s probably lost, is all.” And she was hardly going to be cold with the heat they’d been having. But it seemed best to let Brigitte figure that out herself.
She stared straight ahead at the empty fireplace. “Of course.”
“Let me lay Serge abed, then I’ll head out. I know these woods, Brigitte. I’ll find her within an hour or so.”
She didn’t look at him or smile at his reassurance, but merely kept rocking methodically back and forth, back and forth, and staring at the cold, gray hearth.
*
It took little more than an hour before he spotted the small curl of smoke against the spotless blue sky. ’Twas only a few minutes later when he strolled up to the crude campsite.