by Regina Scott
Yes. He had most certainly met Brigitte Moreau, and he was just as certainly falling in love with her. But how could a man forge a future with a woman whose husband he’d killed? “You said he died in the Terror, did you not?”
She nodded dumbly.
“I was there, in Calais with Representative Joseph Le Bon. I may have even arrested your husband.”
“I think you did.”
Something sharp knifed through his heart. “How do you know?”
“I was there when you took him. The whole family was.”
“Brigitte, non.” She couldn’t have been there. He’d have remembered. Or at least, he should have remembered. But there had been so many people, so many families.
He moved his hand to reach out and pull her against his chest, but she was already putting distance between them and staring blankly across the room rather than glancing his way.
“You came in the night to arrest him, yanked him out of bed where he slept beside me.” A humorless smile twisted her lips. “’Twas rare that Henri was home at all rather than warming some tavern wench’s bed. But he was there, and you came…”
Her words trailed off, but the implications saturated the air between them until he could hardly breathe. And you came. Those three words said more than he had in the past half hour.
“I remember your shadow against the moonlight from the window. A big hulking brute of a man. ’Twas what frightened me when I first approached you by the stable the other week. You were so large you reminded me of the soldier, and then you turned and moved toward me, your shadow blocking the sun, and I…I…grew ill.”
“I’m sorry.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, but her body stiffened beneath his touch. “I look back on those years of my life, and I feel naught but regret. Bitterness and grief controlled me, and I gave no thought for anyone save myself. ’Tis why I told you not to thank me for the food and shelter I’ve provided. ’Tis why I hate when the town lauds me for rescuing the mayor’s sister or when Widow Arnaud and Annalise grovel because I bring them food. I’m a murderer. I don’t deserve any gratitude. If I could go back to the Terror and sacrifice myself so that an innocent person might keep life, I would.”
He stared blearily down at his lap. “But I can’t.”
*
Jean Paul hung his head, and moisture formed in Brigitte’s eyes at the image of the strong, determined man slumped beside her.
Her worst fears were true. He had indeed killed Henri. He was the man Alphonse sought.
Could she tell the gendarme that he’d confessed? No. Never. Not even in return for her freedom. Because the listless man next to her wasn’t cruel or vicious. He was humble, a hard worker who had left his violent history behind and dedicated his life to doing good. A strong person who couldn’t rid himself of the guilt from his past.
A caring man she’d accidentally fallen in love with.
Her heart ached and her throat felt swollen and dry, her eyes gritty from tears that welled but refused to come. ’Twas as though Henri was being ripped away from her once more. Was Henri a criminal? Yes. A man deserving of death? Yes. But the hollowness that had consumed her as Jean Paul dragged her husband away against her children’s cries and her own pleas returned to fill her now. She’d had such faith in Jean Paul. He’d seemed so good and honorable and right.
“What happened?” She suddenly had to know. “How did you change from the man who arrested Henri to the man who gives away food?” Because there had to be a story. Murderers didn’t turn into benefactors on a whim.
“I passed through here while the Terror still raged.” His voice was soft in the already-quiet room. “After Le Bon visited Calais he came to this region of France. While travelling through Abbeville my men and I happened upon a girl one night. Isabelle de La Rouchecauld, second daughter of the Duc de La Rouchecauld—though I didn’t know it at the time. I suspected she was noble, though, so we beat her and left her for dead and I moved on to the next town. After all, I was too busy serving the new France and accusing people for crimes against liberty to spend much time on one forgettable girl.”
Bitterness dripped from his words, and he drew in a huge, heaving breath. “But she wasn’t dead, and Michel found her.”
“Your brother?” She nearly choked. “Did he know that you’d…you’d…”
“Non. He didn’t even know I worked for Le Bon. He thought I was in Paris making furniture. All of Abbeville still thinks that’s what I did while I was away.”
Which explained the rumors about his past. He’d left the little town for that exact reason. No one would know his life had turned into anything different unless he told them, or someone bore witness to the contrary.
“Michel took the girl in, nursed her until she was well and fell in love with her along the way. But when the Terror came to Abbeville, I returned home and found her with Michel. By then I’d heard of a duc’s daughter who had escaped capture in Arras, and I’d wondered if it had been the defiant girl we’d found on the road. But I’d left her for dead. I never thought, never would have dreamed that…that…that…”
His voice cracked, and he pressed his eyes shut. But he need not speak of the memories or the pain they evoked for her to understand. The emotions etched across his face in harsh, regretful lines.
“I was so angry, and when I saw her standing in this very house, rage filled me anew. We fought, my brother and I. ’Twas the first time I’d ever gone to blows with him.”
He blew out a breath and raked his hand through his hair. “And somewhere in all that, the girl ran off and headed to Saint-Valery to find passage to England. My men and I followed, but there were… ah…well, difficulties between me and one of the men. I ended up shot in the shoulder.”
He touched his palm to his left shoulder as though the spot still pained him.
“I wasn’t a kind superior to my men. I understand now why they wanted rid of me. And what better time to eliminate me than in a driving storm when no one was about? I deserved to die that day, and I would have, if not for Isabelle.” He smiled then, just a small upturning of lips, but it was genuine rather than bitter. “She found me, and used the money she had kept for her passage to England to pay for a physician and a room in an inn where she could nurse me.”
The air rushed out of Brigitte’s lungs, and for a long moment, she could do naught but stare at him. “She saved your life? This woman you’d tried to kill?”
“’Tis what changed my heart, what forced me to see how much of a monster I’d become. I would have killed Isabelle without guilt. But even after I’d tried first to kill her and then later to drag her to prison, she wouldn’t do the same to me. She forgave me. She reminded me of the God I’d worshiped as a little boy, and she forgave me the way Christ had forgiven her for a past crime. What choice had I but to accept her forgiveness? She sacrificed everything to save me.
“But with that forgiveness, came all the responsibility of my former life. I could hardly go on killing. Before, I’d assumed all aristocrats wicked and selfish, like Seigneur Montrose. I felt no guilt in leading such people to the guillotine. But how would I know whether the person I now took was innocent or guilty? Noble birth was no proof of a wicked heart. Isabelle herself posed quite a problem. She was a duc’s daughter and very much in love with my brother. ’Twas too dangerous for her to stay in France, and I had money…that which I’d gotten as pay, from looting those I arrested and from storming chateaux and hôtels in Paris. So I gave her and Michel money for their journey, and I took over the farm.”
“It’s a beautiful story,” she spoke softly. And it was, not because of the things he’d done during the Terror, but because of the person God had changed him into. How could she do anything but forgive him for the role he’d had in Henri’s death? “I had no idea.”
She reached for his hand, but he stood before she could slip her fingers between his.
“You must have missed the portion where I mentioned taking part in your husband’s death
.”
“But you overcame that. You turned—”
“No more, Brigitte.” He stalked to the door and yanked it open. Bright sunlight flooded inside, sorely out of place as it poured over the dark man with an even darker past.
She followed him outside. “Where are you going?”
“To the fields. Where else?”
“Wait.” He couldn’t go. Not after the way she’d betrayed him last night. She needed to tell him the truth about why she was here; then maybe they could find some way through this. Jean Paul had committed some terrible crimes, yes, but she was hardly any better after last night.
He looked at her with a dark, haunted gaze.
What she wouldn’t do to erase the tortured look from his eyes. Or to feel his arms around her, press her lips to his again. “Why don’t you sit? I can make up a meal and we’ll—”
“Not now.” He turned toward the fields then paused and looked back. “Wait for the younglings to rise, and go back to your cottage. I’m not in need of your services today.”
Something painful thudded in her chest. “And tomorrow?”
“I’ve yet to decide that.” With those words, he stalked across the yard and toward the turnip-laden field nearest the house.
But I love you! The voice inside her heart cried after him.
She couldn’t simply command the ache in her heart to disappear, not when he meant so much to her. Father, what have I done? She’d found the man that had killed her husband, and yet she hadn’t found him at all. Because the man who had sat beside her and bared his agonizing story wasn’t the same person who had stormed into her house and taken Henri. Oh, he might go by the same Christian name, might have the same large, powerful body.
But his heart was different.
’Twas almost as though he’d died and then come back to life, a new man.
If only Jean Paul’s changed heart would appease Alphonse. Why, oh, why could she not have realized how much Jean Paul meant to her yesterday, before her meeting with the gendarme?
But then, what good would that have done? The gendarme had threatened her children, and the only way she could put off that threat was to turn traitor on the man she loved.
Chapter Nineteen
The summer air hung thick and heavy about her, but Brigitte wrapped her arms tightly around herself nonetheless, warding off an inner, bone-deep chill as she hurried across the yard to the stable. She glanced quickly back toward the house, where her children still slept, and then let herself inside. The scents of hay and animal swirled around her, tangy and comforting despite the way her heart pounded against her ribs.
She headed straight to the back of the building where the trunk lay buried. In a matter of moments, she had the rectangular box uncovered and the lid raised. If only she knew what to do with the items inside.
The uniform coat lay on top, warn and tattered with its unmistakable shade of blue. She ran her hand over the rough fabric. She couldn’t turn this coat in and claim money from Alphonse, couldn’t turn traitor on the man she loved—a man the entire town loved.
But if she didn’t give the coat to Alphonse’s henchman, what else was she to do? Father God, how can I right this mess?
She waited, eyes closed, face pressed up toward the heavens, but no resounding answer thundered from above, nor did any new thought appear in her mind. Not even a whisper of an idea flitted through her spirit. She reached farther inside the trunk, hoping, praying, willing some brilliant solution to spring into her head. Instead, she ended up with dark, leatherbound book full of blank pages.
She frowned. Why would Jean Paul keep an empty journal here? She buried her hands deeper in the chest and pulled out a bicorn hat, boots and breeches, all part of the National Guard uniform. A pouch full of money and gold buttons—evidently he hadn’t spent all his money on the land. And another book, the leather cover soft with use and its sides dented and scarred. Dark, brash handwriting filling every last page.
She turned to the first page and smoothed it flat.
April 3, 1789.
Before the Révolution started.
I miss you, Corinne. People tell me I shouldn’t. That it’s been three months. That many others died during the winter considering how the crops failed. But I can’t stop myself. Sometimes my pain is so real my stomach cramps as I fall asleep, or I’ll find my eyes wet when shoveling coal. I tell my friends it’s the smell of the coal, but they suspect the tears nonetheless. So I’m going to try journaling for a spell. Mayhap if I write things down, it might help me remember you when I should, and think about other things when I need my mind elsewhere.
I’m in Paris now. Couldn’t abide to stay home after…well, after. I got a job hauling coal about a month back, and people call me Charron. I can’t say why, but I don’t want them to know me by Belanger. I thought mayhap if I changed my name and became a different man on the outside, I might be able to let go on the inside, as well. But you still visit my dreams every night, and some mornings when I wake, the memories of you are so real I struggle to get out of bed. I’d much rather fall back asleep, where I can see you and hear your voice. If only I could stay in that dream for days and weeks and months, never waking up again.
The entry ended just as abruptly as that. No mention of whether Jean Paul got out of bed the next morn. Though surely he must have dragged himself off his tick eventually, as he was still around today.
She flipped farther into the book, a single word glaring back at her numerous times from each and every entry. Corinne, Corinne, Corinne, Corinne.
When she came to the page marked 14 July 1789, she stopped and ran her fingers down it. She’d taught her children of the events of this day, but Jean Paul had evidently lived them.
We stormed the Hôtel des Invalides last night to gather guns and cannons, but found no ammunition. So we moved on to the Bastille for the gunpowder. Its stone walls hulked before us, solid and strong and unbreakable. But we used the cannons on the gates and demanded entry. Now we are armed, the king’s soldiers won’t be able to slaughter us, the prisoners are liberated, and that bastion of tyranny will no longer tower over Paris.
The journalists and pamphleteers are beside themselves with cheer. All of Paris lauds us, and I had part in it. Everyone is saying this is the beginning. Now that we have broken the Bastille, perhaps we can break the monarchy and aristocracy. Perhaps we can create for ourselves a New France. One where liberty rules rather than tyranny. One where everyone has bread on their tables and meat in their larders.
For the first time since your death, Corinne, I feel that I am doing something important. Something that matters. Just think of it. What if we can forge a France that has no more Seigneur Montroses?
Had our country been this way a year ago, you might still be alive.
Brigitte’s stomach clenched as she pored over the words. Such dreams, such anger, such grief. ’Twas little wonder he’d ended up storming through the countryside, bent on forcing the French people to accept the National Convention’s “liberty.” Liberty and force had no place together, but it had taken a Terror before the country understood that. And the man from this journal, the image of Jean Paul Belanger that these words created, seemed sick and heartbroken, willing to do anything to right the grievances against his wife.
Just like the rest of the French people had been willing to kill the king and aristocrats in the belief that doing so would mean that they could have bread.
She flipped forward, her heart leaden as she searched for yet another memorable date.
21 January 1793.
The king is dead. I went to the execution and cheered. But will his death be enough? Robespierre says no, that all who stand in the way of liberty must die. I can’t help but think of Seigneur Montrose and what he did to you, Corinne, and I want him dead. I want them all dead.
Tears slid from her face to land on the worn page. What had happened to the man from the first page of the journal? The one who looked forward to dreams of his wife ev
ery night while he slept? How had four years changed him into someone who lusted for death instead?
She turned haphazardly through the pages, searching for something she couldn’t quite name.
20 July 1793.
I shall be leaving Paris soon. The Committee of Public Safety is sending out representatives to carry liberty to the provinces. Rumors abound of citizens unwilling to bend their knees to liberty’s law. I volunteered to go. I shall miss Paris, but how can I ignore the call of liberty?
And she had her answer, what had prodded him to leave Paris and return to northern France with a guillotine. There was more writing, pages and pages of the harsh, uneven words. But she couldn’t keep reading, didn’t want to see or know the cruel things he’d done during the Terror.
She shifted back, moving the heavy book from her lap onto the hay. The journal certainly hadn’t given her any ideas about how to free Jean Paul. If anything, it incriminated him far more than the National Guard coat ever could. What was she to do?
Her eyes fell to the other items she’d pulled from the chest. And suddenly, the idea came. She had a way, one faint sliver of a chance, to protect both her children and Jean Paul.
If only she could manage it before her meeting tonight.
*
Jean Paul reached into the dirt and yanked up another weed, tossing it into a pail. The turnip field spread before him, wide and large, nearly amber in the setting sun, and full of weeds he should have dug last week. Except he’d been too distracted by Brigitte and her illness to remember his turnip field.
Brigitte. He closed his eyes. He had no business even thinking her name, let alone conjuring her image in his mind. Not after what he’d done to her husband.
He bent over, resting his arms on his knees. His back ached from twelve hours spent digging and pulling, and the knees of his trousers were so stained and damp they’d never come completely clean. He needed a quick dip in the stream, a hearty meal and a full night’s rest.