“Yes, he is. And we’ll take him home one day to play with his brothers and his cousins.”
“We’ll take him to Austin’s basketball games, too.” Startled, she looked at Kevin. “Austin. I have to tell him.”
“I know you didn’t want me to call him, but I couldn’t wait any longer. He had to know. I told him not to come home until the summer league is over, unless there was a serious need for him to be here.”
JL nodded, understanding quite clearly what Kevin meant by serious need. “I couldn’t have handled that conversation. Thank you for calling him.”
JL relaxed her hand. Touching her baby wasn’t nearly as scary as she’d imagined. She thought back—because her long-term memory was about ninety-nine percent functional at this point—to the nights she and Kevin made love under the down comforter at the Colorado ranch. She knew she was pregnant before they returned to MacKlenna Farm from their skiing holiday.
And hopefully Kevin was right. Their love would keep Lawrence alive.
Just as she was calming her fears, easing her anxiety, an alarm sounded, and Anne rushed to her side…
15
Paris (1789)—Sophia
What should be up was down.
Sophia had plowed into the soft fabric of the adjustable top and hit her head. It hurt almost worse than her knee. The two halves of the roof began to separate, and she could see daylight between the stretched seams. If the seams ripped open, she would be dumped out, trampled on, and pitched into the river.
None of those possibilities were survivable.
“Clear a path. Calm those horses,” a man roared above the din. “You men… Get over there and get this carriage right-side-up. That’s Ambassador Jefferson’s carriage. Clear a path now!”
The horses whinnied and struggled as the carriage hung, teetering—neither falling nor standing upright. Sophia gritted her teeth and struggled to make out what was happening by sound alone, the best she could manage while she was upside down.
The quick thrust of her heartbeat banged violently in her eardrums. She was too terrified to believe her luck would last and she’d be rescued from the clutches of death a second time.
Why was this happening? Had she pissed off the brooch god? If he, she, or it was sending her a message saying she had abused her ownership of the brooch and was now suffering the consequences, then oh, man, the brooch god didn’t have to worry about her.
She’d received the message loud and clear. Get her home safely, please, and she’d never use the brooch again.
“Calm those horses,” the same man shouted, closer now.
A blur of mounted soldiers in white breeches and dark blue jackets flashed on one side of the carriage. Grunting, they forced the carriage back into its upright position. When it landed squarely on its four wheels, the carriage bounced once, twice, propelling Sophia up against the bench seat. Pain shot up her leg, she grabbed her knee and screamed.
The door flew open. A soldier with a chest full of medals and a silly powdered wig with rolls above the ears jumped aboard, swooped her up in his arms, and set her gently on the seat.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked.
Through clenched teeth she said, “It’s my knee. There’s nothing you can do.”
He shouted out the window, “Calm those horses before they pull this carriage off the bridge.” He leaned forward, staring at her, his elbows on his knees. “You’re not Mademoiselle Jefferson. You must be…” His voice trailed off, but his gaze, if possible, grew more intense, a strange, vibrating stare, as if he were trying to bore straight through her eyeballs to the back of her head.
Sophia bit back threatening tears as pain radiated down her leg. “I’m Sophia Orsini. I’m…a guest.”
He gave her a knowing look. “The artist?”
She tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t obey. It was too busy gnawing on her lip to keep from screaming again. “Patsy… Polly… Mr. Short… They climbed out when the carriage got hung up…in the crowd. It was safer…to be on foot. The carriage was rocking…back and forth. The girls were so scared.”
His tone shifted, taking on a sympathetic weight, but he didn’t take his intense gaze from her. “Why’d you stay behind?”
“I can’t walk.” The pain was unbearable now, and she was afraid she might have torn her ACL, or worse. She needed ice and a pain reliever before she bit her lip in two. “The mob would have knocked me over.”
“Do you know which way they went?”
“Toward the Place de la Concorde.”
He squinted, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “I don’t know that place. Where is it?”
“The Place—” She stopped and tried again, looking closely at her rescuer. “The Place de Louis XV. If they can get through the square, they’re planning to walk home on the Champs-Élysées.”
A soldier opened the door and looked inside. “General, the horses are under control, and we’ve cleared the path forward. What are your orders, sir?”
General?
Her pain synapses fogged up her brain and shrouded her mental portrait gallery with a thick, undulating fog. Who was this man?
“Turn the carriage around. Form an escort on both sides. Proceed toward the Champs-Élysées.”
“Are you remaining inside, sir?” the soldier asked.
“For the moment, yes. Keep my mount close by and go slowly. We’re looking for Ambassador Jefferson’s daughters and Mr. Short.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier closed the door and ordered the rioters to move aside so the carriage could make the turn.
The general sat back and looked at her. “Is your knee broken?”
“No, it’s a bad MCL sprain, possibly impacting the ACL.”
He came back at her with another squint and creased brow. “What is this…this…? MCL?”
She had no idea when the ligament was identified and first treated, and at this point she hurt too much to care. “A medial collateral ligament supports the knee along the inner side of the leg. It can be injured by a severe knee twist, which is what I did when I stepped in the pothole in front of the Hôtel de Langeac. Right now I need to ice and rest my knee and, most of all, stop reinjuring it.”
“Are you a physician too?”
“No, but I’ve studied human anatomy, and I’m an athlete…” When he looked at her oddly, she said. “I like to be active, and I’ve had my share of injuries.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through the pain. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t come along. I could be floating facedown in the Seine by now.”
“We were on our way to Versailles when I recognized the ambassador’s carriage. How did you come to be here?”
“We were coming back from Monsieur Watin’s atelier and couldn’t get turned around.” She opened her eyes and studied the general’s medals and red, white, and blue cockade. If she could think clearly, surely she would remember his name. “I’m so sorry to hold you up. I’m sure you have plenty to do today.”
“It’s my responsibility to see you safely back to the Hôtel de Langeac. Matter of fact, I just left there.”
Ah, now she knew the identity of her rescuer—General Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, known in America simply as Lafayette. Hanging upside down must have caused the confusion, because the general looked exactly like his portrait by Joseph-Désiré Court.
During her research trip to Paris in the spring, her tour guide had taken her to Cimetière Picpus, the only private cemetery in Paris. The cemetery was the final resting place of more than thirteen-hundred people, including members of Lafayette’s family, who were guillotined and dumped there in a mass grave in 1794. He and his wife were buried nearby. Sophia knew very little about him other than he was a hero of the American and French Revolutions.
“I apologize for not recognizing you, General. It’s such an honor to meet you, sir, and to personally thank you for your service to America.”
He slightl
y tipped his tricorn. “It was my honor.”
She liked the way his eyebrows lifted, liked their color, too, which was a few shades darker than his hair, slashing above his bright eyes.
“And may I say, mademoiselle,” he continued, “you are as beautiful as the ambassador described.”
Despite the pain, she managed a slight smile. “He was being kind.”
“The ambassador mentioned you had a knee injury, and even described the crutches you designed.” Lafayette picked one up off the floor and ran his hand along the smooth wood. “I would like to show these to the physicians at the Les Invalides. There are dozens of men missing a leg who would receive immense benefit from having a pair.”
“I’m sure Mr. Jefferson would give you a copy of his altered design to share with them.”
The carriage lurched as it turned around, and she instinctively clutched the edge of the seat. The coachman drove faster now that he had a clear path, and the mounted soldiers rode next to them on both sides.
“I’m afraid we’ll miss Polly and Patsy. I can’t see much from these windows.”
“We can pull the top back,” Lafayette said.
She stared at the buttons holding his dark blue uniform jacket closed over his warlike chest. “We started out with it down, then ran into the mob, got scared, and closed it. With you here, though, the crowd doesn’t frighten me.”
Lafayette unlatched and lowered each side of the soft fabric that formed the roof of the carriage. The breeze swept over her, captured her hair, and lifted it lightly around her face. The coolness brought slight relief from the heat, but did nothing for the pain.
When they reached the Place de Louis XV, the carriage moved slowly along the edge of the crowd. A host of anxious faces turned toward them, and the din of jeering protestors died away as the carriage and escort passed by. This was as close as she’d ever come to a carriage ride through a European city with royalty. She was slightly tempted to do the queen’s wave.
If she was considering waving to the madness, she needed to lie down and apply a cool cloth to her forehead. She clasped her hands and searched the crowd, soon realizing it would be impossible to find the girls in the throng of thousands. Lafayette frowned as he searched the plaza.
His worries went much deeper than finding two lost girls. Storming the Bastille was only the first in a series of clashes between the French people’s revolutionary spirit and their leaders’ monarchical ambitions. The general understood that. Was he thinking about what would happen when the king came to Paris, or were his thoughts further removed to say…next month, next year, a decade from now?
His black, leather-booted foot tapped against the floor, and he held his hands slightly apart, as if holding his reins. He obviously preferred to be on horseback. If she was an experienced equestrian without a knee injury, she’d rather be on a horse too. Being high above the crowd would allow him to see farther and assess the situation more quickly. And his well-trained horse, trotting alongside, didn’t seem to be at all skittish despite the noise and congestion.
“General, would you be able to spot the girls more easily if you were on horseback? I’m sure they would be far more likely to see you.”
His tight lips relaxed into a grin. “The ambassador would appreciate my careful watch over his guest.”
“You can watch me just as easily on horseback. I’m fine. Really. And if it helps find the girls sooner, you should go.”
“I’ll have one of my men ride with you.” He signaled the soldier who had conversed with him earlier.
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “Your escort is sufficient.”
Lafayette spoke quickly to the soldier, who immediately relayed a message to the coachman. The carriage rolled to a stop, and he climbed out. As he closed the door he said, “I’ll be close by.”
The coachman turned onto the Champs-Élysées. Hundreds of rioters, or protestors, or just angry Frenchmen, were striding briskly down both sides of the boulevard toward the square. Polly must be almost hysterical being out in this chaos. Sophia couldn’t return to the Hôtel de Langeac without her and Patsy.
I’m in a Paris state of…Hell.
As soon as they arrived at Jefferson’s residence, she would send Lafayette and his men on their way, and she would wait in the carriage until William and the girls made it home.
They hadn’t gone very far on the Champs-Élysées when a small voice yelled, “Mademoiselle. Wait!”
Sophia whipped around in the seat, turning toward the voice. “Stop!” The carriage rolled to a jerky stop. She stood on one foot, holding tightly to the side of the coach while she searched the tree-lined boulevard.
Lafayette rode up beside her. “What is it, mademoiselle?”
She hissed as a surge of pain ran up her leg. “I…heard Polly. They’re close by…but I don’t see them. Do you?” Oh, God. She had to find them. She cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Polly! Patsy! Where are you?”
He turned around in the saddle and stood in his stirrups. He pointed. “There. I see them.” The general trotted his horse through the traffic on the boulevard and executed a perfect emergency dismount when he neared the girls and Mr. Short.
Overwhelmed with relief, Sophia collapsed into the seat and buried her face in her hands. She’d survived another horrible day, and, thanks to William and General Lafayette, the girls would arrive home uninjured.
Her back and neck were stiff from the tension and being tossed around. She rubbed the hardened muscles at the top of her spine.
What would Jefferson say when he heard what had happened to them? He would blame her for endangering the welfare of his children. It had been a mistake to go shopping. Monsieur Watin was a successful color merchant, and William could easily have found him and delivered a message.
She’d made a complete muddle of things. Maybe she should ask Watin for a recommendation for alternate housing before Jefferson showed her the door.
Damn brooch.
Why had it dumped her here and now? She shoved her hand into her pocket and rubbed the pearl with her thumb.
But it remained cold as winter ice.
16
Richmond, VA—JL
JL’s heart lodged in her throat as her baby was surrounded by his medical team in an instant. She looked up at Kevin, standing behind her wheelchair, and in a pleading voice said, “Do something.”
Kevin’s head snapped up, and JL jerked when an instrument clanged to the tile floor.
“We have to let the medical professionals take care of him,” he said. “I wish I could do something other than stay out of the way and pray, but…”
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, her voice breaking.
Kevin scratched his head, rubbed the base of his neck. “Probably his lungs, but it could be anything.” He pulled JL’s wheelchair back out of the way and held her hand. His hand was freezing—which was weird, because Kevin’s body was like a furnace. In the winter, he ran in lightweight running tights. If he was cold now, it meant he was scared. Since he knew a hell of a lot more about medicine than she did, if he was scared, she was terrified. Claws of fear crawled through her, digging into her flesh as it crept up her spine.
She covered his hand with hers, sandwiching it in her shaky grip. A technician of some sort pushed a machine over to the incubator.
Anne moved away from the huddle to make room for the machine and came over to them. “Dr. Fox believes your son’s lungs have collapsed. They’re doing a chest X-ray to confirm the diagnosis.”
“Will he have to have surgery?” JL was slipping into shock, numb with fear. She heard once that time was supposed to lengthen when a person was in shock, that the body shuts itself down. But she was experiencing just the opposite. Seconds raced by, pinprick sharp with unnecessary detail—other parents, murmuring voices around her, bubbling and gurgling machines, a small, helpless cry, Kevin’s still-cold hand. She had to filter through it all, pitch extraneous details aside, and focus only o
n what was important—Lawrence.
Anne continued in a kind, soft voice that made JL’s eyes prickle with tears. “This is not uncommon in preemies. If the X-ray confirms the diagnosis, treatment will be based on the severity of the symptoms.”
JL reached for a tissue in the pocket of her robe, unfolded it, searching for a dry corner to wipe her eyes. “Why’d this happen to him? Hasn’t he had enough trauma?”
“The tiny air sacs in Lawrence’s lungs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged burst and cause air to escape. Preemies have very fragile lungs. As soon as Dr. Fox looks at the X-rays, she’ll know better how to treat him.”
JL rested her forehead in her hand. Didn’t they know her brain was sluggish from drugs and pain and worry? “Everybody keeps giving me medical information, but my brain’s too fuzzy to grasp all this.”
Kevin massaged her shoulder with his free hand, the pressure tingling every nerve in her body. With their hands still clasped, she lifted her thumb to slide against his. His thumb, his hand, his body were a bulwark, a place of safety for her. Kevin was normally so unruffled, but all bets were off now.
Which scared the hell out of her.
“We don’t want to be in the way,” he said, his voice shaky as he sat still and stricken. His cheeks appeared hollow in the shadow of the lights, and his eyes were wide and desperate. Did hers look the same as his?
“For now you can stay right here. I’ll keep you informed.” Anne returned to the huddle, glanced back over her shoulder, and gave JL a tight smile lasting only a couple of seconds.
“I don’t have the strength or a working brain to understand what’s happening or what I need to do.” She was a trained cop used to handling dangerous and life-threatening situations, able to act on a dime, read body language…but not today. She was out of her element.
Other women she knew who’d had C-sections never complained of being unable to function, to think, to respond. Charlotte. Where was Charlotte? She’d know what was wrong. Where was Pete? He’d get answers.
The Pearl Brooch Page 20