Dearly & Lovesick Lorraine (Dearly and The Departed #6)
Prologue
Lorraine Joly
Normandy, France1669
“Where is he? Where is Claude?” I stared at his wretched mother Elisa as she stood in the dreary hobble my poor Claude was forced to call home.
Claude’s father was the town blacksmith and not highly revered. Most villagers went elsewhere for their smithing needs because his work was shoddy. My Claude deserved to live the life of a king, and with me, he would have it.
Elisa should have known better than to lie to me. She had witnessed the damage I could unleash on those who crossed me, yet she stood there with a defiant glint in her eyes.
“You harlot! You’ll never see Claude again. We’ve sent him far away from the likes of you, just like his brother Pierre. You’ll never have either of my boys in your clutches as long as I’m alive.”
“I can arrange your end easily.”
She had no room to talk about being a harlot. Though Claude carried the blacksmith’s last name, the man wasn’t Claude’s birth father. Pierre, the older son, carried the name d’Erlie, and could remember his ne’er-do-well father. My poor Claude never knew the man because the coward fled, leaving Elisa to raise her sons alone so her husband could avoid service to his king.
The blacksmith, Gerard Bonfils, took Claude as his son when he was but a small child. As much as Elisa tried to insist Claude was Gerard’s biological son, many villagers remembered the events surrounding the birth of her sons, though they never spoke of them as a courtesy to the blacksmith.
Elisa had brought shame to her sons, to the end that Pierre left to make a life far away from his family. Claude was more attached to his mother, but I would take him away and make a better life for him without her meddling.
Before I pulled the dagger from my cloak to end her miserable life, Elisa ran into the lane and began shouting, “ Witch! Witch! Lorraine Joly is a witch!” The police rushed from the local station, and I was suddenly subdued by both arms.
“What proof have you?” one of the policemen asked her.
“She bewitched my son to the point I had to send him to the Royal Navy to clear his head. She cast a spell on Claude, and he was going to run away with her. She is a witch, I tell you!”
I was dragged away and imprisoned for a fortnight without the benefit of counsel. Elisa Bonfils and her worthless husband lined up liar after liar to say they’d witnessed me committing unnatural acts. I did not deny committing the acts. I denied any of them had witnessed my actions.
As I was led to the guillotine, I stood before the crowd cheering for my death. I searched the crowd and finally found Elisa and Gerard near the front. “I will find Claude, and I will have him. He is my fate. I love him and he loves me, and we will be together.”
The executioner’s assistant forced me to my knees, my head secured in the stock. My last thought was of my sweet Claude. I vowed I would never stop searching for him if it took all of eternity.