Chapter Seventeen
Céleste held tight to Adèle as the carriage traversed the streets of Paris.
Jean-Francois and Marguerite had kept to their decision not to leave the city.
So had Henri and Nicolette. Adèle was the only family Céleste had with her now, and even she didn’t want to be there.
The little girl fussed and fidgeted, asking alternately for her mother and her tonton Henri. Céleste felt painfully alone.
She had learned at Adèle’s age, probably younger even, to push down her emotions and keep her calm. A few deep breaths and thick swallows usually did the trick. But Adèle’s increasingly frequent complaints were undermining what calm Céleste was managing to cling to.
“Let her come sit with us,” Julia said, reaching for their tiny traveling companion. “I think you need a moment’s respite.”
Adèle made the transfer without waiting for Céleste to facilitate it.
My only family and she is eager to be away from me.
Julia held Adèle on her lap while Lucas read to her from a book of tales they’d brought with them from Adèle’s nursery. That settled Adèle a little, but it left Céleste with too much opportunity for thinking.
They’d left Henri and Nicolette behind. Climbed into the carriage, knowing Paris had fallen ever further into violent chaos, and left her brother and best friend behind.
And the streets they were passing through were growing louder.
Nicolette had shared everything she knew about the locations and nature of the uprisings so they could avoid those parts of Paris. But so much could change in a city under siege. Mobs were mobile and unpredictable.
Beside Céleste, Aldric alternated between watching out the carriage window and studying the map on his lap.
He now and then tapped on the ceiling of the carriage.
The driver tapped the roof in response. The number of taps varied.
After a back-and-forth, the carriage often turned, going down a different street.
It wasn’t difficult to sort out what was happening.
Aldric was communicating with the driver as they navigated the dangerous streets even though he couldn’t see what the driver could and neither man could talk to each other.
It was complex and well thought-out, a strategic accomplishment worthy of one known as the General.
Yet he’d hardly even tried to convince Henri and Nicolette not to remain behind in a place where their lives were in danger.
“Where are we going?” Adèle asked in worried tones, though to whom the question was directed wasn’t clear.
“We’re going to Fleur-de-la-Forêt,” Céleste said in the cheeriest voice she could manage.
Adèle only looked more confused. “Why are we not staying in Paris?”
“Because we thought it would be lovely to go back to the countryside for a time.” It wasn’t a lie, though it wasn’t the entirety of the story either. A five-year-old didn’t need to know they were fleeing danger brought on by her father’s foolishness and the violent anger of her countrymen.
“Is Mama coming?” Adèle asked.
“Your mama and papa will stay in Paris a little longer,” Céleste said.
The girl watched her with brows drawn. Hers wasn’t a look of disbelief but rather one of bafflement. How could Céleste explain to the child that her parents had chosen not to stay with her? She didn’t want Adèle to feel unwanted or discarded, a feeling she herself was far too familiar with.
“What do you like to do when you are at Fleur-de-la-Forêt, Adèle?” Julia asked in the very soothing tones of a mother.
Adèle thought a moment. A bit of color touched her cheeks. “I like flowers.”
“Oh,” Lucas said in excited tones. “I love flowers. Which is your favorite?”
Adèle was immediately focused on the topic. She didn’t know the names of very many flowers, but she described them, mostly in colors and the sweetness of their perfume. And through it all, Lucas and Julia listened intensely, keeping Adèle distracted and amused.
Céleste wasn’t certain she could have managed it.
For reasons she struggled to comprehend, Adèle kept Céleste a bit at arm’s length.
She didn’t think she’d ever done anything to dissuade the girl from feeling warmly connected to her.
Adèle trusted her enough to ask about her parents’ whereabouts, which was something.
A minute something, but it was all she really had.
A particularly jarring turn of the carriage sent them all sliding on their seats. Céleste was thrown against Aldric. He snatched hold of her, preventing her from being tossed about further. Julia held Adèle in a protective embrace, with Lucas assuming much the same posture Aldric was.
A rhythmic rapping on the roof was answered by two quick knocks from Aldric in the very moment his gaze focused once more on the map on his lap. A moment later, he pulled his arm away from Céleste and knocked on the roof again.
The carriage turned, then turned again.
Céleste kept her attention on him, wanting to trust that everything would be well in the end but struggling to believe it. He must have felt her gaze on him; he looked up from his map.
“We will get out of Paris,” he said quietly but firmly.
“I made a promise that Adèle would be safe,” she whispered in response.
“I made the same promise, but about you.” He looked back at his map. “I’ve never broken a promise to Henri. I won’t start now.”
Henri was staying in this city they were trying so hard to get out of. He and Nicolette were in danger.
And we just left them.
In a light and airy voice, Lucas asked Adèle, “If you could have either a blue flower or a purple one, which would you choose?” That offered the little girl a much-needed distraction.
Céleste had no such reprieve. Indeed, in the very next moment the smell of smoke wafted inside, accompanied by angry voices not as far distant as she would have preferred.
On the carriage rolled, veering down streets that were growing more unfamiliar.
Throughout it all, Aldric consulted his map and conversed with the driver through knocks.
We left them.
Another swift and sudden turn of the carriage tossed her against Aldric once more. Again, on what appeared to be pure instinct, he braced her against further battering. But he didn’t speak. Only Lucas and Adèle did. Julia still held the little girl, but she was watching the window.
And the air tasted of smoke.
“We shouldn’t have left Henri and Nicolette,” Céleste whispered. “We should have convinced them to come with us.”
“They wouldn’t have agreed.” Aldric’s unbending focus was frustrating.
There was no regret in his expression, no concern.
He couldn’t possibly not realize the danger his closest friend was now in.
He had to know the possible outcome of that.
But it wasn’t enough to spur him into action on Henri’s behalf.
Céleste pushed away the uncharitable thought.
She didn’t actually believe Aldric was indifferent to Henri’s well-being.
And though he hadn’t known Nicolette as long, he most certainly cared what happened to her as well.
That he had abandoned his efforts to convince them to leave Paris as quickly as he had was both baffling and maddening, but she would not allow her worries to make her hate him.
She shifted back to the other end of the bench they shared, putting space between them once more.
She peeked through the gap in the curtains on that side of the carriage.
This was not an area of Paris she recognized, and it was not the path they usually took when leaving the city for Fleur-de-la-Forêt.
And the streets they took were far from empty.
Other carriages and carts and people on foot attempted to weave around each other.
There was a franticness to the movements that only added to Céleste’s unease.
Smoke in the air. Fear on everyone’s faces.
We left them.
That thought would not leave her mind as the miles and hours passed, as they left Paris far behind.
Julia fell asleep with her head resting on Lucas’s shoulder. Adèle slept on his lap. Aldric was watching through the windows.
“How likely do you suppose it is,” Lucas asked her, “that the violence in Paris will spill beyond its borders?”
Céleste thought back on the conversations she’d overheard amongst those more attuned to the political situation. She thought back on the Marquis de Lafayette and his description of Paris as a powder keg.
“The anger in this country is not confined to its capital,” she said. “I doubt the violence will be contained much longer either.”
“According to accounts in the papers,” Aldric said, “fears of famine and the belief that it is being orchestrated are rampant in the countryside.”
That was entirely true. “France is ready to tear itself apart,” she said.
“You have a family to think of, Lucas,” Aldric said. “Once Adèle and Céleste are safe at Fleur-de-la-Forêt, you and Julia should continue on to Calais without delay. You need to get home to your sons.”
“But Henri is still—”
“I will go back for Henri, and I will get him home as well. You will have to pass through some tense areas of this country. You would do better to do so before the violence spreads.”
“What if something happens to you or Henri?” Lucas pressed. “I can’t abandon you.”
Here was the conviction and determination that Céleste had wanted to see in Aldric when Henri had insisted on remaining in Paris.
“I won’t lose another Gent,” Aldric said. “That includes you. That includes Julia. Not everyone has a family worth saving; I won’t endanger yours.”
“What about mine?” Céleste asked quietly. “Henri and Nicolette are my family, and they are in danger.”
That neither Aldric nor Lucas answered immediately didn’t calm her concerns. Worry knotted her stomach and twisted painfully in her chest.
“I won’t lose another Gent,” Aldric had said. But Céleste very much feared she was about to lose nearly all her family.