Chapter Twenty-Eight
Céleste followed the woman inside her home. “How can I make myself useful?” she asked.
“You’ll think me rude for saying so,” the woman said, “but I think what you’d best do is sit down for a minute.” That was an unexpected observation. “You look like you’re ready to topple over.”
Céleste glanced in Adèle’s direction. The girl was walking slowly around the room, studying everything she saw.
It was a humble house but had a number of items on shelves and stacked on the floor.
There was plenty enough to keep Adèle’s attention.
It wasn’t an overly conspicuous thing for her to be doing and wouldn’t offer any hints that they were pretending to be people they weren’t.
“I’ve seen disruptions at a few of the inns the last couple nights,” Céleste said. “Perhaps all of those difficulties have arisen out of Paris.”
If she could keep the woman talking on a subject she felt passionate about, there would be far less scrutiny or attention paid to any little incongruities Adèle or Céleste herself might inadvertently reveal.
“It’s likely,” the woman said, pulling a large bowl from a high shelf. “We have a friend who was in Paris only a few days ago. He left in quite a hurry.”
“Did he say why?”
The woman nodded. “A few days back, a mob arose and began tearing Paris to pieces.”
Had this man left the capital city before or after they did? “How recently was he in Paris?”
“Only left two days ago.” The woman pulled over a basket of vegetables.
“How is it he reached here so quickly?”
“The river’s faster than the roads.”
The river. She couldn’t have meant the Seine; it didn’t run through this area. There was a different river, then, that was navigable, at least in some places.
“He must be relieved to be away from the capital,” Céleste said.
The woman nodded. “The first night of trouble, the cavalry charged on the people. The people plundered every store of weapons they could find. The people were fired on at the Bastille. The violence grew; the fighting intensified. Our friend fled Paris as a call for ceasefire was being ignored and a slaughter grew terrifyingly possible.”
Céleste did her best to keep her breathing even. The people had been attacked. A slaughter. And Henri and Nicolette were there still. She glanced quickly at Adèle, grateful to discover the little girl was thoroughly distracted.
The woman handed her a basket of vegetables. “As the troublemakers in Paris fan out to the cities and villages around, they’re spreading the anger.”
“Little wonder you are particularly wary of Parisians passing through, then.”
The woman shook her head firmly. “I know why the people are angry. We’ve plenty of reasons in the countryside to be so. But I’m not looking to die over it.”
Die. People were dying. She’d known that; Nicolette had said it had already begun before they’d left Paris.
But she’d tried so hard these past days to tell herself that the situation wasn’t that dangerous.
She had to believe it wasn’t, or her worries for her brother and her dearest friend would overwhelm her.
“If you’ll wash those up for me, I’d appreciate it.”
Céleste nodded, grateful to have been given something she could easily do.
“If you’d like, you could sit outside and see to it,” the woman suggested. “That’d let your little girl there run about.”
“She would greatly appreciate that. A child of five is not a good fit for long hours in a wagon.”
“And looks like we’ll have rain before the night falls. Wherever it is you lay your heads tonight, she’ll be trapped indoors again.”
Céleste turned to Adèle. “Ma poupette, I’m going to step outside. This kind woman has said you can run about in the grass.”
“I like to run,” Adèle said.
Céleste nodded. “And you can have your fill of it.”
It took very little to see them situated on the side of the house. The woman set a chair out for Céleste and moved over a small rough-hewn table. On it she placed a bucket with a bit of water and a scrub brush.
While the woman tended to some laundry on the line, Céleste worked in quiet, glancing up repeatedly to check on Adèle as she ran and spun and jumped and giggled.
Even in the midst of all their difficulties, in an unfamiliar place, having been confined to a wagon for days, Adèle was happier than she ever was at home.
There simply had to be a way to hold on to that for her, to keep her in England as long as possible.
Even if Jean-Francois agreed to allow Céleste to live with them in France and look after Adèle and be her advocate, there was no guarantee that would be enough for her to regain these high and delighted spirits.
Céleste shook her head. She had promised Aldric she wouldn’t worry about that yet. They would keep their focus on what they were navigating just then. That meant she also needed to attempt to clear from her mind her growing concern for Henri and Nicolette.
She glanced up again to check on Adèle, but her attention was caught by another sight entirely.
Aldric was carrying an armload of firewood. And he was doing so with his thin shirt clinging to him as he worked.
Céleste’s heart leaped directly from her chest to her throat, pounding there in a way that was somehow both disconcerting and entirely pleasant.
He was . . . impressive. He’d always been something of an imposing figure.
He walked into a room, and everyone noticed.
He could stand about quietly watching and somehow be the person most in command.
When dressed in the most intricately pieced-together fashionable ensemble, he cut quite a dash.
But now, when dressed in threadbare and plain clothing, she couldn’t look away. She wasn’t even certain she was blinking.
“You two must be fairly newly married for you to still be looking at him that way.” The woman laughed a little, giving Céleste something of a sympathetic look.
“Very newly,” she said. Realizing that would make Adèle’s presence a conversational thread the woman might choose to chase down, she added, “Not many men would marry a woman who came with a niece to look after, no matter that he loved her. But mon trésor is something different, something better. He is the very best of men.”
“Oh, I suspected from the beginning you felt that way about him. And the way he looks at you would put many would-be Romeos to shame.”
The way he looks at me. There had been a great deal more tenderness between them of late.
He was sweet and kind. And while she told herself it was simply that he was a good man looking after someone in a very difficult situation, she’d wanted to believe there was something special in it, something particular to her.
This chance-met stranger insisted there was.
“Well then, don’t simply sit there pining over him. Take a moment and go put your arms around him.”
Céleste hoped the warmth of the sun on her face disguised the blush she felt creeping over her cheeks. “I don’t want to disrupt his work. I’m certain this is what he’s doing to repay your son for his kindness.”
“You’ll not be disrupting long. And I’ve never known a man who didn’t enjoy being interrupted by the woman he loves.”
She couldn’t demure further without raising suspicions. They were hiding the fact that they’d come from Paris, hiding the fact that they weren’t of the working classes, hiding the fact that they weren’t actually married. Heavens, she was tired of hiding things. And she was tired of worrying alone.
Céleste set down the vegetables and rose, wiping her hands on the rag she’d been provided with.
Aldric had just set his load of firewood down on a stack and was turning to make his way back to wherever he’d started from. She stepped into his path and looked up at him with an expression of apology. Except it must not have looked like an apology to him; his brow pulled in concern.
“Something’s upset you.”
In an instant, visions of Paris at war with itself returned vividly to her mind. She stepped closer. Though they were at a distance from the woman and unlikely to be overheard, she didn’t want to risk it.
She dropped her voice. “Our hostess had a friend arrive on the river. He left Paris a day or so after we did.”
He reached out and set his hand on her arm, not looking away.
“It’s worse than when we left. He described it like warfare.” She had to swallow again. It was getting hard to hold back her emotions, but she desperately needed to just then. Explanations could not be offered safely to the family who was helping them.
“Henri and Nicolette are clever and resourceful.” He stepped ever closer and set his other hand on her other arm. “And Nicolette has a great many friends, no doubt more than any of us realize.”
“I am trying to keep my promise not to worry over these things while we’re attempting to keep ourselves safe. But until I know—” She shook her head.
Aldric pulled her into an embrace. The warmth of him was, as always, comforting, but the rest of the experience was disconcerting in a way she was enjoying immensely.
“Until we hear otherwise,” he said, “let’s assume that when things turned particularly bad in Paris, Henri and Nicolette were wise enough to make their escape.”
“And what of Jean-Francois and Marguerite? I’m not certain they’re wise enough for anything.” She shook her head. “That’s a terrible thing to say. Especially about two people who could very well be in mortal danger.”
“I know you don’t mean it cruelly,” he whispered. “Jean-Francois might not be as wise as Henri, but he is also, in a turn of strangely fortunate events, something of a coward. I suspect as soon as the army arrived, he departed.”
“And went to Fleur-de-la-Forêt, where people who are hunting him have reduced his home to ashes. And are quite possibly following us.”
She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head. How was it that he could comfort her and send her pulse racing all at once? She didn’t want him to let go, but she knew it would likely be best if he did.
“I’ve told the woman here that Adèle is my niece, and when she guessed that you and I are newly married, I didn’t contradict her.
” It seemed best that he be in a position to tell Claude the same tale should the need arise.
“She insisted you wouldn’t mind a momentary disruption to your work, and I couldn’t refuse without raising her suspicions. ”
Aldric set two fingers under her chin, raising her face up to his. She was tall enough that she hardly had to look up at all. His smile was soft and slow. “I don’t mind the disruption.”
“And I don’t mind disrupting.” Indeed, she could have stood like that forever, the warmth of him shielding her against the slight chill in the breeze. The comfort of his embrace. The softness of his smile.
Paris Society would be shocked. London Society would probably fall over dead. Jean-Francois would be horrified. Henri might have a word or two with his friend.
But Nicolette would have laughed, not only at the absurdity of it all, but because she had likely come to suspect Céleste’s one-time feelings for Aldric, feelings Céleste had assumed had come and gone and wouldn’t return, had been lingering there all this time.
“You have very beautiful eyes, Céleste.” He traced his fingers from her chin slowly along her jaw. “And you turn a lovely shade of pink when you’re put to the blush.”
Céleste closed her eyes and tried to just breathe.
“And”—the warmth of his breath tickled her lips—“I am going to kiss you.”
“I wouldn’t object,” she whispered.
His hand slipped behind her neck. His other arm around her pulled her flush with him.
Breathe. Breathe.
His lips brushed hers. Breathing became instantly impossible. There was nothing for it but to melt into him and savor this moment she’d dreamed of but seldom let herself believe in.
“Mon ange,” he whispered, not pulling back or letting her go.
The caress of his kiss stole every thought. All the world disappeared, every worry and every danger. There was nothing but him and that moment. The feel of his embrace. The touch of his lips.
She knew her heart would never be wholly hers again, and that scared her.