Sanctuary for a Lady

“Michel and Father Albert love my donations. Figure it’s the best way for me to give back to the Good Lord. Why, He’s given me so much, I can’t help but return His goodness.”

Given Jeanette so much. Isabelle couldn’t help the longing for her mother, or the despair that flickered to life in her belly. From talking to Jeanette, Isabelle knew Michel owned enough land to make a decent living. They had a separate stable for their animals and thus no need to share their living quarters with the smelly beasts as so many farmers did. And they owned beautiful furniture, though she wondered how they obtained it.

A decade ago, she never would have called this small cottage and the surrounding farmland a blessing from God. Now these simple peasants possessed more than she did. She should have been grateful all those years ago, for the château and servants, the opulent food and dress, and her family. She lived in luxury while Michel and Jeanette and others like them struggled to get by. And now Jeanette’s Good Lord had reversed the situation. He’d stripped away all she held dear and still wouldn’t answer her prayers. She’d prayed the night she’d been attacked, and the soldiers still caught her and beat her and left her for dead.

But they hadn’t killed her.

Could that have been an answer to her prayer?

Bien sûr que non. What kind of a God let His child suffer all manner of humiliation and deprivation and torture before finally sparing her life? Michel’s finding her had been luck more than God. She could surely get to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme without more help from heaven.

“And my Michel’s so kind,” Jeanette prattled on, still chattering about her sewing for the orphans. “He won’t even let me mend his clothes. After they wear through, he says he’d rather I cut them up to make clothing for orphans.”

Isabelle couldn’t help but arch her brow and smile. No sane person could desire to go out in public wearing garments “mended” in such manner. “How charitable.”

“One of his shirts will make two or three for the orphans, he’s so large.”

Yes. He was large, indeed. She shoved the image of his powerful body from the night before out of her head before it could take root.

Jeanette fiddled with the shirt she held. “Fixing up clothes for the orphans started as a little hobby, it did, while my Charles was still alive. Now that he’s gone, it’s all I…” Jeanette’s shoulders shuddered. “That is…it makes me feel useful, I suppose.”

Isabelle’s heart caught. Surely this gentle creature didn’t doubt she was helpful. “Oh, Jeanette, you are most invaluable. I’m sure your work is important to the children, and I know how much your benevolence has meant to me.” Uncomfortable, she looked down and fidgeted with the handkerchief she’d been embroidering. “The orphans, you know, they’ve nothing at all. At least I have your kindness, and…”

What had she besides Jeanette’s kindness? Certainly not Michel’s favor. Or her passage money to England.

Moisture welled in her eyes. Certainly not her parents and brother. Certainly not the God whom she had spent her childhood worshiping, the God who allowed her family to be killed by a mob of peasants. And certainly not Marie, whom she had killed. Isabelle closed her eyes against the onslaught of guilt, but she couldn’t stop her hand from trembling or a tear from cresting.

At least she was alive. Why had God thought to spare her life, but not Marie’s? Not her family’s?

Jeanette moved to sit on the bedside, took Isabelle’s hand and patted it. “There, there. We’ll take care of you, we will. You needn’t cry.”

The chamber door opened, snapping Isabelle out of her memories. Before she finished wiping away her tears, Michel entered. When she was crying, of all times. He stood by the door, his green eyes seeming to absorb everything about her and his mother. Isabelle tugged her hand away from Jeanette’s soothing pats, cleared the moisture in her eyes with two blinks and raised her chin.

The room that had moments ago been comforting filled with an undeniably masculine presence. Michel’s muscles bunched beneath his shirt as he removed his wide-brimmed hat and wiped his forehead.

“Ma Mère, I need to speak with the girl. Alone.”

The girl. Did he not care to learn her name? She’d learned his through Jeanette last night. And what could he need to speak with her about in private? Her throat felt dry yet again; she reached for her water cup and found it empty.

Jeanette laid a hand on Isabelle’s shoulder and turned to Michel as she rose. “Be kind to the poor dear, Michel. Oh, and that crate can be sent to the orphans. I finished the last shirt this morn.”

He took his mother’s hand and led her to the doorway with gentle, caring motions. The thump of the door closing echoed in the room. He stepped toward the dresser, opened the top drawer, retrieved something and approached her.

Pretending he hadn’t stopped beside her, she stared at the beams in the roof, then jolted when his rough hand enveloped hers.

“This is yours. I should have thought to give it back yesterday.” He wedged a small pouch of coins into her palm.

Isabelle gaped at the money before meeting his eyes. “I…”

“This, too, belongs to you.”

She recognized it the moment the cool weight pressed against the center of her hand. “My pendant…I thought…the others, that is, I thought they…”

“You were wearing it when I found you, but it was bothersome while Ma Mère tended your wounds.”

Her head fell back against the pillow and she clutched the pendant and money to her chest. England. Marie. She could go. One of the La Rouchecaulds would escape this dreadful Révolution.

If she ever got out of this infernal bed.

Michel cleared his throat. “I have your citizenship papers, as well. They’re in the dresser when you need them.”

A single tear slid down her cheek. Horrors! She brushed it away with her bandaged hand, ignoring the pain her movement caused.

He sat down beside her on the bed. “Isabelle.” He whispered her name.

The word sounded beautiful on his tongue, and the intimacy of it had another tear cresting. She furiously swiped at it. She’d rather swallow a toad than cry in his presence.

His hand clasped over the fisted one resting on her chest. A bolt of heat raced up her arm. Did he feel it?

His thumb stroked her knuckles. “Don’t cry. Forgive me for not giving them back sooner. I didn’t intend to keep anything. But you vexed me so yesterday that I forgot and stormed off.”

Tears still brimming, she met his eyes, so warm compared to their coolness yesterday. She couldn’t help sinking into the comfort they offered, letting the heat from his touch travel straight to her heart. “I thank you.”

A smile twisted the corners of his mouth and crinkled the edges of his eyes. He shifted closer, surveying her features. “Ah, the very words I wished to hear yesterday. Come now…”

He shifted, bringing their lips within centimeters of each other. The breath rushed out of her. He would kiss her in another moment, and she should turn away from it, slap him. But his eyes held her, trapping her in their green depths.

She knew not how long they sat, an instant away from kissing, both afraid to make the contact, both afraid to break it. He lifted his hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and his fingertip grazed the tender spot behind her earlobe.

She lurched back. The bond that held them shattered.

Michel sprang from the bed, shifted his weight awkwardly and looked about the room. “I, uh…”

She kept her face down, staring at the pattern on the old quilt. Why must she be so childish and lurch away? He’d meant nothing by the touch. He was just…what?

Her heart felt ready to hammer through her chest, and heat flooded her cheeks. Surely she did not desire his kiss.

He cleared his throat. “I, um, came to speak with you about your attackers. Was it a gang of thieves, or soldiers? And what do they know of you?”

Isabelle stiffened, her hand tightening around her money and pendant. Had he been kind to her only because he wanted information? She couldn’t tell him, not anything. If he knew her father had been a duc, he might yet turn her over to the soldiers. And if he allowed her to stay, he’d knowingly put himself and his mother in greater danger. Non. Information about her family would only put more people at risk. “You need know nothing of me.”

“Joseph Le Bon, the représentative en mission from the Convention, will be coming to Abbeville shortly. Now, whence come you?”

The représentative en mission? An icy finger of fear wrapped around the base of her spine and worked upward. Though the main guillotine for executions resided in Paris, représentatives en mission brought other guillotines with them and their soldiers when they traveled, carrying their own little Terror to other sections of the country. She and Marie had barely maintained their disguise when the Terror came to Arras last fall, but to have it come to Abbeville? Now? “Surely you jest.”

“I do not. And ’tis reasonable that I know who’s sleeping under my roof and eating my food. So I’ll ask again. Whence come you?”

She swallowed. The soldiers in the woods hadn’t believed her story, but perchance the farmer would. The tale had fooled people for five years. “From Arras, my father was a cobbler, but when my aunt in Saint-Valery suffered apoplexy, I—”