Sanctuary for a Lady

He took another step away. Judging by her skin’s temperature, she would die soon, and being unconscious, she would feel no pain. There would be no cruelty leaving her where she lay. He grabbed his fishing pole and turned toward the pond.

I was naked, and ye clothed me.

Michel halted as Father Albert’s words from a Sunday long past scalded his mind.

But the girl wasn’t naked. And he couldn’t help her, not even if he wanted to—which he didn’t. He’d be guillotined if he took her in and got caught.

He strode toward the pond. Besides, Father Albert had been talking about clothing the orphans in Paris, not the rich who had dressed in silks at his expense.

I was hungry, and you gave me meat.

Oui, and he wouldn’t have any sustenance for himself if he didn’t get to the pond and catch something. He quickened his pace.

I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.

Michel sighed and cursed himself for memorizing so much scripture. “She’s not asking for water,” he mumbled.

I was sick, and you visited me.

This counted as a visit, didn’t it? He’d bent down, touched her, contemplated helping her. And turned his back the second he realized she was an aristocrat.

Michel straightened his shoulders. He wouldn’t feel guilty. She’d have done the same to him under the Ancien Régime.

If you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.

He stopped walking. “She’s not the least of these, Father. She’s the greatest. She’s lived her entire life off the backs of me and my kin.”

In prison, and you visited me.

“And prison’s exactly where she deserves to be.” He turned to take a final look at the girl. “Waiting for the guillotine.”

I was a stranger, and ye took me in.

He huffed a breath. He threw down his fishing pole and stormed back to the girl. Assuming he took her in, what would he do with her? Nurse her? She’d probably die regardless.

But what if she lived?

He couldn’t nurse her and hope she’d die. Cross-purposes, to be sure. He ran a hand through his hair and paced beside the body.

He wouldn’t be able to eat tonight if he left her. Or look at a church. Or wave at Father Albert in the market. Or pray tomorrow when he went fishing.

Sighing, he set his fishing pole down, bent and hefted the burden into his arms.

She weighed no more than a bale of hay, but he felt as though he carried his own cross to Golgotha.

* * *

Light, voices, shadows, whispers swirled around her, eluded her, like a dream she chased but couldn’t catch.

Grass, matted and thick, tickled her fingers, back and legs. Tall strands of it waved in the wind while dandelions turned their golden heads toward the sunlight. Overhead, two birds chased each other.

Isabelle looked up from the field she lay in and raised herself onto her elbows.

The Château de La Rouchecauld towered before her, its triangle of red brick walls kissing the brilliant sky as it had for seven centuries. No garish chars from a fire marred the windows. No broken furniture littered the ground. No grass and flowers lay trampled by the mob. No gate demolished by angry peasants.

She was home.

Someone touched her forehead. Mother?

“Oh, Ma Mère! It’s been so terrible. You should have seen…”

The hand pressed harder. Too large. Too rough. Not Mother.

Father, then.

“Mon Père, how did you escape the mob? I thought they…” The hand left her forehead. Cold! A frigid cloth replaced the warm touch.

She reached up to move the rag. Pain whipped through her hand and down her arm. She groaned and shifted her limb.

“Well, well,” said a deep voice. “She lives.” The cloth left her forehead.

Isabelle cracked one eye, but the blistering brightness of the room forced it shut again.

“Wake up, woman. I’ve a farm to run.”

Temples throbbing, she turned her head toward the impatient voice. “Who are you?” Her vocal cords, gritty from disuse, ground against each other.

“The man whose hospitality you’ve enjoyed while lying delirious with fever for these two weeks.”

Two weeks? She opened her eyes again, slowly fluttering her eyelids until the burning sensation stopped. The only light in the room spilled from two open slits in the bare wattle-and-daub wall. A man, dreadfully familiar, hulked over her.

His broad chest strained against the two buttons at the top of his undyed linen shirt. While the material gathered at the neck, shoulders and wrists would accompany much breadth of movement, it ill hid his wide shoulders and thick forearms. Light brown hair in desperate need of a trim fell against his forehead and curled around his neck. His chest tapered down into a lithe waist, with his lower body encased in brown woolen trousers. In one hand, he held a worn, uncocked hat by its brim.

It’s him. The soldier. The leader of the band that attacked me. The shoulders, the height, the massive arms were all painfully familiar.

She screamed, shrinking into the bed and clutching the quilt. Her bandaged arm shook with pain, but she cared not.

Why had he brought her here? Surely he wouldn’t make her endure another beating. She shut her eyes and heard the jeers, saw the men standing over her, felt their blunt boots connect with her lower back, her rib cage, her abdomen.

She should be dead. Oh, why wasn’t she dead? He was making sport of her.

“Calm yourself. I’ll not hurt you.”

At the sound of his indifferent voice, her breath caught. That certainly wasn’t familiar—his voice had been full of loathing in the woods. She opened her eyes and gulped, pulling the quilt up with her good hand until she could barely peek over it. The stranger shifted his weight and paced the small confines of the room.

“I don’t believe you.” She stared at him, measuring his movements, comparing him to the man who haunted her memory.

He tunneled a hand through his hair and set his wide-brimmed hat on his head. “It would better serve you to believe the man who brought you home, kept you warm and fed you.”