Sanctuary for a Lady

Two strips of walnut lay on the floor beyond the dresser, a reminder of the wood he’d used to set the girl’s arm. A walnut splint. Who had that?

She’d uttered nary a comment about how smooth he’d sanded the wood so no sliver would pierce her porcelain skin.

Maybe he should have left her arm broken.

Guilt swamped him at the thought. He raised his eyes to heaven. “Oui, Father, mayhap she doesn’t deserve a broken arm. But she could still say thank-you.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. He needed to create, to saw, to build. Something—anything. Drying wood rested at the back of his shop, an odd assortment of anything he could collect. He blew out a breath. He’d have to start a new piece. But what?

He didn’t need another bed frame. Or another dresser.

Mayhap a table and chairs? He didn’t need those, either, but perhaps Leopold would sell a dining set in his store.

Michel picked up a single piece of richly burled maple and ran it through his hands as he studied his wood selection. He didn’t have enough walnut to work with. He could buy more, if only the farm didn’t need an ox. So the table would be oak. He walked to the back, hefted a long plank and brought it to his workbench.

Frustration melted with each push and tug of saw against wood. The tension slipped from his shoulders and neck as he planed the wood with long, smooth motions that shaved the legs into equal widths. Fragrant, curly strips of oak floated down and covered the floor as he toiled. He inhaled the aroma, heard the faint crunch of the shavings underfoot, felt the rough wood beneath his palm.

This was all a man needed to be happy.

Betwixt the rasps of his block planer, footsteps echoed on the stone walkway. Mère. With the girl and the sow, he’d forgotten his mother. Surely she hadn’t been turning over the garden all this time. He stopped the calming movements and dropped his planer with a thunk onto the workbench before heading to the door. He deserved a day in the stocks for forgetting his own mother.

“In here, Ma Mère.”

“There you are, Michel.”

She wandered over to him, carting a burlap sack behind her.

A lump of fear rose in his throat. “You went to town? You can’t up and head to Abbeville. I’ve told you, there are dangerous men about.”

She hauled her sack to the workbench. “I thought you’d be in the stable.”

So had he. But that didn’t change that she’d left despite his warnings.

He grasped her wrist. “Ma Mère, look at me. You cannot go off by yourself. Not into town, not into the woods, not anywhere until we know who hurt the girl.”

Eyes vacant and dull as two glass marbles stared back at him. She was having another bad day, which at least explained her wandering off.

“It’s Monday. I go to town on Monday. You muck the stalls. Did you get the stalls mucked? It’s Monday.”

Unable to stop himself, he pulled her to his chest and held her head over his heart, which beat at twice its normal pace. “I’ve some stalls yet to clean.”

She wiggled under his hold. “Have you looked at the bottom field?” Her voice muffled against his chest. “The wheat’s not flooded?”

He released her, looked at the woman who’d raised him and tucked a stray tuft of graying hair back into her bun. “It’s still Germinal.”

Her brow wrinkled in more confusion, and he ran a hand through his hair. What had the revolutionary government been thinking to give France a new calendar with ten days in a week and different names for the months and years? He could barely remember the new names or keep track of the day. Was it any wonder his mother got mixed up?

“April, Ma Mère. It’s the beginning of April. We’ve not planted yet, and we’ve not had much rain.”

“Oh.”

“It’s all right. Everyone gets befuddled at times.”

She glanced around the shop, her eyes resting on the freshly cut lumber in front of them. “More wood for the chest of drawers?”

How could she forget the month but remember what piece he worked on? “This is for a table.”

“You’re starting a new piece?”

“That’s what happens when I finish one.”

“You’ve a buyer for the finished one?”

He looked at the dresser. Not even close. “Mayhap.”

Hope, like wildflowers blooming in a field, sprang into her eyes. “And this table, you’ll be able to sell that, too?”

“Aye.” Right after the bottom field stopped flooding and the animals started mucking their own stalls.

“Dear me, I almost forgot.” Mère hefted her burlap sack onto the half-planed oak and began unloading her treasures. “Look what the Good Lord supplied us with.”

“That wood’s half-finished. Could you…”

He clamped his jaw. A kettle with a burned-out bottom, a scrap of lavender ribbon and a torn shoe with what looked like a mouse’s nest inside had already thudded onto his lumber.

“Oh, and look at this.” Her eyes shimmered as she produced a scraggly mourning bonnet from the bottomless abyss.

“It’s got holes.” Like most things she brought back from the village.

“I’ll make a hat for the girl.”

With all she forgot, how did she remember the girl? “You haven’t any thread left to mend the bonnet.”

“Look what else.” She pulled ragged brown trousers from her sack. “Madame Goitier wanted to throw these away. Throw them away! What with Joseph being the last of her brood. Said they didn’t fit him anymore. I’ll use the thread from these. You don’t think she’ll mind that the thread doesn’t match the bonnet, do you? Black and brown are close enough shades.”

Michel swung his eyes to his mother’s, waiting until she quieted and returned his look. “She’s awake.”

“What?” Mère patted the side of her head before her hand dove back into the sack.

“The girl. She’s awake.”

Mère stilled, the broken wooden yoyo in her hand pausing midair, then crashing to the table and scattering into more pieces. “Oh. Can’t say I expected her to wake.”

Bien sûr que non. Of course not. The girl’s fever had broken, her bruises faded, her delirium left and her arm half-healed. Why would Mère expect her to awake? “She’s astir, all right.” And madder than a caged cockerel.

“What’s her name?”

Her name? Michel swallowed. People probably called her something besides girl. “Didn’t ask.”