Love's First Light (8 page)
“Scarlett.”
She swallowed hard, her brows raised, and held his intense gaze.
“Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Glee bubbled up and out her throat. She blinked back the happy tears and nodded. Suddenly shy, she looked down and then back up into the most beautiful male face she’d ever seen. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
She could feel the smile in her heart spread to her face. She laughed and placed her arms around his neck as he drew her close.
She could feel the smile in her heart spread to her face. She laughed and placed her arms around his neck as he drew her close.
He held her for a long moment and then traced little kisses from her jaw to her cheek, stopping only for a heartbeat when he reached her lips.
At long last he lowered his lips to hers—and Scarlett reveled in her first kiss.
THEIR WEDDING CAME about almost overnight, and before she’d had time to take a real breath, Scarlett was Madame Robespierre. They’d moved into a comfortable apartment on the fashionable Rue Saint-Honoré, near his uncle, the most renowned member of the Jacobin Club and the Committee of Public Safety—Maximilien Robespierre. She had hardly become accustomed to married life before Daniel had left for Nantes and the battle there.
Within weeks Robespierre came himself to tell her the news.
She could still remember pulling the weight of the door open, it swinging wide as she saw Robespierre’s face and knew. He never visited her. She looked up at him with dread filling her, her brows drawn together. She felt all the life and color drain from her face as she asked him in.
He was brisk. No offer of comfort in voice or touch. “He was killed by Royalists. A group of them ambushed his regiment.”
She’d wanted to drop to the floor, but commanded her legs to stay strong. “How? Gunshot?” She needed to know.
“Yes. We were victorious. We have rid the city of conspirators. Daniel died with great honor in service for his country.”
She wanted to tell him that she needed more time, that the husband she loved for so few days was still a mystery, a stranger to her. That he couldn’t really be dead. Daniel would never know he was to be a father! She wanted to tell Robespierre that she’d just discovered she was with child. But she didn’t. She only saw him to the door.
He turned toward her in the opening and looked in her eyes for the first time. “If there is anything I can do . . .” He let the phrase hang.
“I would like to take the body back with me. To Carcassonne.”
He looked like he might reject her request, and with sudden decision she brought a hand to her stomach. “I will need to go back and be with my family to raise our child. I don’t think it is so very much to ask to have his grave near where his son or daughter will be raised.”
Robespierre glanced down at the hand covering her stomach and visibly shuddered. A flush filled his cheeks as he looked back up but didn’t meet her eyes. “Yes, of course. I will see to it.” He turned to go and then turned back. “When will you depart?”
“As soon as it can be arranged.” She didn’t want to talk to this cold, walking corpse of a man anymore. She wanted him to go so that she could turn aside and let her tears run their course.
Robespierre hesitated, his hat in his hands. “I–I am at your disposal, citizen.”
Scarlett bowed her head, her hand on the edge of the door to close it.
“Merci.”
“Merci.”
SURPRISINGLY ROBESPIERRE CAME through on his promise. He sent Daniel’s body to their border town, where Scarlett saw to the burial. Then he set them up with a weekly supply of flour to support the Bonham women’s business as bakers.
Since then, Scarlett’s life was built on the routine of visiting Daniel’s gravesite daily. It was the only way she found she could really believe Paris happened at all.
Her thoughts returned to the present as her feet turned into the familiar path, the basket weighing on her arm even as her memories weighed on her mind.
She stopped suddenly.
He
was there.
was there.
The stranger from the market knelt beside Daniel’s grave. But rather than facing the grave, he faced the sunrise. His head was uncovered, revealing the choppy cut of shoulder-length, straight hair draped like a curtain around his face.
Her heart beat in her chest. What was he doing there? Was he hoping to see her? She hesitated, ready to slip away before he noticed her, but stilled as his deep voice rang out against the dead ones’ stones. “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, ‘this is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of Me.’” He held a piece of the bread she’d given him up into the dawn light, then brought the small lump to his mouth, his head bowed. Next he took up a cup. She gasped at the golden cup, embedded with precious jewels that sparkled in the dim dawn light—and then hoped he hadn’t heard her. But he had. He turned, but didn’t rise. Instead he held his hand out to her.
She should turn back, run away. He could be dangerous. But she found herself rooted to the path, staring into his eyes. He looked sad, bereft, and so alone.
He dropped his arm back to his side and turned a little away from her. Scarlett took a long breath and a step closer. “What are you doing here, sir?”
He didn’t look back at her, only said in his deep voice, “I am taking the sacraments of Communion.”
She took another step. “Why?” She had only done so in church, and there weren’t any churches open anymore, so it had been a long time. Another part of the Révolution.
He turned then and looked into her eyes. She saw him struggle with an answer and then smile a little. “It helps me remember.”
She took another step forward. “Remember what?”
“All that I’ve lost, I suppose, and all that He lost. I like to think God felt alone for a time, until His Son rose again and then went back to heaven to sit at His right hand.” Sadness weighed his smile. “I like to think He has a plan for me too.”
Scarlett walked the short distance to her husband’s grave, sank down beside the stranger, and set the basket on the ground beside her. She turned her face toward his and saw that there were tear tracks on his lean cheeks.
He repeated the phrase, “This is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” He tore off a hunk of her mother’s bread and held it out to her.
Scarlett reached for it. The man watched her while she placed it into her mouth, knowing how it was made, knowing all the ingredients and the hands that had kneaded it, but feeling that somehow, with this prayer, it had become sacred. She closed her eyes. She chewed and thought of Christ’s body. Given for her. There, as they sat together, it was suddenly real.
The man lifted up a golden goblet embedded with gemstones. Scarlett stared at the beauty of the cup and couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling that it had once, long ago, belonged to a king.
The man’s voice was a little stronger as he recited to her and the dead that seemed to be listening, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.”
She watched as he lifted it up and he held it out to her, his gaze intense in the early morning light.
She felt him watch her as she took a sip, then lowered the cup and her gaze, the liquid sloshing over the edge onto her fingers. Scarlett took a deep, long inhale. When she looked back into this stranger’s eyes, her breath caught. There was a spark of joy in his eyes now. It made him look, almost, a different person.
“Who are you?” She asked, clutching the heavy, golden goblet in her hands.
“I am Christophé St. Laurent. The last of the house of St. Laurent.” He reached out and took the cup from her hands, making her a little afraid again. “And you must tell no one that I am here.”
Names and faces and titles rolled through her brain. She’d lived in Paris long enough to know some of the names of the hated aristocrats. This man, as frail and shattered as he was, should not be alive.
Christophé watched the play of emotion on her face and hoped he hadn’t made a terrible, deadly mistake. It was just that he needed so badly to tell someone the truth. It was as if he didn’t tell her, then he would cease to be, just slip away into nothingness.
Her words slipped out on a solemn whisper. “I won’t tell.”
He believed her.
Christophé leaned in, his hand coming alongside her cheek in a light caress. She stiffened, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her. He must appear half insane. He couldn’t remember quite how to act with a woman, not that he’d ever been very good at that anyway. But now, he didn’t even remember how to show her how much she meant to him without coming across a lunatic and frightening her away.
As if to prove his point he kept staring at her lips. They were so sweetly made and . . . prominent, heaven help him. Red lips against a pale, serious face and long, thick, curling dark hair. He’d always wondered what was wrong with him concerning women. They were a laughing, silly mystery to him. He always preferred the solitude of his experiments and laboratory work. But now, this woman . . . she had become light to him. She was all he saw in light and its refraction and the splitting of colored rays. She filled his mind almost as often as his calculations.
“Comment t’appelles-tu?”
“Comment t’appelles-tu?”
She pulled back a little and gazed at him with both fear and fascination. “Scarlett. My name is Scarlett.”
A feeling of falling beset him. He shook his head. “Are you certain?”
She laughed, a lilting sound that rang around the stones and brought warmth, true warmth, to his belly. “My mother says I was born with red lips. She wanted to name me Cerise.” She smiled, her hand held to her chest. “Cherry. Can you imagine such a name? I am most thankful that father said no, I should be called
Scarlett.”
Scarlett.”
He didn’t say anything, could only try and still the dizzy rush that assailed him. He must have looked frightening as she looked up uncertainly and rushed out, “It’s a silly story.”
“No. It is a perfect story.”
He watched while she brought a basket forward. “Are you hungry?”
He was always hungry, although he often didn’t notice it. “You don’t have to share it.” He’d sounded harsher than he meant. He tried to fix it. “I meant, you brought that for yourself.” He looked down at her round stomach.
Scarlett laughed, low and quiet. “I must look as if I need it.” She placed a hand on her stomach. “I
am
eating more these days, but there is plenty for two. I fear my eyes were bigger than my stomach.” Then she laughed again, a little louder. “Well, not bigger, that would be frightening, wouldn’t it?”
am
eating more these days, but there is plenty for two. I fear my eyes were bigger than my stomach.” Then she laughed again, a little louder. “Well, not bigger, that would be frightening, wouldn’t it?”
A rush of joy jolted through him and he hardly recognized the emotion. She was so light, so free, laughing at herself. He was truly going to be besotted if he spent another moment with her. If he had any sense, he would leave at once.
“Well, in that case”—his voice was warmer than he remembered it being in a long time—“I’d be happy to share your repast.” He felt almost normal, the way he’d been before the ruin of his family.
She handed him a hunk of bread and cheese, and some roast duck. He pulled out a water cask for them to wash down the food. They sat side by side, quietly eating and watching the sun rise above a castle that had withstood Constantinople’s army, impenetrable to all except time and God’s own elements—both of which had taken a toll.
Then, slowly—as this woman who seemed a dream-gift, became more comfortable with him—Scarlett began to speak of everyday things. The old Cité and its crumbling ruin and history. The marketplace and how she and her mother and sister sold bread three days a week. The coming winter and how it was going to be hard to keep the town from starving.
Christophé responded when necessary, but he was almost too happy to speak. He could barely get the food down his tight throat. It was as if his world was being righted, as if he was coming out of darkness back into the land of the living. He was afraid for her to leave.
Then Scarlett paused. “Where do you live?”
Christophé pointed toward the castle.
“Not in the castle? It can’t be safe.”
“I am a descendent of the Trencevals. The castle in Carcassonne was where my father directed I go . . . before he was guillotined.”
Scarlett stared at him for a long moment. He found he couldn’t turn away from her tender gaze. “I am sorry. And the others? Your mother? Your siblings?”
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