Authors: Anne Perry
One Thing More (45 page)
Menou looked at her with a naked and fearful gentleness, but he knew enough not to speak.
Monsieur Lacoste stumbled towards the door and went out, and a minute later they heard the outer door slam and the echo of his footsteps across the courtyard.
‘He’ll be back,’ Marie-Jeanne said hesitantly.
Madame Lacoste raised her head. ‘No, he won’t,’ she answered. ‘Not yet, perhaps not ever.’
Fernand stood helplessly, turning from Amandine to his mother, then to Célie. ‘What can we do?’ he begged.
‘Nothing,’ Madame answered him, rising to her feet slowly, as if lifting a mighty weight. She went to Amandine and very gently put her arms round her. ‘I have lost the man I loved—to death; and the man I married to an abyss of guilt he will probably never climb out of. You have lost the man you loved to reality. He never existed. I’m truly sorry.’ She touched Amandine’s dark hair with her hand, in an intensely compassionate gesture, as she would have touched a wounded child.
Then she looked beyond Amandine to Célie.
‘You have courage, enough to risk everything for your beliefs. I’ve watched you. You love Coigny. Don’t deny it to yourself any longer, and lose the one thing you truly want. Don’t live in the past, or hope too much of the future. You’ve lived up to the best in yourself at last. Hold that precious. Don’t waste it.’ She glanced at Menou, then back to Célie again. ‘Leave while you can—safely. I don’t know what François will do. He has nothing left to lose, and no God to hope in. I’ll care for Amandine, I promise you.’
Célie hesitated.
‘Go,’ Madame Lacoste commanded. ‘No one can say what tomorrow will bring. The King is dead and we are on the edge of chaos. I think we will fall headlong into it. There will be war, hunger, more violence. Cling to what you love. Never let go. Take some food, and the money Bernave left in his desk. He liked you. He would be glad for you to have it.’
Célie glanced at Marie-Jeanne.
Marie-Jeanne nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘Thank you,’ Célie whispered.
In no time she had collected her things and the money. She went to Amandine, kissed her once on the cheek, and turned and walked away, then took a great gasp and ran, her feet flying.
They had failed to rescue the King, and now France would slide into civil war, probably even war with England and Spain as well. But all through the wet streets only one thought beat in Célie’s mind. The guilt, the contempt for herself was gone. It had slipped away like a forgotten thing, leaving her a shining freedom to love, and to be loved.
She clattered up the steps of the house in the Faubourg St-Antoine and flung the door open. Georges was there, bending over the stove. He turned and stood up. Then he recognised her and his face filled with joy.
She dropped her bag on the floor and went straight into his arms, holding him as tightly as she could, clinging to him with all her strength.
His arms closed around her. He bent and kissed her cheek, then her eyes, then her mouth. She answered with absolute certainty, knowing exactly what Madame Lacoste had meant, and she would do it, with all the passion of her being. She had no idea where they were going or what would happen to them, but to be with him, with a clean heart, was everything that she needed. Happiness sang inside her, soaring upward above and beyond all else.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2000 by Anne Perry
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4804-0925-5
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
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