A Refuge Assured

by Jocelyn Green

  Paulette inclined her ear toward the door. On the other side, two male voices thrust and parried. Moments later, a pair of footsteps receded, and a hard rap shook the parlor door.

  Madame folded her hands before her waist, waiting while Paulette straightened her cap and answered the knock.

  “Yes?” Paulette eyed the visitor through a five-inch gap between the door and its frame. Snow swirled outside in big feathery flakes, making the street look like a chicken coop right after a fox came through it.

  “Let him in!” Madame urged.

  Grudgingly, Paulette swung wide the door, and the tall man filled its frame as he entered.

  He swiped a red wool cap from his bald head and crushed it in his hand. The other arm, bent at the elbow, he held against his middle. Half-moon bruises rested in the canals beneath his eyes, framing his crooked nose. “Was that man bothering you?” he asked.

  “Not much.” Paulette grunted. “I should ask who’s been bothering you. Broken nose? Dislocated shoulder?” She squinted at a faint scratch on his cheek.

  Madame clucked her tongue, a chastisement for saying too much. At least, from the older woman’s point of view. But Paulette was tired of always being the one answering the questions. Couldn’t she ask a few herself? After all, this man was in her territory now. She crossed her arms over her apron.

  His grin was broad and thin. “Good eye. I wonder what else you’ve seen.”

  “Pardon me.” Madame Barouche glided forward, hand outstretched. “I am Madame Ernestine Barouche, the proprietress. Are you in need of a room, monsieur?”

  Taking her delicate hand, he gave a slight bow. “I am Corbin Fraser. And I am looking for a room, in fact. My friend, Vivienne Rivard, said this was the best place in the French Quarter.”

  Madame brightened. “Did she now? Well, we certainly enjoyed having her here.”

  Snowflakes melted on his shoulders. “No longer here, then.” Small puddles the color of dishwater spread from his boots. “Did she leave a forwarding address? I have a letter to send.”

  At this, Paulette threw up her hands. “Then you’ll be just as disappointed as her other caller.”

  “We all miss her,” Madame admitted. “Her and Henri both.”

  Corbin’s wide lips spread in what might have been a smile. “I’ll bet she misses you, too. She’ll come back to visit, I wager. Or at least send word by mail.”

  Madame sniffed. “Yes. Well. Paulette, why don’t you show him the room and explain the terms? If all is satisfactory, we’ll draw up the contract.”

  “Yes, madame.” Paulette bobbed in a curtsy, then bade Corbin to follow her up the stairs. “You’re in luck.” She ushered him inside Vivienne’s old room and hoped the garret’s slanted ceiling would not bother him. He was a good bit taller than its previous tenants. “It opened up last week.”

  “Whose room was it? Was it theirs?” He inspected it, opening drawers, looking out the window, running his hand over the green toile counterpane. Like he was looking for something.

  Her eyes narrowed as she regarded him. “Would it matter if it was?” The small space still smelled faintly of Vivienne’s rose water.

  Corbin shrugged. “Call me sentimental.”

  An admirer, then, though he didn’t seem Vivienne’s type. Strange, though, that Paulette had never seen him before. Perhaps he was a patron of the tavern who had fallen in love with her bread. In any case, she explained the terms of lodging, and he agreed.

  “You’ll tell me as soon as you hear from her, won’t you? I’d really like to send my letter.” His lips stretched in that frog-like smile again, and Paulette’s eye fell on his lapel. Beneath a dusting of snow, a tricolor cockade showed through. She glanced at his hat again. The bonnet rouge.

  She screwed her mouth to one side, considering. “I’ll tell you right now, Madame Barouche is a royalist. If you hadn’t already guessed.” They’d never had pro-revolutionaries stay here before. “She’s old and set in her ways, and if you don’t mind my saying so, her views aren’t doing anyone harm. I don’t want trouble. Is this going to be a problem for you?” She eyed his injuries afresh.

  “I don’t have a problem with your madame, as long as you don’t have a problem with me. You and I are going to get along fine, aren’t we, citizeness? Unless it’s you who causes trouble for me.”

  Heat washed over her face. “I’m just a maid.” She gritted her teeth.

  “Clever girl.” He laughed. “Be more.”

  Asylum, Pennsylvania

  It was dusk before Liam could bring himself to knock on Jethro’s door, hat in one hand. Dread and guilt cinched his middle.

  Light flickered around the edges of the door. It opened, and Jethro filled the frame with a build more muscular than Liam remembered. “Well!” His dark brown eyes went immediately to the notch taken out of Liam’s ear. The ragged scar on his cheek. “How does the other guy look?”

  A smile curled Liam’s lips. “You know, I didn’t have a chance to find out.”

  One eyebrow raised, Jethro beckoned Liam inside. “Coffee’s hot.”

  Liam slipped inside the kitchen house and shut the door against the cold. Hanging his hat and cloak on a peg on the wall, he rubbed his hand over his face and sat at the table, listening to the fire. So much had happened since he’d last been here, none of it pleasant.

  Jethro reached for a cup and the kettle of coffee.

  Holding up his hand, Liam shook his head. “Not thirsty.”

  After topping off his own mug, Jethro sat across from him. “You want to start by explaining your face?”

  Liam chuckled, then gave him the scaffolding of events. He wasn’t proud of any of it, and it stung to confess his ineptitude. “They got Finn,” he added at the end. “I saw him, and I couldn’t do a thing about it.” It sounded more and more like an excuse, rather than an explanation.

  “Tara knows?”

  “I told her.” He blew out a sigh. “You can imagine how that went.”

  Jethro whistled low. “Where is he now, do you expect?”

  “On his way to Philadelphia, under guard.” Suddenly, Liam was very, very tired of this story. Weary of the shame it brought for his own inaction, for Alex, and for the government he and Jethro had both fought to establish. Besides, his other news pressed on his chest.

  He stalled, extracting from Jethro every update, which didn’t take nearly long enough. Jethro had traded some labor for chickens, and one of them had pecked another to death. But the hens were laying, and Jethro had gotten pretty good at cooking eggs. Food stores for winter seemed to be on the thin side, so they’d have to ration carefully and plan to take meals at the inn.

  Reluctantly, Liam took the plunge. “Well. I had a bad day.”

  Lines carved Jethro’s brow. “You did?”

  He winced. “And so did you.” Piece by excruciating piece, he regaled to Jethro the events and people that had dispossessed him of his property, and the new arrangement that allowed them both to stay.

  Jethro’s face set in hard lines. A log crumbled behind the grate, releasing a spray of sparks. “Mr. Liam. I left a decent job because I trusted you. You said I’d be investing in my future, and I believed you. I been clearing land and building with the understanding that this is for a family of my own someday, God willing. I don’t mind working hard with little return for a while. But now you’re telling me that the land you promised would be mine isn’t yours to give. Is that right?”

  “I wish it weren’t.”

  “But is it?”

  Liam swiped his hand over his hair. “Hang it all. That’s what Talon says.” This felt like confession. Tara, Finn, Jethro—he’d disappointed all of them in the ways that hurt the most. All he did was fail people. “Listen. You can stay in this house, or you can return to Philadelphia with me on my next mail run. I’m sure Tara would have a job for you.”

  “Empty-handed? After all this time away?” His voice filled every corner of the room.

  Guilt raked th
rough Liam. “I’ll give you what I can to put rent money in your pocket. But I’m going to work this land. I’ll give Armand de Champlain a share of the crops, but the rest I keep. The Frenchman is going to leave eventually. I’m staying here for the long haul.”

  Jethro left the table and knelt at the fire, stoking its embers. He stayed there, staring at the flames, for an uncomfortably long time. “When you say you’re staying here, you mean right here, don’t you? Here in this house.” He stood, towering over Liam.

  Kneading a sore muscle in his shoulder, Liam stood as well. “I can’t stay in mine while Vivienne and Henri are there, now, can I?”

  Jethro cast his gaze heavenward and shook his head. “A house of my own, he said, Lord. A house of my very own.”

  With a sheepish smile, Liam extended his hand. “What do you say? Roommates?”

  Vivienne and Henri stayed at the Grand Maison, giving Liam time to move his personal belongings out of the house. Armand had also paid him to construct two new bedframes and a bureau for their clothes. Using what little funds Vienne had left, she purchased bed linens and towels from the weaver and tailor’s shop. The joy of preparing for a new home was dampened by the knowledge that it wasn’t truly hers. For ousting Liam, she felt like a usurper. For living in a house Armand owned, she felt like a bird in a cage—and a hypocrite, for accepting an arrangement that resembled Sybille’s.

  During Vienne’s residence at the Grand Maison, a feast day for one of the saints gave the colonists reason to gather together. She dressed in a gown that had belonged to Martine and entered the dining hall with Henri.

  The long table was filled on both sides with men and women in formal attire suitable for the court at Versailles. The overpowering smell was not of food, but of powder, pomade, and perfume. With her own black curls pinned up but unpowdered, Vienne felt like the black sheep among a flock of white.

  The men’s embroidered silk suits rivaled the women’s gowns in their finery and sported no less lace. Ostrich-feather fans rested on the table beside blue-and-white French china.

  Struck by the contrast with the wilderness outside, Vienne took her seat beside Henri. Armand was at the far end of the table, and she was glad of it, though she knew he hadn’t known the land he purchased for her was Liam’s. Setting those thoughts aside, she caught Father Gilbert’s eye and smiled. Next to him, Suzanne Arquette stared at Vienne with vacant gray eyes, void of recognition.

  The woman across from her introduced herself and her husband as Evelyne and Philippe Sando. “We were silk merchants in Lyons.” Before the revolutionaries burned all the silk factories down, Vienne understood. But such unpleasantness was not spoken at this table. The Sandos looked to be of middling years, but ages were so hard to guess among those who had known terror.

  Vienne introduced herself and Henri.

  “Another artisan.” Evelyne’s tone was warm. “You are very welcome to Asylum, the both of you. It was beginning to get rather stuffy in here, if you catch my meaning.” She flicked a glance down the line of aristocrats, then smiled conspiratorially at Vienne, who liked her immediately.

  “Henri.” Philippe leaned forward to speak across the table to him. “There aren’t many children here now to play with, but that will change soon enough.”

  The boy’s legs stopped swinging. “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you heard? This was meant to be the queen’s house, but it will yet shelter her son. You must have known Louis-Charles, yes?”

  Henri paled slightly. “He was my best friend.”

  Along the table, several powdered heads turned in their direction. Forks suspended over plates and cups stalled in the air as their owners stared at Henri. Did he embody for them the hope of seeing the child king? Or did some secretly believe they were looking at him already?

  “What news do you have?” Vienne asked in a hushed tone out of habit, for surely there was no danger to them here.

  “There are plans,” Evelyne offered cagily. “And won’t Louis-Charles be so pleased to find he already has a friend here, waiting for him! He will be missing his parents and sister. But you will be a most welcome companion to him, I’m sure.”

  Henri looked at Vienne with such confusion in his eyes. His bottom lip pulled in. “He is coming? From the prison?” What she heard was, Dare I hope?

  Compassion made her swallow the reasonable answer that sprang to her lips. Was there any harm in hope? “We must pray for him,” she said at length, and the Sandos agreed. “We will pray for Louis-Charles and for those who plan his escape.” She touched Henri’s knee, and he tucked his hand inside hers.

  The rest of the meal passed with gentler talk of Mozart and fashion, Rousseau and Crusoe, while they sipped squirrel soup and nibbled dry bread made from corn. Afterward, they all gathered in the music room.

  Madame Aurore du Page seated herself at the pianoforte, and her daughter, Zoe, stood beside her to sing an aria from Grétry’s Richard the Lionheart.

  O my king!

  The Universe abandons you!

  On earth, it is only me

  Who is interested in you!

  Alone in the universe

  I would break the chains

  when everyone else deserted you!

  The royalist anthem brought several in the room to tears. For all their finery, Vienne mused, they were lost in the wilderness, mourning a world that no longer existed. A world that might never be again.

  Henri tugged on her hand, and she sat on a plush sofa, patting the blue velvet beside her.

  He sat, as well. “I’m going to be very good from now on.” His small face was solemn and grave. “I will always obey you, and I won’t lie or complain, or run away.”

  Vienne studied him for a moment before responding. “I’m happy to hear that. What made you decide on this?”

  “I promised God that I would be the very best I could if He will only bring Louis-Charles back.” With his little finger, he traced a line in the sofa’s carved frame. “I might be his only friend left. If he feels bad, the way I feel bad in my stomach, I will stay with him so he doesn’t have to be scared anymore. Like you’ve been staying with me. He will come back, won’t he?” He dropped his hand back to his lap and looked at her, so earnestly. In a whisper, he added, “Do you think God heard my prayer?”

  Throat aching, she wrapped her arm around his slender shoulders and squeezed. Hot tears slipped from her eyes. The rest of Asylum longed for a king, but Henri just wanted his friend to be safe from harm. “Yes, mon cher, God heard your prayer. I think He is pleased that you want to care for your friend. But if—if you don’t get the chance, that doesn’t mean God is punishing you for not being good enough. I don’t think He works like that.”

  Henri pulled back to look at her and brushed his own tears from his face. “Then how does He work, Mademoiselle?”

  She offered a tremulous smile. “In ways I don’t understand myself. But He hears you. If nothing else, trust that He hears when you pray.”

  He frowned for a moment before responding. “I’d prefer it if He also agrees with me.”

  A chuckle escaped Vienne as she hugged him one more time.

  “Mr. Delaney!” Henri cried and bounded from the sofa.

  She rose to face Liam, and uncertainty pulsed beneath her skin. If he despised her, she’d understand why. But how bereft she felt at the thought.

  Liam rested his hand on Henri’s shoulder, his brow creasing as she swept a rogue tear from her cheek. “I’m interrupting.” He removed his hat.

  “No, it’s fine.” Beyond that, small talk failed her. “I’m sorry.” Two small words, when what she longed for was an hour of conversation with which to reconcile.

  “You and I both.” He scanned the room. His face was freshly shaven, his queue tidy. The faint scent of balsam surrounded him.

  Conversations broke off. Behind fluttering fans, women peered at them, eyebrows arching. She could only imagine the gossip that would come of this.

  Henri t
urned to Liam. “Is it ready for us? Is our new house ready?”

  A sigh blew over Liam’s lips. “’Tis indeed. Can we talk?” He gestured toward the hall, and she followed him out of the room, Henri in tow.

  Away from the candlelight, shadows threw them into an unintended intimacy. The fire raging behind his eyes the last time she’d seen him had dimmed to a smolder, but the intensity in his gaze still held her captive. “Are you ready to move in? Or do you want to stay one more night with your friends here?”

  “I’d hardly call them friends.” Aside from the Sandos and Father Gilbert, as a whole, they seemed to disdain her as a tradesperson far below their rank. “But yes, I’m ready.”

  “Boxes packed?”

  “It won’t take long. We don’t have much, as you recall.”

  “I’ll do it!” Henri took off running for the stairs.

  “I should help him,” she said.

  “I’ll wait.” The resignation in his tone unsettled her. Turning from her, he lowered himself to a chair in the hall and stretched one leg out as he crossed his arms. She’d never seen him so subdued. Defeated. She hated that she’d had a role in that.

  Moments later, she and Henri carried their meager belongings down the stairs, where Liam took Vienne’s from her. Henri insisted his burden was light.

  The walk to Liam’s house wasn’t long, but it was cold, as usual, and dark. Though the feast had begun at four o’clock, the sun had set before they’d been at table even three quarters of an hour. Silver moonlight reflected on patches of ice as they traveled away from the river and past the few rows of log houses. On the far side of them, unsettled lots provided a buffer between Liam’s house and the rest of Asylum, a distance she was sure the Irishman appreciated. Pearl gray smoke lifted from its chimney, and the glazed windows glowed amber from the firelight inside.

  As they approached, Liam pointed to the outbuildings. The springhouse, the cookhouse, the dining house, the barn, the woodshed, the privy. “I stocked the woodshed, so you should have enough to keep you for a while.” Arms full of her bundles, he went to the main house door, and she opened it.