“You can’t be siding with the authorities on this one. They arrested anyone they pleased, even the innocent. They refused to bring charges or set a date for trial.”
Vienne’s dishes sat forgotten in their tub. “I’m not after a quarrel. I’m telling you that I was afraid. To lose you.” She looked down, rubbing the stitching on her apron hem between her fingers. When she spoke again, her voice was as quiet as the riffling stream. “You mean more to us than you know. And I could only conclude by your lack of caution that we mean less to you than I had hoped.”
Liam let her words wash over him while a blue jay chattered in the tree above them. This was not what he’d expected. “If anything happened to me, Jethro could take care of your needs on the land.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Hope flickered inside him. Vienne reached for a dish, but Liam caught her hand and held it. “Then what did you mean?”
She made a tight seam of her mouth, when what he longed for was an honest answer. He was too old for anything else.
He released her. “I’m sorry you were frightened. There is truly nothing to fear now. While I was in Philadelphia this last time, Washington finally pardoned them, five months after they were imprisoned. Every man arrested for the Whiskey Rebellion is free to go. If they have any place left to return to.”
“So Finn, and you . . .”
“It’s over.”
Vienne handed him a pie plate. “Just like that?”
He shrugged, wiping it dry. “Be at ease.”
Heaving a great sigh, Vienne bowed her head, clenching the sponge in her lap, heedless of the water soaking through her skirts. “I don’t know whether to feel foolish, or relieved, or both.”
“Feel whatever you want.” He swallowed. “When we’re done here, I have something to show you.”
At last she looked at him with eyes the color of spring itself. They finished their task and went home.
After depositing the tub of dishes inside the kitchen house, Liam led her to the front of the main house and pointed to the bushes he’d just planted on either side of the front door.
“Roses,” he told her, in case she couldn’t tell by the thorny stems alone. “I picked them up in Wilkes-Barre on my way home. The man who sold them to me told me they’ll bloom white, not red.” She never wore red, and he could guess why she didn’t favor the color. “You like white, don’t you? They were in your lace shop, you said.”
“White roses!” she gasped. “Yes, white roses, white lace, and my Tante Rose.” She covered her mouth with one hand, her brow crimping. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Oh no.” He stepped toward her. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I should have asked you first, before planting such a visible reminder—”
“I love them,” she whispered, gazing at the bushes in wonder, as if they were already blossoming with snow-white petals. Then she grasped his hands and repeated, “I love them, Liam. I can’t believe you remembered.”
A smile warmed slowly on his face. If he could only bottle what he felt right now. Her happiness poured his youth back into him, and he realized he would bend himself to the purpose again and again, God willing.
Félix, she’d said, was the man who let her get away. But Liam Delaney would be the man who kept her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Asylum, Pennsylvania
July 1795
Still damp with morning’s dew, the cool earth soiled Vivienne’s apron as she knelt in her garden, tugging weeds from between iris and yarrow. Geese soared overhead, soft brown chevrons against a sky of robin’s-egg blue.
Before she lived here, Liam had planted garlic, chives, mint, rosemary, and thyme in the beds around the house. But these flowers, and the rose bushes Liam had planted for her, were her own. The plantings were small and vulnerable, and she cultivated them with tender care, like most of the women in Asylum. It was no surprise that French women preferred the beautiful, perhaps even over the practical. But Vienne suspected that they, whose memories were haunted with the blood and death of the French Revolution, were even more inspired to nourish life and beauty where they could.
The door slammed behind Henri as he ran out of the house. “I’m going to help Mr. Delaney!” His little cat, Madame Fishypaws, romped after him.
She sat on her heels and watched them dash to let Liam through the gate in the paling fence. Beyond it, fields of flax, rye, and grass for hay shimmered in the morning sun. The breeze that whispered through their stalks and toyed with the ends of her hair carried the taste of sunbaked grain.
Clapping the dirt from her hands, she gathered the herbs she’d cut onto her lap, then bunched the hem of her apron into one fist to make it a sack for her harvest. Rising, she went to greet the man who meant more to her than he likely knew.
“Like this? Right here?” Brow furrowed in concentration, Henri held a section of lattice in place on the summer house Liam was building.
“That’s the way.” Liam hammered the wood into place in three spots before turning to reach for more nails. When he saw Vienne, he touched the brim of his cap. “It’s almost finished. Before I leave this morning, it will be done, as long as my assistant doesn’t tire on me.”
“I don’t get tired.” Henri’s chest lifted. “I’m very strong,” he added through gritted teeth, curling his fist.
Vivienne smiled, gratitude filling her, for truly Henri was stronger than he’d ever been. The more time he spent outside, the less his legs ached, and it had been more than four months since he’d complained of the stomach pains that once plagued him. God was healing Henri in Asylum, body and soul.
With a low whistle, Liam patted Henri’s bicep. “Why, you’re near as strong as me!”
He held out his arm, and Henri grabbed it with both hands, then lifted his feet off the ground while Liam spun in a circle, much to the delight of the shrieking boy. Henri let go in a fit of laughter, collapsing to the ground. Fishypaws pounced on his chest.
Liam lifted his face to the sunshine, then turned back to Vivienne. “Monsieur Talon has returned from his travels.”
“Oh?” Talon was often abroad, and no one blamed him. Many resented that he had somewhere to go, however. Most of those who came to Asylum in fear for their lives now found they could not leave. The Reign of Terror was over, but the revolution was not, though it had been six years since the fall of the Bastille. Vienne felt the chives warming in her apron and the dirt beneath her fingernails. Grass stained the hem of her muslin gown. Had it been only six years since she’d made lace for a queen? It felt like twenty.
“There will be a dance this evening at the pavilion,” Liam added. “You’ll want to go. I can keep Henri, if you like.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Are you certain?”
“Yes!” Henri leapt to his feet, holding his cat and scratching her under the chin. “We’ve got work to do together, I’m sure, Mademoiselle. Let me stay with Mr. Delaney and his friends. I’ll be no trouble at all to them.”
Liam spun his hammer end over end into the air and caught it again. “Actually, I was hoping you could help me try out a canoe on the river. I could use another strong oarsman. If you’re up to it.”
Vienne smiled at the look on Henri’s face. Of course he was. She left them to finish the latticed summer house, enjoying the promise of its cool shade.
The afternoon heated to a golden simmer, with sunshine thick as honey, and the evening was nearly as warm. Reluctantly, Vivienne traded cool muslin for sage green silk. Lace ruffled at her elbows and squared neckline. After Liam came to take Henri, she went alone to the pavilion.
Cicadas ticking in her ears, she held the hem of her skirt higher than the dust clouding about her steps. Though the Americans had cleared trees to allow for the settlement, the French had quickly planted Lombardy poplars in pleasing rows between homes, and young weeping willows swayed here and there. After winter’s palette of whites and grays, summer gardens and flower boxes burst with color and hummed
with industrious bees.
Violin music drew her to the pavilion on a wooded islet behind the Grand Maison. The waters of the Susquehanna rolled like cloudy cider beneath the footbridge that carried her across.
Arriving late by intention, she lingered on the edge, smiling as she watched former silk merchants Evelyne and Philippe Sando dancing. They were the lucky ones—those who loved the ones they held. Count David and Aurore du Page danced, too, but only the music, it seemed, held them together. Near a table that held cups of lemonade and wine, several widows traded gossip while poor Suzanne Arquette craned her neck for a husband who would never again ask her to dance. Zoe du Page was paired with a man Armand’s age, a former officer in the French military and one of several constitutionalists who’d been driven from the country along with moderation.
“Ah, Vienne. How lovely you are.” Armand approached her with a smile. “Tell me, how is Henri? And Madame Fishypaws?”
“Very well, both of them. He loves that cat more than you can imagine.” It really was a thoughtful gift. Since then, Armand had shown respectful restraint with only the occasional visit. When he came, Vienne showed him the gardens, the grains growing in the sun, or the fields Liam and Jethro had cleared for more crops. And Henri proudly showed him his cat. “How are you?” she asked him.
“In good health, I suppose. But lonely.” The Madeira on Armand’s breath pinched her nose.
Sunlight gilded the dust suspended in its slanting rays. Warm sap from surrounding hemlock trees spiced the air. “I hear you have company often.” Vienne fanned herself. “Usually women.”
“Bah.” He waved at a fly. “They are nothing to me. And I’m quite sure I’m nothing to them. But if you and Henri ever cared to stop by . . .”
“And risk walking in on your activities?”
“My activities?” Laughing, he bent over the walking cane in his fist before straightening again. “Cards, dominoes, idle chatter.” He wrinkled his Roman nose and whispered, “I mostly invite them just to be rid of the silence.”
Vienne eyed the man before her. He had missed a button on his waistcoat. No woman would have let him leave the house like that. Gently, she pointed it out so he could fasten it. Maybe, one day, she and Henri would go see him. But she wasn’t quite ready to promise it. “We’ll see.”
He raised an eyebrow and bowed to her. “Why, thank you.” Drawing himself to his full height once more, he added, “You’ll tell Henri I said hello, won’t you? And give Madame Fishypaws a scratch behind her ears for me.”
She smiled. “I will indeed.”
“I do apologize that your gift has been so long in coming, my dear. But I believe that’s about to change.”
Her fan stilled against her fichu. “Gift? There’s no need, Armand.”
Crickets chirped, and dragonflies flitted between powdered wigs. Armand’s chest rose and fell with a sigh. “You work so hard. Allow me to take care of you. It really is a gift of the most practical nature. There’s nothing personal or scandalous about it.”
The violinists played the final note in their song, and the messieurs bowed to their curtsying partners. Vienne frowned. “I can’t imagine—”
“Lovely night for a dance, no?” The familiar voice of Sebastien Lemoine startled Vivienne. He and Armand exchanged a hearty greeting.
“Armand,” she said behind her fan, “tell me this is not your gift to me.”
Armand laughed. “No, he isn’t. Although he seems to think he is, does he not?”
Bronzed by what must have been a recent trip up the river, Sebastien grinned. “Truly, Vienne, I’d be hurt by the way you ran off last winter if I didn’t know the reason for your secrecy. And how is our little boy?” He scanned the area behind her.
“Well. You two have some catching up to do.” Armand bowed to them both and glided away. “You can thank me later for your gift.”
The nerve of him. The nerve of both of them. She swatted at the flies peppering the air. “Henri is not yours,” she reminded Sebastien. “But he is well. When did you arrive?”
“This afternoon, with a few more refugees who’ve decided to settle here. We would have been here weeks ago, but we were waiting for all the paperwork to be in order, and one of the refugees was too ill to travel for a while. You’ll see a familiar face among them. Paulette Dubois.”
The name drew a smile to Vivienne’s face. “She’s here?” She looked around.
“Not here at the dance, of course, unless she has a fairy godmother to turn her into nobility. She’s come as domestic help.”
“But why? She was so faithful to Madame Barouche.”
“That she was. But the madame is no longer in the pension business, as I understand it. Paulette can tell you the details.”
An owl hooted from his unseen perch as Vivienne tried to digest this news. “Where is Paulette?”
Sebastien glanced in the direction of the Grand Maison. “Resting. You’ll see her soon enough, and she will rejoice to see you. Faith, but she was true to keep your secrets, even from me. For now, she recovers. Travel by boat did not agree with her, I’m afraid.”
Paulette would do well to rest, for she would have more work to contend with here than she ever had in the city, even if she gained employment for the most lenient of residents.
Sebastien took Vivienne’s hand. “Dance with me.”
As the violin played an introduction, she allowed him to lead her out on the floor. Mechanically, her feet performed the steps as Sebastien swept her about. Fireflies twinkled, and lanterns rimmed the pavilion with their soft yellow glow. Inside the lit perimeter, the music and dancing continued. Outside, night dropped over the wilderness. Surely Monsieur Talon would come soon.
“I missed you.” Sebastien’s whisper tickled her ear. “Did you not miss me, too? Surely, you can confess as much. A woman, all alone in the wilderness. That isn’t right.”
She hadn’t missed him at all. She certainly had not missed his posturing to influence Henri. “I wasn’t alone. I had plenty of help when I needed it.”
“For half the time,” Sebastien countered. “You refer to that Irish squatter who brings the mail to Philadelphia, do you not? The man Armand pays to take care of you. Small comfort, that. You didn’t think his attentions were sincere, did you? Or for purposes other than mercenary?”
“Enough of that,” she whispered, when what she really wanted was to stomp on his foot. “Liam was here with me a fine sight more than you were.”
“A problem I’m only too willing to remedy.” He shrugged, a gleam in his eye. “You brought it up.”
Vivienne shook her head. “Then I’ll drop it. And you’ll do the same.” She glanced at the couples swirling about. “People talk.”
He pressed her closer. “Let them.” His lips brushed her cheek as he said it, and she jerked away from him.
“You overreach, monsieur.” Liam Delaney tapped Sebastien on the shoulder. “I’m cutting in.”
Sebastien stopped to glare at him. “And what if I won’t let you?”
“Come now.” Liam’s smile was terse. “Don’t be greedy.”
Making her own decision, Vivienne moved toward Liam, and Sebastien gave a stiff, awkward bow before retreating.
Liam’s hand settled gently in the hollow of her waist. Gratefully, she took her new partner. The muscled shoulder beneath her hand spoke of unending labor on the land they both called home. The warm hand enveloping hers was callused, yet more welcome than Sebastien’s smooth touch had been.
“The hour grows late,” she admitted. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”
Effortlessly, it seemed, he guided her through the waltz. “Henri is right there.” He nodded to the log bench where the boy sat, then turned so she could see him. Henri waved to her, smiling, then sipped a cup of lemonade. “He’s fine. Are you?”
She looked into his eyes, their peerless blue deepened by evening’s shade. “If he is fine, then so am I.”
“Have you been caring for the boy s
o long, you tend his wants and needs with no thought of your own? You’re allowed to be your own person. With your own feelings.” His hand slid to the small of her back, and with the slightest pressure, the distance between their bodies grew smaller. Head bowing toward hers, he trailed his gaze from her neckline to the pulse at her throat, then to her lips and finally back up to her eyes. “How do you feel?”
Summer’s musky heat pressed against her. She scarcely knew what she felt, let alone how to describe it, or if she should. An ache to be known swelled within her, but fear and doubt surged. She was assigning too much to his question. She was a fool to savor his attention this way, to long for more from their friendship. Because of her, he’d lost his land and house. And yet, of all the men she’d ever known, he remained the only one who could stir her heart.
The music ended. Their feet stilled, but Liam held her a moment after the last note died away before releasing her. He bowed, and she curtsied.
“Thank you for the dance,” she breathed, then threaded through the couples to find Henri.
The boy stood when she reached him, and he had barely begun to regale her with tales of his adventures with Liam when a stronger voice rang out, hushing those gathered.
“The news I share comes hard.” The lanterns at Monsieur Talon’s back lit the outline of his frame as he raised his hands, then dropped them limply to his sides.
Henri pressed into Vivienne’s side. With wariness etched into his brow, Liam glanced at them both before facing Talon.
“According to reports, the king, Louis-Charles, is dead.”
Henri stared at Monsieur Talon, shocked into silence. Talon was lying. Henri had prayed and prayed, and had been so very good, and Louis-Charles was sure to come home now!
“Oh, Henri,” Mademoiselle whispered. Murmuring rippled through the crowd.
A Refuge Assured Page 31
