Love Inspired Historical April 2014 Bundle: The Husband CampaignThe Preacher's Bride ClaimThe Soldier's SecretsWyoming Promises

by Regina Scott

The girl’s gaze darted frantically about, as though searching for some excuse that might appease him.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The liar. He sucked in a breath, long and hard and hopefully calming. It didn’t work. If anything, the anger bubbled hotter inside him. How dare strangers come onto his land and invade his house? How dare they use his bed and table and hearth? Sully the place he’d once shared with his beloved? “I’ll not ask you again. How long have you been living in my house?”

  The girl licked her lips and stared at the overgrown trail in front of her. “The house doesn’t belong to you. It can’t. It’s an abandoned hut, grown thick with weeds on the outside and coated by dust within. The owner’s dead.”

  “Dead?” The word echoed furiously through his head. He hastened ahead of her, his long-legged strides making quick work of the ground. Past the large maple to his left and the saplings on his right. Past the sunny spot where Corinne had planted her garden and the shaded place where she’d done the wash.

  The familiar cottage loomed before him, made of the very logs he’d hewn with his father and brother, the very sheaves of wheat he’d bound together for the roof. He burst through the door, panting as he surveyed the long-abandoned structure.

  Dim orange light from the waning sun cast shadows against the far wall, while little motes of dust shimmered through the air. The dishes, the few he’d not bothered to take with him when he left Abbeville, sat precisely in their places on the shelf, next to two loaves of bread—one of which would come to him in the morn. The hearth stood dark but held ashes from a recent fire, and the bed lay in the corner, the tick an uncomfortable mess of straw and dried leaves laying on one of the early bed frames his brother had made. He pressed his eyes shut, but he could still see Corinne’s form huddled on the bed, still hear the coughs wracking her pale body and smell death haunting the corners of the room.

  A rustling sounded from the direction of the tick, and he forced his eyes open. A boy sat up and rubbed his face, then jerked straight.

  “Where’s Maman? What have you done with her?” His eyes lit with terror and he scooted back against the wall, leaving a smaller bundle still sleeping in the middle of the bed. A babe.

  Jean Paul stared for a moment, his heart beating wildly against his ribs as he sucked in great gulps of air. There were more children?

  “You can’t take my maman.” A fat tear rolled down the boy’s cheek. “You have to give her back.”

  More moisture coursed down the child’s thin cheeks, and something hard fisted in his chest. First the sister, now the boy. He was doing it again, meting out Terror. And he didn’t even have a uniform or sword or orders from the representative-on-mission to blame for their reactions. He seemed to terrify people just as he was. He’d certainly frightened their mother when first they met.

  “I haven’t taken your mother. I’m in search of her.”

  “Then where is she?” The urchin’s chin trembled so hard ’twas surprising his teeth didn’t clatter together.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” He glanced about the house for a second time, but the single room afforded no place for the woman to hide.

  “She had a meeting in town.” The girl slipped inside from behind him, almost as though she’d been waiting for that precise moment to enter.

  Jean Paul narrowed his eyes at her, and pink rose in her cheeks. ’Twas exactly what she’d done.

  “Maman left us?” A fresh bout of tears streaked down the boy’s face.

  The girl shrugged. “You were asleep with Victor, so Maman left me in charge.”

  “Then why were you in my lower field butchering a chicken when you had children to tend?” Jean Paul turned on her.

  “I was getting supper, and Serge didn’t know I was gone, did you, Serge?” She gave the boy a look so fierce it might well bring the admiral of Britain’s navy to his knees. “Because you were sleeping.”

  The child solemnly nodded before moving his hand to his thin stomach. “What did you bring us?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Does that mean we have to eat pulse?”

  “I’ll go find a squirrel or something.”

  She headed for the door but Jean Paul reached out and gripped her arm before she could slip outside. “I have some questions before you go darting off across the countryside trying to slay my animals. How long have you been living in my house?”

  “Three days.” The boy rolled off the pallet, mindful not to bump the babe. “Danielle found it because the inn was too expensive. Can she go catch the squirrel now?”

  “No.” Jean Paul released the girl but shut the door behind him and leaned his back solidly against the exit. “No one’s going anywhere until your mother returns.”

  “But that means we’ll have to eat pulse.”

  “Then mayhap your sister should fix some.”

  The girl glowered at him but stalked to the hearth to poke at the ashes.

  Jean Paul pulled the room’s single chair beside the door and settled in. Otherwise the girl just might run out of the house the instant he turned his back. “In the meantime, Serge, why don’t you tell me how many brothers and sisters you have?”

  And then the boy could tell him their names—he still didn’t know what to call his bread woman—followed by what his family was doing in Abbeville. And if the boy still felt like talking after that, Jean Paul could think of a half dozen more questions. He was going to find some answers, even if he needed to stay half the night to do so.

  *

  The path swayed before her, a twisting line of trampled foliage barely visible in the pressing dark. Brigitte stumbled forward, her muscles aching while her head pounded relentlessly with the gendarme’s warning. One week. Only seven days to dig up evidence against Jean Paul Belanger, and if she wasn’t successful, she’d be sent back to Alphonse.

  Because despite all her adamant claims Citizen Belanger was innocent, she still didn’t know for certain. The gendarme had been right. Giving work to injured men and food to widows didn’t mean Citizen Belanger had never been a soldier.

  She had to think up another way to spy. Her current efforts weren’t working, and the one time she’d been daring enough to steal into his house, he’d nearly happened upon her.

  Her stomach churned violently and the woods around her blurred, then began to sway. Her foot snagged on a tree root and she stumbled, sprawling forward until her knees dug into the moist dirt and her hands fisted on a bit of moss.

  Oh, Father, what have I done? I’m only trying to protect my children, but what if I lose them instead?

  There were Bible verses about reaping what you sowed. Pierre had sowed clover in the spring and now his cattle grazed on a clover field. She sowed deceit by lying to Citizen Belanger and then spying on him, so would she reap deceit or betrayal in turn?

  I haven’t a choice, God. Remember?

  But did she? Certainly working for Alphonse was the easiest choice, the best choice to get her and the children away from his influence, but was it God’s choice?

  She stared at the dirt as her stomach heaved and retched sickeningly into the base of the tree.

  She was sick with fever. She had to be. She’d not felt so wretched in years, but she remembered well the misery a fever wrought. The way her joints and muscles pained her as she lay shivering beneath layers of blankets. The way night blurred into day and day into night as she stayed curled on her bed. The way Henri had continued with his smuggling business as always, leaving her home to tend their young twins.

  But she couldn’t be sick right now. She had to get up. Go back to the house and see that the children were safe. Feed Victor and make some pulse for Serge and Danielle. Deliver Citizen Belanger’s bread on the morrow.

  She slowly pushed her body up. As though intent on proving its point, her stomach gave another sickening lurch. She sank back to the ground and curled into a ball. The last rays of sun had van
ished, and slivers of gray sky appeared through the dense leaves while a chorus of night toads and insects surrounded her. But she had to drag her body off the ground. The house wasn’t far…at least she didn’t think so.

  Not that she knew quite where she was.

  How long since her meeting with the gendarme? A quarter hour, or two? She groaned and tried to heft herself up, only to have her arms and legs start shaking. She fell back to the ground and retched yet again.

  “Maman?” A voice called, though she could hardly hear it between her heaves.

  “Maman?” Cool fingers smoothed away the hair that clung to her cheek. Then a slender body pressed itself against her back. “Are you unwell?”

  “Danielle,” she whispered through her sickness. “You’re here. You’re safe.”

  “Of course I’m here and safe. Where else would I be?”

  Tears streamed down Brigitte’s face to mix with her retching. Her stomach emptied itself of its contents until it felt as though she’d spewed forth the very life from her body. Then she rolled away from the refuse and rested against the base of the tree trunk.

  “Your brothers,” she croaked. “Where are your brothers?”

  “At the house.” Danielle held a hand to her forehead. “Awaiting your return.”

  Brigitte closed her eyes. A moment more of rest, then she would rise and walk back to the house.

  “Citizen Belanger found where we’re staying. It’s his house, Maman, and he’s waiting to talk to you.”

  Citizen Belanger? His house? How could that be? Brigitte pressed her eyelids tighter together and groaned. ’Twas a good quarter hour of walking to get from the farmstead to the hut. And it didn’t seem possible a man could own so much property, especially with the Révolution ravaging the country.

  “Is he angry?”

  “Um, I don’t think he’s mad about the house. Exactly. But I sort of, maybe, took some things that we needed from around his property.”

  Brigitte leaned her head back against the tree. This could not be happening. Not with her so sick and Alphonse’s mission still unfulfilled. “What did you take?”

  Danielle’s cool fingers touched her face and then tucked some hair behind her ear. “Fret not, Maman. We need to get you home. Once Citizen Belanger sees you’re unwell, he’ll leave and come back in the morn.”

  If only she could be so sure. But she’d been found squatting in the man’s house while her daughter stole his things, and just that morning he’d generously paid her two livres for bread worth only half that. He had every right to be furious. “We’d best hasten.”

  “You’re worrying too much. Citizen Belanger acts all mean and has that terrible stare, but he wasn’t upset…well, except about the chickens and knife. But once he got to the house and saw Victor and Serge, he acted more concerned than angry.”

  “We need to go.” And she’d pray her target, turned employer, turned landlord, would have mercy on her once she reached the house.

  “Do you need help getting up?”

  She nodded—a mistake, since her world tilted precariously, and her stomach churned again.

  Danielle slipped a hand beneath her back, and Brigitte gripped the tree bark to pull herself up. Iciness flooded her skin and her legs weighed heavy as granite.

  “Are you sure you can walk, Maman?”

  “Quite sure.” But with her first step away from the tree, her world faded into blackness.

  Chapter Nine

  Jean Paul sucked in a deep breath as he stared at the cottage sitting innocently in the morning light.

  He could go in.

  The roof wouldn’t fall down on him, the sky wouldn’t crash around him and the world wouldn’t end if he simply stepped through that door. He’d done it last night when he was too angry with Danielle to think about where he went. And he’d done it a second time when he’d carried Brigitte to her bed after she’d collapsed. Nothing unspeakable had happened either time.

  So why did the thought of going in this morn make his skin crawl and sweat bead on the back of his neck?

  The situation was too familiar. The last woman who’d lain sick in that cottage had died. Now another woman lay in the very spot where Corinne had—only this woman had three younglings and no husband.

  What would he do with the children should she die?

  He took one step toward the cottage, then another. It rested peacefully amid the trees and brambles, no screams or signs of distress emanating from within. Surely the children didn’t need him. Danielle seemed competent enough to care for her mother—provided the girl didn’t dart off to steal his chickens, that was.

  He should turn around. He had fields to tend and tenants to see to, more food to deliver and a stop to make in town. No need to go inside. He’d come to check, and the children didn’t require his help. In fact, Brigitte was probably up and around, her fever gone as she busily tended her family.

  A shriek rang from inside. “Victor, non!”

  Then a crash followed, accompanied by a babe’s wail and more shouts.

  Jean Paul covered the five remaining strides to the door and thrust it open. Chaos filled the little space before him. The dishes from the bottom shelf had all come crashing to the floor, and the babe sat in the middle of the mess, moisture quickly collecting in his eyes.

  “I told you to watch him,” Danielle shouted at Serge, her hair a wild tangle of ebony-colored waves.

  Serge sank down onto the floor beside his brother and slung his hands over his knees. “I thought he just wanted to stand up. How was I to know he would pull the dishes down?”

  A groan sounded from the bed. Jean Paul turned toward the dim corner of the room and the very spot his wife had once occupied.

  Ice, rather than blood, filtered through his veins.

  “Look at that, Serge. You went and woke Maman up because you weren’t watching Victor.” Danielle left off yelling and turned to Brigitte, plopping down on the mattress and stroking damp hair back from her mother’s face.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Jean Paul croaked, then cursed the fear that saturated his voice.

  All three sets of eyes turned to him.

  “She has a fever.” Danielle laid her wrist against her mother’s forehead.

  “Does she need a physician?”

  “Just rest. Which she doesn’t seem to be getting with Serge and Victor around.”

  Damp hair clung to Brigitte’s porcelain face, and her brown eyes were closed and sunken into her head. She slept restlessly, her arm occasionally twitching and head jerking from side to side. He took a step forward, would have reached out and felt the hot skin of her face, but Danielle scowled at him.

  “I said she’s fine.”

  His throat felt as though a liter of sand had been poured down it. “She hardly looks fine.”

  He growled at himself. Of course she wasn’t “fine.” The sick woman had nothing. Literally nothing. She slept with his horse blanket and the only food was a bit of pulse and the bread from last night—half a loaf of which had already been eaten. He was supposed to stop people from dying due to want of food, not watch it happen on his very property. “I’m going for the physician.”

  “I said she’ll be all right. Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “Is she oft ill?”

  The girl’s gaze fell to the floor. “Never.”

  Something tugged on the bottom of his shirt, and he looked down to find the little boy, his eyes wide.

  “Is she going to die like Papa?”

  “Non.” At least he hoped not. “I’ll return with the physician.”

  Danielle sprang to her feet. “But we can’t afford—”

  “Don’t worry about what you can afford.” His words came out rough and hard, and Serge skittered back to his place beside the babe. “The important thing is that your mother grows well.”

  He turned toward the door and yanked it open.

  “Jean Paul! There you are.” Pierre wiped perspiration from his forehead
with his shirtsleeve as he headed up the path with Samuel. “When you weren’t in the south field, I grew worried.”

  Indeed, the man must have searched half the land before finding him tucked away back here.

  Pierre stopped and craned his neck, trying to see into the house. “I didn’t realize you were letting this place out.”

  Neither had he, but until he figured out precisely what he was going to do with Brigitte Moreau and her children, he didn’t want people nosing about. He took a step forward, which forced the other two men back, then closed the door behind him. “Well, what is it you want?”

  “I’ve a question about the dam on the lower field. Then I found Samuel here stomping through the fields hollering for you.” Pierre nudged the small, wiry clerk from the mayor’s office.

  Samuel cleared his throat. “Mayor Narcise would like to see you this morn. Something about adding another widow to the food distribution. And then there’s this letter.”

  Jean Paul reached out and took the missive sealed with the mayor’s insignia, likely about that wretched dinner he was supposed to attend tonight. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. Why did the entire town seem to need him when he could hardly manage affairs on his own farm?

  *

  A crash, a shout, a flash of color followed by the timbre of a whisper. Brigitte struggled through her hazy, dreamlike state. Her children were here and well, that much she could discern through the commotion. But she was far from well herself. Her body ached, and her mind moved sluggishly over the chaotic sounds. She struggled to open an eyelid, but her head throbbed with the sudden light.

  “Maman? Are you awake?”

  Slender hands, likely Danielle’s, eased her up until she was half sitting. Then a mug touched her lips. She attempted to swallow, but her throat rebelled against the reflex and the cool stream of water slid down the side of her face and neck.

  “Oh, Maman, please swallow. You’ll never get better otherwise.”

  She reached a hand out to touch her daughter, to soothe away the worry in the girl’s voice. But her arm weighed like lead, and she could barely lift it off the tick before it thudded down.