She shook her head, a barely perceptible movement. “I simply...need a moment.”
She needed more than a moment. Judging by the dark smudges beneath her eyes and hollowness in her face she needed a night of rest and a fortnight of sumptuous feasts.
“Come inside and lie down.” He hunkered down and reached for her, wrapping one arm around her back and slipping another beneath her legs.
“Non!” The bloodcurdling scream rang across the fields, so loud his tenants likely heard it. “Remove your hands at once.”
Stubborn woman. “If you’d simply let me...”
His voice trailed off as he met her eyes. They should have been clouded with pain, or mayhap in a temporary daze from nearly swooning. But fear raced through those deep brown orbs.
She was terrified.
Of him.
Why? He shifted back, giving her space enough to run if she so desired. The woman’s chest heaved and her eyes turned wild, the stark anguish of fright and horror etched across her features.
“Let me get you a bit of water and bread.” He rose and moved into the quiet sanctuary of his home. The cool air inside the dank daub walls wrapped around him, the familiar scents of rising bread and cold soup tugging him farther inside. But the surroundings didn’t banish the woman’s look of terror from his mind, nor the sound of her scream.
How many times had he heard screams like that? A woman’s panic-filled cry, a child’s voice saturated with fear?
And how many times had he been the cause?
Chapter Two
Jean Paul’s hands shook, as they sometimes did when his memories from the Terror returned. He gritted his teeth and filled a mug with water, then grabbed the remaining loaf of bread and half a round of cheese, wrapping both in a bit of cloth.
The woman sitting outside his door couldn’t know of his past, how he’d once evoked terror, how he’d turned his back on those in need for the glorious cause of the Révolution.
How their screams still haunted his dreams.
But she was wise to look at him with fear, as though she sensed the hideous things he’d done.
The walls of the house closed in on him, the air suddenly heavy and sour. He stalked toward the door. The woman had the right of it, much better to be in the sun than trapped inside a dark house.
He half expected her to have dragged herself into the woods. But she sat in the position he’d left her, with her back against the wall and her head slumped over her knees. Reddish-brown hair peeked from beneath her mobcap to dangle beside a gaunt cheek.
Too gaunt, too pale, too sickly. An image rose of a time long past. His wife lying on her pallet in the cottage they’d shared, her fingers and face naught but bones, her skin stark and pale, her body crumpled into a little ball as she struggled to suck air into her wheezing lungs.
He dropped to his knees and pressed the wooden mug to the stranger’s lips.
“Drink,” he commanded, perhaps a bit too forcefully. He attempted a half smile so as not to frighten her again, except the upward tilt to his lips felt rather stiff and foreign.
She took a gulp then slanted her gaze toward him, her eyes soft and dark rather than filled with fear. Mayhap his smile had worked?
“I’m better. Truly. I only needed a bit of rest.”
Mayhap lack of food and water coupled with too much sun had caused her distress. He’d heard of people going mad after a day working the fields. Or then again, she might be with child. Swooning went along with bearing young, did it not?
She’d said she needed work. Her husband could be a soldier who’d left her with child and gone to the front. Or worse yet, her husband might have been killed in battle.
He opened his mouth to ask, but the woman braced her hands on the ground to push herself up. “Merci, Citizen, but I must away.”
He shoved the water back in front of her face. “Drink more. I’ve brought you bread and cheese, as well. I’ll not have you nearly swoon one moment and then be up and about the next.”
She took the mug from his hands and swallowed. The wooden cup no sooner left her lips than he placed the bread before her. She nibbled at a crumb or two then wrinkled her nose, a ridiculous expression considering how ill she’d looked just minutes before.
But with the thick, dense state of the bread, he could hardly blame her. It tasted little better than mud, he knew. He’d been making and eating the loaves since his mother’s death last fall, and no matter what he tried, the heavy dough refused to rise.
The woman handed the bread back to him then rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’m fine, truly, and I’ve other business to attend now that I’ve an answer regarding a post here.”
He stood with her. So they were back to discussing a post. Could the woman cook? Mayhap offering her work wouldn’t be so terrible...
But no. He wasn’t ready to have a woman about his house, not with the way Corinne’s memories still rose up to grip his thoughts. “Try looking about town for work, and if you find naught there, then head to Saint-Valery. ’tis not more than a day’s walk, and there’s always work at the harbor.”
Her chin tilted stubbornly into the air. “I thank you for your time, Citizen.”
He held out a bundle of bread and cheese. “Here, I trust it keeps you until you find a post.”
Her eyes softened. “You’re too generous.”
The woman didn’t know the half of it. “Take it.”
“Merci.” She tucked the bundle beneath her arm. “I think I should have enjoyed a post here.”
And with that she walked off. Head high, shoulders back, posture perfect, even if her gait was rather wobbly.
* * *
Brigitte settled the food in the overlarge pocket of her apron and hurried down the road. The children. She had to get to the children. They’d been alone in the woods for far too long while she’d sat in the shade like a child, drinking water and eating bread.
Of all the ways to prove herself a capable housekeeper to Citizen Belanger. She’d gone half-mad, nearly fainting and then screaming at a man who’d tried to help her.
Tried to help. How long since a man or woman had shown her kindness the way Jean Paul Belanger just had?
And here she was forced to spy on him. She swallowed the unease creeping up her throat and rushed forward, not slowing until the lane curved and the woods started, its towering trees and rambling brambles shielding her from the farmstead. At the first break in the brush, she veered into the forest.
“Danielle, Serge.”
Only the song of insects and birds answered her.
“Serge,” she called louder. “Danielle.”
Somewhere ahead, a babe mewled. She stepped over a decaying log then skirted a pit of mud.
“Here we are.” Serge sat on the forest floor beneath a tree, holding eight-month-old Victor in his lap. The babe’s eyes landed on her, and he let out a piercing wail. Brigitte reached for her youngest son and settled onto the ground, then brought him forward to feed.
“Are you unwell, Maman?” Serge’s vibrant brown eyes, humming with energy and life, searched hers.
Unwell? Was it possible to be anything but unwell with the orders Alphonse had given her and her failure to gain a post at the farm? How was she going to tend her children and feed her babe while working a job in town and spying on Citizen Belanger two kilomètres away?
If only