live that far, either. ’Twas almost as though she’d been dropped off by the afternoon sun yesterday and planned to stay for the rest of her life.
But if her rigid posture was any indication—and the rather noticeable fact that she still showed him her back rather than her front—she wasn’t going to volunteer where she stayed.
“Let’s strike a bargain, shall we? You can bring me bread on the morrow, but only if you take my food today.”
She turned slowly, her forehead drawn into a series of subtle furrows. “Have you flour, or am I to purchase some in town?”
“I farm wheat, remember?”
She licked her lips, dry and cracked yet somehow compelling. “I’ll need oil and yeast, as well.”
“Let me package some for you.” He turned back toward the shelves that held his foodstuffs, trying to stop that unfamiliar smile from peeking out the corner of his mouth.
He failed.
* * *
Nothing. Thirty hours until her meeting with Alphonse’s man, and still she had no information to offer.
Brigitte moved her tired feet along the overgrown path through the woods, her fingers clenched around the food from Citizen Belanger. She’d not expected to bake bread in exchange for food but at least her children would eat this day and she had reason to return to his house on the morrow.
And tomorrow she would ask again for a job. Hopefully the stubborn man would hire her.
A vision crept up from the corners of her mind, an aged memory of Mademoiselle Elise from years long past. The governess’s eyes had been stern as she stared down at Brigitte, retching over a bush. I told you one biscuit, but you ate most of the platter. Serves you right to be sick half the night. Be sure your sin will find you out.
And then their strict old governess had walked off, leaving her to retch alone.
The same urge to retch twined through her again as it had years ago. What was she doing lying to a stranger like Citizen Belanger—a stranger who fed her, no less? Would her sin find her out? Would Citizen Belanger discover the truth?
“Father, no! Please keep us safe.” The frantic prayer burst from her lips before she could stop it.
She risked far more than a stomachache if she were caught this time.
The small hut Danielle had led them to last night emerged from the shadow of the woods. It looked as though it hadn’t been used for a decade. Weeds grew up beside the door, and an empty darkness radiated from the cracks around the shutters. But it was sturdy, with heavy timbers pitched tightly together and a thick thatch roof promising warmth come winter.
Not that she planned to be here for winter. Alphonse would want her mission completed long before then.
The door to the little shack burst open. “Did you get the post, Maman?”
“Non. But I took a different job.” Brigitte dipped her chin toward the bundle of ingredients she carried. “We’ve bread to bake for Citizen Belanger.”
Danielle rolled her eyes. “How dull.”
“’Tis work, daughter. We mustn’t be particular.”
“I don’t understand. If this landowner is looking for a housekeeper, why won’t he hire you?”
She slanted her eyes away from her daughter’s gaze. Sometimes the girl was a touch too bright. “He’s not looking for a housekeeper, exactly.”
“But when we left the inn in Abbeville, you said—”
“Please trust me, Danielle.” She pressed her free hand to her temple, already beginning to throb. “Perhaps I can’t explain everything at the moment, but I have reasons for my actions.”
Danielle scowled, black hair falling about her face in a riot of tangles.
“Good reasons,” she added. Reasons that would grant them their freedom from Alphonse. But how to explain such things to a mere child?
“Then why are you doing all of this? Why are we using the name Moreau instead of Dubois? I don’t like having a pretend name.”
Brigitte’s cheeks went cold, every last drop of heat leaving her face to pool in her toes. “I told you before we left Calais, we’re using my family name now because I can’t risk people here knowing our relationship to Alphonse.”
Danielle propped her hands on her hips, a gesture far too mature for a girl of only three and ten. “You’ve never been ashamed of our name before.”
“Oui, when we lived in Calais and everyone knew us. But not now.” If Citizen Belanger truly was the solider responsible for her husband’s death, her surname could give everything away. “We’ll call ourselves Moreau in Reims, too, so accustom yourself to it.” She nodded toward the door. “Now let’s inside and see what progress you made on your studies.”
Danielle flipped some hair over her shoulder and huffed. “I hate English.”
Nothing unusual about that. Perchance she was pushing the studies a mite hard given their current living situation, but the girl found trouble too easily when she hadn’t something to occupy her mind. Besides, English had been a most useful language living in Calais, and if the war fell in favor of the English, it might become even more necessary. “Did you finish your arithmetic and grammar?”
“I still have those, too,” Danielle grumbled.
Brigitte pressed her hand to her temple again, the pounding growing ever harder, then moved into the little house.
“How do I tell the difference between a b and a d again?” Serge sat at the table, scrunching his nose as he stared at the letters copied onto his slate.
She ignored the thick layer of dust caking everything from the wobbly table to the shelves to the pallet in the corner where Victor slept, and instead set the food on the table and peered over Serge’s shoulder. “A b has a ball on the back of the stick, remember? And the d has the ball on the front.... Yes, like that. But I told Danielle to finish her studies before you started. What are you doing with the slate?”
Serge’s piece of chalk clattered to the table while his eyes latched on to the soup and bread. “Did you bring food?”
She sighed. There went any chance of reviewing the alphabet or figuring out why Serge had the slate. “Oui. Citizen Belanger sent us some of his soup and bread from last night.”
Serge was already off his chair and scrambling toward the shelves that held naught but two bowls, a motley collection of eating utensils and three plates—all seemingly left behind by the house’s last inhabitants. “I’m hungry.”
“Patience, son. I must heat it first.” She crossed the small room to the aging pot on the hearth.
“I don’t mind it cold.” Serge set the bowls on the table.
“Me, neither,” Danielle piped up.
She ran her eyes over her children’s slender forms. Serge, with his too-short trousers and too-thin hips. And Danielle, with her gaunt face, bony shoulders and dress that would fit a girl who weighed half again as much as Danielle. Was she doing such a poor job of providing for her children that they clambered after cold, day-old soup?
Evidently.
She dished the hearty broth and vegetables out, and Danielle sank down onto the dirt floor with her bowl while Serge climbed back onto the single chair and gulped his food.
“Slow down, child. It won’t run off on you.”
But he finished his bowl in less than a dozen bites and pushed it toward her. “Can I have more?”
The bucket had seemed like so much food but it now stood half empty without enough sustenance to see herself and the children through the evening meal. Though