four.
“Oui. Serge, you can have a second helping, but we’ll be eating pulse later tonight.”
The boy nodded eagerly, and Danielle’s dish appeared on the table beside his.
“May I have more, too?”
Her own stomach twisted with hunger, but she nodded at Danielle and divided her portion into two extra servings. Then she tore a piece of bread off the half loaf and chewed. At least the bread from the baker tasted palatable.
One mission for Alphonse, that’s all she needed to complete. Then she wouldn’t have to depend on the charity of a farmer for her children’s food. She could purchase her own cottage much like this one and surround herself with friends and loved ones rather than hide in the woods.
If only she could manage to finish her mission without being discovered.
* * *
Jean Paul hunched over the table in his cottage, quill gripped tightly between his fingers as he thought back over the previous weeks while he prepared his monthly report. No strangers had passed through town—well, besides the woman baking him bread. But she was hardly worth reporting. Frail, thin women with lips the color of autumn apples and skin pale as the moon weren’t a threat to the government.
And here he was, thinking of the woman again when he had business to tend. All day she had flitted through his mind, whether he be working the fields or meeting with Pierre or stocking food in the stable. Mayhap he should send her away for good on the morrow so he’d not be so distracted.
Either that, or he could hire her.
Something hard fisted around his chest. No. It mattered not how grateful he’d be for a meal he didn’t cook for himself or how much dust collected inside his cottage walls.
He let out a low growl. He had a report to write, and here he was, completely distracted by that fool woman yet again.
He bent his head over the paper and forced his thoughts away from soft brown eyes and onto more important matters, like whether any suspiciously large wagons of smuggled English wool had made their way inland from the coast over the past month.
But he came up with nothing. Nor had he heard of any large shipments of French brandy, lace or the like headed toward the coast.
The tallow candle flickered shadows across the walls and table as he scratched his message onto the foolscap. The words seemed unimportant. Insignificant. But a certain representative in the National Convention named Joseph Fouché wrote him back every month, always thanking him for the information. Twice now, the local gendarmes had found army deserters due to his reports. And once a rather large shipment of brandy was discovered on the coast, only minutes away from being loaded onto a vessel bound for England.
The spies were a little harder to track. He wasn’t certain he’d ever found one but he reported anyone with the slightest accent or less-than-fluent French.
A knock sounded on his door, soft and unhurried. He rose and glanced out the window. Darkness had long fallen, and only one type of person would knock so softly this far into the night. He took an extra blanket from the chest in the bedchamber, then made his way to the door.
He’d never met the man standing outside, would probably forget his unmemorable face if ever they chanced to meet again. But then, spies weren’t supposed to be remembered.
The man silently held out a piece of paper. “Citizen Belanger?”
He barely glanced at the missive, the signature at the bottom standing out like a flame. He had a similar letter tucked away in his bedroom, all of Fouché’s men did.
“Come. I’ve a bed for you in the stable, but I need you gone before the sun rises.”
He asked not of the man’s business as he led him to the pallet tucked into the stall beside his mare’s. He had no desire to know the secret workings of his government, but if providing shelter for a night would aid his country’s cause, then he’d house a hundred men. Because France was now a republic, a place where all people were citizens of equal value, where power and wealth were based upon one’s actions rather than right of birth.
To keep the French First Republic alive, the Convention fought not only revolution from within, but enemies from without. He might not be able to dart off into battle with the farm and an old wound in his shoulder, but he could supply food to the gendarmerie post for a fair price, ship some of his extra to the soldiers, watch his hometown for any sign of upset, and give rest and sustenance to government agents when so needed.
As terrible as the actions in his past had been, his country’s cause was just. He refused to shed more innocent blood in the name of liberty, but he’d found a way to keep serving France without the pain and horror.
Because France needed a government of the people rather than the tyranny of a king. And he would do whatever necessary to keep the Republic alive.
Including pushing all thoughts of his lovely bread baker to the side and getting back to work on his report.
Chapter Four
Morning sun slanted down over the fields, turning the earth a dark gold as Brigitte emerged from the woods. She drew in a breath and inhaled the soft scents of soil and dew and foliage, so different from the hard, tangy scent of the sea that saturated Calais.
The thatched roof of Citizen Belanger’s house arose before her, a mere speck amid the rows of crops sprouting from the earth. Tomorrow she’d find a different way through the woods, one that led to the road so she approached the house from the drive rather than the fields. Citizen Belanger was already asking questions about where she lived. The man didn’t need to know about their stay in the little cottage in the woods.
She yawned and moved her lagging feet along the edge of the field, wiping a strand of hair from her face. She shouldn’t be so tired, not when she’d woken a mere hour ago. Yet weariness clung to her, growing worse with each passing day. She sighed and pressed her eyelids open wider.
Perchance she’d have time for a nap before she met Alphonse’s man tonight. If she baked Citizen Belanger’s bread in a timely manner, and the children behaved, and she didn’t have to scrounge for food....
She was fooling herself. The nap wouldn’t happen; they never did.
She gave the house a wide berth as she circled around, careful lest Citizen Belanger was already working in his garden or the stable. But alas, the house sat quiet and peaceful, like a cottage in a painting with the sun’s warm fingers wrapped around it while fields dipped and swelled into the distance.
She raised her hand to the door, but it swung open before she knocked.
“Citizen Belanger.” She jerked backward, stumbling over an uneven patch of dirt.
He reached out and gripped her arm with his big, solid hand. “Are you unwell?”
Heat flooded her face. On their first meeting, she’d nearly fainted, yesterday she’d accused him of making worse bread than a slug and today she’d almost fallen. The man must think her a dunce.
But he didn’t look at her as though she were a dunce. No. His eyes were soft and dark, but more the color of the earth after a hard rain than midnight. And his hand still rested on her arm, warm and strong and...comforting?
How long since a man had touched her out of concern rather than force? Another wave of heat exploded onto her cheeks, and she ducked her head.
But he kept his grip on her, this gaze roving slowly over her as though looking for...
What? She peeked up at him. His face was a hard mixture of prominent bones and taut skin, firm planes and severe angles with that inexplicable scar twisting around his eyebrow. And he was far too big. His hair brushed the top of the doorjamb and his shoulders spanned wide enough to eclipse any view she might have of inside.
Yet his eyes were still soft, as was his touch. He couldn’t