Love Inspired Historical April 2014 Bundle: The Husband Campaign\The Preacher's Bride Claim\The Soldier's Secrets\Wyoming Promises (54 page)

“Perhaps he made the money making furniture, as he claims.”

The guard released her arm with a sudden thrust. “You're a fool, wench. He didn't make that fancy furniture, his brother did. And where, for that matter, is his brother? Have you asked that of Citizen Belanger yet? Michel Belanger disappeared more than a year ago, never to be heard from again.”

The gendarme paced in front of her with short, tense strides. “Something's not right. And if Alphonse Dubois could kill Belanger without the entire town crying in outrage, he would. A man rescues two ninnies from a couple army deserters and the entire town hails him as a hero.”

Apparently she wasn't the only woman Citizen Belanger tried rescuing, but that hardly explained why Alphonse feared killing him. “I see.”

“Though accidents can happen, even to heroes. A fire, perhaps, that burns his house during the night? Or maybe the axel on his wagon breaks, causing our dear Citizen Belanger to careen into a tree.”

Brigitte's chest grew so tight her heart struggled to beat.
“Non.”

“Are you defending him?” The gendarme whirled back toward her, his face etched with hatred and malice. “The man who murdered your husband? Don't you want justice for killers?”

“This isn't justice.”

She didn't see the slap coming. One moment the gendarme paced before her, and the next his hand struck her cheek, her skin burning at the contact.

She lurched back. “How dare you?”

“Mind yourself, wench. You know naught of justice.”

Maybe so, but Henri had been tried before he went to the guillotine, tried and found very guilty of crimes he'd committed. Didn't justice involve a trial? “This is revenge.”

The guard raised his hand again. She lunged out of reach, though her quick movements set off the pounding in her head once more.

“The snake deserves to pay,” the gendarme growled.

“You're not even certain Citizen Belanger is the man you seek.”

The man spit onto the damp forest floor. “They're all the same, aren't they? Men like Belanger getting rich while the poor still work for him. We have ourselves a
Révolution,
and a man like Belanger comes up with all kinds of money to buy land and make himself another lord over us.”

“You've probably been watching him for a year, and you've not found any more evidence than I. Otherwise Citizen Belanger would be dead.”

“A man like Belanger, he's hiding something. I'll give you one week, and if you still bring me no evidence, I'll have you escorted back to Dubois.”

She froze at those words, terror sinking it's claws into her heart. She couldn't allow her children to go back there, not ever.

The man ran his eyes down her then laughed. “I advise you to school your features, Citizen Dubois. Your face gives your thoughts away.”

“Moreau,” she croaked. “It's Citizen Moreau.”

He paused a moment. “Citizen Moreau? You've managed to do something right, at least.”

And then he turned, stalking off through the trees and leaving her to stare after him.

Lovely. Just lovely. The one thing she'd done “right” in all of this had been a lie.

Chapter Eight

J
ean Paul stared ahead at the familiar stand of trees—trees he hadn't seen in over six years—and a cold sweat broke out over his forehead. “Where did you say you lived?”

The girl beside him didn't speak, not that he was surprised. She hadn't uttered a single word since he yanked her off the forest floor a quarter hour ago and demanded to see her mother. But she didn't need to speak for him to recognize the overgrown trail or the thick stand of fir trees toward which they walked.

No. It couldn't be. His feet stumbled, though the ground beneath him was flat and even. “How long have you been living here?”

The girl worked her jaw back and forth, as if debating whether he was worthy of an answer before opening her mouth. “You don't yet know where I'm taking you.”

If only she was wrong. “'Tis but one house on this path.”

She crossed her arms. “And how would you know such?”

“Because it's my property. We might have been walking for over a quarter hour, but we've not yet left my land, and you've taken a rather roundabout way home.”

Her eyes snapped defiantly, but she kept her mouth clamped tight.

“I assume you're taking me to the hut up the trail? The one with the timbered sides, a thatched roof and the hearth against the far wall? Windows facing south and west?”

The one he'd taken Corinne to after their wedding nine years ago and had shared with his beloved wife for two brief years before her death.

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 vanished, 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.