Naomi Rawlings - The Soldier's Secrets

“I’ve been there once, and it doesn’t bear remembering.”

Her breath puffed from her lips in shaky little bursts. It was as she’d told Alphonse, she’d be no good at this information gathering. If she couldn’t look the man in the eye and ask him a simple question without giving herself away, how would she uncover his secrets?

If he had any secrets.

If he wasn’t the wrong man entirely.

On the eve of Henri’s capture, the sliver of moonlight trickling through the window had been so dim she could hardly make out her husband’s form on the pallet beside her. But she’d felt his presence, the heat from his body, the tickle of his breath on her cheek. He was home, for once, not off on some smuggling errand for Alphonse, paying some strange woman for a place in her bed, or drinking himself through the wee hours until dawn. He’d eaten dinner with her and the children, kissed them and crawled into bed beside her as though they were a normal family.

Then the soldiers came. They didn’t knock, just burst through the solid wooden door and shouted for Henri Dubois. One man yanked him from their bed. A big man, so broad of back and thick of chest his body eclipsed any light from the window.

Strange that she should recall that of all things, the way the soldier’s body had been so large it obstructed the shadow of her husband’s form being dragged to the door.

“Are you unwell?” Citizen Belanger watched her, his forehead wrinkling into deep furrows.

She shook her head, her throat too dry to speak.

“Citizen?” The farmer approached, stepping around the wagon and striding forward with a powerful gait.

“Non, I’m fine.” She didn’t want the hulking man beside her, innocent or not.

But he came, anyway, closer and closer until she stood in his shadow, those wide shoulders blocking the sun just as the soldier’s body had blocked the light from the moon.

She pressed her eyes shut and ducked her head. What if this man had taken her husband? Would he drag her away to the guillotine, as well?

Her breaths grew quick and short, and the air squeezed from her lungs.

But nothing happened. She waited one moment, then two, before peeking an eyelid open. He stood beside her now, towering and strong, able to do anything he wished with those powerful hands and arms.

But concern cloaked his face rather than malice. “Are you ill? Need you sustenance?”

Sustenance? She wanted nothing from him—besides information, that was. She opened her mouth to proclaim herself well, except he stood so close she could only stare at his big, burly body.

“Here. Sit.” He took her by the shoulder.

She lurched back, but his hands held her firm, leading her toward the house. Surely he didn’t mean to take her inside, where ’twould be far more difficult for her to get away.

“Non.” She planted her feet into the dirt. “I—I wish to stay in the sun.”

He scowled, a look that had likely struck fear in many a heart. “Are you certain? Mayhap the sun’s making you over warm. The house is cooler.”

Her current state had nothing to do with the heat, but rather the opposite. Fear gripped her stomach and chest, an iciness that radiated from within and refused to release its hold. She’d felt it twice before. First when those soldiers had barged into their house and taken Henri away, and then the night Alphonse had given her this task.

Now she was in Abbeville, staring at the man she might well need to destroy and letting fear cripple her once again.

* * *

She’s like Corinne. It was the only thing Jean Paul could think as he stared at the thin woman in his hold. She was tall yet slender, as his late wife had been, and had a quietly determined way about her. Unfortunately she also looked ready to faint.

He needed to get some food in her. He’d not have another woman starve in his hands, at least not when he had the means to prevent it.

“I should sit,” she spoke quietly then slid from his grip, wilting against the stone and mud of the cottage wall before he could stop her.

“Are you unwell?” he asked again. A daft question, to be sure, with the way her face shone pale as stone.

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.