Naomi Rawlings - Sanctuary for a Lady

The chamber door opened, snapping Isabelle out of her memories. Before she finished wiping away her tears, Michel entered. When she was crying, of all times. He stood by the door, his green eyes seeming to absorb everything about her and his mother. Isabelle tugged her hand away from Jeanette’s soothing pats, cleared the moisture in her eyes with two blinks and raised her chin.

The room that had moments ago been comforting filled with an undeniably masculine presence. Michel’s muscles bunched beneath his shirt as he removed his wide-brimmed hat and wiped his forehead.

“Ma Mère, I need to speak with the girl. Alone.”

The girl. Did he not care to learn her name? She’d learned his through Jeanette last night. And what could he need to speak with her about in private? Her throat felt dry yet again; she reached for her water cup and found it empty.

Jeanette laid a hand on Isabelle’s shoulder and turned to Michel as she rose. “Be kind to the poor dear, Michel. Oh, and that crate can be sent to the orphans. I finished the last shirt this morn.”

He took his mother’s hand and led her to the doorway with gentle, caring motions. The thump of the door closing echoed in the room. He stepped toward the dresser, opened the top drawer, retrieved something and approached her.

Pretending he hadn’t stopped beside her, she stared at the beams in the roof, then jolted when his rough hand enveloped hers.

“This is yours. I should have thought to give it back yesterday.” He wedged a small pouch of coins into her palm.

Isabelle gaped at the money before meeting his eyes. “I…”

“This, too, belongs to you.”

She recognized it the moment the cool weight pressed against the center of her hand. “My pendant…I thought…the others, that is, I thought they…”

“You were wearing it when I found you, but it was bothersome while Ma Mère tended your wounds.”

Her head fell back against the pillow and she clutched the pendant and money to her chest. England. Marie. She could go. One of the La Rouchecaulds would escape this dreadful Révolution.

If she ever got out of this infernal bed.

Michel cleared his throat. “I have your citizenship papers, as well. They’re in the dresser when you need them.”

A single tear slid down her cheek. Horrors! She brushed it away with her bandaged hand, ignoring the pain her movement caused.

He sat down beside her on the bed. “Isabelle.” He whispered her name.

The word sounded beautiful on his tongue, and the intimacy of it had another tear cresting. She furiously swiped at it. She’d rather swallow a toad than cry in his presence.

His hand clasped over the fisted one resting on her chest. A bolt of heat raced up her arm. Did he feel it?

His thumb stroked her knuckles. “Don’t cry. Forgive me for not giving them back sooner. I didn’t intend to keep anything. But you vexed me so yesterday that I forgot and stormed off.”

Tears still brimming, she met his eyes, so warm compared to their coolness yesterday. She couldn’t help sinking into the comfort they offered, letting the heat from his touch travel straight to her heart. “I thank you.”

A smile twisted the corners of his mouth and crinkled the edges of his eyes. He shifted closer, surveying her features. “Ah, the very words I wished to hear yesterday. Come now…”

He shifted, bringing their lips within centimeters of each other. The breath rushed out of her. He would kiss her in another moment, and she should turn away from it, slap him. But his eyes held her, trapping her in their green depths.

She knew not how long they sat, an instant away from kissing, both afraid to make the contact, both afraid to break it. He lifted his hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and his fingertip grazed the tender spot behind her earlobe.

She lurched back. The bond that held them shattered.

Michel sprang from the bed, shifted his weight awkwardly and looked about the room. “I, uh…”

She kept her face down, staring at the pattern on the old quilt. Why must she be so childish and lurch away? He’d meant nothing by the touch. He was just…what?

Her heart felt ready to hammer through her chest, and heat flooded her cheeks. Surely she did not desire his kiss.

He cleared his throat. “I, um, came to speak with you about your attackers. Was it a gang of thieves, or soldiers? And what do they know of you?”

Isabelle stiffened, her hand tightening around her money and pendant. Had he been kind to her only because he wanted information? She couldn’t tell him, not anything. If he knew her father had been a duc, he might yet turn her over to the soldiers. And if he allowed her to stay, he’d knowingly put himself and his mother in greater danger. Non. Information about her family would only put more people at risk. “You need know nothing of me.”

“Joseph Le Bon, the représentative en mission from the Convention, will be coming to Abbeville shortly. Now, whence come you?”

The représentative en mission? An icy finger of fear wrapped around the base of her spine and worked upward. Though the main guillotine for executions resided in Paris, représentatives en mission brought other guillotines with them and their soldiers when they traveled, carrying their own little Terror to other sections of the country. She and Marie had barely maintained their disguise when the Terror came to Arras last fall, but to have it come to Abbeville? Now? “Surely you jest.”

“I do not. And ’tis reasonable that I know who’s sleeping under my roof and eating my food. So I’ll ask again. Whence come you?”

She swallowed. The soldiers in the woods hadn’t believed her story, but perchance the farmer would. The tale had fooled people for five years. “From Arras, my father was a cobbler, but when my aunt in Saint-Valery suffered apoplexy, I—”

He gripped her wrist with frightening force, angling himself over her until she’d no choice but to look him in the eye. “You lie. And so easily at that. If your hair were not so obviously black and your eyes brown, you’d state they were red, both of them. Tell me, does it upset your constitution to lie so freely? I thought mademoiselles were especially sensitive to such falsehoods.”

She pressed her eyes shut, unable to meet his prying gaze. Non. She hadn’t always lied. She’d been nearly sick the first time she was untruthful about her heritage. But the seamstress, Madame Laurent, would have sent her to the guillotine had she gone to the shop claiming she was the daughter of the Duc de La Rouchecauld.

Had lying become so natural over the past five years she now thought nothing of it?

“I’m risking my neck and my mother’s by having you here. I’ll not hear any more falsehoods. I’d rather you refuse to answer than tell me an untruth.”

Isabelle opened her eyes and bit the side of her lip. She still couldn’t tell him who her father was, not even with the représentative en mission en route. Perchance Michel was willing to help some unnamed aristocratic girl, but in the eyes of most Frenchmen, helping the daughter of the Duc de La Rouchecauld would test even God’s mercies. She blew out a shaky breath. “I promise to speak honestly, but I’ll not give you my name nor tell you whence I come. Then if I am discovered, you can deny any knowledge of my heritage.”

“We both know that will make little difference.”

The truth of Michel’s words sliced her. They would all be killed if anyone learned her identity.

Chapter Six

“…They appeared of a sudden, coming out of the forest. I didn’t stop to look or count. I simply fled. I knew not whether they were thieves or soldiers, but when they started calling me, telling me stop in the authority of France, I knew who they were and what they would do to me.”