Sanctuary for a Lady

She cleared her throat.

How had the woman courage to continue her story?

“One wore an old National Guard coat, and they all had on those hideous tricolor cockades. They wanted to know my name, where I was from and so forth. I told them the same story I told you, but they didn’t believe me, either. And when the leader demanded the truth, I refused. They were going to kill me regardless. Why give them the pleasure of knowing whom they’d taken?”

He’d not look at the girl. He couldn’t or he’d lose every drop of the hatred he harbored for the aristocracy. Tunneling a hand through his hair, he paced, but the room was hardly large enough. Four steps across from the chest of drawers to Mère’s bed and back again.

He wished he’d never found her. Then there’d be no dilemma, no danger to him and his mother by harboring her. No choice between whether to further aid her escape or kick her out once she regained her strength.

He’d not sneak into the woods again to fish for the rest of his days if he could send her on her way. Rid himself of the burden she’d become.

“The leader, a large man not unlike yourself, had at least enough decency to refuse the others the opportunity to violate me. I suppose I wasn’t worth dragging to the nearest guillotine, so they’d kill me there, in the woods. Then I felt a blow to my lower back and…”

He stopped pacing. Isabelle worked her jaw to and fro. Why didn’t she let her pain out? She should be in tears after reliving such an ordeal. Her hands trembled in what was surely a bitter fight for control, but her eyes stayed flat.

“…I can’t recall anything more.”

He raised his eyes to the thatched roof. Through the deaths of his father and Corinne, he’d clung to the fact that God didn’t make mistakes. Every morning when he rose to milk the cow and feed the animals, every midday when he planted or weeded or harvested rather than build furniture, he reminded himself God’s ways were best.

But the arrival of this…this… He knew not what to call her. He could hardly term her “wench” or “vixen” when she faced the memories of her attack with such strength. He could hardly call her “girl” when she had lived through such pain.

The arrival of this mademoiselle had him questioning God’s ways. Why would God want him to find her? To care for her? In God’s great plan of things, this situation was most illogical. Someone else should have discovered her. Father Albert or…

And therein lay the problem. She’d been lying in his woods. So God must have given this responsibility to him, must intend for him to aid the girl.

But why? Michel’s temples pounded. He needed the feel of wood beneath his hands, the relaxing motion of the saw or planer to clear his thoughts, roll away the stress.

“Michel?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, then reluctantly looked at the girl. No—the woman. Her lips moved. They were red, the color of apples in September, not the dull pink they’d been when he found her. And her hair, by heavens, he should have hidden Mère’s brush. It had been comely enough when dirty and matted in the woods, but brushed and falling freely over her shoulders and the pillows, it looked like a cascade of dark silk. He rubbed his forefinger over the pad of his thumb. Surely her hair wouldn’t feel so soft.

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