“Sew all you like, just don’t announce it.” He watched as the lights went out in the cottage.
How did one go about the business of courting when it hadn’t been done before?
Brielle came awake wondering where she was before her thoughts swung to Bleu. Sunlight streamed across the cottage’s pine plank floor, and she realized she’d slept later than she meant to. Titus snored faintly in the adjoining room, familiar and reassuring. He needed his rest. The featherbed Bleu promised had lulled them both into a sound night’s sleep.
She lay still, reflecting on all that had happened since leaving theRose and Crown.Her new lodging was as pleasing as her former attic had been plain. The Galants had spared no effort or expense at creating a welcoming bower down to the dove greyand rose wallpaper with matching bedding and the simple but well-made furnishings.
“I lived here before my marriage and now it’s kept ready for guests who happen by,” Sylvie had told her. “A place of happy memories and new beginnings.”
In a quarter of an hour Brielle had managed her front-lacing stays and chosen a simple sage green gown and white linen apron rather than the fancy chintz of yesterday. Her braided hair was half hidden beneath a lace-edged cap, and she felt more herself than she had in years. Though her stomach rumbled hungrily, all she wanted was Bleu.
Stepping onto the unfamiliar porch had her looking everywhere at once. June had stolen May’s apple blossoms and turned the sprawling orchard a lush green. She spied a footpath leading somewhere. To the heart of the settlement? The big house—Orchard Rest—seemed quiet. Was Bleu still abed upstairs?
She stepped off the porch and followed the path through the woods, unsure where it would lead her or who she’d meet. Yet she felt safe. Fully alive. Not having her day hemmed in with endless tavern tasks seemed a miracle. To her left, the Rivanna flowed southeasterly. When she’d come through the trees she saw the ferry Bleu had spoken of mid-river. A number of dependencies and outbuildings stood sturdily along both riverbanks.
On her side of the river, a wide lane divided smithy and stables from what looked to be a weaving house and dye shed. She counted a dozen weatherboard buildings painted a deep red and yellow. Men and women went about their work, none noticing her as she stopped at the wood’s edge.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Farrow.”
The low, beloved voice turned her around. Out of buckskins and minus his weapons, freshly shaven and clad in breeches andboots and a linen shirt, Bleu looked entirely different yet every bit as handsome.
In his extended hand were wild strawberries. “For you.”
“Salut toi.” She took them with an exclamation of delight, feeding him one before eating the rest. “Merci,” she added, the words pulled from some past part of her she’d thought lost forever.
His eyes held a question. “Would you like a tour of the settlement?”
At her nod they fell into step together, walking to one side of the dusty lane to avoid a passing wagon. The driver raised his hat to them, calling out a greeting.
“Do you know everyone?” she asked.
“Non.” He took her arm and led her around a rut. “Some Acadians are new to me though many have been here since the settlement’s founding eight years ago.”
She soon lost count of the buildings he pointed out. Stillroom. Wash house. Stables. Smokehouse. Spinning house. Salt house. Even a communal dining room and kitchen. Barns stood in distant fields crisscrossed with rail fences. But it was the chapel in the bend of the river at the farthest end of the settlement that stole her attention and her heart. Modest and whitewashed, it boasted a steep, shingled roof and tall windows, the door affixed with decorative iron hardware.
“Small,” she exclaimed when they stepped inside. “Yet well made.”
“It serves many purposes,” he told her as they walked the center aisle toward the altar. “Traveling preachers come by on occasion. Weddings and baptisms and christenings are celebrated—and sometimes funerals. There’s even been talk of adding a bell tower.”
The fenced cemetery she’d seen behind the chapel turned her melancholy, yet the quaint building held the peace she’d often craved. Her fears that her freedom would fall apart—that Griffithswould find her and Titus and return them to the tavern—lessened here. Though she knew it was senseless, trusting Bleu had taken care of the matter, she still couldn’t shake her unease.
“I’ve not been in a church since Philadelphia.” Eyes on the altar, she sat down on a wooden pew. “And you?”
“I find God more outside these four walls than within.”
“The Creator of hot springs and waterfalls and wild strawberries.” She smiled, thankful for all they’d experienced in so short a time.
Thankful, too, he couldn’t divine her hopes of a wedding in this hushed, hallowed place. If he asked her this very moment to marry him right here and now she would, his smile wooing her though that might not have been his intention. Seized with shyness, she looked to her aproned lap, as tongue-tied as she was enamored.
Gabrielle Galant.
15
Sensing Brielle’s sudden disquiet, Bleu led her out of the church to walk around the settlement on the river path, weighing whether to take her across the river, too. The day would be ablaze by noon but for now all was cooler and shaded, the river a continual rush. They’d not gone far when two women came toward them, baskets dangling from their arms.
Geneviève Turcot and Eulalie Benoit?
Brielle seemed shy again, unsure of herself. Was she out of her depth because of their rapid French? Or her new surroundings?
