“Ah…” His eyes lit like candleflame. “Gabrielle…très française.”
“My father was English, my Mother French.” She sensed his pleasure at the revelation. “I go by Brielle.”
He continued eating without looking at her. “Do you speakfrançais?”
The musicality of his words reached soul deep. Her mother’s voice seemed to echo instead, bringing a sharp homesickness. For a moment she simply stared at him before she took up her own spoon. “Long ago I did. I’ve forgotten much of it. Few speak French here…”
“She taught me a few words.” Titus swallowed another small bite. “Merci.Pardon.Bon.”
A few,oui, if only to hold tight to her heritage. They continued to eat slowly in silence, more attuned to what was happening outside the kitchen.
Titus looked up from his half-finished meal as if eating somehow slighted his sister’s memory. “What do you think’ll happen to us now that the master’s dead?”
Bleu took another drink. “Your former bondsman may have an heir who’ll take his place or sell the tavern.”
Titus’s face fell. Brielle sensed his fear. The unknown was always frightening no matter how many times you faced it. Odd that this stranger had happened by when he did given he usually went further north, as he’d said. She cast about for some deeper meaning to their meeting and came up empty. He was simply another traveler, a frontiersman, who’d be on his way like so many who came to the tavern’s crossroads from all directions.
“Did you help bury all them folks?” Titus held his spoon aloft. “My sister, too?”
“Oui, I did,” Bleu said quietly. “In a clean linen sheet Miss Farrow gave me. A decent burial isnecessaire,non?”
Brielle listened, torn between thankfulness and regret. Glad to be alive but still in servitude. Disbelieving despite death all around them. Would the shock of surviving simply because she’d followed Titus into the cornfield ever fade?
Might God have something more in mind for her?
Titus sighed. “I’m sorry for my sister but I know she’s safe in heaven.”
“Safe,” Brielle echoed, believing it with all her heart. “And happy and whole.”
“And we’re still together here.” His worried eyes met hers and she tried to smile in reassurance.
They were still together, for the time being, come what may.
6
How odd it felt to return to her attic room in a tavern emptied of guests but guarded by a few of the militia. But in truth, Brielle would have felt safe with only Bleu Galant defending them. His presence and weapons held her in a sort of horrified awe, the colorful beading on his tomahawk suggesting an equally colorful story untold. He likely slept with all the accoutrements of war on his cot downstairs in the tavern passageway. Such was the way of woodsmen.
It hadn’t taken her long to realize he was as decisive, quick-witted, and observant as he was powerfully made. He could have reopened the tavern and run it himself had he wanted. The chilling scar that flanked his left brow to his jawline failed to mar his appeal. He was by far the most arresting man she’d ever seen—and she’d seen plenty in the city and at the crossroads.
In his presence she felt small. Nothing but a bondservant with little to recommend her. Yet she was full of big questions. Where had he come from? Where was he going? Did he have a home? Suddenly every facet of him intrigued her. He glittered like a rough-cut gem beyond her reach.
Now, hours after meeting him, she lay atop her bed, ears tuned to the slightest threatening sound beyond the open window as he played across her conscience.
Bleu.
It suited him, strong yet comely, much like the French words and phrases threading his speech.Thatshe hadn’t expected. Hearing her mother’s native tongue again cracked open a bittersweet door to the past she’d tried to keep shut. It hurt too much to remember. Yet his use of it won her over just the same.
When she awoke the next morning to the rooster crowing, she dressed hurriedly with a strange anticipation despite all the work awaiting her. She heard Titus on the other side of the wall, in the room he’d shared with his sister. The soreness she felt over Tamsen now set in as the shock of her death wore off. To think of all those buried overwhelmed her. Too much for one soul to hold.
She crept downstairs, unsure of what she’d find, smelling coffee and bacon wafting from the kitchen. Warily, she darted a glance at Griffiths’ ransacked office. A mail bag lay on the floor, the latest sack sent to the tavern for those in the settlement. Because she was learned, Griffiths had her handle the post, passing out letters and recording who came to pick them up or sent them, always collecting the required pence. Of all her tasks, this was her favorite for it allowed her a little dreaming. The novelty of the mail broke the monotony of her days.
Boston. New York. Savannah. Williamsburg. York Town.
Places she’d only heard of but never been. Two more years and she could go anywhere she pleased once she’d collected her freedom dues. Though she might never be a lady of leisure surely there was a chance for rest, kinder work, the ability to enjoy life’s little pleasures aside from the Sabbath. Yet that was a frightening prospect too.
How did one go anywhere when one had no ties to anyone?
The passageway was empty of its splintered furniture, even the cot Bleu Galant had slept on. She followed the aroma comingfrom the kitchen, stopping in the open doorway. Their guest—if one could call him that—was making breakfast. Turning bacon in a skillet while something equally delicious emanated from the bake oven.
