“You told me on our wedding night that you were glad to have married me,” she started. “Do you still feel the same?”
He locked eyes on hers. “You’re not what I expected in a wife.”
From his words, Élisabeth could not glean his mood.
“I’m sorry for my deception,” she said in a small voice. She meant it truly. Not for hiding the demon from him, but for convincing herself that Rémy loved her, and believing it for so long that she did not let herself fall in love withFrancoeur until it was too late. That was the deception she truly regretted. For she would never meet as good a man as her husband again. “I am glad that I marriedyou. Even if… Marcosi has kept us apart.”
Francoeur frowned and started to speak. “About that. You promised—”
“I will let Jeanne bleed me.”
“You will?”
“Yes. I have seen her skill. She has more power than any sorceress in the New World or the Old. If my blood is the price I must pay to end the curse, then I will give it, willingly.”
Francoeur gazed at her. “Your curse is melancholy.”
Élisabeth let the word hang in the air, wondering at its true meaning. She could not believe there was black bile coursing through her veins, no matter what Jeanne said. But she understood fear, and she knew sadness, a sadness so deep that she could barely lift herself from her bed to carry on. She did not know how God expected her to continue with such a heavy heart, except by giving her children to love to replace the family she had lost.
Another notion started to tingle in Élisabeth’s mind.
Had this all been God’s plan for her?
If she had not chosen her own path and walked up to the clifftop with Rémy, if she had not run to New France to escape her demon, would she have arrived where God meant for her to be?
She pushed back her sleeves and held out her bare arms to her husband. She felt, somehow, absolved of her sins. She was who God meant her to be: a demoniac, a wolf, a sister, a witch.
Just not a wife.
“I will let Jeanne open my vein to see if it helps my… my melancholy.” She gave him a wistful smile. “I only wish I had the courage to do it before the Sulpicians annulled our marriage.”
Francoeur’s hodgepodge hazel eyes flickered with a spark of—what? Mischief?
“I never asked for the annulment,” he said.
She blinked. “You did not?”
“No.”
“You said… we could not be saved.”
Francoeur rubbed his chin. “I wonder now if I might have been mistaken.”
“I am not what you expected in a wife,” she said, repeating his words.
“I wonder, though, if it might be helpful to have a wolf around the house. A passably pretty wolf.” Francoeur started to smile. “I’ve seen what you can do with witch hunters. I wonder if you might also keep the rabbits at bay?”
“Rabbits!”
“Very meddlesome for crops.”
She pushed herself off the wall and took a step closer to him. “You could not ask them for an annulment… because you want me to be your wife.”
The smile on Francoeur’s face grew wider until it was impossible not to smile back. Élisabeth took a step closer until her lips hovered near his.
“Because you love me.”
She kissed him, and all at once the taste of cloves danced on her tongue. Francoeur put one hand on the back of her neck and crushed her mouth, squeezing her as if he were testing to see if she would break.
