A Refuge Assured Read online

  She grasped for this flicker of humanity. “We can’t go back and change anything. But I can move forward, if you’ll let me. There is nothing left for me here. I beg of you, Félix. Just let me go.”

  Vivienne looked at him across the years and hurt that separated them. In the end, Félix had proved as faithless as Sybille’s lovers. But before that, he’d shown compassion. Please God, let there be some left in him. Just enough to spare my life. Her heart drummed a tattoo on her chest.

  At last, he helped her back into the wagon while the cabbage woman climbed in from the opposite side. Drawing himself to his full height, he stood aside. “Let them through,” he called out, and Vivienne shuddered with relief.

  “Merci,” she mouthed to him, and to God, for she couldn’t speak past the wedge in her throat. The mules pulled forward, and the wagon lurched.

  “Au revoir, Vivienne.” His rueful smile was a shadow of the man she’d once loved.

  The farewell echoing in her mind, she passed through the barricade, leaving all she’d once held dear in her wake.

  Chapter Two

  Le Havre, France

  20 Germinal, Year II

  Days and nights of sitting in the rocking water coach had felt like weeks as Vivienne floated on the Seine River from just outside Paris to Rouen, then changed vessels for the last leg of the journey to Le Havre. Now that she was here, she gripped her portmanteau with one hand and held her hood to her head with the other. Sea gulls squawked between sea and sky while wind lashed strands of her hair about her face. She had never been to the coast before, but she had marveled at paintings of the ocean. Thick brushstrokes layered on canvas had seemed a deep blue dream to her then, the stuff that art was made of. And now she stood on the very edge of it. Anticipation rippled through her.

  Vivienne studied the pension before her, wondering if Sybille’s friend really waited inside. White paint peeled between the glass panes, and window boxes tumbled over with last year’s dead geraniums, the colorless stalks blending in with the limestone walls. Smoke curled from the chimneys, adding charcoal columns to the pewter sky. Except for an orange cat napping in the window, the entire scene was painted from a palette of restful gray.

  Stomach flipping between hope and doubt, Vivienne knocked on the heavy wooden door. A short, round woman with pink cheeks answered, blond hair peeking out beneath her pyramidal muslin cap.

  “Bonjour,” Vivienne began. “I am in search of a friend who is a guest here.”

  The woman nodded at her luggage. “And will you be staying with us yourself? You may have your choice of rooms.”

  “Yes, of course. Merci.”

  The door swung wide, scraping the floor as it did so, and Vivienne swept inside.

  “My name is Sophie.” The proprietress shoved her hip against the door to shut it. Her blue gown was coarsely woven but clean and in good repair. “Welcome. We’ll set you up with a room shortly.” With a curtsy, she bustled to the counter, where another guest waited for service.

  Vivienne lowered her hood. The parlor was small but comfortable, bathed in a warm amber glow. Above the roughhewn wooden counter hung a mirror flanked by brass sconces. A rust-colored rug worn thin and pale sprawled upon the floor, its fringe stretching toward the fire. Thin-legged furniture—a green damask-upholstered sofa, two armchairs, and a table between them—edged up to the hearth, and Vivienne could not resist doing the same.

  After she set her portmanteau on the floor, she held her hands out toward the friendly flames. Her feet tingled as they warmed. River water had soaked her shoes and the hem of her skirts when she disembarked, and the cold had quickly spread right through her. Closing her eyes, she relished the heat wafting over her face and let it take her back to brighter days of sun-filled rooms and flaky croissants, of studying fashion magazines with Tante Rose, noting the trends for lace.

  A book slammed shut. “Sybille?”

  With a start, Vivienne turned. “No.”

  Firelight wavered over the man’s face. The hair in his queue was a marbled blend of brown and gray, like driftwood. The way he stared at her, his eyebrows plunging, brow puckering—it was unmannerly. But then, if he knew Sybille, good manners were not likely to be his strong suit.

  “But you—” A book in one hand, he reached for her with the other, then jerked his hand back into a fist when she stepped away from him. “I don’t understand. I was expecting Sybille.”

  Vivienne did not respond right away. They faced each other before the fire, and she studied him so long that the right side of her body grew overwarm from the flames. “She isn’t coming.”

  Lines fanned from his brown eyes. “But she received my note. She must have.”

  “It was a note from her friend.” She paused, hesitant to reveal too much. “Adele, I think.”

  “Are you certain? Was it not just signed with the letter A?”

  She stared at him. “I assumed . . . she spoke of Adele a few times. I didn’t know of any other friends.”

  His thin lips quirked in a curious sort of smile. “You misunderstood. An honest mistake.” He bowed gallantly. “Armand de Champlain, at your service. I am Sybille’s friend, but more than that, if truth be told.”

  “Of course you are.” Vivienne should have guessed her mother’s friend would be a man. Mechanically, she lifted her hand, and he brought it to his lips, brushing a kiss on her fingers. “Vivienne Rivard.”

  “Vivienne.” He released her hand, straightening slowly. “Enchanté. I am only too pleased to meet you. You are her very likeness.” His voice grew husky, and he paused, composing himself. “But I don’t understand why she did not come. I have been waiting many weeks now.” He sat in an armchair and motioned for her to sit, as well.

  Vivienne lowered herself onto the sofa, regarding him coolly.

  Armand leaned forward. “She is vexed with me, I suppose. For making her wait years while I promised to leave my wife and marry her. But I did keep her in good custom as long as I could. . . .”

  “So she was your mistress.”

  “For as long as I could afford her, yes.” He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. “I had hoped, however, she would stay true even after I lost my resources. For love, you see.” His fingertip traced the engraved title on the book’s spine.

  Revulsion twisted her gut at hearing an adulterer speak of fidelity. She cast her thoughts back to the period when Sybille was supposed to be healed of her disease, reeling the scenes slowly through her mind. No man had stepped inside Sybille’s rooms after Rose and Vivienne came to stay. But when they thought they could not survive another week for lack of funds, Sybille had disappeared for several hours and come back with bread. “Make it last, if you please,” she’d said.

  “What did you do?” Rose had asked when Sybille dropped a dark loaf in her lap and another in Vivienne’s.

  “What do you think, ma sœur? At least one of us can still ply a trade.” She smoothed the rumpled pleats at her waist, and the bread turned to ash in Vivienne’s mouth. Far worse than the idea that Sybille enjoyed her work was the suspicion that she didn’t.

  “Vivienne?” Armand’s voice snapped her back to the present.

  “She is dead, citizen. From the pox.”

  Unguarded shock and horror wrenched his features. Clearly, he was registering that Sybille had not stayed true to her affair with him. But he could not possibly understand what the pox had done to her mind and body.

  Armand laid his novel on the table beside him. “I—I didn’t know.”

  “No. Of course you didn’t.” Rose was dead by then. Sybille’s friends had abandoned her as soon as her affliction marred her face. Aside from the doctor who had pronounced her case terminal, Vivienne had been the only person to see Sybille for those excruciating final months.

  “You were with her, then?”

  She sighed. “Until the end.” A black-and-white cat bounded up onto the sofa. She presented her fingers to it, and the cat immediately pushed its head into
her hand.

  “And she did not speak of me, did not say my name?”

  She met his imploring gaze. “Sybille did not say my name, citizen. And I believe it was she who named me, although I could be mistaken. Perhaps that honor, too, fell to my aunt.” Bitterness laced her words, and she regretted them as quickly as she spoke.

  He winced, then rubbed his hand over his face. “I didn’t know.”

  The cat climbed onto Vienne’s lap. Stroking its silky fur, she waited for Armand to speak. When he didn’t, she prodded him. “Then what do you know?” The smell of oysters and cider drifted from the nearby dining room.

  “I know I loved her, if imperfectly.” He looked past Vivienne to the window facing the harbor. He seemed riveted and was so pale, as though he spied Sybille’s ghost on the docks. “I know I made mistakes and would atone for them if I could.” He turned to Vivienne again. “I lost my title and my land when France abolished the aristocracy, but I managed to protect some assets. All that I was planning to provide for Sybille, I willingly transfer to you.” He shifted from the armchair to the sofa and fingered a lock of her hair.

  She bristled at the gesture. “Unlike my mother, I am not for sale,” she hissed, recoiling from him. The cat leapt from her lap.

  He blinked. “She told you nothing about me? Not ever?”

  A tart reply sprang to her tongue. How easy it would be to strip this man of his arrogance. It was ludicrous, the notion that she would have wanted to hear any sordid tale that featured an adulterous man and his mistress. Indignation flared within her, and she fanned it into full flame, for it was easier to burn with anger than to feel anything else right now.

  “Forgive me,” he said, “this all comes as quite a shock. But you must have come looking for me, or for Sybille’s friend Adele, because an escape plan appealed to you. Because you want—dare I say, need—the help I offered in my note. You must allow me to give it, now that you’ve come so far.”

  Vivienne had not relied on a man for help since Félix, and it galled her to think of depending on the very one who had used and been used by Sybille. “Despite appearances to the contrary”—she paused to force a smile—“I am not my mother. I will make my own way.”

  He draped his arm over the back of the sofa, his fingers dangling near her shoulders. As if she belonged to him, when she didn’t belong to anyone. “If you want to sail, you will need my help to secure passage, I have no doubt,” he whispered, the smell of Normandy cider on his breath. “I will give it to you. I promise.”

  Vivienne rose and dropped a cold smile on the floundering man before her. “I understand you’ve made promises before.”

  She picked up her portmanteau and left the warmth of the fire to approach the counter across the parlor.

  “Ah yes. A room for you, citizeness.” Sophie puffed a wisp of blond hair from her brow and named her fee. “How many nights will you be staying on?”

  Vivienne set her luggage on the floor. “Until the next ship sails for America.” She hoped it was soon and that the passage was affordable. Her gown was still weighted by the coins she’d sewn into the hem, but it was getting lighter. And the lace she’d secreted out of Paris would only be of use once she could sell it in America.

  Armand appeared at Vivienne’s elbow. “I said I would help you,” he murmured. “I will pay for the room.”

  “I will pay for my own room.”

  Sophie’s eyebrow rose. “There is a schooner that just delivered a load of lumber from Maine,” she said. “It’ll be taking French goods back with it, but all is not ready yet.”

  Vivienne glanced out the window at the end of the counter. The large orange cat still occupied the sill, soaking up the sun’s last rays as it napped. “How much is the schooner fare? Have you any idea?”

  Sophie offered an estimate based on the last time it came.

  Dread drizzled through Vivienne. She could not afford more than a few days at the pension and the ship fare both.

  “I can cover the cost.” Armand’s hand, heavy and damp, rested on her shoulder.

  Vivienne angled away until his hand dropped. “Armand, this does not concern you.”

  Sophie cleared her throat. “A bit of privacy for my guest here, citizen. Stand back, if you please.”

  He lifted his chin. “You may change your mind at any time, Vivienne. You’ve only to say the word.” Head high, back straight, he returned to the chair by the fire.

  Sophie huffed as she watched him return to the sofa. “He’s not the friend you expected to find here, is he?”

  “No.” Vivienne hesitated. “I’ll be truthful with you, Sophie. After purchasing my passage on the schooner, my remaining funds will not last a full week at the pension. As you heard, Citizen de Champlain is willing to assume the expenses himself, but—”

  Resting her ample bosom on the counter, Sophie leaned forward. “Persistent, that one. Wants you to be in his debt, does he?”

  “So it seems.” Vienne’s stomach growled and twisted.

  The proprietress pressed a key into Vienne’s hand with a friendly squeeze. “Third floor, end of the corridor. Freshen up, then come to the dining room for your meal. We will take it one day at a time, ma chère.”

  “Merci, Sophie.” Exhaling, Vivienne bobbed in a grateful curtsy.

  Portmanteau in hand once more, she slipped the key into her cloak pocket and headed for the stairs. Fatigue came upon her all at once, now that she was so near a bed.

  “Allow me. Please.” Armand, again at her side, pointed to her luggage. “I will carry it to your room.”

  “Thank you for the offer, but I’ve managed this far.” And she preferred that he not know which room was hers.

  “It’s the least I can do.” He reached for the handle.

  Vienne stepped beyond his grasp. “I bear my own burdens, Armand.” She said it with pride.

  But the slant of his brow bespoke pity.

  1 Floreal, Year II

  Salty mist chilled Vivienne as she gripped the schooner’s rail. It had been nearly two weeks since she arrived at the pension at Le Havre, a lifetime since she’d seen Paris, and yet not enough time to prepare herself for leaving France. Chest aching, she cast her gaze starboard, across the Channel, and then looked back. The cliffs bracing the Normandy coast were chalk-white beneath low-bellied clouds and shivering with nesting kittiwakes. The birds were free to wing over land and sea, yet they came home to roost at the edge of the country she could no longer call home. Vivienne had come unmoored. Adrift, in more ways than one.

  “You look lonely.” Armand appeared beside her. His Roman nose had reddened in the damp, cool air, so that between his pale face and blue woolen collar turned up at his neck, he resembled a tricolor cockade.

  She looked at him sideways. “A woman on her own is not lonely by definition.” A concept that seemed to elude him. During her first full day at the pension, she had slept through two meals and found him waiting for her in the dining room for the third. He had peppered her with inquiries about her finances and about Sybille. He had been no less dogged the following day, his questions nipping her ears. He was lost, she had realized, without his wife, without Sybille, without the trappings of his nobility. But Vienne could not handle both his grief and her own.

  “You are the most singular young lady I’ve ever met,” he sputtered beside her now. “Most women take great pains to turn heads, and yet you seem completely content with isolation.”

  On the contrary, Vivienne enjoyed people, or she had before the revolution raised suspicion between neighbors and friends. It was Armand’s company she could do without, for reasons he ought to understand.

  He wiped at his nose with his wrist. “Ghastly way to begin a voyage,” he muttered. “Sick from the start.”

  Vienne fished a clean handkerchief from her cloak pocket and gave it to him. “This wind does you no favors. You should rest.” Elsewhere.

  She rubbed her hands together, then blew on them. Her fingers were forever cold.
Now they stung where the mist hit the cracks in her skin, for they were chapped from working, too. When the schooner had been delayed, Sophie had arranged for Vivienne to help in the kitchen to compensate for her room and board. It was out of mercy that they had let her cut vegetables and wash dishes, for the kitchen was fully staffed without her. Keeping busy had passed the time and paid for ten more nights of lodging, but it had also kept her away from Armand. She had eaten her meals in the kitchen, and at the end of the day she’d retired straight to her room.

  Armand sneezed into the kerchief, then rubbed his nose, brightening it even more. “You can’t avoid me forever.”

  She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Philadelphia is the capital of America. The likelihood of us crossing paths in such a city is low, unless by appointment.”

  “Would that be so terrible? To see a familiar face in a strange land during our sojourn there?”

  “Sojourn,” she repeated. “When do you plan to go back to France?” New laws dictated that any émigrés who returned would be separated from their heads.

  “When the time is right, of course. Won’t you?”

  “No. The revolution has killed my industry and my family. When I land in Pennsylvania, I will set about making America my home. Permanently.” The deck rolled gently, and she planted her feet a little wider beneath her skirts.

  “I am French through and through and have no inclination to playact the American. I’m sure our countrymen already in Philadelphia feel the same. There are thousands of us there, and I see no reason to venture beyond the French community or to bother learning the English language.”

  “You don’t know it already?” Vienne had assumed that he did. Rose had been fluent enough to transact business in English and had taught Vienne. They often served British patrons eager to purchase French lace.

  “French and Italian are enough for me. English never appealed. There is no music in that awkward tongue at all.” Armand wrinkled his nose, then blew it again. “I intend to stick to my kind in Philadelphia. Birds of a feather, you know.” He gestured to the colonies of kittiwakes nesting on the cliffs.