Page 20 of The Autumn Wife (King’s Girls #3)

“Would you have me tied up in a locked room? You know I couldn’t bear that.” Marie looked her over from head to toe. “And why on earth are you wearing that awful habit? Gray is not your best color—and you are no nun.”

“Not yet.” The matter of her joining a convent had always been a bone of contention between her and Marie, so she swiftly deflected. “You look wonderful in your autumn furs, Marie.” Indeed, her friend looked so happy and bright and full of life that Cecile’s heart beat sore. “How I’ve missed you!”

“Let’s never be parted so long anymore. Wait.” Marie’s gaze shifted “Etienne, is that really you?”

Cecile glanced over her shoulder at her grinning son, who’d yanked the birchbark canoe higher on the bank.

“Madame Girard.” He stepped toward them, bobbing his head at Marie. His face lit up as he glimpsed who followed. “Captain!”

“You look strong, son.” The captain laughed. “From the stonework? Mother Superior told me you’d become an apprentice.”

Her son beamed at his idol, and Cecile couldn’t help but mentally compare the glow on his face to the dark, suspicious scowl he reserved exclusively for Theo.

“He’s practically got a beard.” Marie reached forward to pinch Etienne’s chin. “When did that happen?”

“Too fast.” Cecile nudged her son, now flushed and ducking his head. “Sister Martha is waiting for you at the dry-goods warehouse, Etienne. Go on ahead and fetch the supplies.”

“I’ll help with the loading.” The captain slapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I saw the mountain of boxes and barrels Sister Martha purchased. You’re going to need another set of hands.”

“The men are gone. Now we can really talk,” Marie whispered as they made their way up the slope. “Though I warn you, Ceci. I’m determined that the only way you and I will ever have enough time to catch up is if you agree to live with me over the winter.”

“Can we not do this today?” Cecile eyed her. “You, of all people, know my plans.”

“Joining the convent was always a terrible plan,” she retorted, “doomed to fail. Besides, Ceci, I need you this winter.” Marie slid a palm over the roundness of her belly.

“You don’t want me to be trapped in a cabin for months with a growling, sleepless father and two children in diapers to care for—”

“Stop. I’ve lived with you. I know that Lucas does half the work.”

“You’re just being stubborn.” Marie pouted, though with teasing in her eyes. “Think about Etienne. He would love to spend more time in the woods hunting with Lucas.”

“Yes,” she conceded, “he would.” In fact, after her difficult conversation with Sister Martha about Talon’s investigation, Cecile had considered spending the winter with the Girards.

Marie’s isolated landholding would offer protection from the law, at least through the isolation of winter.

But it would never be a permanent sanctuary.

And, though it shamed her to admit it, living with the Girards meant witnessing, day after day, the joy and love between Marie and Lucas.

The kind of love she’d glimpsed in a kiss by the riverbank but was never destined to be.

“Oh, Ceci, I do hope you decide to stay with us.” Marie bounced in her step in a way that belied the ripeness of her pregnancy. “I have so very much news to tell you! Including some about our little outlaw, Genny.”

“Is Genny all right?” The only thing Cecile knew about their redheaded friend from the orphanage was that she now lived, safe from the law, in the deep wilderness with the fur trader she’d married. “She’s not sick, is she?”

“She’s fine—and happy. But she sent me a message through a Chippewa trader from their far west trading post. She and her husband André will be sneaking back into Montreal soon to stock up on trading goods…”

With Marie’s arm under her own, walking shoulder-to shoulder, Cecile listened to her news as they merged into the crowd roaming the grassy verge of the market.

Around them, several dozen canvas-covered stands stood on the grass.

Cecile glimpsed Algonquin and Huron families setting up blankets piled high with beaver, martin, and fox furs.

She startled as she glimpsed the blue woolen uniforms of some fort soldiers who were milling about.

She swiftly tugged Marie down the road away from the kind of men who might arrest her someday.

Then she stumbled to a stop.

Marie frowned. “Are you all right?”

No, she wasn’t all right, but all she could do was shake her head. For coming out of a tavern—a dozen paces away—was another person she hadn’t expected to see today, striding right toward them with his head down.

“Oh my,” Marie muttered, following the path of Cecile’s stare. “Who’s that?”

“Theo Martin.”

She whispered his name with a quiver. Theo wore his Sunday best, his brushed-to-a-shine beaver coat flung open in defiance of the cold, the corner of a letter poking out of a pocket.

In finer clothing than his mason’s smock, he looked like a free man of the world, though preoccupied with some important matter.

Her heart performed a tumbling twist as he came closer.

“Such a strong, dangerous-looking fellow.” Marie bent her lips close to her ear. “I always figured such a man was my weakness, not yours.”

“Stop, Marie.”

She’d spoken too loudly.

Theo jerked up his head. His gait hitched as his pale green gaze—as bright as a lighthouse lantern—slammed into hers.

He blurted, “Cecile.”

“Hello, Theo.”

Beside her, Marie sucked in a gasp.

Cecile dipped in a bobbing little curtsey, wincing even as she did it, for Marie knew that was a nervous tic of hers.

She struggled to find something to say to Theo, who looked as stunned as she felt.

Every time she encountered him, she felt like she had a thousand things to say, but no capacity to speak a single word.

For what was there to say, when, in three weeks and five days, their lives would head in opposite directions?

Marie broke the spell. “Sir, are you Monsieur Theo Martin?”

Theo shifted his attention to her and nodded.

“Ah!” Marie cocked her head, curiosity in her eyes. “Mother Superior just told me all about you. You are the new overseer at the chapel building site?”

Theo nodded again, this time with a bow, then his gaze returned to Cecile as if it had been stretched too long in the wrong direction.

“Sister Martha praised you to the stars.” A ribbon of delight lifted Marie’s voice. “Indeed, my husband, who has been wanting to build a church on our land, was so impressed he began to consider stone—”

“Cecile, there you are!” Sister Martha came up from behind them, sailing to a stop. “Etienne just told me you’d arrived. I hadn’t meant to summon you to Montreal, my dear. I know how uncomfortable you are in crowds. Has there been a misunderstanding?”

“No—no.” She drew in a breath, doubly rattled. “I thought—”

“You’ve caught us, Sister Martha.” Marie pulled Cecile close to her side. “I lured her here for a long gossip. It has been forever since I’ve seen her. I couldn’t help sweeping her away. Am I keeping her from important work?”

“Of course not, Madame Girard.” The nun’s blue gaze shifted among their little crowd. “But now that she’s here, I could use her help. Cecile, I have a few last purchases to make, and you haggle better than I do.”

“If you would excuse me, ladies.” Theo broke into the conversation with a bend of his neck. “I have business in town that needs attending.”

Then he was gone, leaving Cecile mentally gasping.

Marie piped up again, and Sister Martha responded, but Cecile didn’t hear a word of their lively conversation. One single glance from those green, green eyes, and her yearning for his kiss roared back.

Her heart was lost.

Truly, desperately lost.

“Ah, my husband is coming.” Marie, with a twist, threw an arm around Cecile’s neck, whispering into her ear, “I saw lightning arcing between you two,” before pulling away with a look of utter delight.

“Goodbye for now, and remember my invitation. We would love to have you for the winter. We have so much to talk about!”

The captain swept Marie to his side, and Cecile was left alone with Sister Martha, the very person she’d come here to see. Yet now, somehow, the meeting with Theo had wiped away every word she’d intended to say.

“Come,” Sister Martha said, gentleness in her voice. “Help me pick a copper kettle.”

Cecile stumbled after her while the colors of the world twisted in her sight and wondered how on earth she was going to manage this situation in the brain-battered state she was in.

“There seems to be a good selection here.” Sister Martha stopped at a merchant’s table filled with gleaming pots and iron nails and other metallurgy. “Now that we’re out of earshot of any acquaintances, tell me what is troubling your mind, Cecile.”

Theo.

“T-troubling me?”

“My dear girl, you look as if a stone has just fallen on your head.”

She felt that way, too. Stunned and unsteady and aching.

Would every encounter with Theo until he departed make her feel fragile and leave her reeling?

Regret surged up her throat and twisted around in dying hope.

She remembered that Theo had had a letter from his hometown poking out of his pocket.

Perhaps he had been preoccupied with his coming freedom, and his journey back to France.

“Tell me the truth, Sister Martha.” This wasn’t what she’d planned to say but the words rose fast to her lips. “You’re never going to make me a nun, are you?”

“‘Never’ is a harsh word, my dear.” The nun’s brow rippled as she examined a gleaming copper kettle.

“Surely you know that I would welcome a sister as talented as you into our congregation. But only after all the complicating matters are settled. Talon’s investigators are already here, I’m told.

Have you heard something? Is that why you’re so addled? ”

“No.” She shuddered from scalp to toes. “I’ve heard nothing.”

“Nor have I.” Sister Martha spun the kettle around to check the seams. “But Talon is unlikely to say anything to me until the investigation is complete.”

“Perhaps we don’t have to wait that long—to make me a nun, that is.

” Her prepared arguments returned with new urgency.

“After all, you could say that I’m already a pre…

a pre…” She struggled to remember the word Sister Anne had used.

“A pre…novitiate. Because I’ve been living at the convent, and learning about the order.

If the community, all the other nuns, and yourself deem me acceptable—”

“But I don’t believe you are, my dear.” The nun set the kettle down with a gentle clank and turned to face Cecile. “Because there is a larger issue beyond the question of your widowhood. An issue that we have yet to discuss.”

Cecile’s stomach sank. She couldn’t fathom what the nun was referring to.

“I have been waiting these last weeks to see if you would bring up this matter yourself.” The nun tilted her head. “But in all your efforts to convince me to take you in—not once did you ever admit to a calling.”

Cecile slipped a hand to her throat, as if to grasp the painted wooden cross that had once lain there, before one of her husband’s creditors had ripped it from her neck for the peridot pasted at its center.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered the issue of a calling.

When Etienne had paddled her to the congregation months ago, she’d spent some time in the canoe fabricating a story about having nightly visions of the Virgin Mary.

But, despite her crimes and piling-up lies, she hadn’t been able to lie so viciously.

As a wailing child during her first year at the orphanage, she’d fallen asleep too many times on the plump, incense-fragrant lap of a softly singing novice.

To lie to one about a godly calling bordered on blasphemy.

One sin too many.

Sister Martha nodded, as if she saw the answer on Cecile’s face.

“I make no judgment.” She placed a cool, smooth hand on Cecile’s knotted ones.

“Few women are called by our Blessed Lord to the religious life, but a calling is a vital requirement to living among us. In all our discussions, you haven’t mentioned Him at all. ”

Cecile opened her mouth, but no explanation came out, no defiance, nothing but a loosening of breath.

“Let me guess why you came to my convent,” the nun said more gently. “You need a place to hide from the world.”

Cecile’s stomach flipped.

“You’re not the first to come to me for that kind of protection, you know.

” The nun sighed. “It’s a common misconception that a convent is a place to shut women away.

But even in cloistered convents, the nuns are not really hiding.

The world comes to us—to be healed, or taught, or prayed for.

And in this congregation, I’m determined that we are not to be cloistered at all, but sent out into the wilderness to ease whatever poverty and suffering we come upon. ”

“That’s why I chose your congregation,” Cecile admitted, “so I could live safely on consecrated ground and yet have a chance to see Etienne in a monastery nearby.”

“You are a loving mother. But those are worldly concerns. Not spiritual ones. So, even if Talon’s investigation proves you a widow, I cannot take you in as a nun, my dear.”

Cecile reeled back a fraction. So, Mother Superior had known from the beginning that she was an unlikely candidate. She’d fooled herself into thinking sanctuary was possible, but Marie had been right. This plan had been doomed from the beginning

That left Cecile with only one choice.

“Sister Martha, I have a request.”

“Speak, child.” The nun gripped the cross hanging from her neck. “You know I will do the best I can for you.”

“Marie has invited me to spend the winter with her family, to help when the baby comes.” Cecile braced herself. “Since you no longer need me, I’d like to leave the convent tomorrow.”