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

The boy’s mother?

Impossible. The two of them couldn’t be ten years apart in age.

Yet Theo had witnessed how the woman had drawn the boy tight against her side earlier and how the boy—despite his struggle to act unaffected—had, for a brief moment, let his head fall against her shoulder.

Theo had assumed they were children of a different father or mother.

The boy was lanky, dark-haired, black-eyed, his complexion more Huron than French.

The woman was all sunshine. Her fair blonde hair was gathered at the nape of a neck that looked too slender to hold the weight of motherhood. Her pale skin looked as soft as clouds.

Only her eyes were dark. Swirling shades of earthy brown, like the chocolate in a porcelain cup that had been served to him once, back when he’d been allowed to visit the house of the man who’d fathered him.

“I am Etienne’s mother, sir, in all but blood.” The lady spoke the words like he’d pulled them out of her, then returned to poking at his wound with a wet linen. “Etienne is the son of my husband and his late wife.”

Ah, a stepmother. That explained the narrow age gap. The strength of the affection between the two ran deep—not always the case, as he knew very well from his own home situation.

“My mistake,” he said, tilting his head to give her better access to his wound. “But mother or sister, what I said still runs true. Etienne, a good son gives his worried mother no trouble.”

Like he hadn’t caused his own mother a heap of trouble before he’d been exiled across an ocean.

“You will have a scar, Monsieur Martin.” Her voice tightened as she shifted the topic of conversation. “A small one, but it’ll leave a ridge.”

Like yours? His gaze slid to a scar and small divot by her hairline.

“Perhaps,” she continued, “if I bind the wound—”

“Don’t bother.” Returning to his master’s land with his head bound by a bloody linen would invite a thousand questions. “Stop the bleeding as best as you can and I’ll get back on the road. I’ve got business in Montreal.”

He nudged her hand away and felt her retreat more than was warranted by a brief touch.

Curious, he dared to meet those wary brown eyes.

Damn, she was a beauty. In another time, a better place—when he had something to offer a woman other than a night’s pleasure—he would have flirted with her.

The urge rose up in him, but he pushed it back down.

Not only was she cringing at their proximity—and trying not to—she was also married.

That his mind strayed in that direction was proof that he’d been too long without a woman. Best to avoid entanglements of any kind, when in twelve weeks and a day he would settle old scores and atone for the trouble he'd left behind.

Suddenly, the door to the schoolhouse creaked open on leather hinges. He glanced over to see two nuns stride out into the blaze of the July day.

Unfolding to his full height, he bowed to the holy women. Madame Tremblay splashed the bloody linen into the bowl before she stepped up beside him—an arm’s length away and then some. How ill at ease she was with him.

“Madame Tremblay,” the leading nun said, “it’s kind of you to step in and help the injured. Not all visitors are so eager to play the good Samaritan.”

“Of course,” the lady replied in a warmer voice than she had used with him. “Mother Superior, I assume?”

The nun nodded and gestured toward him. “Is this our hero?”

The nun gave Theo a thorough perusal. He braced himself for the look that always came after—the scornful dismissal of a man of no consequence—but when the nun’s gaze returned to his face, he saw only curiosity and gratitude in those blue eyes.

“Forgive my rudeness,” Mother Superior said, “but I do not recognize you. I had expected—well, hoped—that the responsible party to today’s heroics might be one of the workers on my project.”

Her project?

In his experience, it was always the local bishop or a head monk who financed and planned religious building projects, even for convents.

Frontier life required such a shattering of norms, he supposed—and the Reverend Mother had clearly risen to the challenge.

Though he’d noticed a few flaws in mortaring—the fault of the workers—and a lack of safety—the fault of the building overseer—the building site itself was highly organized.

Bluestone had been set aside in neat rows for sills and lintels.

The best Pointe-aux-Trembles limestone was being crushed to make mortar.

Taking everything in, he had lingered on the roadside, gawping with envy at the working masons, losing himself in memories of better days when he’d been tasked to raise castles and cathedrals under his bare hands.

“Monsieur?” the Reverend Mother prodded. “Your name?”

“Theo Martin,” he stated, bending his neck. “I happened to be passing by when I witnessed the accident—the near accident.”

“Well, I’m very glad the Holy Spirit nudged you in the right direction. There have been too many injuries on this project. The prayers of my congregation are powerful, but”—she shook her white-capped head—“those workers could help the angels a little, by paying more attention to safety.”

“Reverend Mother.” The boy Etienne shoved off the wooden bench and took a swaggering step to his mother’s side. “The mason who dropped the stone wasn’t wearing a leather bib. And the stone was too heavy to carry without it.”

“Is that so?” A smile twitched at the corners of the nun’s lips. “And who is this well-informed young gentleman?”

Theo didn’t have to turn his head to sense Madame Tremblay stiffening like a lioness beside her cub.

He did wonder why, though.

The lady said, “This is Etienne Tremblay, the boy who was saved. He’s my”—her voice caught on a breath—“he’s my son.”

“Oh?” The nun blinked. “My dear lady, unless the angel Gabriel appeared to you as a child, this young man must be adopted.”

“A stepson,” Theo offered. The hot sun glanced off the golden surface of her hair, nearly blinding him. But not so much that he didn’t notice the tendons standing out in the lady’s throat.

What worried her so much?

“I saw everything,” Etienne blurted, rising to his toes. “I was supposed to wait here, on the bench. But I…” The boy cast a glance toward the bustling worksite. “I was curious about the construction.”

“That’s where I saw him,” Theo added as Madame Tremblay bit her lower lip hard. A lady in distress had always been his weakness. “I witnessed one of the masons carrying a stone that was too large to be hauled up a ladder that was too rickety to use, especially for such weight.”

The Reverend Mother bent her head back. “And what do you know of such things?”

Everything.

“I grew up in a village of stonemasons, and was apprenticed from a young age.” He flexed his empty hands, aching to hold a trowel. “I spent years in Paris building cathedrals.”

“Wait…” The nun leaned in, setting the cross at her neck swinging. “You’re a mason?”

“Yes, or at least I was, back in France.” His shoulders straightened with a pride he couldn’t afford to have or show off. “I’m a master mason.”

The boastful words launched out of him, propelled not only by the realization that this nun was in charge of the chapel-building project, but also by the awareness of the lovely woman standing by his side.

The woman who’d tended him out of decency and politeness, but who’d done so with visible wariness.

Probably because she saw him as only a dirty laborer.

How fine it would be for such a woman to see him as the better man, the craftsman he had been, back when he was deserving of respect.

Respect was the very first thing he’d lost.

“A master mason?” The nun clutched the wooden cross to stop its swinging. “Saints alive, I have scoured the settlement looking for masons. My own overseer just quit, lured away by the bishop in the upper city of Quebec, who promised him a grander project. Who do you work for?”

“I don’t work as a mason.” He tightened his jaw, trying to find a way to tell this nun the truth without lowering himself in the lady’s eyes. “The man who holds my papers”— of indentured servitude—“prefers I clear timber and stumps from his land. He has no interest in stone buildings.”

“What a terrible waste of talent.” The Reverend Mother gestured toward the building site. “What’s your opinion of our chapel, then? Be honest.”

Considering the gulf between his appearance and his claims, he shouldn’t take umbrage that the nun would test his knowledge about construction.

But it always struck him like a mallet how little trust he now commanded.

“The footprint is solid,” he began, “and your overseer has kept it well organized. But there are stones in the south-facing wall that are set on the wrong side of the grain. And two of the furnaces over there—the lime ricks—have sputtered out. They should be burning limestone continually so there’s a steady supply for the mortar. ”

In the wake of his words, he sensed a shift in the lovely Madame Tremblay’s attention. He stood a little straighter.

“Goodness, a prayer is sent up and then answered in the most unexpected way.” With a swift hand, Mother Superior made the sign of the cross. “Sir, tell me who holds your papers.”

“Monsieur Rivard.” He couldn’t say that name without swallowing a surge of bile. “He has a landholding a half day’s canoe ride downstream.”

“Would he hire you out, do you think?”

“I…” Doubt it. “I don’t know.”

“Well, then, I ask you: Would you like to work on the building site for my chapel? I’m in need of an overseer.”

An overseer.

The world went fuzzy, shivered, and doubled.

He could almost feel the smooth handle of a trowel sliding into his palm, the jolt of a shovel against limestone, the creak of wooden scaffolding under his feet.

His chest swelled, filling with that most dangerous sensation—a bubbling stew of hope, anticipation, and expectation.

He struggled to press it down, deflate it. He was not his own man, and his master would sooner whip him than give up the labor of his strong back. But one flit of a glance at the woman by his side—one catch of her bright-amber gaze uplifted—and all struggles ceased.

So much had been stolen from him. Freedom, friends, family.

This nun offered a chance to seize back some respect.

“Yes,” he blurted. “I’d be happy to work for you.”