Page 7 of The Autumn Wife (King’s Girls #3)

He opened his mouth, ready to give her an earful, for he’d built a chateau in Maincy for one of the Sun King’s ministers, he’d built the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris, and he’d had a hand in enlarging the Palace of Versailles.

But when he faced her, he ran into a chin raised in pride, cheeks pale as clouds, and a trembling mouth.

She was terrified of something—could it be him? He could all but see the fear pulsing under that fair skin. What the hell was he doing, terrifying this woman? He uncurled the fists he’d made at his sides.

“Let me ask you a question.” He drew in a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. “Do you want this chapel to stand for a thousand years?”

“Of course.” She swallowed so hard he saw the flex of her throat. “Though the Reverend Mother may agree that five hundred years would do—if it means the work could proceed more quickly and with some savings.”

“If a wall can be shattered as easily as we are shattering that one,” he said, tilting his head toward where the crash of mallets continued, “you won’t get five years out of this building.”

A pulse jumped in her jaw. Seeing it made him want to touch it.

With his tongue.

Damn, he needed a night in a tavern.

“Surely,” she said in a low voice, “there’s a better way to fix it than knocking the whole thing down.”

“There is only one way to build a stone building, and that’s the right way.” He held up a hand before she could protest. “The problem is just as your son said. The wall is riddled with stones mortared against the grain.”

Her forehead rippled. “How did this happen?”

“One—or more—of the masons are careless or inexperienced. I don’t know who yet.

” Theo suspected several might not be masons at all, but they had claimed they were in order to secure the higher wage.

“I don’t know who mortared that part of the wall, but when I find out, I will teach them that every stone has to resist the pressure of the stones above.

One ill-laid stone weakens the entire building. ”

“Such a small thing…”

“Not a small thing at all.” He planted his hands on his hips, squinting at the building site. He glimpsed her son pacing by the lime ricks, agitated and frowning, squinting across the distance at him and his mother talking under the canopy.

“Imagine, Madame Tremblay, if we kept that wall the way it is, and then it collapsed without warning. On a gathered congregation—or on your son.”

“Your point is made, sir.” She clutched her own arms and ran her hands from shoulder to elbow. “Tell me this, then: How long will destroying this wall delay the completion of the project?”

“Impossible to say.”

“Sister Martha told me she wants the roof to be installed by Christmas.”

“She’d better pray hard.” He pulled up the hem of his smock and wiped his brow with it, an excuse not to witness the lady’s surging distress.

“When the weather gets bad, and the temperature drops, the water in mortar freezes. It won’t bond to stone.

You can’t do masonry when the temperature drops too low.

And even the best of carpenters can’t put a roof on unfinished walls. ”

She uncrossed her arms and planted them on her hips instead. “You’re saying the work stops in…October?”

“Earlier if September winds bring a chill. And it won’t start up again until April.”

“Then why is Sister Martha under the impression that it’ll only take a few months more to finish?”

He couldn’t help himself, remembering her own words. “Perhaps she relies too much on blind faith and grand assumptions.”

She raised those lovely lashes, acknowledging the homage, though her gaze was still wary. “Nonetheless,” she said, “Sister Martha is still relying on you—on us—to help her fulfill the promises she has made to her superiors. Surely there is some way we can avoid disappointing her.”

The gut-kick to reassure this lovely woman was almost too much to bear. Don’t worry, I will get the best from these men. We’ll be mortaring at all hours and raising walls faster than you can imagine…

He would, indeed, be getting the best from these men, but they faced an impossible deadline. He thought hard, watching as she shuffled her weight from one foot to the other, thinking even harder.

As intelligent, he thought, as she was beautiful.

He shunted the dangerous thought away.

“I’m out of my depth, monsieur.” She stepped away from the long table and into the sun, heading toward the main convent building. “I’ll have to ponder this for a while. I thank you for being forthright.”

“Wait.” Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? “There may be one thing we can do.”

Having stepped into the bright sun, she twisted with a swirl of skirts, stilling like a saint in the frescoes of the Church of Saint-Roch.

A stroke of yellow against jewel-green grass.

Beyond her blurred the slate-gray of the Saint Lawrence River, the pine green of fir trees, and the cloud-studded sky.

“We’d get the work done faster,” he said through a throat gone tight, “if we had more laborers.”

“Skilled masons are impossible to find, as you well know. And more laborers would drain the building budget.”

“Not if we find young, inexperienced ones we can use as apprentices. They can mind the lime ricks and stir the mortar, like your son. That would free up the older boys, and I could teach them to work with stone.”

She canted her head. “But how to find those laborers? As it stands, most able-bodied men are already heading out into the wilderness for the fur-trapping season. The laborers left behind are clearing land on seigneuries all up and down the river. And the budget—”

“Trust me, I will find laborers who will work hard and cheap and I won’t miss a day of work. By the time I can gather them, the Reverend Mother will be back, so she can make the hiring decision. The matter will be out of your hands.”

“It won’t be. You’re mistaken.” She shaded her eyes so she didn’t have to squint.

“The budget is a vexing matter, but I hope to be in charge of it for a very long time. I may be a laywoman now, Monsieur Martin, but as soon as this matter of my missing husband is settled, I intend to join this congregation as a nun.”

A smile spilled out of him before he could hold it back.

“Sir.” She stiffened. “Do you doubt me?”

“Madame, I wouldn’t dare.”

“I’m not jesting, you know.”

He had enough sense to hold his tongue. But this spectacularly beautiful woman, taking vows?

A ludicrous idea. He tried to imagine a wimple covering that lovely throat and a dull gray dress dimming the brilliance of her.

Yes, he’d gleaned from their short acquaintance that she was uncomfortable among his laborers and terrified of him.

Indeed, how could he blame such a beauty for keeping up her guard up in such rough settlements?

Were she to walk through Montreal in that dress, she’d cause a riot.

He supposed threatening to join a convent was as good a way as any to keep men at bay. That must be why she was saying such a ridiculous thing, to keep him—and others—at arm’s length.

He bowed to her ruse and said, “I hear you, Madame Tremblay. May you succeed in your efforts.”

With a swirl of skirts, she turned on a heel and strode back toward the main building of the convent with a back as straight as a white pine.

He watched every lovely, twitching step.

This woman taking vows?

He didn’t believe it for a minute.