Page 9 of The Autumn Wife (King’s Girls #3)
His voice slid into her ear, rough in the way fur could be, when scuffed backward.
This unlikely savior had apparently been watching out for these young thieves for some time.
She couldn’t help herself—she looked at Theo, really looked at him.
In profile, his jaw had gone tense, and his lowered brows cast his eyes in shadows.
Baffling, how gentleness could thrive in a confounding man of such burly, commanding strength.
You’re a puzzle, Theo Martin.
“If you agree to house them here,” he said, forging on into the silence, “I promise to give them light work. Then I can shift other laborers to more skilled work, like laying stone.”
Cecile heard footsteps just as Etienne strode out of the darkness, passing by her with a load of firewood in his arms. She turned and lifted her hand, intending to ruffle his midnight-black hair as he passed, but she stilled as she glimpsed a hard look in his eyes.
A warning burned in those black depths, directed past her toward Theo, who, she realized, had sidled close to her—too close for Etienne’s comfort, it seemed.
Ah, my son, she thought, taking a reflexive sidestep away. You cannot protect me from every man who looks my way.
Etienne continued his pace toward the open fire, his shoulders straight.
As the boy stoked the fire, he raised his gaze above the flames, watching the two of them—watching Theo, really—with a wary glare.
Goodness, when did Etienne’s flippant gratitude for being saved by Theo switch to suspicion?
Yes, she and the overseer had been spending an uneasy hour together every morning, but the mason had made no untoward move or statement, other than teasing her about becoming a nun.
She supposed Etienne couldn’t help himself, having been raised in such a dangerous household.
He was still the boy determined to protect her against all threats, real or imagined.
In truth, the only thing she needed protection against right now was the forcefulness of Theo’s arguments.
In that, she admitted defeat.
“When Sister Martha returns,” she murmured into the darkness, “I’d appreciate your help in explaining the presence of laboring children.”
He made a noise, a low sucking of air between his teeth. “You’ll take them in?”
“Of course I will.” She frowned. “Do you think I’m a monster?”
He flashed a white-toothed grin that she quickly turned away from, losing her breath altogether.
“Perhaps,” she found herself saying, words rising in spite of her better sense, “the youngest among them”— the girl—“shouldn’t labor on the building site, but instead set traps for small game, or hunt. I assume that bow and arrow belong to Jean?”
Jeanne?
From the side of her eye, she saw him nod.
“There are plenty of porcupines and rabbits in these woods,” she continued, though her voice had gone high.
“I assume Jean knows how to set a trap. Eel season is coming, and wild berries need picking. Earning one’s keep can be done not just by physical labor, but also by adding to the communal larder.
” Why am I babbling? “There’s no room in the crew’s bunkhouse, so they’ll have to sleep here, in the old stable.
I’ll arrange for pallets. We might have to fix the roof—”
“I’ll see it done.”
“Very well.” She hugged her arms not because it was cold—it was decidedly not—but because she could feel herself unraveling.
“I’ll come to the stable in the evenings after dinner, while there’s still light, to teach them to read.
” After all, while trying to entice Sister Martha to let her take vows, she’d told the nun that she could be a teacher for the convent school.
Wouldn’t this be a fine way to prove her skills?
“I’ll borrow slates from the school and primers—”
“You have a good heart, Madame Tremblay.”
That voice seeped through the cracks in her control. She forced her spine into an iron rod. “I’d better have a good heart,” she retorted, “since I intend to become a nun.”
He rumbled a low laugh that left no doubt that his skepticism hadn’t waned.
In truth, she didn’t want to be a nun—that was a tactic to protect against the long reach of the law.
She couldn’t tell him that, so how was she to explain her choice?
And why did she feel like she should? Was it the violet shadows of the deepening evening, or the music of the breeze dancing in the pines, or the fragrance of honeysuckle drifting over the field?
No, no—such things no longer held any power over her.
She wasn’t a foolish young girl anymore.
Yet somehow, tonight, Theo had dragged up a yearning to have, for her own, the same kind of care and protection that this man, at great effort, now offered these orphans.
He murmured, “You’ve done a fine thing today. I am in your debt, Madame Tremblay.”
“Cecile.”
The name slipped out before she could stop it, before she could even think of taking it back, before she could chide herself for being addled.
“I suppose,” she breathed, “it’s futile to stick to formality now. After all, we’ve just become co-conspirators…Theo.”