Page 25

A Time to Choose

Again, they walked too close, their hands loosely intertwined and hidden in the folds of their coats. As they neared Au Pain Roux , the sun was on course to set.

Rollant gave her a surge of strength. His grip was steady, his calloused palm firm yet warm against hers. The faint roughness of his skin spoke of labor, but his touch carried a gentleness she had never known before his.

Gabin’s grip, like that of her father’s and aunt’s, had always been rough, cold, like a vice meant to control.

Rollant’s hand was different—it lingered like an ember, radiating a heat that seeped through her fingers and traveled up her arm.

Even as the chill of evening bit at her exposed cheeks, the warmth of his hand made her forget the cold.

It made her miss his touch before he even left.

For a moment, she let herself imagine what Rollant had given her for a few days—a quiet room of her own, the freedom to rise and rest without Gabin’s fists dictating her every move.

But it was temporary—a dream, and dreams had no place in her life. Every time she tried to escape, she had been dragged back—first by her father, then her aunt. Each return was worse than the last. And what if Rollant held something darker behind his promise?

His deep voice broke through her thoughts. “If I could give you a life without fear, I would,” he said softly. “I can still give you another life somewhere else, élise. You don’t have to go back.”

Her tears blurred the sight of him as he stepped between her and the bakery down the street. His warmth left her as he withdrew his hand to keep any observers from witnessing their touch. He was a man doomed to be bound to the shadows of her life.

She studied him, searching for cracks in his words, for the hidden cost she’d always expected. But there was only sincerity in his eyes. Her fingers tightened around her new coat. For the first time, doubt wavered—not in him, but in the walls she had built around herself.

A sudden swelling in her chest told her that what Rollant offered didn’t have to be a dream.

She could still leave, but she had waited too long.

Rollant had to return to port in the morning.

There wasn’t enough time, and even if there were, her hand would be empty as it had always been.

She pulled the coat’s collar around her chin.

Her gaze drooped; the new wool did not hold his scent of old wood and candle smoke.

“I don’t know when I will be on leave again, given the current environment,” he continued as if reading her mind and assuming her dissenting answer. “But I will provide you a respite again should you want it when I return.”

“ If you return,” she whispered, reminding herself why she could not take his offer.

He swallowed visibly. A quiet quiver wrapped his balled hand. “élise, do you want me to stay away? I will if you desire it. If I—if I am making life harder for you?—”

The hot tears burst from her eyes, and she quickly wiped them away. A man who asked such a question could not wish her harm. “Yes, my life has been harder since you entered it, but . . . I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you being a part of it in some way.”

The weight of her new dress and coat mirrored the dread gnawing in her belly, either at returning to the bakery or at the chance she would never see Rollant again.

“The thought of making your life harder hurts me deeply,” he whispered. “Promise me, next time I come, you will not be in the same state I found you in.”

She took a chance, grabbed both his hands, and stepped into his space. She wished for him to kiss her lips, her forehead, anything, but he remained a sentinel, protecting her from prying eyes and maybe even heartbreak should he not return.

“I will not let Gabin destroy me,” she promised with an ache in the back of her throat. “I will find the strength you say I have.”

“You’ve already found it,” he whispered, leaning in. Her gaze dropped to his bottom-heavy lips, but he turned and gestured toward the bakery. “May I escort you in and see to it you are well before my departure?”

She nodded with her lips pressed thin. “Thank you, Monsieur,” she whispered and took the arm he offered, embarrassed at her actions. What was she thinking? What if someone saw them and told Gabin? He’d beat her to death.

The wooden sign above the bakery door flapped in the wind. Each hit on the stone facade echoed like Gabin’s fists against her flesh, jolting her nerves.

élise hesitated in the shadow, hearing an inner door slam. Rollant stopped beside her, and she drew his gaze. Her eyes closed. “I have survived worse,” she whispered.

“It’s not too late,” Rollant offered. “You can leave.”

She shook her head. Without Rollant there after the morning, what would she do until he came back; if he came back?

Shadows loomed from the bakery entrance. Her fingers turned cold; her stomach rolled. The world spun for a moment.

Curse her life.

She only had to choose: certainty with Gabin or uncertainty with or without Rollant. Envisioning the pain and the hunger that awaited her from within the bakery almost made her choose the latter. But her friends needed her if they were still alive.

Madame Marie. The orphans. Their hungry faces haunted her. If she left, who would care for them? But maybe, just once, she deserved to choose herself.

She only had to choose.

Deep within her heart, she knew she wanted to leave Gabin. She spun to face Rollant and opened her mouth to accept his offer, but Malo and Yves approached the bakery’s entrance.

Before she could accept, Yves shouted with a glint in his eye, “élise! Good to see you back. You all well now?”

Her heart sank when Gabin’s heavy footsteps ran to the door from inside the bakery. Malo’s eyes darted between her and Rollant before Gabin burst into view.

“élise!” Gabin’s voice thundered beneath the setting sun.

Two of the men Gabin had sent to follow Rollant when he first came to Au Pain Roux , Olivier and Yanis, approached from behind her.

Yanis leaned close to her ear. “Decided to make our meeting, élise? Glad to see you well.”

She nodded with a tight, polite smile as Gabin pounded closer. He ripped her from Rollant’s arm, yanking her away with a tightening grip just above her bicep.

“Be gone, you snake,” Gabin threatened Rollant. “None of the king’s dogs are allowed here. Be grateful we do not kill you where you stand.” Spittle formed in the corners of his mouth.

élise had forgotten about the riots and the hatred for anyone in the king’s uniforms. Rollant had taken such a risk coming there for her.

She ducked her head to hide the overwhelming flush of gratitude on her cheeks.

The tingle in her chest expanded and reached the inner depths of her soul.

The quiet burn of welling tears tickled the backs of her eyes.

Her gaze rose from his toes to his perfectly chiseled face.

He stood upright and folded an arm behind his back, and the other crossed his belly.

Rollant seemingly ignored the threat and began reporting on élise’s health. “Your apprentice was very ill and worked to exhaustion. Her fever lasted seven days. She would have died had you not allowed me to carry her to Le Marais. The nuns?—”

“Shut it,” Gabin gritted. He stepped toe-to-toe with Rollant. Each man was similar in height and build.

“Shut what, exactly?” Rollant asked with a lifted eyebrow. “I understand times are hard, but if she continues to be treated the way in which I found her ten days ago, your apprentice will be in the grave.”

élise glanced at the others. Malo’s head dropped.

Yves nervously looked around. Olivier and Yanis’ eyes darted between Gabin and Rollant.

More citizens of Faubourg Saint-Antoine gathered at the bakery entrance, watching the spectacle before their meeting.

élise forced the growing lump down her throat.

None of them had ever helped her as Rollant had.

They all saw the bruises. If Rollant could see them, they could too.

She was alone, she realized, just as Rollant had told her.

Gabin shook her arm and tightened his grip.

élise grimaced at the pain.

“You’re hurting her,” Rollant interrupted whatever Gabin was saying.

“I am not. I’d never hurt my woman, my little dove.” Gabin’s grip loosened.

The man disgusted her, she realized. Calling a woman—his woman—“a little dove” was supposed to be a term born out of love and honor. Her arm went limp in his grip. He never loved her. Never honored her. And she had thrown away her chance to escape him. She was a fool.

“You all see how I care for her! I’d never hurt her,” Gabin barked at the growing crowd and gestured to élise as if she were a display of his generosity.

“I took her in when no one else would, and this is the thanks I get? Letting a sea rat steal her from me for ten days, leaving me to labor alone for all of you?” He turned to Rollant.

“You vagrant, listen here, she’s well now, and you don’t have to worry your pretty head. Get back to the water, sea rat.”

Rollant countered again, and she knew Rollant would only leave on his terms. The corners of her mouth dared to rise at his show of calm power, yet worry etched into her brow. No one trifled with Gabin.

“She had a long walk here and is still not fully well,” Rollant said. “élise will need rest and assistance in the bakery to fully recover.”

She shook her head slightly at Rollant, hoping to signal him to leave before Gabin turned the crowd against him to take his life. She would survive Gabin, but part of her survival hinged on whether or not she knew there was a possibility Rollant was still alive.

Gabin must have seen her headshake from the corner of his eye, for he growled, “You have something to say to your lover, élise?”

There was a gasp through the growing crowd. “He isn’t my lover,” she whimpered at the renewed deathly grip he had on her arm.