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“She has you,” Jacq said, patting Rollant’s shoulder.

“Not for much longer, I’m afraid,” Rollant glanced at Jacq.

“I have other matters that require me elsewhere for years. I won’t lie to you; élise and I are fond of each other, but I cannot be the man she needs and wants.

My resolve is firm.” Rollant forced a smile, but even he could hear its hollowness.

He hoped seeing élise with another man would lessen his longing to love her, ease his return to a numb existence, and allow her the opportunity to live a normal life.

“My, what a beautiful sofa,” Jacq’s wife said as she ran her hand down the curved wooden arm. “Though you haven’t done anything with the walls?” Her gaze darted from bare wall to bare wall.

“Camille.” Jacq addressed her, entering the room and shaking his head at her unfiltered conversation. Then he turned his attention to élise. “Thank you for having us for breakfast, Mademoiselle. Your new home is lovely, a blank slate to make it your own,” he assured her.

Camille waved him off. “If she is going to be our neighbor, she might as well know I speak my mind.”

élise laughed. “I have been forward and blunt as well. Why act with assumption when you can just ask the question?” She glanced at Rollant. “Monsieur Montvieux knows all too well the questions I have asked him.”

Jacq shifted and peered at Rollant at the informality of her address to Monsieur de Montvieux, but Rollant ignored him.

Camille raised her eyebrows. “Oh, did you hear, Jacq? I like this young woman. She’ll fit right in.” She drew near to Hugo. “And I taught my boy to respect a woman’s mind and to answer the questions she is courageous enough to ask with honesty and tact.” Her head bobbed with each spoken virtue.

Hugo chuckled with a too-wide smile as his cheeks turned rosy pink. “I—I have good parents,” he said finally with a nod of his own.

élise smiled at him, glanced at Camille before turning her attention to Rollant with a pressed smile. She was wary.

Rollant forced the corners of his mouth to lift. Camille was giving it all away.

“Of course you do, Hugo,” Rollant said, patting Jacq’s back. “élise, this is the family that bartered for your mint and sage tea, and Hugo gave an extra amount out of his heart’s kindness.”

élise turned to Hugo with a new appreciation. “Thank you so much, Monsieur.” élise’s smile lingered, but her eyes searched his face as if weighing his and his mother’s intentions. “I believe it helped my stomach and my bruises.”

“I—I’m glad to hear it,” Hugo said, tracing her face with his eyes. “I—I had only heard Monsieur de Montvieux had found a woman who had been attacked in the city and wanted to help her. I thought I—I could help in—in that way.”

élise had taken the poor boy’s words. Her eyes shifted at Rollant’s name, but Hugo continued before she could throw Rollant a questioning glare.

“I—I’m an herbalist,” Hugo stammered, his cheeks flushing as he glanced at élise, then quickly away. “For the community. It’s . . . it’s just a small way to help.”

Camille patted his shoulders. “Hugo is the best herbalist around. Any malady he can cure with the right mixture. He is smart and kind and generous. His care for his common man and woman is unparalleled.”

Hugo’s smile froze as his mother tried too hard to paint a picture élise would have seen for herself in due time. Rollant glanced at Jacq, who stared wide-eyed at his wife, shaking his head in a silent quiver.

élise’s head tilted to the side as her gaze darted between mother and son. “I’m so happy to hear I will have such a kind neighbor.”

“Gabrielle, Giselle,” Jacq interrupted the exchange and addressed his daughters. “Give élise your gifts.”

Gabrielle, the younger daughter, handed élise a jar of honey, while Giselle gave her a small wheel of cheese. “These are for breakfast,” Giselle said. “May we assist you?”

élise smiled and nodded. “Hugo, Rollant, could you move the table and the chairs to the sofa, so we can all eat together?”

Jacq and Camille shifted at the informality of élise calling Rollant by his first name, but Hugo smiled widely with a sparkle in his blue eyes. He was smitten already, tongue-tied as well.

Rollant couldn’t blame the young mortal.

He, himself, had fallen under her spell after a single glance at Au Pain Roux .

Even bruises couldn’t hide her beauty or her fire.

Rollant clenched his jaw as he scooted the table while Hugo got the chairs.

It was for the better, he told himself. The few times he had returned over the past year, the family had been good to him.

Jacq’s father was a compassionate soul. Hugo would be a friend, if not more, to élise.

“It is ready!” Gabrielle said as she spun around with plates in hand. The table was set, and they found seats.

élise’s smile was gracious but guarded as Hugo pulled out a chair for her.

Her warm “Thank you, Hugo,” was a dagger through Rollant’s resolve, but élise’s glance darted toward him as she sat with a knitted brow.

He wondered if she noticed how Hugo’s manners mirrored the gestures he had once offered her in an attempt to show her not everyone was like her abusers. There was still good in the world.

Rollant sat on the floor with his back against the sofa leg, focusing on the morning’s hospitality, knowing they’d all be in their graves the next time he passed through Charonne.

Hugo moved quickly to pull out his mother’s chair, but he bumped into the table’s edge in his eagerness, sending the plates and cups teetering.

He laughed nervously as his frantic hands steadied the dishes.

He gave an apologetic glance toward élise with a shaky breath and the stain of embarrassment still on his cheeks.

“Ah, forgive me, élise. It seems my hands are less graceful than my mother boasts.”

“Your hands are fine, Hugo,” élise said as she steadied her and Giselle’s teacups.

Camille piped up. “Sit here, my son, across from élise.”

Rollant closed his eyes, wishing Camille would close her mouth.

“Father and Monsieur de Montvieux should sit on the sofa, Mother,” he said.

Rollant waved his hand to quickly overlook Hugo’s comment. “Your father and I are already seated. Take the sofa.”

Hugo dipped his head, tiptoed past Rollant, and sat on the couch, his knee by Rollant’s head. His sisters sat beside him, and his father sat beside the opposite sofa leg.

After Jacq led the small group in a prayer of thanksgiving for their meal, the table silenced, all eyes on Hugo and élise.

Rollant swallowed his piece of bread and began the conversation, “An herbalist? Is that a family tradition?”

“No, Monsieur,” he said. “I did not want to raise chickens like my father, and the prior herbalist did not have any children, so it was a natural inclination for me to study with him and become his apprentice, rest his soul.”

Camille leaned over to élise and said loudly behind a wall of fingers, “He also learned to read. Had to read so many books. I’m grateful because we could not afford him an education, but the Good Lord has blessed him in his endeavor.”

élise’s gaze shot to Hugo. “You can read?” Her eyes lit up. “Could you teach me?”

Hugo chuckled with raised shoulders. “I—I am no teacher, Mademoiselle, but I—I’d love to help you best—the best—that—the best I can.”

Rollant took a bite of cheese to distract his tongue from his contribution to the conversation. He knew how to read as well—in seven languages. He could stay and teach her to read. He swallowed the cheese and took a bite of bread to stay silent.

“Hugo!” Camille whispered in a harsh tone. “Why are you talking like you need the healing hands of our Lord and Savior?”

Jacq sighed loudly. “Let our son make his own way, Camille.” He dipped his head to élise. “I apologize for any discomfort we may have put you in, Mademoiselle.”

élise smiled with her eyes darting between Hugo and Rollant. “None whatsoever,” she spoke as a true lady of the house, but tension laced her words.

“We could start today, if—if you wanted, élise,” Hugo said.

“I’ve read over ten books and anything I can find.

I’ve memorized most of them. Well, I—I had to in order to be an herbalist, and a good one, if—if I can boast. My master said I surpassed him at my age.

He believed I’d become one of the best in the region if I kept studying. ”

Rollant couldn’t bear to look up and see the zeal flaming in the boy’s eyes; his tone was enough. He sipped his tea with his gaze on the worn spot on the floor.

“Well, Rollant is only here a few more days, and he still has much to teach me before he leaves.”

Hugo’s eyes dropped, the spark dimming. “Oh, I—I see.”

It was in Rollant’s interest to speak if his resolve was firm. “I think you should begin now, élise,” he said after another sip. “You seem more excited about reading than any of the other topics I had lined up for us.” His smile did not reach his eyes.

Her brow knitted again, and her head twitched in confusion. Her mouth opened and closed as if words fought to escape but failed. At last, she nodded. “Well, what book shall we start with?”

“Oh, the Book of the Apothecary ”—Hugo’s voice steadied, the stammer gone—“It’s very old and written by a monk. It tells of all the ailments and what to pluck, how to prepare, and what to do. My favorite is one on how to soothe coughing.”

élise’s gaze softened as Hugo spoke of his remedies, but when her eyes flicked to Rollant, her smile faltered with a question hidden in her glance.

Rollant shifted, averting his focus to Hugo.

The boy zealously spoke of his trade, a lifeline of compassion and skill.

The craft was admirable and quite a feat to master.

It was one of the many professions Rollant had dabbled in over the centuries until he realized he would never require it.

His thoughts bittered his tea, heavy with truths he could not speak.