Page 8

The Weight of Possibilities

élise watched Rollant exit the Au Pain Roux bakery. Gabin and Yves flanked her. She flinched at Gabin’s heavy arm that fell across her shoulders. She thought he would pull her aside and up the stairs to his cramped living quarters, but instead, he shook her.

“What are your thoughts about the stranger, dove?” Gabin asked her out of the side of his mouth. He had seen her interaction with Rollant, and she hoped he did not have any suspicions of her attraction to the man.

Her nose turned up. “He has a kind heart; I’ll give him that,” she said with a brief pause.

“But he is too well-dressed, and his lingering perfume . . .” She trailed off, reminding herself of its earthen aroma of old wood and candle smoke that had made her want to embrace him.

A stab of guilt pressed on her heart as Gabin had cared for her the past few years.

“Or perhaps it was just his musk. Either way, he said he had just returned from the Americas. A navy man. Maybe that is why his clothes are too neat.” She added for effect, “Born in Nice.”

Gabin’s grip tightened, pressing harder into the bruises he had given her. She caged her whimper and looked him in the eyes.

Yves broke the unspoken jealousy in Gabin’s gaze. “It’s your call, élise. You spoke to him the most.”

The others who had not left yet gathered around her as she pondered her conversation with Rollant. They exchanged glances, and concern was etched on their faces. They feared he was also an informant.

Malo asked, “Do you want us to follow him?”

élise shrugged and gestured to Gabin. “It is Gabin’s call. He is our leader.” She hoped it would buy at least a few fewer slaps that night.

Gabin barked. “Sylvian, Olivier, Yanis—see where he goes, see what he does.”

élise nodded them off as if begging them to follow orders.

But Olivier raised a finger and said, “If he is the king’s informant, what do you want us to do?”

“Nothing,” she said instinctively, feeling Gabin’s nails dig into her flesh. She shouldn’t have answered for him. “We will just make sure to speak lies when he is here,” she offered.

Half the crowd scoffed. A boy named Mael laughed, “You don’t want to kill ‘em?”

She grabbed Mael’s collar and pulled him close, mostly to rid herself of Gabin’s grip. “Kill him? So the king has much more reason to take our heads? Right now, we only speak of freedom, but we will not spill blood in stupidity.”

Heads nodded, and Gabin slapped Mael on the shoulder. “He’s just a boy; he’ll learn.”

“A boy with a weapon is a man.” She pointed a finger in Mael’s face. “You remember that.”

Mael’s lips turned into a scowl. “I will,” he huffed and yanked out of élise’s grip.

“Leave the boy alone,” Gabin said and pushed Mael away. He turned and barked at the three he had ordered prior. “Go.”

“We’re off,” Sylvian said, and the three tasked with trailing Rollant left.

élise could feel the stares on her back and face, but she locked gazes with Gabin. He was the main attraction for the women there, but his anger was something to avoid. His eyes raged. He didn’t like how she had handled the evening or her answer to the question meant for him.

She glanced around the room and answered the crowd first. “If the stranger ends up being an informant, I’ll be the first to take a life, and it will be his. But at the right time, so we don’t find ourselves in prison or with the guillotine.”

Gabin laughed. “You, little dove? Take a life?” He walked up and grabbed her chin with an iron grip. “Next time, let the men talk.” He shoved her away toward the stairs. “Now get upstairs and prepare for bed.”

She regained her footing, and her eyes darted around the room. The women’s heads were down, but the men’s eyes slid between her and Gabin. They sensed Gabin’s insecurity, it seemed. It was enough for her, and so she turned and ran up the stairs as fast as she could without another word.

“Little dove wants to be an eagle,” Gabin laughed.

His voice carried up the steps, and subsequent laughter chased it.

She threw open the door to the cramped living quarters—a bed, a chair, table, wardrobe, and a basin.

Rage built in her chest and spread to her quivering fingers.

She hated him, but she loved him. She wanted to escape him, but she couldn’t spit in his face by running away.

He needed her just as much as she needed him.

She stood in the middle of the one-room apartment, warmed by the baker’s oven below.

A shiver ran down her spine, remembering in stark contrast, the cold nights at her aunt’s home and the blood her father drew.

At least Gabin’s hits always seemed to land where clothes could cover any lasting marks.

Even if she wanted to get away, she had nowhere to go.

Everyone in town loved Gabin. He was their leader.

They would not take her in out of fear of disrespecting the community’s only remaining honest baker—the man who had the connections for flour and oil.

The man who fed them as cheap as he could, despite the prices.

She released the rage through long, deep breaths, knowing her punishment would be worse if she met or exceeded Gabin’s anger when he arrived.

Her gaze drifted to the wardrobe with a broken door and the chipped basin.

They seemed to bear the weight of her existence.

The furniture felt heavy with the resignation of keeping her shackled there.

Her balled fists slowly released her fingers until they fell limp by her sides.

She lived life on her hands and knees, but at least it kept her breathing.

As long as she had breath, she nurtured the spark within her, and it would take more than fists and the winter cold to put it out.

The sun had retreated and left the moon in its place.

She had always been up before dawn since before she could remember.

Her knees buckled from exhaustion, and she leaned into the bed before letting herself fall into her spot, stained from Gabin’s other conquests.

Her mind slipped unbidden to the stranger’s face in the dim candlelight.

Rollant—she remembered his name with surprising ease and, more so, the way he had looked at her, not with possessiveness like Gabin, her aunt and father, but with a painful longing.

He thought she was his former lover, but even still.

How he must have loved Amée—she felt it in every word about her and his every unguarded glance.

élise’s chest tightened, and she closed her eyes, wishing, yearning to be looked at in the same way.

Never had she seen such love in a single gaze that she thought, at first, it must have been false.

Yet his eyes were piercing, his gaze unwavering as he spoke of Amée.

He must have been a true man. He possessed a calmness and level-headedness she had never witnessed before.

A man like that wouldn’t raise his hand to anyone out of jealousy as Gabin did.

She shivered once more, sensing the phantom warmth of his steady gaze, and a peculiar sense of hope ignited inside her—a subtle, risky notion that perhaps, just perhaps, there were men who didn’t feel the need to dominate others to feel powerful.

élise laughed bitterly at her own foolishness.

But the stranger was just that—a stranger, someone who might very well turn out to be a spy and put them all in prison.

She had every reason to distrust him and question his intentions and sudden arrival.

And yet, she could still feel the spark of that brief, silent connection they had shared.

For the first time, someone had seen her, saw through her facade, and even though it left her exposed, she felt emboldened.

She rolled to the edge of the bed, her fingers tracing the rough fabric of her skirt, still lost in thought.

Maybe Rollant was a passing shadow in her life, another illusion of hope she couldn’t afford.

Such genuineness he portrayed. Too good to be true, perhaps, but as she lay in the bed warmed by the ovens below, her thoughts strayed to the stranger with the deep voice and loving gaze.

“Let the fortnight pass quickly,” she murmured, hoping the days were a blur before seeing him again. With Gabin’s footsteps thudding up the steps, she wondered how the night would end if it were Rollant ascending the stairs.

The door flew open, shattering her thoughts. Her body flinched as it grappled to hold onto her mind’s image of Rollant.

“élise!” Gabin barked, his voice dragging her back to her cage.

She jolted up with open eyes and braced herself for the new bruises she would wear in the morning as he marched up and knocked her to the floor.