Read Online Love's First Light by Jamie Carie - Free Book Online

Committee of Public Safety—Maximilien Robespierre. She had hardly become accustomed to married life before Daniel had left for Nantes and the battle there.
    Within weeks Robespierre came himself to tell her the news.
    She could still remember pulling the weight of the door open, it swinging wide as she saw Robespierre’s face and knew. He never visited her. She looked up at him with dread filling her, her brows drawn together. She felt all the life and color drain from her face as she asked him in.
    He was brisk. No offer of comfort in voice or touch. “He was killed by Royalists. A group of them ambushed his regiment.”
    She’d wanted to drop to the floor, but commanded her legs to stay strong. “How? Gunshot?” She needed to know.
    “Yes. We were victorious. We have rid the city of conspirators. Daniel died with great honor in service for his country.”
    She wanted to tell him that she needed more time, that the husband she loved for so few days was still a mystery, a stranger to her. That he couldn’t really be dead. Daniel would never know he was to be a father! She wanted to tell Robespierre that she’d just discovered she was with child. But she didn’t. She only saw him to the door.
    He turned toward her in the opening and looked in her eyes for the first time. “If there is anything I can do . . .” He let the phrase hang.
    “I would like to take the body back with me. To Carcassonne.”
    He looked like he might reject her request, and with sudden decision she brought a hand to her stomach. “I will need to go back and be with my family to raise our child. I don’t think it is so very much to ask to have his grave near where his son or daughter will be raised.”
    Robespierre glanced down at the hand covering her stomach and visibly shuddered. A flush filled his cheeks as he looked back up but didn’t meet her eyes. “Yes, of course. I will see to it.” He turned to go and then turned back. “When will you depart?”
    “As soon as it can be arranged.” She didn’t want to talk to this cold, walking corpse of a man anymore. She wanted him to go so that she could turn aside and let her tears run their course.
    Robespierre hesitated, his hat in his hands. “I–I am at your disposal, citizen.”
    Scarlett bowed her head, her hand on the edge of the door to close it.
“Merci.”
     
     
    SURPRISINGLY ROBESPIERRE CAME through on his promise. He sent Daniel’s body to their border town, where Scarlett saw to the burial. Then he set them up with a weekly supply of flour to support the Bonham women’s business as bakers.
    Since then, Scarlett’s life was built on the routine of visiting Daniel’s gravesite daily. It was the only way she found she could really believe Paris happened at all.
    Her thoughts returned to the present as her feet turned into the familiar path, the basket weighing on her arm even as her memories weighed on her mind.
    She stopped suddenly.
    He
was there.
    The stranger from the market knelt beside Daniel’s grave. But rather than facing the grave, he faced the sunrise. His head was uncovered, revealing the choppy cut of shoulder-length, straight hair draped like a curtain around his face.
    Her heart beat in her chest. What was he doing there? Was he hoping to see her? She hesitated, ready to slip away before he noticed her, but stilled as his deep voice rang out against the dead ones’ stones. “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, ‘this is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of Me.’” He held a piece of the bread she’d given him up into the dawn light, then brought the small lump to his mouth, his head bowed. Next he took up a cup. She gasped at the golden cup, embedded with precious jewels that sparkled in the dim dawn light—and then hoped he hadn’t heard her. But he had. He turned, but didn’t rise. Instead he held his hand out to her.
    She should turn back, run away. He could be dangerous. But