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

she found herself rooted to the path, staring into his eyes. He looked sad, bereft, and so alone.
    He dropped his arm back to his side and turned a little away from her. Scarlett took a long breath and a step closer. “What are you doing here, sir?”
    He didn’t look back at her, only said in his deep voice, “I am taking the sacraments of Communion.”
    She took another step. “Why?” She had only done so in church, and there weren’t any churches open anymore, so it had been a long time. Another part of the Révolution.
    He turned then and looked into her eyes. She saw him struggle with an answer and then smile a little. “It helps me remember.”
    She took another step forward. “Remember what?”
    “All that I’ve lost, I suppose, and all that He lost. I like to think God felt alone for a time, until His Son rose again and then went back to heaven to sit at His right hand.” Sadness weighed his smile. “I like to think He has a plan for me too.”
    Scarlett walked the short distance to her husband’s grave, sank down beside the stranger, and set the basket on the ground beside her. She turned her face toward his and saw that there were tear tracks on his lean cheeks.
    He repeated the phrase, “This is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” He tore off a hunk of her mother’s bread and held it out to her.
    Scarlett reached for it. The man watched her while she placed it into her mouth, knowing how it was made, knowing all the ingredients and the hands that had kneaded it, but feeling that somehow, with this prayer, it had become sacred. She closed her eyes. She chewed and thought of Christ’s body. Given for her. There, as they sat together, it was suddenly real.
    The man lifted up a golden goblet embedded with gemstones. Scarlett stared at the beauty of the cup and couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling that it had once, long ago, belonged to a king.
    The man’s voice was a little stronger as he recited to her and the dead that seemed to be listening, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.”
    She watched as he lifted it up and he held it out to her, his gaze intense in the early morning light.
    She felt him watch her as she took a sip, then lowered the cup and her gaze, the liquid sloshing over the edge onto her fingers. Scarlett took a deep, long inhale. When she looked back into this stranger’s eyes, her breath caught. There was a spark of joy in his eyes now. It made him look, almost, a different person.
    “Who are you?” She asked, clutching the heavy, golden goblet in her hands.
    “I am Christophé St. Laurent. The last of the house of St. Laurent.” He reached out and took the cup from her hands, making her a little afraid again. “And you must tell no one that I am here.”
    Names and faces and titles rolled through her brain. She’d lived in Paris long enough to know some of the names of the hated aristocrats. This man, as frail and shattered as he was, should not be alive.
    Christophé watched the play of emotion on her face and hoped he hadn’t made a terrible, deadly mistake. It was just that he needed so badly to tell someone the truth. It was as if he didn’t tell her, then he would cease to be, just slip away into nothingness.
    Her words slipped out on a solemn whisper. “I won’t tell.”
    He believed her.
    Christophé leaned in, his hand coming alongside her cheek in a light caress. She stiffened, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her. He must appear half insane. He couldn’t remember quite how to act with a woman, not that he’d ever been very good at that anyway. But now, he didn’t even remember how to show her how much she meant to him without coming across a lunatic and frightening her away.
    As if to prove his point he kept staring at her lips. They were so sweetly made and . . . prominent, heaven help him. Red lips against a pale, serious face and long, thick, curling dark hair. He’d always wondered