Page 66 of The Winter Husband
She whispered, “Do you think Lucas will change his mind, Etta?”
“I don’t know,ma petite.” Etta tilted her face to the reedy warmth of the sun. “He’s not wrong about the danger. There will always be threats in this settlement. The Huron and Abenaki have been our allies for decades, but alliances could shift. So could the peace with the English and the Dutch. This colony is no place for the faint-hearted.”
“Neither is Paris.”
Paris, where her distant family chose to send her to an orphanage rather than raise her as their own. Paris, where men in wigs and pomade decided it was worth the risk of a sea voyage to make her a brood mare for their colonial schemes. Paris, where, in her desperation, she’d thrown herself into the arms of a wolf.
“I’m not faint-hearted.” She spoke loudly enough to turn a few heads, but she said the words again anyway. “I am notfaint-hearted, Etta.”
Etta smiled. “Doyoubelieve it, finally?”
“I won’t leave here, no matter what Lucas says. Life without love is a kind of death, too.”
Etta’s eyes gleamed. “Here you are, then. A true Québécois.”
A flush rose to her skin, along with new determination. “I have to speak to Lucas.”
“Yes.” Etta laid a hand on her wrist. “That’s why I came to find you. Lucas has just been removed from the hospital.”
“Oh?” Her pulse leapt. “Is he at your home?”
“I’m afraid not.” Etta turned uphill, nudging her to follow. “Philippe sent me to fetch you. I intended to tell you the news right away, but when I saw your face, Maria, I thought the news might crush what was left of your spirit.”
“Etta.” Marie caught her breath. “Please.”
“Lucas is in jail. Talon just arrested him for murder.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Late afternoon light seeped through the cell window when Lucas heard, from down the hall, the squeal of a door and murmur of a woman’s voice.
Marie.
She was finally here.
He hauled himself up from his pallet, ignoring the soreness of his body, as well as the dull pain shooting down his back. He would face his little porcupine while standing on his own two feet. He’d spent the day rolling over in his mind what he needed to say. He was sure she was going to blast him with a mouthful, and he needed his wits about him.
She loomed out of the darkness, and he caught his breath. The last time he saw her, in the hospital, she’d worn a brocade dress that had probably belonged to Etta. Now, buckskin breeches clung to the curves of Marie’s thighs. Fringe edged the leather tunic that fell to her hips. Black hair lay loose on her shoulders, tousled like she’d just risen from lovemaking. A weakness spread through him that had nothing to do with his wounds.
She wasn’t going to play fair.
“Well, Lucas.” She eyed him like she was aiming a flintlock. “You’re looking much healthier than when I saw you last.”
“You look like you’re on a hunt.”
“Maybe I am.” She raised a brow. “Last time we spoke, you were determined to escape this marriage, after all.”
She spoke calmly, but he heard pain behind her words. He’d caused that pain. He deserved the sharpest quills she could shoot.
He said, “Any chance you came to break me out of this cell? It wouldn’t be the first time you set someone loose from jail.”
“I can’t do it this time. Even if I wanted to.” She glanced down at his brown woolen breaches that ended too short and raised a brow at the ridiculous, ornately-embroidered waistcoat Philippe had lent him in place of his bloody clothes. “You’re a lot bigger than Genny. You won’t fit into my clothes.”
She was joking with him. His stomach hollowed. What had he been thinking, trying to send this woman away?
With a flick of a hand toward the cell, she added. “You know this is all a ruse, yes? Talon has no intention of charging you with murder.”
“So you say.” Philippe had repeated the same sentiment, but Lucas had his doubts. “I did kill three men.”
