Page 69 of The Winter Husband
Cecile’s son, Etienne, seized the bowl from her outstretched hand.
“Careful.” Marie laughed as Cecile’s stepson put the edge to his lips. “The soup is still hot.”
Etienne shrugged, took a swig, and closed his eyes in appreciation.
“You’ve got a mustache,” Marie teased, casting a look at Cecile. “Don’t let your stepmother see that, or she’ll come at you with a razor.”
“And I will.” Cecile wiped off the mess with a quick finger. “I don’t want anyone suggesting my stepson is old enough to go running in the woods.”
Etienne ducked his head and set off for one of the trestle tables set up in the clearing. Marie filled another bowl for Ceci. Her friend looked thin and pale, gripped by worry, though she was making a valiant effort to pretend to enjoy the gathering. Marie had been so busy with the preparations, she hadn’t had a moment alone with her. Marie wondered if Ceci’s trouble lay with the husband who’d refused to join them.
“You and I,” Marie said, handing Cecile a bowl, “should take a walk through the woods later, when the men are busy with their pipes. Yes?”
Cecile nodded and then trailed after Etienne, while Marie made a wish for her happiness. Surely, it was possible. Just look at how everything had turned out for her and Lucas, and all the friends they’d gathered for this harvest feast. She watched as they swiped their soup bowls with crusts of bread and pulled meat from turkey bones. The food pleased them, the food she cooked, and that gave her a rush of pride. All around the tables, they laughed and chattered and debated, some dressed in deerskin leggings, some in satin breeches, some wearing beaver hats, others with feathers tied in their dark hair. Among them were French settlers and Huron traders, an Abenaki family coming through to their southern hunting grounds, and a few soldiers who’d spent the summer building small cabins across the river.
The sight of the gathering was like something out of a book she’d never read. A book she was writing herself, in little pieces, in the letters she sent home to Isabelle, one of the little girls at the orphanage. Isabelle was old enough to read the letters aloud to the littler ones. It was someone else’s turn, now, to tell fantastic tales about faraway lands and ferry the youngest orphans off to dreamland.
A pair of strong arms slipped around her from behind.
“You’ve done enough.” He tickled her ear with his breath. “Come eat with us.”
“You don’t like when I play the great lady of the manor?”
“Only in bed.”
She laughed and turned around, taking in the full sight of her handsome husband, framed by the maples ablaze beyond his dark, beautiful head.
“I like the way you’re looking at me, woman.” He pulled her hand to the crook of his elbow and propelled her toward their guests. He’d chosen French clothing for today’s event, his Sunday best. He looked like a rather brawny country squire. “When your eyes go soft like that, Marie, I want to drag you inside. But your moans would disturb everyone’s dinner.”
“Promises.” She grinned as they strode toward the benches. “So many promises.”
“Speaking of promises.” He laid a kiss atop her head. “When were you planning to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
He paused as they neared the revelers. Hands on her waist, he turned her around to face him. He slid a hand between them, out of sight of their guests, to lay his palm over her abdomen.
“What?” Her mouth fell open. “How…?”
“I know your body better than my own, my love.”
It was supposed to be a surprise. She’d only known for a week or so, and they’d been so busy preparing for this gathering she hadn’t found the right moment to tell him. It should be a special moment, shouldn’t it, when a wife told her husband they were going to have a baby? Now, watching his face, bright with knowledge and mischief, she realigned her thinking and took notice of everything. The slight breeze rustled the leaves. The air that smelled of burning oak, and sweet squash, and pine. The look of love on Lucas’s face.
It wasn’t only the moment that was sacred.
It was the news that made it so.
“Yes,” she finally confessed, laughing. “There’s more than bread rising in the home of Captain Lucas Girard.”
Barking a laugh, he hauled her up and swung her around, her skirts flying. The chatter at the table dimmed as the men and women watched their display. Her head spun by the time Lucas planted her back on her feet. He held her steady as he walked her to the head of the table and swept up two glasses of apple cider.
“Friends.” Lucas raised his glass. “We have much to celebrate. The food on this table. The land beneath our feet. The friends around us. The peace among our neighbors.” Around the table came nods and grins and rumbles of agreement. “My wife and I have a very special reason to be grateful.”
He touched her again. Gasps rose among the women. The men took a little longer to figure it out, but when they did, they shouted their congratulations. Cecile, at the far end of the table, grasped her throat, tears springing to her eyes.
“Here’s to a beautiful world,” Lucas toasted her. “And to a new life.”
Marie joined the toast, then walked to the far end of the table, running a gauntlet of good wishes, to take the plate that had already been filled for her. Bowing to the urgings of the Huron matriarch seated at her side, Marie ate the choice pieces the woman slipped to her. Platters were passed around and bones licked clean and the air was full of several languages and much laughter. The autumn sun cast dappled shadows over everything. Her heart filled with such gratitude, running over.
