Page 40 of The Autumn Wife
But she did, she realized, as she gazed down at a woman still suffering from the birth of a beautiful baby girl. Despite the pain, Marie glowed with joy and contentment. In the other room sat her loving husband, who’d nearly gone mad with worry during the birth.
“Is it a passion for him, then?” Marie’s brow rippled with confusion. “Is that what the lightning is all about?”
Heat blazed up from under Cecile’s bodice. Really, why were they having this conversation?
“Passion is a wonderful thing.” Marie squeezed her hand. “If that’s what’s drawing you to Theo, you should accept that, too, acknowledge it, even embrace it. Especially after all you’ve suffered with—”
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping by now?” Cecile fussed with the sheets, desperate to end this conversation.
“Don’t let fear stop you from loving.” Marie went still, then breathed through another cramp. “Most of all,” she continued, as the cramp slowly abated, “don’t let that bastard of a husband ruin your life anymore. You deserve to be happy.”
Overcome at the same words Theo had spoken to her, she turned away from Marie to stare blindly toward the oilskin-covered window.
“Explore all those confusing feelings,” Marie persisted. “Listen to the natural pull of your body.”
“Please tell me you didn’t say any of this to Sister Martha while you both were meddling.”
“Oh, my darling Ceci, Sister Martha understands the world better than you think.”
She planted her head in her hands, groaning. To have such a friend as this was the greatest gift—Cecile had once helped Marie defy a king all those years ago—and yet, now Cecile wished she could stop Marie from talking.
“Enough, Marie.” She straightened with a long exhale. “All this talk is futile. I told you, there is no future for Theo and myself.”
“I’m not talking about the future.” Marie’s eyelids fluttered as the medicine began to take hold. “I’ve done my part to get you together…the rest is up to you.”
“The rest ofwhat?”
“The parlor,” Marie murmured. “That’s where you’ll be sleeping.”
“I know. Lucas set up a pallet for me. Now what—”
“While you’re in the parlor,” Marie interrupted, “Theo will be sleeping in the barn. Lucas and I will be here in this bed, behind a closed door, deaf and mute to anything but a baby’s cry.”
At the implication, Cecile went prickly warm, though the fire in the hearth had banked to coals and needed another log. “Heavens, Marie. To think that you were raised in a convent.”
“Don’t worry…about pregnancy.” Marie tugged on the blanket, her eyes sliding closed as she fought exhaustion. “A man as handsome as that…must have plenty of experience in avoiding—”
“Saints alive.” Cecile bolted to her feet. “Your pain is making you delirious.”
“I want you happy, Ceci.”
Those words again. Of course she wanted to be happy. But she’d never found any joy in the marriage bed. And to lie in a bed with Theo—whether he gave her joy or not—would make parting from him only more difficult.
“This conversation is over.” Cecile headed to the door. “You get some sleep, Marie.”
“I’ll try…But I hope you don’t sleep at all.”
Marie’s fading laughter followed her out of the room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
With the burnt end of a piece of tinder, Theo scratched another black mark on the barn wall, a tally of how long he’d been at the Girards’.
He calculated carefully.
One more day to freedom.
Sitting by the iron stove, he tossed the tinder into the fire and waited for a rush of liberation to blast through him. For four years, he’d been anticipating the day he would step onto a ship as a free man, a ship whose billowed sails would transport him across a sea to where he belonged. With every cut of a whip on his back, he’d vowed to return to the family he’d left behind.
