Love Inspired Historical April 2014 Bundle: The Husband Campaign\The Preacher's Bride Claim\The Soldier's Secrets\Wyoming Promises (65 page)

“I know of him, and I...ah...I arrested your father.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “
Maman
told me yesterday when I helped with the journal. She had to give
Grand-père'
s men proof of something, so rather than turn in the journal she found hidden, she wrote a new one that showed you innocent.”

Innocent? Brigitte had been trying to prove his
innocence?
Blood roared in his ears and he struggled to suck in breath as he opened to the first page of the book. There the letters stood, bold and unmistakable in a poor imitation of his hand. He flipped through, page after page, certain words jumping out at him, like
furniture maker
and
apprentice, journeyman.
The entries were short and sparse but they covered from March 1789 until the time he'd been shot and Isabelle nursed him in Saint-Valery. The journal made no mention of his serving as a soldier or even setting foot in Calais.

“She didn't tell you last night?” Danielle asked quietly.

“I think she tried, but I didn't let her.” He bowed his head. What had he done? He'd been so furious that he'd seen only her betrayal. If he'd have let her talk, simply trusted rather than turned his back... “I'm an oaf.”

A small hand rested on his forearm. “We haven't time to waste.
Grand-père
sent men for us last night. They have
Maman
and the boys.”

Dubois had already taken her and the children? He wasn't just an oaf, but a heartless, wretched one.

“Citizen Belanger,” Danielle prodded.

He blew out a breath and looked up. The girl had the right of it. 'Twould be time to wallow later, but first, he had to find her. “Tell me everything of these men. What time did they come? How did they find you?”

“They came last night while
Maman
was still away. They made us drink a sleeping potion, bound us and threw us in the wagon, then laid a trap for
Maman.
It won't be good once
Grand-père
has hold of her.

No. He didn't imagine so. “And you escaped?”

A grin split her pretty little face. “Of course. I made it look like I choked on the potion, but really I spewed most of it out, and what I didn't spew out, I let dribble down the side of my mouth. “My neck and dress are sticky, see?”

She patted her slender neck and a stained spot at the top of her dress. “I've kept that knife you gave me strapped to my thigh. 'Twas a simple matter to feign sleep while they bound me, then cut the ties once the wagon began to move.”

“I'm glad you escaped.” If not for Danielle, he'd still be furious at Brigitte and ignorant as to the danger surrounding her. “Now come, we must make haste.”

Facing a smuggler might not be so terrible. But a smuggler whose son he'd killed during the Terror? A smuggler who now held the woman and children he loved captive?

If he did nothing else, he would go to Calais and free Brigitte and the younglings. She deserved little less after being used so terribly by Dubois. Then she could move to Reims and finally be with her family.

And what of his feelings for her? His heart gave a long, hard thump. He had no business loving a woman like Brigitte Dubois. He'd known it from the first. Because no matter how much he loved her, no matter how many men he fought to free her, he was still the murderer who'd killed her husband.

He could say he'd changed...but even the new man he'd become had let her down, let her come to harm when she should have been under his protection. He'd failed her, just as he'd failed Corinne.

Losing her from his life just as he'd lost his beloved wife was nothing more than what he deserved.

Chapter Twenty-One

J
ean Paul burst through the door of the gendarmerie barracks then stopped to survey the room. The gendarme on the bunk closest to the door raised up on his elbow and squinted through sleepy eyes.

“Where's Gilles?”

The other man plopped back down on his bed. “Third bed on the right. Top bunk.”

He turned back to Danielle, standing in the doorway. “Wait here.”

Of course, the urchin didn't listen. She followed him down the aisle between the beds until he stopped at the bunk where Gilles lay peacefully turned on his side, slumbering as though he hadn't a worry in the world.

Well, that was about to change. He hauled Gilles up by his shoulder with one hand while wrapping his other around the man's throat.

The gendarme's eyes snapped open, instant panic flickering in their depths.

“Where are they?” Jean Paul growled. “Where are the guards taking them?”

Gilles opened his mouth then closed it before swallowing thickly beneath Jean Paul's hand.

Right. Strangling the man was rather prohibitive to talking. He released Gilles's neck and gripped the scoundrel's shoulder instead. “The truth, or my hand goes back on your throat.”

“I know not of whom you speak.”

With a single heave, he jerked Gilles halfway off the bed, their breaths tangling as he stared into the gendarme's frightened eyes. “Don't play daft with me. You were supposed to meet Brigitte Dubois last night, were you not?”

The man's face whitened at the mention of Brigitte's true surname. “So you know.”

“Only that she's been taken. Danielle tells me you threatened her and the children two nights past. And I can surmise she was supposed to meet you last night, not the other man I found. Now speak. What know you?”

Gilles pressed his eyes shut. “They have her son, Julien. Dubois had men waiting for his grandson in Le Havre, and they captured him when his ship arrived. Dubois must have grown impatient with how long Brigitte was taking here. I had naught but a day's warning before the men arrived. They asked where Brigitte stayed and when our next meeting was.”

“And you told them.” He tightened his grip on the gendarme's shoulder. One more answer such as that, and he'd not be able to stop his hand from wrapping back around the other man's throat. “How dare you turn vile men like that on her?”

“I hadn't a choice. They'd have...”

The man's mouth clamped shut, but his thoughts lay written across his face. Men like Alphonse Dubois based their empires on fear, not loyalty. Dubois's henchmen would have killed Gilles had he not been truthful—or made him wish he were dead.

“Were they angered that you didn't have more information on me?”

“Oui.”

“But they left you here alive.” And they'd taken Brigitte. His heart twisted. Why could they not have taken the clod in front of him and left the woman he loved alone?

“They gave me another task with which to prove myself.” His eyes were flat and lifeless as the words fell from his mouth.

“What kind of task?”

“I'm to go to your property and kill you, burning your remains in your house before I set fire to your land.”

Jean Paul pulled back. Kill him and burn his fields? Alphonse Dubois didn't waste time. “You tell me this rather easily.”

Gilles's eyes drifted down to where Jean Paul's hands fisted in his nightclothes. “They'll kill me if I fail. But it seems you've a mind to kill me first.”

“
Oui.
I should snap your neck.” Yet somehow he couldn't stomach it. He had every reason to drag this man before Captain Monfort, the mayor and the magistrate to see him guillotined.

But enough death already stained his hands to last three lifetimes over. He released the man and crossed his arms over his chest. “I'm feeling a bit merciful this morn. I might be convinced to barter your life for information—and a promise not to burn down my home and fields. Tell me more of what happened with Brigitte, and start at the beginning.”

Gilles pushed himself up on the bed until he sat, then glanced about the room. One man stirred in the far corner, but otherwise the chamber remained still, most guards sleeping for another hour yet. “Dubois hired me some years back. I usually just...ignore certain signs of his smugglers' doings as I carry out my duties.”

He was paid to ignore Dubois's smuggling activities? They'd likely been working against each other from the start, with Jean Paul reporting suspicious activities to the Convention once every month, and Gilles trying to cover them up.

“But when his daughter-in-law came to town, I was tasked with seeing she followed Dubois's orders.” The man avoided meeting Jean Paul's eyes, but his face contorted with jealousy and pettiness. Hardly a surprise, given the man's sneering animosity toward him and his dealings with the gendarmerie. With an opportunity such as this, to see the local hero come to harm or at least be publically disgraced—the scoundrel had probably volunteered.

“She'd a full fortnight to perform her duties, yet she moved slow from the beginning. I tried to get her to work faster, but she fell ill and took a fancy to you. 'Twas plain to see my...uh, encouragement had little effect.”

An image of Brigitte rose in his mind, sick and scared, and that wretched fever slowly overtaking her as this gendarme forced her to choose between her principles and her children. Why hadn't he discovered her situation sooner? Why hadn't he demanded she tell him more of her time in Calais?

“I heard naught from Dubois when she went past the fortnight, but I knew he must grow impatient. So two nights ago, when she missed our rendezvous, I searched out her house and waited. 'Twas obvious she'd found something of import before she'd returned. The woman is a poor liar. But she didn't want to talk so I did some persuading of my own.” Gilles's chin rose defiantly.

Did the man feel no shame over terrifying a woman and her younglings? “What did you do?” Jean Paul all but snarled the words.

“He threatened us,” Danielle piped up from where she stood at the end of the bed.

Jean Paul narrowed his eyes until blackness blocked out everything in his vision save Gilles. “How?”

The man swallowed, color draining from his face. “Ah...I...um...” Gilles gripped his hands together and then looked away. “I said I'd hold a knife to the babe's throat if she didn't speak.”

“How dare you!” He lunged at the bed.

Gilles rolled to his side, well anticipating the move, and shifting just enough to avoid being caught. “Have you a wish to hear the rest or not?”

“If you think you've a choice, perhaps I wasn't clear enough when I made my own threat,” Jean Paul spat.

“'Tis not what you think. She pleaded for you, anyway, the heartsick fool,” the gendarme grumbled, jumping off the other end of the bed, putting a good meter between them.

“She what?”

“She said she found a hidden National Guard uniform, but she argued the uniform meant nothing, that many a man had worn such a coat and it didn't make them murderers.” Gilles's sullen words were little more than a whisper in the quiet barracks. “I insisted she meet me yesterday's eve with the uniform, anyway. But Dubois's men arrived.”

She'd pleaded for him? Had defended him to this vile man? If so, then he'd played a bigger role in Brigitte's deceit than he thought. If she'd found his trunk two nights ago, 'twould have been right after the kiss he'd ended so brutally. Right after he told her to leave and not return. He'd watched her run into the stable then. Was that when she'd found his trunk?

It must have been. And after Gilles gave her an ultimatum between producing evidence or seeing harm done to her children, she'd still pleaded on his behalf.

How had the woman survived this endeavor? How had she managed to walk the line between protecting her children and not betraying him? When he'd found her with the journal last night, he'd assumed the worst. But he'd been wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. She'd faced impossible circumstances and still found a way to protect both her children and himself.

But she'd needed protecting, as well, and he'd failed her.

Jean Paul met Gilles's eyes over the top of the bed. “Gather your things. I won't turn you in to the magistrate, but only if you come with me to Calais. You'll help undo this wrong.”

The gendarme laughed, a harsh, hollow sound. “'Twill do you no good, save getting you killed sooner. I've never been to Calais, nor know I where Dubois stays. My father was indebted to him, and Dubois's men approached me after he passed. 'Tis that obligation I seek to work off.”

“All the more reason for you to come and see that Dubois's smuggling ring is stopped.”

“You suggest the impossible. Dubois's strength is vast.”

Mayhap he underestimated Alphonse Dubois's strength, but he understood right and wrong, justice and injustice. The smuggler needed to be thwarted, and Jean Paul didn't plan to stop until one of them lay cold in a grave—hopefully after Brigitte and her children were free.

“I have a means of fighting back.” Indeed, his letter from Fouché gave him such capabilities, though he wasn't about to proclaim his relationship with Paris to a filthy criminal like Gilles.

Gilles smirked, his overlarge nose tilting arrogantly in the air. “You understand little. You'll have to take the force into Calais with you. No one in that town will side against the one who employs nearly all the men to one extent or another. And even if you can muster the men to fight, you still know not where to find Dubois.”

“I know.” A quiet voice echoed into the otherwise silent room.

Jean Paul turned toward Danielle.

She took a step forward, her chin jutting in that familiar, determined angle so similar to her mother. “I know where
Grand-père
stays, and I'll help you get him.”

* * *

Dark. Everything was dark. And bumpy. Something jolted her, sending her already throbbing head to crash against a hard surface.

Brigitte blinked her eyes open and groaned, though neither action did much good. Her mouth didn't work quite right, and a blurry darkness still surrounded her.

Water. She needed a whole liter of it, and a soft bed, not this hard, jostling...

The surface on which she lay listed to the right, and she rolled.

“Whoa there,” an unfamiliar masculine voice called out.

“Watch that rut.”

“Don't tell me how to handle a wagon.”

A wagon. That certainly explained the movement, and the hard surface beneath her side. She moved to push herself up, but her hands didn't work, either. They were stuck behind her back and...and... She gave another tug on her arms, and a biting sensation pinched the skin around her wrists.

They were tied.

She attempted to move her feet, but stiff bands of rope dug into her ankles. She moved her lips to call out, only to find a thick cloth on her tongue and a pinching sensation at the corners of her mouth. She'd been gagged, as well.

No wonder her mouth hadn't seemed to work right. But why was she bound and gagged and lying in the back of a wagon? And why had it taken her so long to figure out she was tied?

An unbidden tear slipped down her cheek. What was wrong with her? How did she get here, and why did her head ache? She fought back through her memories for an answer, but a thick, murky fog shrouded her mind. Something important had happened yesterday. What was it?

She drew her forehead down and stared into the darkness. It shouldn't be so hard to remember. There was something important... Something... Danielle! She'd run off and Brigitte had spent the entire night searching with...

The children.

She craned her head around and peered into the darkness. Were they in the back of the wagon with her? She blinked, but the black only turned more blurry with the action.
Non.
They couldn't be with her. They wouldn't be so quiet...

Unless they slept. Or were also gagged.

And she had no way of finding out unless she crept along the wagon bed. Using her shoulder to slide forward and her feet to push, she inched along the wooden planks like a slug. Heat stained her cheeks and more tears crept into her eyes, but she slid forward despite her humiliating position. Her children were more important than being forced to crawl like a bug.

She bumped into a soft, warm body. A small one. Victor. Was he well? She listened through the creaking of the wagon and grinding of the wheels against the road until his shallow breaths resonated in her ears. If one child was here and well, then the others must be also.

Or so she hoped.

She crept on. Just behind Victor, she nudged into Serge's still, breathing form, but not Danielle's.

Danielle, being the largest, should be the easiest to find. Where could she be?

Brigitte inched her way to the back of the wagon, then rolled and started her search again. Panic burned hotter and brighter with each moment. She passed by Victor and Serge once more, their little bodies unmistakable, but she reached the front of the wagon without any sign of her daughter.

Where was Danielle? Had she somehow escaped, or had the men who'd captured the rest of them done something terrible to her daughter? She tried to move her tongue around the gag, tried to force sound from her mouth and words from her lips, but only a loud groan emerged.

The wagon slowed and the canvas fell back to reveal a dark form towering above her. “She's awake. Douse the cloth.”

Brigitte scooted herself up higher. “My daughter.”

Or at least, she tried to say my daughter, but one sound was indistinguishable from the other with the gag constricting her speech. Though it did not stop her from trying again. “Where is she?”

“Stop moaning, wench. You'll wake the countryside.”