Prelude to Heaven (17 page)

They finally managed to carry the bird by fashioning a sort of hammock, using Tess's petticoat and two tree branches, but after carrying the bird back to the château and setting it on the kitchen work table, they found they had a new problem. When Alexandre tried to examine the bird's broken wing, the goose struggled and honked and batted her good wing at him every time he came near.

“Ouch!” he cried, jumping back after the goose nipped his hand. “This bird is a menace. It hates me.”

The goose, however, did not seem to hate Tess. When she came close and reached down to touch her, the bird didn't protest or struggle in the least. Tess glanced at Alexandre, who was now standing several feet away. “I think I'll have to do this,” she told him.

“I have a better idea,” he said. “Why don't we just cook it for dinner?”

She saw the teasing glimmer in his black eyes. “You're only saying that because the goose doesn't like you.”

“Very true. But I like goose. Roasted, with stuffing.”

“Alexandre, do be serious. What do I do?”

“I don't really know,” he confessed. “I've never set a bird's broken wing before. We'll need some linen to bind it, I suppose,” he said, considering. “And a leather strap.”

After Alexandre had found the necessary materials, they set to work. He had Tess to measure the length of the broken bone, and he cut a piece from a scrap of leather harness that was slightly longer. He used his razor to cut two lengthwise slits, one at each end of the strap. Then, following Alexandre's improvised instructions, Tess hooked the ends of the strap over the joints on each side of the broken bone to act as a splint, and bound the wing tightly to the goose's body using the strips of linen.

“The important thing is to make certain it stays set so that it will heal,” he told her when she had finished, leaning as close as he could to examine her handiwork. “Is it tight?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Look at it every day to make certain it isn't coming loose.”

They carried the goose in its makeshift hammock out to the barn, and put it in one of the stalls of the stable. They watched as the goose walked around in a circle, honking and flapping her good wing. But the broken one seemed securely in place for the moment.

“She seems to be all right,” Tess said without looking at the man beside her.

“Yes,” he agreed without looking at her.

Yet, neither of them moved to go, and each of them knew the other was thinking of what had happened that afternoon.

They turned to each other at the same moment. Tess looked at Alexandre, and thought she was fat and awkward.

He thought she was beautiful.

She thought he was the strongest, gentlest man God ever made.

He thought he was a lost cause.

They stared at each other, their own insecurities convincing them that the feelings they had shared were imagined. Both spoke at once.

“I'll bring the goat and the donkey in from the pasture,” she said.

“I'll pick vegetables for dinner,” he said.

And as they went to do their respective chores, they both wished they had the courage to prove themselves wrong.

***

Alexandre tried to keep thoughts of what had happened between them out of his mind. That evening, he sought refuge in his studio, but not even his work could keep him from thinking of her.

The following day, he walked into the village on the pretext of needing paint supplies, his true reason to avoid her, but as he walked the road into Saint-Raphael, he could not stop reliving the kiss they had shared—the warmth of her against him, the fragrance of her hair, the sweet taste of her mouth. She was pregnant with another man's child, and his own feelings of desire shocked him. Yet, he ached to hold her in his arms once again, to see the answering desire in her eyes, to kiss her again, to believe in love again.

He had to keep some distance between them; he had to shore up his protective walls. Eventually she would learn what had happened to Anne-Marie, and when that happened, he would see the same condemnation in her eyes that he saw in the eyes of the villagers. He would see her fear of him return, the same fear that had caused those two boys to run away from him. She would stop believing in him, stop trusting him, and he couldn’t allow himself to care enough for that to matter.

He wasn't what she thought he was. She thought he was some sort of hero. Foolish, foolish man, he told himself, knowing that when he'd held her in his arms, he had believed it, too.

***

Tess dropped the baby's cap she'd just finished into her sewing basket and carried the basket upstairs. A simple cap, yet it had taken her all morning to complete it, for her attention had continually wandered from her sewing to Alexandre. It seemed as if she’d paused with every other stitch to savor the wonderful feeling of being in his arms, of feeling cherished—something she’d never imagined.

She passed through her bedchamber into the tiny adjoining nursery and set the basket on the small table she’d brought in from her own bedchamber, but she didn’t depart. Instead, she paused to study the cradle for a moment. She knew that if his wife and baby had died, it must have been very painful for Alexandre to give that baby's cradle to her.

She thought of the laughing eyes and beautiful face of the girl in the portrait. Jealousy, an intense, unexpected jolt of it, shot through her, and startled by it, she walked out of the nursery, out of her bedchamber. But she didn’t go downstairs.

Instead, she went to the rooms at the very end of the corridor, the ones that were always locked, staring at the heavy oak panels. She had never been more than mildly curious about these rooms before, but suddenly she was driven to know what was inside.

Turning back, she went into Alexandre's room and began to search for a key. She knew she shouldn’t. Whatever lay within the locked rooms of his home, it was none of her affair. But the wicked imp of curiosity and jealousy pushed aside the virtuous upbringing of a vicar's daughter. She had to know.

The key was tucked away in a drawer, far in the back, beneath layers of Alexandre's clothing. She grabbed it before she could change her mind, went back down the corridor, and unlocked one door.

She found herself in what was clearly a woman's room. The quilt on the huge bed showed a floral design in pastels, muted by a layer of dust. A jewel case of carved ivory sat on the dressing table. The armoire contained a few dresses, but most of them were probably now in Tess's own room. The drawers were filled with an untidy jumble of delicate lacy undergarments, ribbons, handkerchiefs, fans, and other falderals, faintly scented by the faded fragrance of lemon verbena.

At one end of the room, a door led into a wardrobe chamber, and beyond it was another door that led into and adjoining bedchamber, one furnished in a much more masculine style.

These were the connecting chambers of a married couple, and it was clear her guess had been right. He was grieving for a dead wife, and she wondered how she could compete with another woman's ghost. With that thought came another: the realization that she wanted to.

She wanted to drive that other woman out of his mind, out of his heart, because she wanted to take her place. She was in love with Alexandre.

How had this happened? A few months ago, the thought of a man, any man, had been enough to frighten her out of her wits. A man’s love was something she had ceased to believe in.

But Alexandre had changed all that. Changed it with hands that were strong, but tender. A voice that was as rich and warm as the Provence sun. One by one, he had taken away her fears. Day by day, he had demonstrated that a man could be protective, thoughtful, and caring. He’d shown her—

“What are you doing in here?”

Tess jumped at the sound of his voice and turned to find him standing in the doorway, and one glance at his face told her how angry he was to find her here.

Tess drew herself up with as much dignity as someone caught where she didn’t belong could muster. She didn’t reply, for what could she say? But as she met his angry gaze across the room, she felt no fear. She trusted him. She knew that no matter how angry he was, he would not hurt her. She loved him. She knew that no matter what he said to her now, her feelings would not change. She trusted him completely, and as she looked at him, she wished he could trust her, too, trust her enough to tell her about these rooms, about his wife.

“You have no right to be in here,” he told her, slamming his palm against the door, sending it swinging back to hit the wall. The sound made her jump, but she didn't shrink back, for she wasn’t the least bit afraid. “Who was this woman?” she asked, grasping a fold of her dress. “Was she your wife?”

“Yes.” A harsh, clipped syllable of an answer.

She drew a deep breath. “What happened to her?”

“She died.”

He folded his arms across his chest, look straight into her eyes, his own as dark as an abyss. “I killed her.”

Tess staggered back as if he'd slapped her. Of all the things she might have expected him to say, that wasn't one of them, and for a moment, she felt a shimmer of an old, familiar fear.

He saw it at once. Pressing his lips together, he turned and walked out.

Tess pressed a hand to her mouth, feeling sick at the guilt she’d seen in his eyes. But after a moment, that image faded and others took its place.

She thought of how he’d handed over fifty francs for a donkey he didn't even want and rubbed ointment into its wounds. She heard again the fear that had been in his voice when she'd taken that tumble in the stream bed. She remembered his fingers moving with gentleness over her sprained ankle, and she saw the awe on his face when he'd felt her baby kicking. And as she recalled these moments, she knew beyond doubt that what he’d just told her couldn't be true. She had to tell him that, tell him that she wasn’t afraid of him, that whatever had happened to his wife and child, she knew he hadn’t killed them.

She ran out into the corridor to tell him all these things, but he was already gone. She started toward the stairs to follow him, but changed her mind after only a few steps. Running down stairs in her condition was not a wise thing to do, and besides, she knew chasing him down would be futile. If he wanted to be alone, she would not find him. And even if she did, she knew all the reassurances in the world couldn’t erase the fact that for one terrible moment she’d been afraid of him, and he’d seen her fear.

A soft meow sounded behind her, one that to her ears sounded as forlorn as she felt, and glanced down to find Augustus sitting at her feet. With a sigh, she picked up the kitten and buried her face against the soft orange fur. “He'll be back soon,” she said, but the words sounded hollow, and they gave her no comfort.

***

Alexandre walked without any conscious idea where he was going, but no matter how far or how fast he walked, Tess's appalled face stayed with him.

This was what he’d been dreading, and though he’d known it would come, had tried to prepare for it. But nothing had prepared him for the pain that had sliced through him when he'd seen the look on Tess's face.

I killed her
.
I killed her
. His harsh self-accusation

kept time with his long strides as he walked through the meadow where he had painted Tess’s portrait. His steps slowed at the edge of the meadow, and he sank beneath the plane tree where he had kissed her only yesterday, feeling a hint of despair, for no matter how far he walked, he could not escape the brutal truth that he was responsible for the deaths of his wife and child.

***

She didn’t see him again that day, but the next morning, there was water was outside her door. She found a basket of vegetables on the worktable when she came down to the kitchen, but Alexandre was not waiting there for her with freshly brewed tea. When she went outside to do her morning chores, she glanced up at the tower and saw him by the window, bathed in the light of lamps still lit from the night before. He must have seen her, too, for as she paused in the courtyard, he turned away.

As she went about her daily tasks, Tess wondered what she could do to bridge the chasm between them, and she knew the best thing was to let it rest. Talking about it certainly wouldn’t help. If he hadn’t told her to leave after he’d caught her poking and prying in his rooms yesterday, he didn't intend to, and perhaps, over time, he would forget the past and come to love her as she loved him, accept her and her baby as his new family. It seemed a dim hope, but it was all she had.

That evening, however, something happened that put her troubles with Alexandre out of her mind, at least for the moment. She had just brought in the animals and was just leaving the barn when the clatter of horses' hooves and carriage wheels stopped her. A traveling carriage, its top lowered, was coming down the lane toward the stables, and the moment she saw it, Tess was seized with a sudden flare of panic. What if the British authorities had found her?