Humbled (3 page)

The fabric of her chemise slid down her thoroughly chastised bottom, even its silk an unwelcome touch on her swollen orbs. The skirts of the dress followed and a large, warm hand arrived in the middle of her upper back.

“It is over, Corinne,” he murmured.

Corinne.
Not
mademoiselle.
She knew he chose his words on purpose. How did he even know her given name? Where had he learned it? The intimacy of it angered her. She hated him with all her passion. Irrationally, it became his fault Frenchmen were tearing their own country apart at the seams and she had lost her home and everything she owned. His fault she may never see
Maman
and
Papa
again.

She erected her back and walked a few paces away without looking at him. He diplomatically busied himself with striking flint for a fire. The sound of dry leaves crackling came as a relief, as if her body instinctively knew with fire came civilization. They would eat. They would be warm. She would survive this.

“Come, Corinne,” he summoned after a stretch.

She wanted to refuse him, but the smell of roasted meat had her belly churning with hunger. She stumbled over and squatted beside him, accepting what he offered—chunks of rabbit meat and vegetables, all bland and tasting of nothing but fire. Still, it filled her belly.

With nourishment she felt more like herself, which in this case was a curse. Her bottom still throbbed painfully, and the more she considered her predicament, the more she pitied herself.

One tear rolled down her nose, then another. She brushed them off, but the wretched Jean-Claude observed it. He rose and crouched beside her, putting a hand on her back.

“I am not crying over the spanking!” she bit out, even as more tears coursed down her cheeks.

“Of course you are not,” he soothed. “You are crying because you have just lost everything.”

She lifted her eyes to see if he mocked her, but his expression held only compassion. She lowered her lashes as more tears spilled, leaning her shoulder against his. In a flash, he pulled her in his lap, his arms winding around her as he settled onto the ground.

She marveled at the sense of comfort she derived from nothing more than a man’s strong arms wrapped around her. How long had it been since anyone offered her comfort? Since she was a child? Could she count the attentions paid her by servants? No, they gave out of duty. Jean-Claude gave freely, and the gentleness of his gift eased her ire.

Yet it troubled her to feel so safe curled on a stranger’s lap when her life was at stake, her parents possibly dead, and she had no idea what her future held.
This is what is to be a peasant. To find the simple comforts.

He peered into her face and used his thumb to wipe away her tears.

She pressed her lips to stop their trembling, willing the tears to stop. “Did you steal the pig?” she asked to deflect the attention.

His eyebrows shot up and he laughed. “Yes. I tried to, but I did not succeed. It escaped and ran right back to its pen, but still they wanted my neck for it.” He shrugged. “I know, I should not have attempted it. I am not a thief. It was a stupid idea, one for which my mother never forgave me.”

She looked at blue eyes framed with the dark curling lashes ladies strive to affect. How ancient they seemed. He had already known a lifetime of hardship whilst she had been dancing court dances in Paris and Versailles. And yet he smiled easily. Her eyes dropped to his lips. What would it be like to be kissed on the cheek by a man like him? Different than the few kisses she had received at court?

“And you? Were you punished as promised?” he asked.

The mention of the word “punish” almost made her wince, eliciting a fresh throbbing of her hot flesh against his hard thigh.

“Yes. Maman was irate—she feared the queen would hear of the way I mocked her sheep, and Papa whipped me out of principle. But he was proud of me just the same. He liked when I took a stand on something and stuck to it. Maman called me stubborn, but Papa claimed it showed character. He always lamented I was born female.”

* * *

How could anyone lament Corinne was of the delicate sex? Because she was, in fact, more delicate, more female, it seemed, than any woman he had known. Was it her nobility? The regal way she held her neck? The way her slender fingers laced so primly?

A few strands of her dark hair stuck to her dry lips, and he hooked a finger through them and tugged them off. The bruise on her cheek made him angry, but even worse, she now had scratches on her face from the bark of the log where he had punished her. He should have been more careful—spanking was one thing, but marring her face was quite another.

“Will you be missed, in Gramont?”

He gave a shrug. “Not so much. I lost my wife two years ago in childbirth.”

She gasped, covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry. The child, too?”

He nodded. “Yes, the baby died with her.” Two years and it still ached to speak of her.

“And your parents?”

“Dead.”

“What do you do for trade?”

“I am the blacksmith.”

She raised her eyebrows, looking impressed.

He smiled. “Did you think I still ran about trying to steal pigs?”

She flushed. “I have heard of you. They say you are quite good. You do some silversmithing as well, is that true?”

He studied her eyes—gray like the ashes of a fire. No, darker. Storm cloud gray. He liked the soft weight of her in his arms, the proximity of her face to his. “I have done some silversmithing for your father.”

She looked at him appraisingly, as if adjusting her judgment of him.

“Did you think I begged in the village center?”

She had the grace to flush, pushing off his lap to stand. He hid his disappointment by jumping to his feet and putting out the fire.

“We should start walking again.”

“As you say.”

“If we meet anyone, you are my wife, Justine Armand. I have your papers. Can you speak like a blacksmith’s wife?”

“I can try,” she said, trying to speak like a peasant.

“Try harder,” he said drily, picking up the satchel he’d had the foresight to pack before he had run to Château de Gramont to save Corinne. In it he had the few francs he owned, the papers for himself and his dead wife, a tin cup, a cloak and flint. He handed Corinne the cup. “Go back to the stream and drink your fill before we depart.”

He watched her back as she departed, shaking his head. Irritation with her as a symbol of what the citizens of France were fighting against warred with the obligation to repay his debt. That, after all, was the only reason he would willingly subject himself to her company.

Except he knew that was a lie. He already liked the little aristocrat, as fascinated by her as he had been all those years ago at his execution.

She impressed him by walking all afternoon and halfway through the night without complaint. When they stopped at last, however, she stomped her feet when he refused to build a fire.

“It will call attention to us, which we cannot afford. It is summer—you cannot be so cold you require a fire.”

“I am freezing,” she insisted. “I’m not accustomed to walking for miles on end, nor to sleeping on the ground. All this time I imagined the nice warm fire you would make us when we stopped.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint,
ma chère
.” He patted the ground beside him cavalierly. “You may have my cloak, and if you lie beside me, I will keep you warm. I promise I will not molest you in any way.”

She eyed him warily, her lower lip protruding. “If you do, I will cut out your heart.”

He grinned. “Will you? Now I wish to tempt you, just to see you try.”

“I hate you,” she sulked, sinking to the ground beside him.

He lay on his side, his head on his arm. “You may use my arm for a pillow,” he offered.

She glowered at his arm, but gingerly lowered her head to rest upon it, her back to his front.

“Can you feel my warmth?”

She inched back a little, until her body almost touched his. “Yes,” she murmured.

They lay silently together and he thought she would fall immediately to sleep, but instead she said, “My feet hurt. And my knees ache. And—” she stopped herself.

He smiled, imagining she might be thinking of her backside.

Indeed, she offered, “I had not been switched before.”

“It is horrible, isn’t it?” he said with genuine sympathy. “I would not have chosen a switch to punish you, except it is silent and I did not wish any passersby to hear us.”

“I will never forgive you for it.”

“No? I think you already have.”

“No. Never. And I shall never concede you are my master.”

He moved without thinking, as if Corinne were his wife, someone he had the right to tease. Pulling her to her back, he pinned her wrists above her head, straddling her waist. She bucked against him, and he saw real fear on her face, though her hips lifted to roll against his in an undulating fashion.

He grinned to ease her worries. “Shall I cut another switch and test your resolve?”

She wriggled harder against his grip. “Get… off… me!”

“Hmm? Shall I? I cannot imagine you would last too long before you would call me anything I demanded, especially on an already raw derrière.”

She tossed her head from side to side, straining against his hold, a deep flush across her neck visible even in moonlight. She caught the amusement in his eyes. “You are enjoying yourself.”

“Just a little.”

“The fault is not mine.”

“What fault?”

“Being born noble
.”

He relaxed his grip in a rush of guilt. She understood his bias against her. “I know,” he said with sympathy. “But I did not ask to be born a peasant, either.”

Chapter Two

The desire to contradict him, to tell him he was not a peasant, rose to her lips, and she wondered at the instinct. Was it because she believed peasants to be beneath her? In fact, Jean-Claude was a peasant. Yet in coming to her rescue, he had shown more nobility than half the courtiers who flitted through their château.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I am sorry for all the injustice you have suffered. I am sorry my parents stood in support of King Louis and the taxes that made bread cost an annual wage. I am sorry for all of France now. It seems we will all suffer together.”

He released her wrists and sat back, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Perhaps that is the point of
la revolution
. We shall all suffer together now.”

“And no one shall flourish?” She flushed, realizing it was the flourishing of one small group at the great impoverishment of the rest that caused it all. “Never mind,” she said. “I did not mean…” She shook her head.

“I know,” he said, climbing off her and settling on his side. “I know you have only followed where your parents led you. You have not given thought to form your own opinions about how France might be saved.”

Her nose burned and her vision turned wavy at his veiled criticism. “No. That is not true. Even as a child I knew the farce. It was the reason I lied for a muddy boy who stole a pig. It was the reason I mocked the queen’s sheep. I suppose I knew then how to act against injustice better than I do now. But what should I have done to prevent this war? What could I have—?”

Jean-Claude silenced her by pulling her into his arms, arranging her head on his shoulder, tucked her under his chin. “Me, I am sorry, too. You are right—in this way, we all lose.”

She lay silent, stunned at finding herself in a man’s arms, confused about why he had offered the embrace or what he meant by it. She did not move for a long time, waiting to see if he had other intentions, but his breath slowed, signaling he had fallen off to sleep. She settled into him, snuggling close to his warmth, grateful for the companionship.

* * *

In the morning, they had nothing to eat. They had already consumed the small provisions he brought and he had no luck foraging or catching any game. Her belly gnawed as they walked on.

“I am hungry,” she complained.

He did not answer.

“When will you find some food?”

He stopped in his tracks, looking back and glaring. “You will know when I find it, Corinne. I am hungry as well, but I have chosen not to complain. It is a choice you might make as well.”

“Can we stop and buy some bread?” she asked, realizing too late how stupid her question was. The wheat blight had brought the cost of bread nearly equal to the cost of a pound of silver. “I mean, something else? Eggs, perhaps?”

He nodded.

They walked on in silence. When she felt she would die if she did not rest, she spoke again. “My feet hurt.”

He whirled, looking irritated. “Is that a complaint?”

Taken aback, she stammered, “No, I—” then recovering, she put her fists on her hips. “It was a statement of fact. I need to rest.”

He gave her an even look. “Then make a request.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said I do not wish to hear your complaints. If you require a rest, simply request it.”

She flushed. “I see.” She gave an exaggerated curtsy. “Monsieur, may I please stop and rest, if it pleases Your Highness?”

Jean-Claude scowled. “You would be wise to curb your attitude.”

She rolled her eyes but bit back the “or what?” already knowing the answer. Plopping down on a log, she rubbed her aching feet.

Thinking about her last meal, she realized her escort might be hungrier than she. When considering what they had eaten, she recalled he had given her the lion’s share of everything he had foraged. She hardly blamed him for his temper—he must be twice as famished.

Resting would get them nowhere; they needed to keep moving to find food. She stood up again. “Thank you for stopping. I am ready to go on.”

He raised his eyebrows as if he did not believe in the sincerity of her politeness but led on without comment.

In a few hours, they approached a village.