Saving The Marquise's Granddaughter (14 page)

~*~

If Suzanne kept chewing her lip, she might bite it off. And she’d worked her handkerchief into a knot so tight that Johan could have packed it into the end of a musket. He squeezed her hand to get her attention and then tapped his upper teeth against his lower lip several times. Her gnawing stopped.

The pastor’s closing words boomed out. “Carry your faith to the new land. Like so many who have gone before you, start a new life. We regret that the parishioners who were to leave within the month will have to wait a little longer. Come up and speak to me after the service, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Suzanne’s shoulder, hard against his own, stiffened.

Nicholas shifted in the seat on the other side of him, and then craned his neck around to look at Greta.

Johan slapped him on the leg to get him to turn around.

It worked, but Nick elbowed him and leaned in toward him. “Are you going, Brother? Could be your opportunity.”

Mama’s eyes filled with tears as she gazed at Nicholas. Why did they plan to send their eldest?

Papa, too, dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief.

Nicholas’s arms crossed, his expression smug as he appeared oblivious to his parents’ sorrow.

Johan couldn’t think about the American colonies right now. Today, he’d have to tell his parents about Aunt Louisa, before anyone gossiped.

After the service, Suzanne followed his family out of the building. His strapping blond cousin and his wife met them outside the church, each of their arms containing their children, while another golden-haired imp ran around them. Little Sarah’s unbound hair hung to her waist, unplaited. Such a simple task for a mother to perform, yet she apparently hadn’t.

Beside him, Suzanne stiffened and seemed to add several centimeters to her petite height as color drained from her face.

Johan gestured toward his relatives. “Suzanne, this is my cousin Noel and his wife, Elizabeth. And these are their children.”

Maria kissed Elizabeth and Noel and each of the children, grasping the oldest as she ran one more circle around them. “Sarah! Behave yourself.”

The child smiled at her with a toothy grin. Noel always said Sarah looked very much like Johan.

He heard Suzanne draw in a deep breath as she took Sarah’s hand in hers. “You are
belle
—beautiful.”

Would he have daughters like little Sarah some day?

~*~

Johan had just gotten up good speed with the carriage horses when his mother called out.

“Pull over here, Johan.” Mama hadn’t made him come to the ancient graveyard in a long time, and never with Papa and Nicholas. Why stop there?

His father raised his voice above the slowing hoof beats. “Not now, Maria. Please.”

“Oui
,
today. Stop, Johan. It is time.”

From the shifting of the carriage, he wondered if Mama was already getting up.

“Get out, sons,” his father gruffly commanded once Johan had secured the horses. Papa had already helped Suzanne down. “You can come with us, too, Suzanne.”

She tilted her head nervously and sought him out with her gaze.

He got down and went to her, taking her cool hand in his.

Mama and Papa both frowned.

Nicholas stood by the carriage, pretending to examine it.

“My brother doesn’t go in the graveyard,” Johan murmured.

His father cleared his throat. “One of you must go with the group.”

“I’ll go to the colonies and take Suzanne.” Johan watched his father’s jaw drop down, but he quickly set it again.

His mother began to cry and hurried on to the cemetery.

A wrinkle formed in question between Suzanne’s eyebrows.

Johan cleared his throat. “My other brothers are buried there.”

Nicholas ambled behind them. “The French soldiers killed them all.”

Shock and horror washed over Suzanne’s face.

Johan released her hand, and then put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to his side. He saw how she looked at Noel’s family, at little Sarah. Suzanne wanted her own family, too. And he would help her. They couldn’t replace what she had lost, but they could start over. Give her a new life. But he had to be sure she shared his faith.

Her whisper tickled his ear. “Why does your mother wish us to accompany her?”

Johan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I’m going in this time.” Nicholas strode past them to join his parents.

Papa began talking to him, but his voice didn’t carry over the gentle wind and the sounds of songbirds calling to each other.

They passed through the huge iron gate in the stone fence surrounding the cemetery. An assortment of embellishments on the ironwork—a skull, an angel’s face, a rose, and a horse marked this plot as hundreds of years old. Beyond the bars lay rows of headstones.

Papa threw an arm around his oldest son. “Nicholas, we love you, you know.”

Mama nodded, lifting her apron to wipe her cheeks, her handkerchief sodden. “You’re so like your father. He was the light of my life.” Her voice broke. “Our firstborn.”

Papa pulled her into his arms and soothed her.

“What do you mean?” When their parents didn’t answer, Nicholas turned to Johan. “What are they talking about?”

Johan stepped to a headstone nearby, one he’d always wondered about. He pointed to the name and dates. “This brother of ours—he was over twenty years older than you, Nicholas. And yet he bears your same name.”

Nick bent and ran his fingers over the engraving and frowned. “Why did you give me the same name?”

“We didn’t,” their mother sobbed.

“Our son, Nicholas, was your father.” Papa managed the words but went back to rubbing Mama’s back.

Why hadn’t their parents shared this information with them before?

“You’re my grandfather?” Nicholas’s mouth hung open. Then he ran from them.

“Mama?” Johan couldn’t make sense of what his parents had done.

“You’re our eldest and only living son, Johan. I can’t let you go.”

~*~

Earlier that day, Suzanne had watched the Rouschs and understood.

Johan was his mother’s only child remaining, born of her own flesh.

Suzanne couldn’t let him leave his parents. How horrible that would be for them.

That night, as she prepared for bed, she tried to imagine traveling without her brother. Without Maman. Without Papa. She must get to Amsterdam and see if Guillame had stopped to claim their travel funds. But she drifted off to sleep with an image of her brother’s slumped body atop a King’s Guard horse.

“Guy!” Suzanne sat up in the bed, sweat pouring down her neck, her heart pounding from the nightmare. Where was her brother? In her dream, he’d galloped through the streets of Paris, away from her. But it wasn’t a dream. He had been outside Paris, with the soldiers.

Her breaths came in short bursts. Moonlight shone through the window, illuminating the dark wood cross on the white stone wall. She was in the grandparents’ room of the Palatinate house. She hugged the soft down-filled pillow. With the early morning light streaming through the rectangular window, she could read the words of the simple plaque on the wall: “Bless one another with love this day.”

She brought only destruction.

12

Suzanne squirmed beneath the covers. She wouldn’t wait for the local group that would depart to the colonies. She’d make her own plans to travel to Aachen. She’d sewn some of the Spanish coins into the hem of the garments she planned to wear and the remainder she kept in the pouch.

Father Vincent could assist her from there.

The door to the stairs opened, and she heard two pairs of feet pad down the narrow staircase. Wood creaked against stone as Johan’s parents settled at the table.

Adam’s voice carried through the wall. “Your uncle Vincent sent word.”

Suzanne’s breathing quickened. Easing upon her elbows, she leaned toward the fireplace lest she miss his words.

The priest was alive.

If she remained at their home, she might yet bring them danger.

“Maria, your uncle Vincent was to have sailed the day he wrote the letter.”

The priest wouldn’t be at Aachen to help her. Suzanne’s heart sank.

Silence cloaked the room, save for someone walking overhead—the creaking coming from the brothers’ room.

Maria’s exhalation could almost be felt on Suzanne’s side of the wall. “Why? It makes no sense. An old man like him. Adam, what was he thinking going to the colonies?”

“He seeks your old friend, the marquise’s sister.”

Tante Isabelle. She was Grand-mère’s only sister and would inherit the title and estates if she could be located. Why would Father Vincent look for Isabelle in the colonies, though? Suzanne wished she could creep out of the room and hear better.

“Non. C’est impossible!”

“I thought he gave up that notion long ago. Maria, I’m sorry. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

What did Johan’s mother have to do with her aunt?

“Only God can free your uncle from the idea that he alone can somehow locate her over the sea.”

“God gave Vincent help—he received word from Montreal.”

Dear Lord, could she still have family? Was her aunt still alive? Suzanne raised her rosary and kissed Grand-mère’s gold crucifix.

“Montreal—where they first went—I wonder if she ever returned there.”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. Maria, he sent a very odd message, too.”

“What was it?”

“Vincent said that he was very sorry. He underlined the word ‘sorry’ several times, and you know he doesn’t ever do that. And, wife, it couldn’t be true. He wrote he was truly sorry that Suzanne Richelieu, the girl Johan brought from Louisa’s, was gone. Said he would have liked to have known the marquise’s granddaughter better, and wasn’t it a shame that the illness at the cathedral killed so many in such a short time.”

He must be afraid that someone might intercept this missive. Had anyone taken Jeanne’s letter? Would someone follow her here?

“Suzanne is the marquise’s granddaughter? Isabelle’s niece?”

“Apparently. But Father Vincent’s letter makes it sound as though she died.”

“Oui.”

“And as though our son had been to see Louisa.”

Maria gasped.

Suzanne took a deep breath, afraid of what she might hear.

“Johan wouldn’t have dared.”

“I don’t know.” Adam sighed loudly. His voice went to a lower register. “There’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“Louisa is dead.”

“Dead? Oh, no. I wish we could have seen her again.”

A sweet woman. Her life cut short. Because of me.
An ache began at Suzanne’s temples.

Maria continued, “She helped many faithful ones over the years. Such a dear soul.”

Suzanne held her breath waiting for Adam to say she’d been killed.

Instead, she heard nothing. Until something scraped the floor in the bedroom overhead.

“I’ll talk with Johan in the morning,” Adam said, his tone mild.

“I’d better tell Suzanne. Oh, Adam, I feel terrible about how I have treated her, and she the marquise’s granddaughter, friend of family.”

Suzanne lay back on the bed. Recalling her father reading the Scriptures, those that advised against eavesdropping on others, guilt gripped her.

Adam coughed. “Johan is falling in love with her.”

“She’ll not take my only remaining son!” The kindness in her voice only moments earlier vanished.

“Perhaps she loves him, too.”

“The marquise’s granddaughter married to my son? No.”

~*~

A soft rap on the door awoke Suzanne and announced Maria, her arms full of a ruby-colored silk gown, its bodice laced with silver cording with a sheer scarf to wrap around the shoulders.

Suzanne’s breath caught in her throat. The ensemble appeared as fine as anything she’d seen at court, although an outdated style. “Madame?”

“I need to talk with you.” Maria’s downcast eyes avoided hers.

She swallowed, glad she’d overheard the conversation last night. “Oui?”

With the door open, the thunder of Nicholas and Johan’s rapid descent down the staircase was almost deafening, echoing as it did from the stone on the entryway floor.

Maria closed the door. “They are loud this morning.”

From beyond the bedroom door, a thump against the front door sounded as though one brother shoved the other into it.

Maria exhaled and closed her eyes. The muscles in her face worked much like Maman’s did when Suzanne and Guillame had exhausted her patience. “Here.” She displayed the gown. “I want you to have this. Very old-fashioned, but I could remake it.”

Suzanne touched the fine quality fabric, its tight stitching suggesting the garment may never have been worn. “Whose was this?”

“My friend gave me this gown. Your Tante Isabelle. But I never wore it.”

Suzanne’s shoulders retracted. Even knowing the relationship between the two families, Maria’s words surprised her. “So you know my secret.”

“You remind me so much of Isabelle.” Maria patted Suzanne’s cheeks. “She had courage, like you.”

A trait she lacked. Suzanne frowned. Her actions screamed survival, not courage. She clamped her lips tight.

“Sometimes it requires even more courage to stay put. Like Johan must.” Maria averted her gaze. “He recognizes the eldest son must care for his elders. We can trust him to provide for us and we’ll assist him and his future wife. Someone who shares his hopes and dreams—a young villager, like Johan, accustomed to our ways.”

“I see.” Part of her longed to argue with Johan’s mother, to tell her that they were suited to one another. But it wasn’t true. He belonged here with his family and she needed to find her own. And to return to some form of her previous life, not trapped on a farm.

Maria brushed her hand across the silk gown. “Your aunt, Isabelle, departed with my brother, who’d taken his vows. I believe her father intended for her to enter a convent in Montreal. Instead, she went missing from one of the forts and my brother has blamed himself ever since.” She stared out the window.

“Maman said they assumed her dead.”

“Vincent never gave up hope.” Maria shook her head.

“We should continue to hope. But regardless, my parents had planned for us to go to the English colonies, because of their…our faith.”