Love's First Light by Jamie Carie Read Free Book Online

sleeping draught.” He might do that anyway, but he wasn’t going to say it yet. Let the youth get something warm in his belly and then Jasper would see what had to be done next.
    Christophé looked up, a little light of humor sparked in his eyes, then extinguished as quickly as it came. He took up the cup and gulped at it. He coughed a little, looking up at Jasper with an angry blaze. “That’s horrible! Are you trying to kill me?”
    Jasper offered a grim smile. “No. Trying to save you.”
    Hurt and confusion darkened Christophé’s wide eyes. “What do I do? What do I do now?”
    Jasper shook his head and stared into the fire. “You can start by not blaming yourself.” He knew it was too soon to be saying such things, but he couldn’t help it. Clearly Christophé thought he had brought this on Émilie by sending her to Jasper’s door alone.
    Christophé’s laugh was a harsh cry in the room. “How can I not? When I am alive and she is dead?” He downed the rest of the cup and set it heavily at his side. “It should have been me.”
    Jasper’s eyes filled with tears as they locked onto Christophé’s. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried, if ever. Life was so ordered for him. So immersed in compounds and powders and elixirs. His patrons might have problems that they needed solved, but he rarely did.
    “Possibly.” Arguing would only upset his young friend more. “But don’t forget the true enemy, son. You did not do this to your family. It was done to you.”
    Jasper was of the trade class and should be on the other side. Truly he had wondered what was wrong with him that he felt such antipathy toward the Republic and despair over the recklessness of the Crown. He had little patience for politics. He could only credit the fact to his immersion in his own world, and how he had never lacked for anything he wanted.
    “Yes. Robespierre.” Christophé brought him back to the topic at hand. “Robespierre will pay for this day.” Christophé’s eyes sparked again, but this time they burned with fire. “I will escape, hide until they are tired of hunting me. And then, when they’ve given up, I will return and see justice done.”
    Jasper wasn’t sure what he had just unleashed, but for now, it was better than the debilitating grief. Against his better judgment, he nodded. “I will help you leave Paris. You will go to Carcassonne, yes? To the old castle your father told you about. It should be safe there.”
    Christophé rose and poured another cup of the cold tea. He slung the drink into his throat. “I will sleep now. Tomorrow we will plan it all.”
    Jasper led Christophé to the spare room where his father had slept. He tucked him into the covers like a child, watched as Christophé pulled the blanket chin high and turned on his side. When Christophé closed his eyes, Jasper turned to leave, but Christophé’s hand shot out to grasp his coat. “Thank you.”
    Jasper ruffled the young man’s hair as he might have years ago when Christophé impressed him in the laboratory, which was quite often. “Sleep now.”
    Christophé let go, his arm falling to the side of the bed. “Yes. For a little while.”
     
     
    THE MORNING LIGHT intruded into the room. It was harsh, and Christophé couldn’t remember, at first, why he didn’t want it to come. Then, sudden and complete, the previous day’s events rushed over him like a death chill.
    Émilie!
His mind screamed her name.
Why God? Why not leave me her? I don’t understand. I can’t move . . . out of this bed.
How to make his limbs work? How to make his heart slow to any normalcy?
Why did You leave me here? It should have been me.
    He wanted heaven to answer him. His muscles grew taut against the crisp sheet as he waited. Nothing. Nothing. So much nothing.
    Angry, he swung his feet to the floor and stood, his bare chest heaving in the cold air of the room. “Is that all You have for me?” In the continued silence, Christophé turned