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

by symbols and numbers, Christophé was, for a little while, at peace.
     
     
    A FEW NIGHTS later, just after the eleventh hour struck, a loud banging sounded at the door. Christophé heard Jasper get up and pull on a dressing gown, then pad to the door. Indistinct voices demanding to search the house drifted to his ears. Christophé leapt out of bed. He could hear Jasper trying to put them off, delaying with sarcastic humor and questions. Christophé dressed, shoved a few precious belongings into his bag—the loud and heavy goblet—and then scurried to make up the bed and put the room to rights. In his haste, he backed into the bedside table, tipping it over with a loud thump. He stopped and listened. Heard the voices go quiet. And then . . .
    “In there! What was that noise?”
    No time! Christophé cursed silently, grabbed up the bag, and slithered through the open window. He didn’t even have time to put on his shoes!
    Barefoot, he charged across the lawns of Jasper’s neighbors.
    “There he is!”
    A shot rang out and Christophé felt the bullet whiz by his left ear. His heart pounded until he thought it might spring from his chest.
    Another shot and then more shouts. Christophé veered into a side street, barely registering the fact that his feet were bleeding from sharp stones in the street. He raced passed shops his mother had taken him to as a boy—the barber, the sweet shop, and—his favorite besides Jasper’s laboratory—the general mercantile where he begged her for tools and anything mechanical for his experiments. Now the dark shops passed by in a blur.
    The voices behind him seemed to be receding, but he was too afraid to stop. He crossed a bridge to the small island and the medieval beginnings of Paris—Île de la Cité. Then he turned down the winding street that ran behind Notre Dame.
    The cathedral loomed massive and imposing as he made his way through the carefully tended trees and bushes that made up the back gardens. He didn’t have time for reflection, but something in him pulsed, sad and angry at the state of the cathedral. It had been gutted, looted, turned hostage as a massive storage house for a government that no longer believed in God.
    Don’t stop . . . don’t stop . . .
    But he did. He paused, pressing his back into the stone wall that rose so high he could no longer see the shape of the crescent moon. He panted for breath, then held it in for a long moment so that he could hear sounds of pursuit. Nothing. Naught but the sounds of the wind rustling through the branches overhead and the distant lapping of the river.
    He’d lost them. Relief weakened his knees, and his body collapsed at the base of the wall. He sat, knees upraised, head hanging down, dragging in long, deep gulps of air. Had the soldiers really given up? Or would they appear at any moment? And even if he escaped now . . .
    Would Robespierre ever stop looking for him?
    He didn’t know. In fact, the only thing he knew for certain was that he had to get out of Paris.
    Now.

Chapter Six
    1794—Carcassonne, France
     
    It was just before dawn, the time when the stars gave their last twinkle toward a sleeping world and the moon’s glow faded through the firmament. Like ghostly arms, the night lights were slowly fading to give way to the sun and day.
    Scarlett pulled her warmest dress over her head and stretched her arms back to button it, only managing to get it three-quarters up and then two at the top, leaving a gap in the middle of her upper back. Oh well. Nothing was fitting right these days anyway since she didn’t have any clothes for these few short months left in her pregnancy. She scooped up her bonnet and turned toward the door.
    Her heart pounded as she grasped the knob to her sister’s room. She’d nearly promised her mother she wouldn’t go to the cemetery anymore, but she had to. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t through grieving Daniel’s death, but she knew that wasn’t true. Her initial