“You said it again.” François smiled. “I think it’s not only Michel who thinks of scent as a soul.”
She smiled back at him. “It’s not such a farfetched notion. Why shouldn’t the earth and the plants have souls?” She picked up the lantern and moved toward the door. “Don’t you believe in souls, François?”
“Yes.” François held the door open. “I believe the revolution has a soul.”
She stiffened. “I can’t agree with you. I had a taste of your fine revolutionaries at the abbey.”
“Those men weren’t the soul. They were the thorns and the weeds that invade any garden if not plucked out.” François held her gaze steadily. “The Rights of Man is the soul. But we have to make sure it’s not drowned in a sea of blood.”
“Youmake sure,” Catherine said curtly as she closedthe door and went to her horse. “I want no more to do with your fine revolution. I’ll stay here at Vasaro.”
“Good.” He lifted her onto her horse and then mounted his own. “I don’t want you anywhere near Paris. Your place is here now.”
She tilted her head to look at him curiously. “Yet at one time you condemned me for clinging to my little garden in Paris. Vasaro is a huge garden.”
“That seems a long time ago.” François regarded her soberly. “There’s nothing wrong in not wanting to venture back among the thorns. God knows, I’m tempted to find a garden of my own.”
“Stay here,” she said impulsively. “You like it here. Michel says you understand the flowers. There’s no need for you to leave and—”
“I have to go back. I’ve stayed too long as it is.” He smiled ruefully. “I meant to remain only a few days and it’s stretched into weeks. Your Vasaro is like a drug on the senses.”
Catherine felt a sudden wrenching pang. He was leaving. No longer would there be the companionable presence working beside her or in the next field, no more laughter and discussion of the day’s tasks over supper, no more walks with François as well as Michel beside her. “When do you plan on leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“So soon?” Catherine tried to smile. “I suppose it has something to do with that message you received yesterday. Danton cannot do without you? You told me he was very likely out of the city anyway.”
“He’s returned to Paris but the message wasn’t from Danton.” His gaze slid away. “You don’t need me here any longer. You have the reins of Vasaro fully in your control.” François turned his horse and started to trot toward the olive groves. “And I am needed in Paris.”
“No, I don’t need you.” Catherine followed him, her horse picking its way through the tufts of grass on the hillside. She didn’t need him but she suddenly knew she desperately wanted him there. In the past weeks he had become as much a part of Vasaro as Michel or theflowers, and she felt as fiercely possessive of him as she did of them. Why couldn’t he stay there, where he was safe? Paris was a city of madness, inhabited by men like the Marseilles.
They had reached the crest of the hill and François reined in his horse to wait for her.
Dawn was just beginning to break over the olive grove, lighting only the tops of the trees, leaving the lower branches and the soft drift of pickers gathering the fragrant violets beneath them in half darkness.
“After the sun rises I’ll oversee the picking in the hyacinth field,” François said quietly. “Do you go with me or have you business with Monsieur Augustine this morning?”
“The hyacinth field is large.” She didn’t look at him but at the grove below. “I’ll go with you.”
They sat in silence as the golden bands of sunlight slowly unfolded over the groves and fields of Vasaro.
She found herself dressing with particular care for supper that evening in a lemon-yellow gown trimmed at the neck with a border of pearls. She was not dressing for François, she assured herself. Still, one always wanted to be remembered with a certain pleasure.
When she came into the salon she saw that François, too, had taken pains with his attire. He wore a dark blue coat and a white brocade vest, his cravat tied with exquisite intricacy. She stopped just inside the door of the salon as she met his gaze across the room, where he stood at the sideboard pouring wine into crystal goblets. “Have you said good-bye to Michel?”
“Yes.” He handed her a glass of wine. “He didn’t seem surprised.”
She lowered her gaze to her glass. “He knew you’d have to go back sometime, but I’m sure he was disappointed. He likes you.”
“I like him.”
They were both silent again and she didn’t know how to break the charged stillness in the room. He was different tonight. The easy camaraderie they had knownin the past weeks was gone and the tingling awareness of that first evening had returned.
The silence between them lengthened.
“Where is Michel?” he asked.
“There’s a wedding at the workers’ village. He decided to stay there this evening.” She ruefully shook her head. “I can’t persuade him to come here more than a few times a week. Sometimes I think I’m wrong to push him.”
