“Jean Marc, I’m so frightened.” Juliette put down the letter, her eyes bright with tears. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have left them. Is there nothing we can do?”
Jean Marc drew her into his arms and held her tightly. “Pray for them,ma petite. Just pray for them.”
The second letter arrived on September 3, 1794.
Dear Juliette,
Forgive me for writing so short a message, but we have just arrived and I’m so weary I can scarce keep my eyes open to put pen to paper. I promise I’ll write in detail at a later time, but this letter must be sentoff tomorrow or you’ll scold me. Dear God, I wish I could hear your voice railing at me again.
I will tell you only what is of most importance.
Robespierre was guillotined on the twenty-eighth of July.
The Terror is over.
I am with child.
We have come home to Vasaro.
Always,
Catherine
“It’s beautiful, Jean Marc,” Juliette said.
The white-columned brick mansion stood on a bluff several miles north of the city of Charleston. To the east it overlooked the sea and, to the west, miles of untamed forest.
“There’s a natural harbor a mile from the house,” Jean Marc said as he pointed out the window of the carriage at a path leading down to the shore. “You can have your own boat, Louis Charles.”
“Thank you,” Louis Charles said politely. “But I wouldn’t know how to sail it.”
“I’ll teach you,” Jean Marc said. “And when you’re a little older, I’ll let you go with me on short runs along the coast in a larger vessel.”
“That would be very kind of you.”
Juliette sighed as she exchanged a look with Jean Marc over the little boy’s head. In more than seven months they had made little headway in breaching the distance Louis Charles kept between them. She could understand the child had undergone too many partings and tragedies to want to form new attachments, but it was still discouraging.
The coachman reined in the horses and a moment later Jean Marc lifted Juliette from the carriage and then swung Louis Charles down to the ground. “There’s a stable in back of the house with twelve fine horses,” hetold the boy gravely. “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you found one that was small enough for you to ride.”
“Truly?” Louis Charles’s face lit up. “May I go see them?”
Jean Marc nodded and Louis Charles bolted across the lawn and around the house.
“I’ve not seen him so enthusiastic about anything since our ride in the balloon.” Juliette started up the four wooden steps leading to the wide porch. “I’ve been worried about him. He’s wonderfully polite but he’s always so guarded. For heaven’s sake, what more can we do, Jean Marc? Have you noticed how he still flinches when either of us touches him?”
“You can understand his being cautious.” Jean Marc unlocked the front door and let her precede him into the spacious foyer. “And neither of us trusts easily ourselves. It will just take time.” He closed the door behind him and smiled at her. “Now, stop worrying and show a little appreciation for our new home. I’ve hired stable help but no servants. I thought you’d prefer to select them yourself.” He paused. “Slaves are used extensively in both Charleston and the surrounding plantations, but we will have no slaves.”
“Of course not.” Juliette had caught sight of something glittering on a cabinet on the far side of the foyer and was moving toward it. “The crystal swan. I remember it from your father’s study at the Ile du Lion.”
He nodded. “All the furnishings from the Ile du Lion were brought to Charleston and stored in one of the warehouses on the dock. I had them all transported here last week when the house was finished. Of course, you may rearrange everything as you see fit once you have time to see whether or not it suits you.”
“Where are the paintings by Titian and Fragonard?” Juliette asked. “I hope they found a suitable place to hang them.”
“The library. Would you like to see them now?”
She nodded and then frowned in puzzlement. Jean Marc appeared curiously tense. “Now, what could you have done with them, Jean Marc?”
He led her toward two tall double doors. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
