Page 59

They had never had children, but still had a network of nephews and great-nephews and cousins and nieces, all living around them.

All ready for any plans Hugo had. . .

I sat in my pretty room with the spring-green wallpaper and rested. Took baths in the massive clawfoot tub.

Took deep, free breaths of air and didn’t think about my husband.

Only late at night, as the days crawled closer to my due date and I had to get up and pee once and twice and three times.

And then I wondered.

If he ever thought of me.

If he had moved Faustine into our old house. Was she sleeping in our old bed? Did it feel the same when he came in late at night and slipped a hand between her wet thighs. . .

Mostly I didn’t think about him at all. I’d be giving birth with a new doctor who didn’t know how I had been humiliated by my husband.

Now I could choose a new name. Not Léonie Bastide. And not Léonie Pinoteaux.

Someone in my family had ordered the hit on me. And it could only have been my own Da or my brother. The betrayal burned, but here with my feet up and a cup of iced spicewood mountain tea with extra honey, it was only a lingering throb.

On these lands I could be whoever I wanted. Not a dutiful daughter, dutiful wife, dutiful little pawn between families. Not a follower, not a lover, not the girl who would believe anything.

Who was I without that?

One thing my husband had forbidden me to do was learn to ride a boat. And so that was the first thing I wanted to learn.

Accordingly, Hugo and I were out on the water a few days later, him teaching me to drive a pretty little Savatier vessel.

The lake was fed by powerful rivers, and was a deep, crystal blue. Out here I could almost forget the bloody reality of the other mountain families, the breeze cutting through the stifling heat and whirling my long curls around my face.

“Be sure to tell me if you feel any contractions,” Hugo said as he guided my hands over the wheel.

“None at all,” I laughed. “I think Ciel isn’t in any hurry to exit.”

I rubbed my belly affectionately.

Despite everything that had happened, he was safe inside me. And that was all I cared about.

Today I was filled with a strange, wild joy as the little boat practically sung over the waves. All my life I had been a part of the background, raised to let others do the big things, the bold things.

Now I was a girl who drove a boat. It was a start.

“Did they never think of marrying you off?” I asked. Even though we tried not to talk about the past, something about the way the sun sparkled over the waves, the way the trees clustered around the edge of the lake, made me want to draw just a little of our pain out so maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much.

I didn’t feel so oppressed here, without Étienne’s mountains pressing down on me from every angle. Here I could see new land in every direction. Land that didn’t have his stamp on it.

Hugo stroked his beard and settled back in his seat. Even the pain in his leg was better out here at the lake.

“Mme did at one point,” he said, looking out into the distance. “I refused. There was someone else I wanted to marry.”

I waited. We had all the time in the world out here now that we weren’t trapped in Bastide jail.

“She—the woman I loved—was—is—a very remarkable person. I’ve never met anyone like her. But Mme was firmly opposed. I think Da would have consented. In many ways he was a much gentler person than Mme, you see. But, she—my mother—had means of getting her own way.”

“What means?”

“Threats. Mme threatened me. There were—things I had to do, to the woman I loved, things to make sure she broke up with me and didn’t come back asking questions.”