Page 37 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
“And if Britain jumps into the fray with Austria and Prussia, or the monarchists sheltering all over Provence rise up and attack, I am supposed to rest easy knowing I was defending the National Assembly while my mother and nieces were slaughtered?”
Maxence’s head rolled back. “There will not be an attack on Marseille.”
“Marseille has had more than its share of bloody clashes betweenrévolutionnairesand monarchists,” Gilles retorted. “What if theroyalistesrise up to avenge the massacre of all those priests at Avignon in February?” If one thing could be counted on in this revolution, it was that no one truly knew what would happen next. A violent uprising could form without warning in a matter of hours and change everything.
Émile blew out a long breath. “It is normal—expected, even—for a man to fear impending battle. You need not be ashamed, Gilles.”
The muscles in Gilles’s stomach seized. He lowered his cup to the table.
“Maxence and I will be by your side. I assure it. This trio offédéréswill make France proud. We will crush the despots at home and the tyrants abroad.”
“What do you know of war, Émile?” Gilles hissed. Memories flashed across his mind. Mists of sea spray from a near hit chilling faces. The deck painted red with the blood of a comrade. Smoke stinging his eyes and nose as the big guns bucked. Din and desperation. A son of thebourgeoisielikeÉmile, raised in the comfort of monotony, couldn’t fathom these things.
“Don’t call him a coward when you are the one staying home, Gilles.” Maxence glowered over the rim of his cup.
Gilles pushed his drink away. Maman would have dinner ready soon. He’d take her dining room full of unexpected guests over this company. “Yes, I am the coward. And yet I have fought more battles than either of you.”
“I didn’t think I would ever hear you boast of that.”
A month ago, Gilles would not have thought a glare, other than one from Mademoiselle Daubin, could make him wish to run from the room. But sitting under the heat of his brother’s searing disapproval, he saw how wrong he’d been. He did not fear Max, but how had it come to this? They had once been the greatest of friends. Now Max looked on him as though Gilles had declared himself a supporter of the monarchy.
Émile held up both hands. “Gilles does speak the truth. I have little experience in the art of war. But what I lack in skills, I make up for in passion. ‘Let me perish myself before the death of liberty.’”
An oft-quoted line from one of Robespierre’s speeches in the Assembly. It did not send the fire of revolution through Gilles’s veins this time as it had so often in the past. If Émile wanted to perish in the streets of Paris protecting the Jacobins, so be it. Gilles pushed out his chair.
“But I do not think that it is cowardice that holds back our brother Gilles,” Émile went on.
“No, he wants to advance his own aspirations,” Max said. “Defending his country will affect his plans for university.” He snorted, as though schooling were Gilles’s most ridiculous excuse yet.
“No, no. Bettering oneself in order to further the cause ofla patrieis a noble pursuit, if not the most pressing at the moment.” The serving girl brought over Émile’s cup of coffee, and he gave her a playful grin as she set it before him. Then he turned that grin on Gilles. “But I do not think that is the passion keeping him from joining ranks.”
Gilles squirmed. What was Émile suggesting?
“Gilles couldn’t even kiss Caroline. How could he have a lover?” Max folded his arms on the table and cocked his head in the direction of the serving girl. To think that Gilles had ever wanted to be a part of this incessant frivolity.
Émile was imagining things. Gilles nearly laughed. He pulled out his pocketbook to find a coin for his half-finished coffee. The only women who concerned him were Maman, Rosalie, the girls, and Florence. And perhaps one other lady, but of course not in the way Émile implied.
“Will there be anything else,messieurs?” the serving girl asked evenly. She clearly hadn’t fallen for either man’s flirtatious looks.
“Yes, one more thing.” Émile kept his gaze on Gilles. “Would you take a tray out to the carriage at the door? I promised I would have one sent.”
“Tea? Coffee?”
“Some coffee, if you please.”
When the server left, Max raised a brow. “Who is in the carriage?”
Gilles’s fingers froze around a coin. Had Émile come with ...
His friend saucily plucked up his cup and took a drink. He winced at the heat, then licked his lips. “Gilles’s lady of course.”
“I do not have a lady.” Gilles hoped the layers of his shirt, cravat, and waistcoat muffled the rapid cadence in his chest.
“So you say.”
Max cackled, clapping loudly. “You are mad, Émile. You’re not suggesting Gilles has besotted himself with Caroline. Not after the thorough chastising she gave him.”
Émile blew into his coffee. Though his eyes shone, he did not join in Maxence’s laughter. “La patrieneeds us to sacrifice our love for a better world,mon frère. It will be worth it in the end. I promise. Besides, as a Roman poet once said, ‘Always toward absent lovers does love’s tide stronger flow.’”
