Page 43 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
“A priest?”
“My uncle. He has disappeared, and I suspect he has not left the city. It is my duty as kin to bring him to justice.” He lifted a shoulder. “If I find satisfactory information, you might help me search for him. Another opportunity to step forward to helpla patrie.” Martel’s brow raised in challenge.
“How was your journey?” Gilles asked quickly. “Did you have much success?”
“Not what I wished, but any growth is progress.” He held up a hand. “I must go to meet this man. I will talk to you at the meeting.”
Yes. Tomorrow night. Gilles needed to come up with a script for all the questions he would be asked. At the meeting just before the Jacobins’ departure, he had not mentioned to anyone his decision not to go. He would be met with stares, if not scowls and whispering, by appearing after thefédérés’ departure. For a moment, he considered conjuring an excuse not to attend. But that would only start more rumors.
“Until then.” Martel stormed off, face set with concentration as if he’d already forgotten his disappointing friend.
How different this friend was from the new friend Gilles had found in Marie-Caroline. He turned down the street toward home. The one, a fellow Jacobin supposedly of the same mind, would shoot him for a disagreement. The other, of a completely opposite mind, supported him in his convictions.
What was he to make of that?
Bowls clanked and skirts whipped about as Gilles entered the kitchen, his mind still full of Martel’s rebuke. He paused at the door to observe the clockwork chaos.
“No need to add water. Rosalie won’t be joining us tonight,” Maman told Florence. “We’ll have plenty. Did you dress the salad?”
Florence swore under her breath and dove for another bowl.
“Is someone coming to dinner?” Gilles asked tentatively. A dozen aromas clouded the air, though the sharpest scent was ocean brine.
“Someone is here!” Florence hissed.
He scowled. “Who?” It wasn’t polite to come early. The sitting room wasn’t visible from his position.Please, let it not be someone important.
Maman tapped his arm with her elbow in greeting as she passed on her way to the door with a bowl of dirty water from washing vegetables. “I thought I told them six o’clock, planning to eat at seven, but I must have told them five o’clock.”
Odd that she would tell them later. They ate that late only on Saturdays because of his Jacobin meeting.
She tossed the water out the door, then hurried back into the kitchen. “Gilles, stir that compote. Thank heavens your great-uncle sent over a basket of figs and summer pears today.”
Gilles obediently went to the hearth to stir a small pot of sticky, sweet compote. He’d never seen Maman so flustered before serving dinner to friends. Unlikebourgeoisefamilies such as the Daubins, they rarely tried to impress guests. Good food and good company was his mother’s rule, even if the food were simple and the guests humble. Why she felt the need to impress these friends was beyond him.
He eyed a cloth-covered bowl that sat to warm beside the hearth. With a glance over his shoulder at his mother and Florence, who were counting dishes on their fingers, he lifted the corner of the cloth. The ridged surfaces gleamed in the firelight, and Gilles’s mouth watered. Just as he’d suspected—gaufres. He contemplated snatching one of the buttery waffles sprinkled in sugar before Maman’s cry made him drop the covering and straighten.
“The table! Gilles, take the compote off the fire and go set the dishes around the table.Dépêche-toi.”
“Who is here?” He seized the iron to pull the pot off, then scanned the kitchen for a place to set it, the pot wildly swinging from its handle. Maman came to his rescue and took the pot from him with a towel around the handle.
“Use Grandmère’s china. But pay attention as you set it around.”
Had she not heard him? They rarely used hisgrandmère’s dishes, mostly because each time they did, one of the sons found a way to chip or break a piece. “What are we eating?” he asked, rushing toward the dining room. He needed to keep his jacket on for the guests, but with the bead of sweat already trickling down the back of his neck, he wished he could remove it.
“Bouillabaisse,” Florence chimed.
Ah, he should have guessed from the brine scent. “Who is here?” he asked, nearly shouting to be heard.
“The Daubins. Just the mother and daughter.”
Gilles jerked to a halt in the doorway. “The Daubins?” His mother had invited his employer’s family? He pivoted. “Bouillabaisse? For the Daubins?”
His mother’s shoulders lifted as she emptied the compote into a dish. “There was rockfish at the market.”
“You could not have waited for another night to invite my employer’s wife and daughter? One when we were not eatingbouillabaisse?”
Maman huffed. “I met them in Noailles today, and the madame still looked so distraught over the boys’ departure.”
