Page 6 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
The Church of Saint-Cannat came into view, a few Jacobins filtering through the wooden door. Gilles fished out his watch. Two minutes until six o’clock. No wonder Martel was on edge. Gilles mounted the steps, letting his friend greet their fellow club members.
It was time to think on more important matters than his bruised pride, such as stoking the fires of liberty throughout the region of Provence. He shoved his watch back in his pocket. The stinging rebuke of aroyalistehad no place in this conquered edifice turned school of revolution. If only he could banish the look in her eyes and that tantalizing curve of her lips from his mind.
Someday Gilles’s father would buy Maman a better house in a nicer quarter of the city. He’d earned enough from selling off ships he’d captured that he should have done so by now. Gilles pulled on the creaky door at the back of the house that led from the alleyway into the kitchen. If he tread softly, perhaps he could ascertain whether Maman had any guests to dinner. The events of the day left his stomach growling, but his mind craved the quiet of his bedroom.
He eased the door closed and stood for a moment in the darkness as his eyes adjusted. A small trickle of light slipped through the kitchen entrance, too faint to come from the dining room. No guests, then. Not even his oldest brother, Victor, who often came for dinner with his wife and daughters.
Wisps of smoke lingered in the stale kitchen air, evidence of someone recently dousing the fire. He made for the table, hoping anything left over from the meal hadn’t gone too cold. Had Maman waited for him, forgetting, as he had, that the Jacobin meeting was tonight?
His shin struck metal, and pain shot across his lower leg as he tripped forward. Dishes clinked. Gilles caught himself on the edge of the table. Water sloshed out from the washbasin he’d stumbled over, soaking his shoes.
“Ciel!” he hissed, lowering his head to the table as he waited for the throbbing in his shin to ease. Florence, the woman his mother had hired to help with cooking, hadn’t emptied the wash water before going home.
Footsteps pattered through the dining room, and a candle appeared at the doorway, illuminating his mother’s and Florence’s wide-eyed faces.
“Oh, Gilles!” Maman rushed forward, but he waved her off with a grumble.
He straightened and shook out his leg. Blasted washbasin.
Florence set the candle on the table, her face pale. So she hadn’t left yet. “Désolée,monsieur! Are you injured? I will fetch you some dinner. That will cure it. I did not complete the washing; he arrived just as we were finishing ...” She continued her prattle while scurrying about the dark kitchen.
“Is Maxence here?” Gilles asked, leaning against the table. How could a stupid washbasin hurt so much? Granted, he deserved it after acting thebêtewith Mademoiselle Daubin.
Maman pointed to the ceiling and sighed. “He went upstairs complaining of a headache.” The little lines around her mouth, which had made their appearance gradually over the last two years, deepened in her frown.
Gilles’s eyes narrowed. A warning tickled the back of his mind. Maxence hadn’t retired with an excuse like that for some time. A masculine voice rumbled in from the drawing room like thunder off the sea, and Gilles gritted his teeth. That was not the voice of his brother.
“I think I have a headache as well,” Gilles said. He should have expectedle Rossignol’s arrival, but sometimes he pretended the ship did not exist.
Maman caught his arm. “Son, you cannot keep avoiding him each time he is in port.”
He did not brush her off as Maxence no doubt had done. Of course Maxence meant no disrespect, but sometimes his emotions overcame him to the point he could not see the hurt on Maman’s face when he stormed away.
Gilles put a hand over hers but avoided looking at her.
“He is in a fine mood tonight,” his mother said. “Go speak with him.” She wasn’t talking about Max.
“He is always in a fine mood.” Gilles had rarely seen the man in the sitting room in anything except a fine mood. But a fine mood did nothing to prevent the bating. “I am too tired to spar with him just now.” He had Émile to thank for that.
“Please?”
Gilles made the mistake of glancing down at her hopeful face. Was she really asking so much? He had lived in close quarters with the man for ten years of his life. What was one evening, for the sake of his mother?
Florence brought him a plate of cheese and bread, and a bowl of soup that Gilles hoped he could stomach. He nodded his thanks. “Very well. I will talk to him for a short while. But I must study tonight.”
Maman’s lips turned upward, and she rubbed his arm. “Yes, you must attend to your studies.” She kissed his cheek. “Merci. Come, Florence. We must finish cleaning this kitchen.”
Gilles squared his shoulders and stalked into the salon. A lone figure sat in an armchair, his shoes sprawled across a footstool. The fire flickering in the hearth caught the circle of gold clinging to his ear and the several days’ worth of stubble that heightened his sharp features.
Gilles cleared his throat. “Bonsoir, Père.” He moved quickly to the sofa and sat, then balanced the plate of food on his lap. Digging vigorously into the bread, he felt rather than saw hispére’s crooked grin.
“That is some greeting for your father. You’d think I’d been gone for the day, rather than months.” Tall and lanky, he did not have the stocky mariner’s build Gilles and his oldest brother inherited from their mother’s side. Their father cropped his dark hair tight against his scalp, the way manyaristosandbourgeoiscut their natural hair so that they could wear the wigs that were quickly losing favor in the eyes of the public. But Pére had never worn a wig. He preferred a seaman’s cap.
“Has it been months?” Gilles asked. “I would have sworn it had not been more than a few weeks.” After their last voyage together, any appearance made by his father was too soon.
Père chuckled softly, stirring up memories of long, damp nights on the lower deck filled with stories and song. He laced his fingers and looped them around one knee as he studied Gilles. “Do they not let you out of that office during the day? You are as pale as anavette.”
Gilles took a large bite of bread so that he did not have to immediately respond. Since Gilles was a boy, Père had made fun of the fact that Gilles disliked the dry, boat-shapednavettebiscuits.
