Page 63 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
“Caroline, we should go.” Gilles tried to take her arm again, but she shrugged him off. She marched forward, blocking the guard’s way.
“Conspiring against the revolution. Stand aside.”
“On what charges?”
The guard smirked. “Are you a judge,mademoiselle? This man has already been to trial.”
Gilles couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need to. He knew those dark eyes seethed. “I hardly trust he faced a fair one,” she said.
A voice from the masses bellowed, “Death to the monarchists!” Others took up the call.
The guard elbowed Caroline out of the way as he stepped down. She shoved the gate of the cart into his arm, pinning it before he could pull out the prisoner. The man cursed and released his hold on the convict. He whirled on Caroline.
“Do you want to follow him, littleroyaliste?” He gestured toward the guillotine. Before Gilles could rush in to stop him, the man seized her arm.
“Monsieur, please.” Gilles held up his hands, but neither glanced at him. Did he run in and cause more trouble? “Can we not—”
“I thinkyoushould follow him,” Caroline shouted. “You and all the revolutionary swine, and leave the rest of us to live in peace.” She spat in his face.
Gilles gaped. Heaven help them now.
The guard turned away, but not fast enough. The spittle ran down his reddening face. With a growl, the man hurled her against the cart. Too late Gilles dove to catch her, but she smashed against the corner—the cart creaking angrily—and rolled to the filthy street.
Gilles hit the cobblestones on hands and knees beside her. “Caroline? Are you hurt?”
She groaned, pushing herself up on one elbow. Her hat was skewed and dirt streaked one side of her face. But her eyes blazed.
“Take this one up,” the guard barked. “I’ll bring the wench.”
“Run!” Gilles jerked Caroline to her feet and thrust her away from the cart. Someone pulled at his jacket sleeve, but he elbowed them off. Another of the guard’s comrades came at Caroline from the side. Gilles lowered his shoulder and crashed into him, sending the man sprawling.
“Don’t let them escape!”
Gilles snatched Caroline’s wrist and bolted down an alley. Calls of their pursuers echoed against the buildings as they ran. They headed south, the opposite direction from the Daubins’ house. Confound it.
Surprised citizens flattened themselves against the buildings as Gilles and Caroline passed, their protests mingling with that of the guards’ friends.
Somewhere to hide. Somewhere to hide. If only Caroline had decided to make people mad inle Panierdistrict. Or by the docks. He’d know plenty of places to disappear.
The docks. Gilles yanked Caroline around a corner. They weren’t terribly far. Closer than the Daubins’ house, at least.
A feral cheer rang from behind them, chilling and cruel. Caroline faltered beside him. He glanced back. The men hadn’t given up.
“We can’t stop.”
Caroline matched his pace, not stumbling as he twisted their path down unfamiliar streets. When the inviting ocean air hit their sweat-drenched faces, Gilles veered toward the back door of a warehouse, darted inside, and slammed it shut.
As one, they dropped to the floor by the wall, sending out a cloud of dust and straw. Something squeaked and rushed by them. Rats. Gilles didn’t have the energy to shiver.
They sat panting for several minutes. Nothing else moved in the darkened warehouse, one that Gilles’s family often let for storing shipping goods. Voices came and went outside, but no one tried to open the door.
Gilles’s shirt and waistcoat clung to him like a second skin. His curls plastered his forehead. He brushed them back to keep sweat from dripping into his eyes.
He startled as Caroline’s arms circled his waist. They trembled. He shifted so she could scoot against his side. She pressed her face against his shoulder. Perhaps trying to get the image of the guillotine blade or the satisfied roar of the crowd out of her head. Even in the darkness, the memories rolled through Gilles’s mind.
Caroline didn’t cry. He shouldn’t have expected her to. The hatred they’d witnessed didn’t lend itself to tears.
It was the same hatred he’d seen in the faces of Martel’s group when they ransacked the priest’s hiding place. Gilles passed a dry tongue over drier lips. He wanted liberty for France. He believed in all that Maxence and Émile stood for. But how could he look on when his compatriots had lost all humanity? If the Jacobins couldn’t keep control of this revolution, what hope did anyone have of surviving it?
