Page 34 of The Autumn Wife
“Marie has invited me to spend the winter with her family, to help when the baby comes.” Cecilebraced herself. “Since you no longer need me, I’d like to leave the convent tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Theo?”
Theo, bent over a half-laden canoe in the rosy light of dawn, startled at the sound of his name spoken in a timbre that his whole body recognized. He tossed a sack into the belly of the vessel and turned. There Cecile stood, at the grassy edge of the berm, swathed in a fur-lined cloak, staring at him with troubled eyes.
The thought struck him again, the same one that had hammered him yesterday when he’d come upon her in Montreal. A man could lose himself in that swirling brown gaze for a lifetime.
“Theo,” she repeated, clutching a satchel more tightly in her arms, “are you going somewhere?”
He straightened to say what must be said. “I’m leaving today.”
He’d meant to tell her last night. He’d mentally written a goodbye speech. He’d even waited at the stable, intending to speak to her before she gave the kids their reading lessons. But the sight of her coming across the field with the sunset bright in her hair had knocked the breath from him. He wouldn’t be able to control himself if they were alone in the darkness. He would seize her by the arms and haul her against him, talk her out of becoming a nun, and beg her to go with him back to France despite her best interests and his better sense.
“I know work is done for the season on the chapel”—her brows twitched—“but I thought you still had three weeks and a day left on your sentence.”
So, she was counting, too. His ribs squeezed. “First, I’m heading downstream on the Reverend Mother’s orders.” He forced his voice to sound neutral. “She’s sending me to talk to a landowner about building a church. After that, I’ll head straight to Quebec.”
She nodded, ducked her head, and tightened her grip on her satchel. He stared at the part in her hair, the paleness of her brow, and the way the dawn cast a glow over her cheeks. He wanted to remember her like this, brushed by gentle sunlight, long after he was gone.
With a slight bounce and a lift of her chin, she said, “Well, I’m going away, too.” She dropped the satchel by her feet. “I’ll be spending some time with a local family. I tried to find you last night to tell you,but you weren’t at the stables. Then Etienne got angry at me, and—”
“Angry?”
“It’s nothing.” She shrugged it off. “I made arrangements for him to stay on the convent grounds rather than join me. This is for his own good, though he isn’t happy about being left behind. We’ve rarely been apart, and he very much likes the family I’m spending the winter with—”
“The whole winter?”
She nodded. “The family’s got a new babe coming and a toddler barely out of diapers. Weather will soon stop travel, so I’ll be there at least until spring.” She plucked at her skirts, shoulders rising as she drew in a deep breath. “It seems, Theo…it’s time to say good-bye.”
The speech he’d planned gathered in his throat, a tumble of words wishing her the best, thanking her for her kindness, none of which he could push past his lips. His planned farewell sounded weak and lifeless in his mind, too shaky to hold the weight of the feelings he had for her. As the river’s current washed rhythmically against the keel of the canoe behind him, he dropped his gaze from her eyes and focused instead on her trembling chin and the flex of her pale throat.
What came out was, “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
Upon the raised berm, she stilled.
It was a reckless thing to say. He knew he should turn away, climb into the canoe, paddle to midriver, remove himself from temptation. But the soles of his boots shot roots into the ground. He wanted to stand here long enough to see the rosy light turn pale pink and then golden as it glazed her cheeks. He wanted to climb the berm and kiss her in the full sight of anyone awake early enough to see.
“Let’s not say farewells.” She raised pale, slim hands, palms out. “Let’s just go our separate ways as if we’ll both be back here, someday.”
The lump in his throat swelled to giant proportions. The blond tresses of her hair danced around her face. He decided he would not be the first to move, because then he could watch as she walked away. Maybe then he would be able to sever the connection thrumming between them, here in the open air, amid the chill wind and the rosy dawn that marked a wistful ending.
“Every moment with you,” he heard himself saying, “feels like stolen time.”
A strangled little sound came from her. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth.
“You’d best leave first.” He squinted down the riverbank but focused on nothing. “Just…go.”
She glanced to her right and then to her left, took a step in one direction, only to turn to the other and then stop where she’d begun.
“You—you have to go first,” she stuttered, spreading her arms. “No one has come with my canoe yet.”
“If it’s Etienne you’re waiting for, you’ll be here for a while.” This very morning, Theo had placed the sleeping baby porcupine on an empty burlap sack beside the boy, a good-bye gift of a sort. He’d always respected the boy’s urge to protect Cecile, but that same protectiveness had cratered any possibility of a better relationship. Now Theo had no time to rectify the situation. “He was dead asleep less than an hour ago.”
“Etienne isn’t taking me there. It’s one of the many things we argued about.”
He frowned. “Then who is paddling you downstream?”
