My Brother's Crown Read online

  That’s why I like you. That’s why I like you.

  What did he mean, exactly, by the word “like”? As a friend? As something else? There was definitely chemistry between us, but did he actually like me?

  Just as important, did he realize I liked him?

  Of course, I got nothing but torment from my two cousins later that night once we were in our room. Like a pair of teenagers, they kept swooning and giggling and teasing me about Blake until finally my older brother knocked on the door and asked us for the third time to please quiet down and go to sleep. Chagrined, we did as requested, turning off the light and climbing into our beds and eventually falling silent.

  I thought I’d be awake half the night, my mind swirling with thoughts of Blake. But the exhaustion of the day soon caught up with me, and I was relieved to find myself drifting off to dreamland.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Catherine

  After traveling for what seemed like hours, Catherine felt the cart slow. She laid as still as possible under the rags, clutching the whimpering baby to her chest, praying that whatever had caused them to move from a gallop to a trot would not end up with them being apprehended.

  “Catherine? Are you okay?” Pierre asked softly, but she didn’t dare reply. After a moment, he said it again, this time adding, “You can speak. We’re alone on the road. How are you doing? Is the baby all right?”

  “We are both fine. What’s going on? Why have we slowed down?”

  “We’re nearing the city and need to travel at a normal speed. We don’t want to appear as if we’re fleeing.”

  “But we are,” she said. “Please hurry, Pierre. Surely the guards have horses and will be along to catch us soon.”

  “No, I believe we’re safe. Jules is the one who has Amelie, so our hope is that they will follow him. He’ll easily outrun them.”

  Lying there in the darkness, under the rags, the small weight of the infant atop her chest, Catherine’s mind reeled. So Jules had come not to sabotage but to assist?

  She could scarcely believe it.

  The rain started up again, the drops plopping softly against the rags above her, the water eventually making its way through the cloths to her face and body. Instead of acclimating to the stench from the soiled rags, she nearly retched from the smell. Carefully, she shifted her cloak so it covered the infant and would perhaps keep her dry a bit longer. A quarter of an hour later, Catherine could tell from the sounds and the movements of the cart that they were nearly home.

  They came to a stop, and she could hear Pierre jump down to open the courtyard doors. Beyond, the bells of the cathedral tolled, commemorating Jesus’s Last Supper with His disciples. The bells would not ring again until Easter Sunday.

  Seigneur, aide-nous, she prayed as the wagon shifted under Pierre’s weight and they inched forward into the courtyard.

  She waited for the telltale clunk of the gate before finally sitting up, still clutching the whimpering baby to her chest. Rain pelted her face as she leaned forward, trying to protect Valentina.

  Grand-Mère’s voiced called out, “Where is she? Where is the bébé?” Catherine breathed a deep sigh of relief. If Grand-Mère knew about Valentina, that meant Jules and Amelie had arrived ahead of them.

  Turning, Catherine lifted the child toward the side of the cart and into her grandmother’s waiting arms. She had never been so relieved in all her life. Not only had they all made it safely home, but now someone with experience could take over with the infant.

  “Merci, sweet Jesus, merci,” Grand-Mère cried, holding the babe close to her face for a good look and then tucking the little one’s head under her chin. As she moved toward the house, she called out, “God bless you, Catherine. You did the right thing.”

  Overwhelmed, Catherine nearly fell back into the rags.

  “Come on,” Pierre said, reaching for her hand. “You need to get dry and warm.”

  Water dripped from his hat.

  “You too,” she said, taking his hand and rising to a standing position. He gripped her waist and swung her down to the ground. Their eyes met and held, and in that moment Catherine could see the love in his expression. But there were other emotions there as well, primarily consternation—perhaps even regret—for what they had just done.

  “Trust me, Pierre. It was the right thing to do. Now that we know she had a bébé, our actions were even more justified.”

  He gazed into her eyes and seemed about to pull her into an embrace when Monsieur Roen emerged from the stables.

  “I will take care of the horse,” he said, seemingly unaware that he had interrupted their moment.

  “I need to return the cart,” Pierre answered, taking a step back and running his hand across his wet face.

  “Can’t it wait until morning?” Catherine asked.

  Pierre shook his head. “I promised the rag peddler—”

  “There is a dragoon across the street,” the coachman whispered as he drew closer.

  “Oui, I saw him,” Pierre replied. “He is an old acquaintance, Waltier Chaput.”

  Catherine grimaced. “I recognized him earlier today.”

  “I believe he will look the other way.” Pierre turned to Monsieur Roen. “I will return the cart in a little while.”

  The man nodded. “I will feed the horse in the meantime.” He clucked his tongue. “You two did a brave thing tonight.”

  Tears stung Catherine’s eyes. Pierre took her hand, leading her into the house. Even in the cold rain, his skin was hot against hers, and she longed to wrap her arms around him. She resisted, all thoughts of their earlier conflict far from her mind at the moment.

  Cook stood by the fire, stirring the pot. “I have a ragoût on,” she said as they entered, dragging her plump forearm across her brow. “Get cleaned up and then come eat.”

  “Where is Amelie?” Catherine asked.

  “In your grandmother’s apartment.”

  Together, Catherine and Pierre moved from the kitchen into the hallway. When he paused at the door to the study, she braced herself, knowing Jules was likely inside and it was now time for her chastisement.

  “I need to check in with your brother,” Pierre said, calming her fears. “I will find you before I leave.”

  Catherine gave him a nod and then hurried down the hall toward the sound of a crying baby. She pushed open the door and moved through the sitting area to the bedchamber. By the dim light of the candles, Catherine could see that the drapes of the canopy bed were open, and Grand-Mère was helping Amelie into one of Catherine’s nightgowns. The baby was crying loudly, her face red and scrunched up as she wailed on her blanket on the end of the bed. Catherine could not help but smile, grateful that the infant had withheld such a racket until they were safely home, almost as if she had known to be quiet for their escape.

  “I have dry clothes for you,” Grand-Mère said to Catherine. “On the chair.”

  Catherine stooped to pick up the baby.

  “Leave her,” Grand-Mère said. “I will attend to her in just a moment.”

  Catherine washed her face and hands, undressed, dried off, and then slipped into fresh undergarments and a housedress. Then she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders.

  When she turned back again, Amelie was tucked under the covers and Grand-Mère had the baby unwrapped and was examining her, clucking her tongue as she did. “She is scrawny.”

  “I was so ill at first that they brought in a wet nurse for a time. But then as soon as my fever passed, they let the girl go, insisting I was well enough to nurse her.”

  “Clearly they were wrong,” Grand-Mère said, her eyes still on the baby.

  Amelie sighed. “I tried to convince them to either bring the wet nurse back or find another one.”

  Grand-Mère clucked her tongue again, pulling the cloth from the little one’s bottom. With her other hand, she unfastened the ring of keys from her skirt and handed it to Catherine. “Go get rags from the housekeeper’s cupboard.”


  Catherine obeyed, although she hated to leave. As she headed down the hall, she heard a low rumble of voices in the study, their words becoming clearer as she drew closer.

  “We should not have been there at all,” Jules said as she passed the closed door, causing her to pause and listen. “Now I will need to petition our solicitor to prove that my guardianship of Amelie supplants what rights those at the convent have over her.” He sighed, loudly. “Not to mention Catherine risked Amelie’s life—and her own. And the baby’s.”

  “Oui,” Pierre replied.

  Catherine’s stomach clenched. Nothing had changed. Jules may have shown up after all, but apparently it had been against his will and his better judgment. Worse, Pierre—who had been so heroic just a short while ago—was again acting as Jules’s most dependable pawn.

  “But God worked good of it,” Pierre added after a moment. “Oui?”

  At that, Catherine’s heart softened just a bit. Perhaps he was not so much a pawn as a knight, which was another thing entirely.

  She did not hear Jules’s response over a pounding sound from the kitchen.

  She turned that way and had only taken a few steps when Cook yelled, “Monsieur Gillet!”

  Moving back toward the study, Catherine called out, “Jules!”

  The door swung open. The two men emerged and headed toward the kitchen. She followed, stopping in the doorway. Three dragoons, including Waltier, stood in the middle of the room. They each wore white trousers, a brown coat, and red vest. Monsieur Roen stood behind them.

  “Merci,” Jules said to Cook. “You may go on to your quarters. I will deal with this.”

  “I would rather not,” she said.

  Jules put his hand on her shoulder. “I insist.” He gave her a gentle nudge and pointed in the direction of the stairs to the servants’ floor.

  When Cook left, Jules asked what the dragoons wanted. Waltier stepped forward. “We have been assigned to billet in this home.”

  Jules laughed, something he rarely did, and then asked, “Our home?”

  “Oui,” Waltier responded.

  Jules turned to Catherine. “Go help Grand-Mère.”

  She wrinkled her nose but darted to the housekeeper’s cupboard, unlocked the door, grabbed a handful of clean rags, relocked it, and headed back to the hall. She paused for a moment, hoping to hear more, but Jules spoke so quietly she could not make out his words.

  Catherine found Grand-Mère sitting on the edge of the bed, the baby in one arm and her other hand on Amelie’s forehead. “What is going on out there?” Grand-Mère asked. “Is that the physician already? I sent the footman after him, but I did not expect them back so soon.”

  “No. It’s dragoons.” Catherine handed over one of the cloths. “They have been assigned to our house.”

  Grand-Mère groaned.

  “One of them is Waltier Chaput.” She put the other rags on the table. “Do you remember him, Amelie? He was a friend of Pierre’s.”

  Amelie nodded but did not answer. Her hair was pulled back from her ashen face. It seemed her brown eyes had grown bigger in the last year and her cheekbones sharper.

  “Go get your things from your room before they head up there,” Grand-Mère said to Catherine. “You will stay in here with us.”

  Catherine grabbed one of the candles from the table and followed Grand-Mère’s instructions, running up the stairs and then quickly gathering clothes from the pegs along the far wall and from her chest, shoving all of them into a large basket. Someone—probably the housekeeper—had already closed the wooden shutters over the windows, blocking her view of the courtyard. There were shouts below. Waltier and the other dragoons were probably forcing Monsieur Roen to care for their horses. As badly as she felt for their loyal coachman, she was grateful for the extra time the ruckus was bringing her.

  She gathered up her books, her collection of writing tucked inside her leather satchel, and her pens and ink, wedging them along the sides of the basket. Then she hurried from the room, the basket under one arm and the candle in the other hand.

  She made her way to the staircase as the flickering flame cast her shadow along the stone wall. As she started to descend, voices startled her.

  “We will take any room we please,” one of the dragoons said and then laughed.

  Holding back a gasp, she leaned against the stairwell to steady herself.

  “I will escort you,” Jules said.

  “No need,” the same dragoon replied.

  Grateful her brother was there too, Catherine started down the stairs again, moving as quickly as she could. But before she reached the halfway point they started up, the loud one first. He leered at her. She kept barreling down the steps, but he stopped and spread his arms wide.

  “Excusez-moi,” she said.

  “Take the basket back upstairs.”

  “Pardonnez-moi?”

  He stepped closer. She turned her face to the side, away from his foul breath, and wedged the basket between them.

  There was a scuffle at the bottom of the steps and then Pierre’s voice, calling out, “You will act like gentlemen!”

  The dragoon laughed.

  “Let her pass,” Waltier said.

  The loud dragoon’s face grew hard, and he pressed against the basket. “You will soon see how this works. This is not the first Huguenot house I have billeted in—and to think there are two young ladies here. And both are ready to be married.” He laughed as he stepped back, without warning. Catherine fell forward, past him, and against Waltier. The basket slipped from her arms and tumbled down the steps, her belongings scattering.

  The first dragoon stomped up the stairs, still laughing. Waltier muttered, “Désolé,” as he righted her. “It’s only temporary until we are assigned south of here, along the Rhône.” As he followed the other dragoon, he hissed, “Basile, stop acting like a brute.”

  Catherine bent down to grab an underskirt and then a pen. Pierre helped her collect her things, much to her embarrassment. Once they had gathered it all, Jules told her to go directly to Grand-Mère’s apartment and not come back out again.

  Looking to Pierre, he added, “You should go. What if dragoons have arrived at your house too?”

  Pierre exhaled. “You’re right. Mère would not handle that well at all.”

  Catherine reached out to take the basket from him, but he insisted on carrying it for her. They walked together down the hall to the apartment, and when he handed it to her at the door, she looked up into his deep blue eyes.

  “Merci,” she said. “Not just for this. For everything.”

  A gentle smile came into his eyes as he gazed down at her and gave a slight shake of his head, as if to say I only did it because I know how stubborn you are.

  Their gaze lingered for a moment, and then with a final nod, she took the basket from him and slipped quietly into her grandmother’s rooms.

  The footman returned, saying he had left word for the physician but had no idea when he would come. Amelie tried to nurse the baby during the night, over and over, but the infant’s cries became increasingly frantic. Before dawn, Grand-Mère stole out of the bedroom door. Catherine scooped the baby from the bed and followed her, thinking that maybe Amelie could get some sleep without all that crying in her ear.

  Cook was stoking the fire when Catherine followed Grand-Mère into the kitchen. The baby stopped screaming for a moment, her eyes darting to the massive timbers overhead darkened by smoke and then to the flickering light from the lamp on the table.

  Monsieur Roen sat at the end of it but stood in a hurry when they entered. Grand-Mère waved her hand at him and he sat back down.

  “Has Jules already left for the day?” Catherine asked.

  Cook nodded and reached for the baby. “Poor, miserable little thing,” she cooed, her mouth against Valentina’s dark hair.

  “We need a wet nurse.” Grand-Mère sounded exhausted.

  “Of course you do,” Cook answered, her head still down.
/>   “Do you know of one?”

  Both servants shook their heads, but then Cook turned toward Monsieur Roen. “What about the young woman from mass, the seamstress whose husband passed away back in January? Did she not just have her bébé? I know she is struggling to make ends meet. Perhaps…” Her voice trailed off as their eyes locked and something unspoken passed between them.

  “Perhaps,” Monsieur Roen replied, though he sounded far less certain.

  Grand-Mère interrupted. “Could you send word to the girl that I would like to speak with her about a job?”

  Monsieur Roen pinched his lips together, his cheeks suddenly flushing a bright pink. When he did not reply, Grand-Mère glanced at Cook, but she busied herself by bouncing the squalling baby in her arms. Catherine realized what was going on. Obviously, Grand-Mère understood as well.

  “Perhaps being paid for two jobs at once would be worth the risk of associating with Huguenots,” she said, an icy edge to her voice. “Tell her she would be allowed to do her regular seamstress work between feedings.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment until finally Monsieur Roen spoke. “I am not sure how to get in touch with the girl, but I will go see Father Philippe. He will direct me.”

  “Merci,” Grand-Mère whispered. “As for our other problem, the matter of the dragoons…” Her voice trailed off as she stepped forward and took the baby from Cook. “I am aware of the extra work their presence is creating for both of you. More mouths to feed. More horses to tend. Perhaps you could each hire a temporary helper or two?”

  Again, both Cook and Monsier Roen averted their eyes, responding to Grand-Mère’s offer with shrugs and mumbles of “That is not necessary.” Obviously, no one would be willing to take on such a job—and all four of them knew it.