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new Count of St. Laurent.

Chapter Four
    1794—Carcassonne, France
     
    Scarlett charged through the door. She paused just inside, seeing the shabby furniture, the old carpet that they beat with a stick every other laundry day, the dim light of dawn filtering through the small windows of the cottage. But it smelled of fresh-baked bread and no amount of shabbiness could take away that homey feeling of comfort and, with it, a measure of peace.
    She shut the door behind her and leaned back against it . . . who
was
he? Where had he come from? She was still shaking inside as she threw off the cloak, tossing it to a chair, thinking to run upstairs and put on some clothes before her mother found her out.
    “Scarlett, is that you?”
    Too late. Her mother was already up and in the kitchen. Scarlett took a deep breath, brushed a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear, and entered the hot room, the smells of market day heavy in the air.
    “Yes, it’s me.” She avoided her mother’s eyes as she rushed in and tied an apron over her billowing nightgown. She hadn’t realized how late it was.
    Her mother, Suzanne Bonham, turned and wiped her sweat-soaked hair from her temple with the back of one hand, her eyes assessing. “You were at the gravesite again.” She said it low and a little disapproving.
    Scarlett looked up and saw the concern in her mother’s eyes. “Yes. Time escaped me.” She would not apologize.
    Scarlett picked up a basket and moved toward the long, golden loaves of baguettes. “I will hurry.”
    “You should have at least dressed.” Her mother started the tirade as she turned back to the fluffy dough she was kneading on a wooden counter. “I’ll not have you running about the countryside in slippers and your nightgown. It is bad enough that you have to go at such an ungodly hour, but, saints preserve us, in your nightclothes! What would anyone think if they saw you?”
    Scarlett agreed but couldn’t force anything but a whiff of air from her tight throat. All she could see was the man. His dark silhouette against the pink of the sunrise. His deep voice resounding against the gravestones. His dark cloak hung loose and yet moved with the breeze as if . . . as if something important was to happen. As if her life was more than grave visiting and guilt assuaging and this eternal waiting. As if . . .
    As if that man meant something to her.
    And how can that be?
she chided herself.
Will you always let yourself fall suddenly for a man? You don’t even know his name?
    That’s what had happened with Daniel anyway—her falling suddenly. That should have taught her a lesson. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
    Scarlett turned at the sound of her mother’s voice, knowing that she’d missed some of the lecture.
    “Sorry will not help you should you meet some strange man and he think it an invitation. I’ve told you time and again it’s not safe to be alone at such hours. With everything going on these days you should visit the grave during the daylight hours like any good girl would do. I don’t understand why you need to visit it every day. It has nearly been six months.”
    Scarlett’s round stomach bumped into the basket of bread and tipped it over, causing the steaming loaves to fall to the floor. “Oh!”
    She bent, an awkward sinking, half-bending motion around her pregnancy, and scrambled to gather them up. Rising with effort, the bread clutched in her hands, she looked up into her mother’s stricken eyes. “I’ll dust them off.”
    Her mother pursed her lips together and sighed. “We have no choice. There is not time nor enough flour to make more.” She turned back to the dough and began to knead the giant soft ball with her hands. “I do wish they would send more flour. We could sell double what we bake.”
    Scarlett had heard the argument countless times before. Her husband’s uncle, the infamous Maximilien Robespierre, had arranged for them to receive flour from his powerful