Love's First Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

office in the Committee of the newly established government. He also gave them a small stipend every month to supplement a household of three lone women. But still, it was a struggle to keep the cottage and body and soul together. Becoming bakers had been her little sister’s idea. Stacia had her father’s entrepreneurial spirit and was always coming up with ideas to increase their bottom line so that she could buy dresses and shoes and fashion papers from Paris. Scarlett and her mother simultaneously despaired over Stacia’s reckless streak and admired her sharp business mind.
    The baking of bread, though, had turned into a small gold mine. Scarlett’s uncle agreed to send what flour he could arrange, it being closely managed by the new French government, and so their business had begun.
    As it turned out, all three of them had a knack for baking. The weeks took on a comforting if exhausting routine.
    It was an ordered life. A simple life. In the wake of Scarlett’s father’s death, and then Scarlett’s husband . . . with no man to carry them . . . flour, yeast, water,
bread.
That was what sustained them now.
    “Scarlett, did you hear me?”
    She shook her head, turning from arranging the basket to best display the loaves. She seemed to have a knack for making the bread look more a decoration than something to eat. “I’m sorry. My mind doesn’t seem as keen these days. What did you say?”
    “About visiting the grave as you do, so late or so early. It’s not fitting. Why do you insist on going only when it is dark?”
    She would never be able to explain it to her mother. That in dark, it still wasn’t quite real. That in the bright light of day she couldn’t hide as well from the guilt that she was a little relieved her marriage was over. Had she known Daniel at all? There hadn’t been enough time. She would have, after this Révolution was over, been able to make it work between them if he’d lived, wouldn’t she?
    She turned away, not knowing how to answer her mother, except: “I will try.”
    “You will try.” Her mother put her hands on her rounded hips, making Scarlett sigh internally.
Please, God, let the lecture be finished.
    “What if some evil person comes upon you? What will you do then? I worry so about you.” Her mother paused, throwing her hands into the air. “And in your condition.” She thrust her hands out toward Scarlett. “You couldn’t even run away.”
    It was true. She could
not
have run away this morning. She looked down and saw the giant mound of her stomach. Her mother was right. There had been a moment when she thought that she should run. Until he spoke . . .
    Who
was
he? She could not let her mother learn of him! Their encounter would send her into a worried state of agitation that would last for weeks. Scarlett didn’t doubt that her mother would even start to follow her, at a distance, thinking she was successfully spying. She had done it before to both Scarlett and her sister. But Scarlett was a woman grown, and about to be a mother herself. She should be allowed to make her own decisions.
    Scarlett turned back to the hot fire, pulling the round, split, sweet-smelling bread from the heat with her flat, wooden paddle. Her cheeks burned from both the blaze and the thoughts of the dark stranger. How could she not recognize him? Carcassonne was such a small community, and being bakers at the market three mornings a week had assured that they knew every reaching hand. But this man, she was certain, had never been in the busy streets on market day, never reached out for their meager sustenance.
    The baby kicked hard and then turned, folded, and stretched inside of her. She stilled her hands and then clutched her stomach. She could feel him stretch against the thin barrier of his world and hers. He wanted out . . . and soon. She smiled with the thought, her head down, her body curled into their private world.
    “What is it?”
    “The babe.” Scarlett rose up and motioned