Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(70)

“I'll make a better match in marriage disguised as a Duplessis.” Genevieve folded the silky scarf and laid it upon her own bundle. “Because of your birth, you'll be set aside for the wealthiest men in the colony.”

Marie cast her gaze down. “I didn't think of that.”

Of course she wouldn’t. This woman had never tasted a stolen apple. She had never raced through the streets of Paris after cutting a nobleman's purse, fearing hunger more than the threat of capture and punishment by whipping.

“But of course, it makes perfect sense now.” Marie's hands fluttered white in the starlight. “When I found your first note among my laundered shifts, I was sure someone was playing a trick on me. The girls are terrified of being shipped off to this dreadful place. They’re sobbing for me and Cecile as if tomorrow the two of us will be executed in the square.”

“But you won’t be going now. Have you heard from him?”

“Yes. Yes.” Her face lit with joy. “I received a note this morning. Fran?ois is waiting for me, just inside the gates of Paris.”

So that was the name of the French Musketeer Marie loved enough to risk everything to marry. Genevieve dearly hoped this Fran?ois wasn't like the other strutting, shifty-eyed Musketeers she had known in her younger days. In their blue coats and shimmering braid, they had terrorized the city, taking whatever women pleased them and pulling their swords at the slightest provocation.

“We mustn't delay any longer.” Genevieve nodded to Marie's cloak. “Take off your clothes.”

The young woman started. “Here?”

“Quickly.”

“But what am I to wear?” Marie glanced up at the skeletal scaffolding of the church and crossed herself. “I can't escape in your clothing.”

Genevieve footed her bundle toward the girl. “You'll wear the clothing of a governess—a black wool skirt, a white coif, and a black mantle. Then you can walk out the front gates without being stopped.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Never mind that. Hurry.”

Genevieve unlaced her bodice, tugged it off, and then slipped out of her russet wool skirt. The night was balmy, and the breeze toyed with her tattered shift as she stuffed her old clothes beneath a pile of bricks. As Marie fumbled with her own laces, Genevieve scrutinized the girl more closely. Marie's tresses were long and chestnut-colored. Genevieve's own hair was a mass of copper, a gift, her mother had once told her, from the father she had never known. Marie's skin was smooth, while Genevieve had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Problems, she thought, but nothing that couldn't be overcome by brushing the roots of her hair with an ashy comb, covering her head tight with a scarf, and patting her face thick with powder.

Genevieve snatched Marie's bodice and thrust her arms through the sleeves. “Tell me about your family. I'll need to know their names, ages, and everything about them that's important.”

As Marie struggled out of her skirt and petticoat and reached for the bundle of clothing, she told Genevieve that her mother had died in childbirth when Marie was only a few years old. Later, impoverished by the civil wars which had flared through France, she and her father had lived on the charity of distant relatives until her father died, leaving Marie to the mercy of an unscrupulous second cousin. He refused to dower her or pay to put her in a convent, so she was sent to the Salpêtrière. Genevieve noted all the names and dates as she slipped on Marie's discarded petticoat and skirt. She would need to know as much as she could remember for when she got to Quebec.

But her mind wandered from Marie's monologue as Genevieve slipped on the blue travelling dress. The feel of the soft cloth against her skin brought a rush of memories. She blocked them out. The past was the past—it was the future that mattered now.

“Cecile awaits you tonight,” Marie said as she knotted the last lace of her bodice. “She’ll open the door and guide you to my bed.”

“Good.” In her new clothes, she twirled before Marie. “Well?”

“You have the carriage of a noblewoman.” Marie plucked at her plain black robes, hesitating. “Perhaps this shall all work out as you planned.”

I swear that it will.

“But,” Marie began, her voice catching, “if you are caught—”

“I won’t be.”

“—the punishment for what we are doing is severe.” Her breath came fast. “We’re switching places under the very nose of Mother Superior. It’s like tricking the King himself—”

“The king and Mother Superior want girls to fill their ships, no more. They won’t look too closely after counting.”

“If we’re caught, they could force us into a convent,” Marie stuttered. “They could shut us away from the world forever.”

They’d shut you into a convent, Genevieve thought, but they would find a far more painful punishment for her.

Marie ventured, “You are sure?”

“Yes.” Any risk was worth the possibility of freedom.

“Very well.” Marie took a deep breath. “You'll be leaving at dawn tomorrow for Le Havre. Cecile will shield you from Mother Superior as you board the carriage, but it’ll be tricky.”

“Mother Superior is half blind,” Genevieve said. “She’ll never even notice me. And I'll be crying like an onion seller into my—your—handkerchief. Will we be traveling in a public carriage?”