It was time, she thought, to tell him.
On the afternoon of Marc-Antoine and Nika’s wedding, she and Tristan sat on the gallery steps of Charles Levasseur’s house, eating a simple supper of crusty bread and cheese. Bienville had given the house to them to live in until the move to the southern bluff could be completed. Tristan would be useful to the commander as architect and draftsman of the new fort and settlement, which would be called Mobile for its location on the bay.
Cutting her a sliver of cheese with his knife, he had just asked her for the fourth time in as many days if she objected to staying in town. Each of the previous times she had kissed him and said patiently, “Where you are is home.”
This time she hesitated.
“What is it?” he asked quickly. “I know there is something bearing on your mind. You seem happy, but if there is something else you need—”
She stopped the words with her lips, hands on his face. “I have everything I need.” She watched his mouth curl up and kissed him again. He seemed to like that she was bold, purring like a lion. Taking a deep breath, she drew back a little. “But there’s something in Father Mathieu’s journal I want you to see.” He had given it to her as a memento of her absent friend.
“I don’t want to read right now.” He tipped her face up with his thumb.
Geneviève laughed and wriggled away. “It’s broad daylight, monsieur, and we mustn’t scandalize the neighbors.” A pleasant cool snap had followed the spate of rain earlier in the day, and several inhabitants had already wandered past on their way to market, smiling at the two of them sitting so close together. When Tristan sighed and sat back, she reached into her pocket for the little book.
She had enjoyed looking at her husband’s drawings almost as much as reading Mathieu’s lively descriptions and comments on the experiences of his journey up the river. Now she flipped past them to one of the last entries in the book.
“Here,” she said, squinting at the priest’s crabbed writing. “‘I pray for my dear Geneviève and her Tristan,’ he says, ‘that they will find peace together, whatever the outcome of my quest here in New France.’ Had you read this?” She glanced at Tristan and found him regarding her, chin propped on his hand, the cheese and bread set aside.
He shook his head. “I’ve been very . . . busy lately.”
“Yes, you have.” She teasingly bopped him with the book. “Pay attention.”
“Yes, madame. Whatever you say, madame.”
She cleared her throat. “‘This peace they will never know, unless they come together as one in Christ, bearing each other’s burdens in the mundane as well as the spectacular events of life, as the letter to the Galatians admonishes. There are things about the confessional that Geneviève as a Reformed, and Tristan as a nominal believer, may miss. I pray that they will be freed to uncover every secret so that love may cast out all fear.’” She paused and closed the book on her finger. “Tristan, I—”
“He is wrong about that.” Tristan took her hand. “I am no longer a believer in name only.”
“I know. And I’m glad.” She looked away. “But he is right about confession. I’m burdened with something I must tell you. You know most of what happened to me in the Cévennes, but the longer I stay, the more I fear that my presence here puts you in danger.”
He kissed her fingers. “Then we will leave on the morrow and move to my plantation in Mobile.”
“No, this is—something that will follow me as long as we are in a French colony.” She clasped his hand between both of hers urgently, letting Mathieu’s journal fall into her lap. “Tristan, I am wanted for murder in France. I k-killed that dragoon who arrested my father.” Her lips trembled in spite of her determination to be brave. “I shot a man! Do you hear me? I was in prison awaiting sentencing when Jean Cavalier and Father Mathieu got me out of the country.”
“My heart, I am glad you tell me these things that worry you.” Tristan caressed her face, smearing the tears away with his thumb. “But you must let the guilt go. You know you are long forgiven, and surely you have paid whatever price God asked of you.” With a deep groan, he folded her close and held her until her storm of tears had passed. “I’ve seen your scars, and they are beautiful to me because they brought you to me. As mine brought me to you.”
With her head still on his shoulder, she stroked the silvery stripes across the sun-browned hand he gave her to hold. “Will you tell me how?”
He was silent for a long moment. Then, “I came between my father’s whip and—my brother.”
“Ah, beloved. . . .” She pressed his hand to her lips. “May God preserve us from more of such violence. Surely it grieves his heart.”
“And our new family will honor him, I promise you.”
As Tristan held her close, she let her lingering guilt and fear roll away like the river that flowed past Fort Louis. Father Mathieu was right—true love cast out fear, replacing it with hope and faith. He had brought her to a man of courage, strength, and honor, a man who would love her in deed as well as words.
I choose joy, she thought with a smile.