“Certainly, bébé,” Fergus said, softly, and Roger saw that tears were running down his own cheeks. He held Germain a little way away from him and said, “I see you are a man now, and yet when I look at you—always, always—I see you as I first saw you.” He let go, gently, and took an ink-stained handkerchief from his pocket. “Short, fat, and covered with drool,” he added, wiping his nose and grinning at his son.
Everyone laughed, including—after a brief, stunned moment—Germain.
“What’s going on out— Germain!” There was a flurry of skirts and Marsali rushed out of the shop and engulfed her wayward son.
Roger heard a small sound from Brianna and, stepping back, took her hand and held it hard.
“Mam! What’s—Eeeeeee! Fizzy, Fizzy, come see, it’s Germain!” Joan, small round face flaming with excitement, ran back into the shop and ran back an instant later, yanking her younger sister half off her feet.
Roger felt a small hand tugging on his breeches and looked down.
“Who’s dose?” Mandy asked, clinging to his leg and frowning suspiciously at the tearstained, laughing mob scene taking place before them.
“Our cousins,” Jem said tolerantly. “You know—just more family.”
SANCTUARY WAS BREE’S first thought at sight of the printshop, and the feeling continued to grow as the commotion of arrival gradually smoothed out into small eddies: the brief exchange of news, down payment on further conversation; water for washing; the orderly bustle of making supper; the less orderly business of eating it, with half the people sitting at the table and the others mostly under it, giggling over their bowls of rice and red beans; and then the washing-up and changing of clothes and clouts for bed, as the heat of many bodies and of the banked type-forge was gradually wicked away by a cool, dark breeze that rose from the river and ran through the house from the open back door to the open front door, harbinger of a peaceful night.
All of the children at last in bed, the adults sat down in the tiny parlor to toast their reunion with a bottle of very good French wine.
“Where did ye get this?” Roger asked, after the first sip. He lifted his glass to admire the color, sparkling like a ruby in the firelight. “I haven’t drunk anything like this since—since—well, I’m no sure I’ve ever drunk anything this good.”
Marsali and Fergus exchanged a marital glance.
“It’s likely better ye dinna ken,” she told Roger, laughing. “But there’s a wee bit more where that came from—dinna hold back!”
“Certainement,” Fergus agreed, and lifted his own glass to Roger. “You have brought home our prodigal. If you want to bathe in it, say the word.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Roger took a long, slow sip and closed his eyes, his worn face relaxing wonderfully.
Bree hadn’t drunk much wine since Amy Higgins’s death; the smell of grapes reminded her too much of that day among the scuppernongs, and the color of red wine was too much the color of blood, fresh in the sunlight. Even so, this wine seemed not so much to be swallowed as to dissolve right through her membranes and into her own sweet blood, and she felt her body gradually soften, easing back into its natural shape as the tension of the trip left her.
They’d made it.
So far, said the cynical back of her mind, but she ignored that. For the moment, everyone was safe—and together.
Germain hadn’t gone to bed with Jem and Mandy and his sisters; he was curled up beside his mother on the settle, sound asleep with his head in her lap, and she smoothed a hand gently over his tousled blond head, with a look of such tenderness on her face that it smote Bree in the heart.
She touched her breastbone lightly at the thought, but everything was peaceful within, a soft, regular THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump that would lull her to sleep in moments, if she let it. A brief squawk from the cradle by Fergus’s chair drove the notion of sleep out of her head, and she sat up quickly, a maternal surge rising straight up from belly to breasts with surprising force.
“If one goes, the other will, too,” Marsali said, sighing and reaching for her laces. “Hold my wine, will ye, Bree?”
She took the glass, warm from the fire and Marsali’s hand, and watched, half enviously, as Fergus handed one swaddled bundle to his wife, then bent to pick the other baby up from the cradle.
“This one’s wet,” he said, holding the little boy away from his body.
“I’ll change him.” Bree put the wine on the table and took the bundle from Fergus, who released his son with alacrity and sat down again with his own glass, looking happy.
There were clean clouts and rags on a shelf, and a small tin of some sort of ointment that smelled of lavender, chamomile, and oatmeal. She smiled, recognizing a version of Mama’s diaper-rash cream.
“Who do I have?” she asked, turning back the blanket to reveal a small, round, sleepy face and a slick of light-brown hair down the middle of the head.
“Charles-Claire,” said Fergus, and nodded at Marsali’s bundle. “That’s Alexandre.”
“Hello there,” she said softly, and the baby smacked his lips in a thoughtful sort of way and began to wiggle inside his wrappings. “Comment ça va?”
“Wah!”
“Oh, not that good, eh? Well, let’s see about it, then …”
TIRED AS THEY were, nobody wanted to go to bed. Brianna could feel sleep gently creeping up from her tired feet and aching shins, over her knees like a warm quilt. But there was much to be said, and after a lot of catching up with the current state of things on the Ridge, plus the welfare of all the people and animals there, they reached an explanation of their presence in Charles Town.
“It was mostly Germain,” Roger said, smiling at the sleeping boy and then at Marsali. “Once he’d had your letter, of course we had to come. And, um”—he darted a quick glance at Bree—“I think Jamie said he’d sent you a note?”
That made Marsali look sharply at Fergus, who made an offhand “It’s nothing” sort of gesture. Roger cleared his throat and continued. “But Charles Town is on the way, after all.”
“On the way where?” Fergus had relaxed into something like bonelessness, eyelids half shut against the smoke from the driftwood fire. Brianna thought she’d never seen him this way before—completely at peace.
“To Savannah,” Roger replied, with a touch of pride that warmed Brianna more than the fire. “Bree’s got a commission—to paint the wife of a rich merchant named Brumby.”
One of Fergus’s brows twitched up.
“Congratulations, ma soeur. Savannah … is this Monsieur Alfred Brumby?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised. “Do you know him? Or anything about him?”
“I see his name painted on any number of boxes and barrels on the wharves, as they pass from Savannah to Philadelphia and Boston. He’s an importer of molasses from the West Indies. And very rich in consequence, I assure you. Charge him anything you like for his portrait; he won’t blink.”
Brianna rolled a sip of wine around her mouth, enjoying the slight roughness on her tongue.
“Do I take it that ‘importer’ is a polite name for ‘smuggler’?”