Bartered Bride Romance Collection (5 page)

I want to be happy again
.

“There.” Edouard stood and brushed dirt from his trousers. “A fire. In case it rains, we will not be cold tonight.”

The distance between them might have been miles, but Edouard made no move to get closer. He tossed his hat onto the table and gestured to the doorway leading to the back room.

“If you are tired, you can …”

A’bien, so that was it. Josée’s gaze glimpsed her quilt, spread over the bed tucked in the corner of the back room. The bed, handcrafted for them. New, never used. The remembrance of the Landrys’ pride when they toted the bed to the cabin as a gift flickered in her mind.

“Thank you.” Josée rubbed her arms. The gooseflesh would not go away, and she dared not draw closer to the fire … and Edouard.

“I … I …” Edouard shifted from one foot to the other, and he looked at the door as he spoke. “I’m going to check the pirogue. I must go fishin’ soon.” With that, he clomped to the door and left the cabin.

Josée burst into tears. Her feet felt like she had walked on glass for three miles, her head pounded, and she realized she was hungry because she failed to eat any of the lavish dishes brought by the villagers to celebrate the weddings. She satisfied her hunger pangs with generous gulps from the water bucket.

She found the trunk Mama LeBlanc had sent down to the cabin earlier that day and took out a soft chemise for sleeping in. She washed her dusty feet before climbing onto the soft mattress.

Josée said her prayers, missing the whispers of Jeanne, Marie, and the other girls alongside her as they prayed.
Notre Père—

Our Father. She had never felt so alone in her life. Josée finished praying and tasted more tears before sleep overcame her.

Chapter 5

E
douard jerked awake on the hammock and nearly rolled over and hit the ground. Shouts rang in the air, and his gun remained inside the cabin. Was a group of bandits descending on them? No, it was Papa, Mama, and the rest of the clan racing toward the cabin. Edouard squinted at the morning light shining through the trees.

“Bonjour, my son! And where is our daughter-in-law?” Papa reached him first, clasping Edouard to his chest and then planting a kiss on both cheeks.

“Ah, she still sleeps.” Edouard could not bring himself to say he had slept on the steps the night before. He could face a gator on the bayou but not a woman alone in a cabin.

“No matter. We are here for breakfast!” Papa’s voice thundered across the water.

“Edouard, we are hungry. Ask your bride to feed us!” one of the family shouted.

“Oui!” They called to him like a flock of gulls. Did he ever act so when he was a child?

Edouard retreated to the cabin and headed for the bedroom. Josée lay sleeping, her breaths even. A blistered foot peeked out from under the blanket. Hair dark as midnight streamed across the pillow and begged for him to touch it.

“Josée, wake up.”

She stirred, a flush blooming on her cheeks. “Edouard?” She propped herself up on an elbow and snatched the blanket to her chin with her free hand.

“Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. The family is here for breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” A furrow appeared between her brows.

Edouard licked his lips. “Oui, you know the tradition. The new, uh, bride always makes breakfast the morning after the weddin’.” It was his turn to feel color blazing into his neck. Worse, he realized if he remained in the cabin too long …

“I’ll be up and dressed.” Josée reached for a simple dressing gown on her small trunk. She held the garment in her hand and stared at him.

“Oh, yes. Pardon.” Edouard turned and faced the fireplace and the table. “You will find cornmeal on the shelf. I have salted fish. Mama left dried herbs for you to use as well. She knew I did not have much to make a suitable meal.”

“Ed–dee! Why take you so long waking your wife?”

“I had to tell her where the food was!” he shouted toward the door.

“Then tell her faster!”

Mon Dieu, I prayed to be left alone. I prayed for peace, and this is how You answer me?
Edouard didn’t dare turn around until he knew Josée was finished dressing. He couldn’t let himself see her, although he knew he had the right by marriage.

“I’m ready.” Josée had also made the bed and stored her clothes in the trunk. Edouard reminded himself to take his shirts down from the rope he had stretched across the cabin.

“
Bien
, ’cause I’m hungry, too.” He tried to smile, but at his words her eyes grew round as a fish’s. “I’ll draw us more fresh water from the cistern.” He grabbed the bucket on his way out the door before the family really started to tease them.

Josée’s head ached as if someone had danced a jig on her forehead all night. Cook? Breakfast? She wanted to climb through a window and run up the familiar path, back to Mama’s table and the warm, snug, happy kitchen. This place? It held nothing to comfort her.

She ducked under two hanging shirts she’d missed the night before in her struggle to light a fire. They had plates, cups, and bowls, thanks to Mama and Papa LeBlanc. But food? For everyone?

Nestled in a nook in the fireplace, Josée found her new pots and pans. She did not have the heart to tell Edouard all she could make without burning it was pie.

“Mama, if only I could have written the recipes down.” Josée shook her head. She couldn’t remember how much lard to add to the cornmeal to start biscuits. Worse, no biscuit cutter. She fingered the edge of a cup. A’bien, that would have to do.

Where to make the dough? Josée took one of the two bowls and placed it on the table. She guessed at how much cornmeal and lard to use, and started mushing them together. Biscuits weren’t much different than piecrust. Ah, wait. She needed leaven for the biscuits to rise like Mama’s.

Josée slapped her forehead before she remembered her hands were covered with cornmeal. Oh, she was failing miserably in the kitchen. Or cabin, rather. She did not know if she wanted to be outside, hearing the family tease them both.

Tease them? Josée shook her head. For all she knew, Edouard had slept outside on his trusty hammock. Poor man. He had gained a wife but lost his bed and privacy.

A soft rap on the door made Josée look up. “Who is it?”

“Bonjour, may I come in?”

“Oui, Mama.” The door opened, and Mama entered. She placed a round covered pan on the table. The sight of her brown rotund figure made Josée wipe her hands on her skirt and embrace her.

“So, how goes it?” Mama asked.

Josée shrugged. “I have no breakfast cooking. I have no coffee to offer my guests.” She gestured to the table.

Mama made a soft hissing noise. “ ‘Tis my fault. I did not pay attention enough when you helped in the kitchen.”

“Truthfully I was wanting to read, so it’s partly my fault as well.” Josée wanted to toss the lump of meal and lard into a refuse bucket.

Mama gave her a pointed look. “Yet when I asked, ‘how goes it,’ I was not asking about your cooking this morning.”

“I …” She could not tell Mama she did not want to be there.

Mama smiled. “Ah,
l’amour
. There is more to love than an embrace, a touch. Much more. Just as there is more to joy than feelin’ happy.”

Josée found a rolling pin and tumbled the dough onto the wooden table. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Do?” Mama patted the hand that rolled out the dough. “Make corn bread. Learn to make gumbo. Know Edouard. And speak to notre Père. He will show you the way and bring you the joie de vivre you seek.”

Josée nodded. For now, making biscuits was enough for her.

“I’ll leave you be, unless—”

“Breakfast?”

Mama patted the pot she had placed on the table when she came in. “See to the biscuits, and place this pot to warm until the biscuits are done.”

“Oh, Mama, merci—”

“
D’rien
. You can tell Edouard about my help with the meal after we have gone.” After a kiss on the cheek, Mama left the cabin.

Josée placed the pan of dough in the oven. They would bake and not rise but would be better than nothing. While crouched down, Josée saw a thin spine of a book nestled between the fireplace bricks and the wood box.

A book? As best Josée knew, Edouard could not read.

Josée pulled out the volume, parchment bound in leather. A book handmade with much care, left in a hiding place. The pages crackled when she opened the cover and read the first page.

In the year of our Lord, 1769

I, Capucine LeBlanc, write this with my own hand. These are my thoughts in this new land. After much sorrow, much joy. My dear Michel has built me a home. My long-lost mère is nearby. Comforte sleeps on my shoulder as I hold the pen. Life is full
.

She closed the book and ran her hands over the cover. Capucine, the mère of Edouard’s papa. This treasure was different than the usual stories passed down through the family. Why had this been placed in the nook? The books in the LeBlanc home had been Josée’s, secured away in the trunk that rested next to the bed, and were only taken out by her.

“You will no longer be hidden, little book.” Josée’s face grew warm. What if one of the others heard her? She stood, crossed the cabin, and placed the book in her trunk. As she went to check on the biscuits, she cast a glance over her shoulder.

Did Capucine burn her food, or was she a fine cook? Did she have songs springing forth, unbidden, from her heart? Perhaps instead of songs, she wrote from her heart. Josée would have to find out. It warmed her to think that another woman cooked at this hearth and bounced bébés on her knee in this very room.

“Josée! We’re hungry!” chorused the voices outside.

“Un momente!”
she called back.
Mon Père, merci for the book
. But she would appreciate help in learning to make gumbo. As for Mama’s suggestion to know Edouard, that would wait … for another time.

Chapter 6

A
s if in answer to Edouard’s prayers for help, rain poured from the heavens upon La Manque. He stood on the tiny porch he had built overlooking the bayou, which swelled with freshwater. After three days of rain, the tiny garden which Josée had lovingly tilled now looked like stripes of mud and water. He did not understand le bon Dieu’s joke. Since the wedding two weeks ago, he had spoken to God more than he had in a long time. And he did not remember asking Him for rain.

This morning the melody that Josée sang lilted above the drumming on the roof. Edouard’s stomach growled. He had thought
his
cooking was bad. After two bites of her gumbo last night—the first to be polite and the second out of hunger—breakfast arrived after a long night. He had not meant to cause her tears. He ended up listening to her sniffle as they fell asleep. The rain would not allow him to sleep in his hammock or on the porch, so he had claimed one side of the bed. An invisible line seemed carved between them. Edouard did not mind that so much. He did mind waking up cold in the hours before first light with no quilt. Josée slept, wrapped like a moth in its cocoon.