Paris,
France
1792
Colette DeMer and
her brother Pascoe are two sides of the same coin, dependent upon one
another in the tumultuous world of the new Republic. Together they
labor with other leaders of the sans-culottes to
ensure freedom for all the downtrodden men and women of France.
But then the
popular uprisings turn bloody and the rhetoric proves false.
Suddenly, Colette finds herself at odds with Pascoe and struggling to
unite her fractured family against the lure of violence.
Charged
with protecting an innocent young woman and desperately afraid of
losing one of her beloved brothers, Colette doesn’t know where to
turn or whom to trust as the bloodshed creeps ever closer to home.
Until that distant
day when peace returns to France, can she find the strength to defend
her loved ones . . . even from one another?
Coming
April 25, 2014
Until That Distant Day
Opening of Chapter 1
I was born believing that the world was unfair and that I was the
person to make it right.
One of my earliest memories is of Papa setting me atop a nail keg in
the forge; I could not have been older than two at the time.
“Colette, give Papa a kiss,” he said, tapping his cheek.
“Why?”
“Come and sit on my knee.”
“Why?”
My response to every order was the same, asked with genuine
curiosity. I did not understand why his watching friends chuckled.
Why should I press my lips to Papa’s sweaty, prickly cheek? Why
should I hop down from the keg, where he had just placed me, and run
to sit on his knee, a most uncomfortable perch? I felt justified in
requesting a reason for each abrupt order, yet he never bothered to
give me one.
Mama, when thus questioned, provided an answer in the form of a sharp
swat. This I could respect as definitive authority, although the
reasoning behind it remained dubious.
My little brother Pascoe was born believing that the world was his to
command. As soon as he acquired his first vocabulary word, “No,”
he and I joined ranks in defiance of established authority.
Many impediments cluttered the path of destiny in those early years:
parents, thirteen other siblings, physical ailments, and educational
difficulties. And as we grew into adulthood, more serious matters
intervened, even parting us for a time. But I will speak more of that
later. For now, let me assure you that, no matter the obstacles
thrown in our way, our sibling bond seemed indissoluble; the love
between us remained unaffected by any outside relationship.
Pascoe and I were young adults when revolutionaries in Paris threw
aside the tyranny of centuries and established a new government based
on the Rights of Man. From the seclusion of our little village in
Normandy we rejoiced over each battle fought and won; and when our
local physician, Doctor Hilliard, who had first mentored then
employed Pascoe for several years, was elected as deputy to the
National Assembly from our district, a whole new world opened at our
feet.
My story truly begins on a certain day in the spring of 1792, in the
little domain I had made for myself in the kitchen at the back of
Doctor Hilliard’s Paris house. Perhaps it wasn’t truly my domain,
for it did not belong to me. I was merely the doctor’s housekeeper
and could lay no real claim. Nevertheless, the kitchen was more mine
than anything had ever been, and I loved that small, dark room;
especially during the hours when sunlight slanted through the
bubbled-glass kitchen windows, making bright, swirling shapes on the
whitewashed walls, or each evening when I arranged my latest culinary
creation on a platter and left it in the warming oven for the doctor
to discover whenever he arrived home. That kitchen was my home. Not
the home I had grown up in, but the home I had always craved.
On that particular day, however, it did not feel the safe haven I had
always believed it to be. Loud voices drifted down from the upper
floor where the doctor and Pascoe were in conference, disturbing my
calm. When I closed the connecting door to the dining room, the angry
voices drifted in through the open kitchen windows. I couldn’t
close the windows; I might smother of heat. Yet I needed to block out
the sound, to make it stop.
So I slipped a filet of sole into a greased skillet and let it brown
until golden on both sides. The hiss and sizzle did not quite cover
the shouting, but it helped. Then I slid the fish onto a waiting
plate lined with sautéed vegetables fresh from my kitchen garden;
and I topped all with an herbed wine-and-butter sauce. A grind of
fresh pepper finished off my creation.
But my hands were still trembling, and I felt as if something inside
me might fall to pieces.
Pascoe often shouted. Shouting was part of his fiery nature, a normal
event. He shouted when he gave speeches at section meetings. He
shouted about overcooked meals or inferior wines. He shouted when his
lace jabot refused to fall into perfect folds.
But never before had I heard Doctor Hilliard raise his voice in
anger.
Doctor Hilliard was never angry. Doctor Hilliard never displayed
emotion. At most, he might indicate approval by the glance of a
benevolent eye or disapprobation by the merest lift of a brow. Yet
there could be no mistaking the two furious voices overhead. I well
knew Pascoe’s sharp tenor with its sarcastic edge; but now I also
heard the doctor’s resonant voice crackling with fury.
I managed to slide the hot plate into the warmer alongside a crusty
loaf of bread and closed the door, using a doubled towel to protect
my shaking hands.
Behind me the connecting door was flung open, and Pascoe burst in as
I spun to face him. “Gather your things; we are leaving,” he
growled. His eyes blazed in his pale face, and the jut of his jaw
allowed for no questions. He clapped his tall hat on his head as he
passed through the room.
I donned my bonnet and sabots and picked up my parasol. “What has
happened?” I asked just above a whisper.
“I’ll tell you once we are away from this house.” His lips
snapped tight. His chest heaved with emotion, and he grasped a
portfolio so tightly that his fingers looked white.
I could not recall the last time I had seen my brother in such a
rage.
Jill
Stengl is the author of numerous romance novels including
Inspirational Reader's Choice Award- and Carol Award-winning Faithful
Traitor, and the bestselling novella, Fresh Highland
Heir. She lives with her husband in the beautiful Northwoods
of Wisconsin, where she enjoys her three cats, teaching a high school
English Lit. class, playing keyboard for her church family, and
sipping coffee on the deck as she brainstorms for her next novel.
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