Читать книгу The Revolutionary Mistress - Leia Rice - Страница 6

Mariette spent the next morning in the market. With enough extra money to purchase food, she couldn’t pass up the chance to get her hands on something good. Her stomach growled at the very thought. “Good” meant “unspoiled” now, as everything rotted and molded quickly. The French people received the dregs of the trade markets while the nobility bit into crisp fruits and chewed tender cuts of meat.

In the crowds of dirty Parisians, she spotted a man who didn’t quite fit in with the others. Though his clothes were ragged and the hem of his pants covered in mud (just like Mariette’s hem), his blond hair was washed and combed back too neatly. His cheeks radiated a clean glow, free of the usual grime that came along with the city streets.

Intrigued, Mariette half hid behind a bread maker’s stall, peeking out from behind the wooden beam that held up a shoddy roof. She could smell the pungent mold that grew on the loaves, which were highly priced. But from here, she could watch this enigma of a man safely, without him noticing her.

He browsed lazily, touching fabrics as he passed a tailor’s stall, picking up an apple and squeezing it at the fruit stall. His hand enclosed around the whole apple. Mariette imagined his hand holding her breast, her hands in his well-kept hair. He didn’t look rough and heartless as Sebastian did. Maybe he would even pay her better.

Breaking out of her daydream, Mariette realized that the man no longer stood at the fruit stand. She looked up and down the cobblestone street, but she could not find him anywhere. With a disheartened sigh, Mariette reprimanded herself for coming up with silly child’s fantasies. He could not be her knight in shining armor. There weren’t any of those in France anymore. With only an hour to buy what she had to buy and then get herself to the tavern, Mariette kept herself on task the best she could with the delicious and mysterious man on her mind.

“Jean, you have to believe me,” she said later at the bar. “He looked like an angel.”

“An angel? In all of this shit?” Jean dragged a damp rag over the top of the bar, wiping away the rings of water from glass mugs that once rested there. “I find it hard to believe.”

Mariette laughed at Jean. She tiptoed and pulled herself up to sit on the ledge, watching the door for patrons. “Yes, Jean. An angel. His hair, his hands…”

“His hands?”

Before Mariette could talk any more about this man of her dreams, the chimes above the door sung as it opened. Without paying much attention to who came in, she slid back down off the bar, grabbing her tray.

“Like him?” Jean nodded his head toward the door. Standing there, the very same man glanced about, and when his kind eyes found Mariette, he smiled charmingly.

Mariette’s breath escaped her. She imagined one of those new hot-air balloons she heard about falling to the ground, deflated and limp—this is how she felt. Or did she feel like a balloon rising and rising?

“Pardon, but are you open for business?” Even though the question was meant for Jean, the man kept his eyes on Mariette.

Jean’s brow lifted. He tucked the towel away under the bar and cleared his throat. “For a drink?”

A blush crept up her cheeks, tinting them a shade of rose. Mariette didn’t exactly advertise her other, hidden talents. She didn’t want to consider herself an actual working woman, past her usual tavern service. She felt ashamed of what she had had to resort to in order to keep a roof over her head. She hated it.

The man looked confused, glancing between the two. Something lit up in his eyes, and he suddenly understood. “Yes. For a drink. Unless other services are available. I’d only hope that they are as beautiful as this mademoiselle from the marketplace.”

“Y-you…you saw me?”

“How could I miss you?”

Mariette’s heart fluttered, sending a wave of desire through her veins. Maybe there was just one more knight in France.

Jean didn’t go any further to answer the man’s questions. He stopped there at the offer and quickly went back to cleaning his bar and ignoring whatever Mariette was going to do.

“If…if you wish, you can order your drink and I’ll show you to the…other girls in the back?”

“Sounds like a deal to me. I will meet you back there.” The knight smiled his charming smile as Mariette turned and forced herself to walk slowly to the back room and not run.

She pushed through the door and into the room that she had set up in the back. Furnished with a bed, a chair, a small side table and a lantern, it was minimal at best. On top of the tavern, Jean had a couple of apartments, where he, his wife and his six children lived. The back room was formally used to house patrons if they needed a night to sober up. In a way, she supposed it still served that purpose, to an extent.