Free Love's First Light by Jamie Carie Page A

aloud made her shiver, but she plunged on—“reminding him of his promises to us.” She put her hand on her stomach. “He will take you both in, having little choice.”
    “If only your cousin Louisa was still in Paris,” her mother moaned.
    “Yes, it is too bad Louisa went back to Martinique. She couldn’t stomach the Révolution. Regardless, you must be strong. You have to go.”
    Her mother stared up at Scarlett, brows wrinkling. “We cannot leave you alone! What will become of you?” Her shoulders slumped. “What will become of us?”
    Scarlett sat down beside her mother and took her hand. Since her father’s death, her mother had been more the child than the parent when something outside the daily running of the household happened to them. Scarlett had been the one to pick up the role of her father, taking odd jobs before she married Daniel and managing the family’s bigger decisions.
    She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I will be fine. There is a good doctor here, as you know. And you and Stacia will find opportunities for her that she will never have here.”
    Her mother raised her head, blinked out tears, and blurted out. “I never thought, when I married your father, that he would leave us to do this alone.”
    Scarlett leaned into her mother’s side, their heads touching. “I’m sure he didn’t dream of this either.” She paused, tearing up herself and catching Stacia’s gaze. “God will give us strength for what is to come.”
    Stacia walked over and knelt down in front of them. “We should pray.”
    Stacia prayed like no one else Scarlett had ever heard. She prayed the same way she’d always spoken to their father. Like God loved her beyond measure, like she was a valued and precious part of creation. Scarlett had always felt a little afraid of God. What if she asked for something that wasn’t His will? What if she made some mistake approaching Him? She loved hearing Stacia’s freedom in prayer. If only she could have more of that in her own prayers.
    “Yes. Please pray, Stacia. Ask God to supply what we need. He will hear you.”
    Stacia bent her head and closed her eyes.
“Dear heavenly Father. Dear Creator of all life. Help us as we, as I, go forward as an ambassador of this family. Scarlett must stay behind and have her baby”
—she brushed a hand across Scarlett’s knee—
“but we are much afraid and do not know where to turn but to You. Be our guiding light as Mother and I go to Paris. Let me find a husband, if that is Your will.”
She laughed.
“And let him be fine in every way. Thank You for Your perfect plan for all our lives. Thank You for Your love for us.”
    They all let out a little laugh. Lightness filled the air and their spirits as they opened their eyes and said together, “Amen.”
    They spent the rest of the evening planning. Stacia went through her wardrobe, and Scarlett went to great lengths to find the perfect dresses for husband lure. They decided that some of Scarlett’s elegant Paris clothes could be remade for Stacia, which should only take a few days. Scarlett figured the household accounts and went through each line of numerals with Suzanne. There was enough saved back to keep Scarlett for a few months, as long as she embraced frugality. The rest would be used for traveling expenses.
    Finally they all collapsed into bed. Stacia excited. Suzanne exhausted. And Scarlett, as she wrapped the covers around her shoulders and curled into her babe, felt the taut roundness of her stomach and the ache in her back, sad and afraid.
    “I miss you,” she whispered to Daniel’s ghost. And she was glad to feel in that moment that she did.
    But she wouldn’t show it.
    She would not tell them how afraid she was to be left alone.
     
     
    A WEEK LATER Scarlett woke in the middle of the night. Was it a cramp? A nightmare? She couldn’t grasp what had her wide awake and sitting up, swinging her feet over the edge of her bed and reaching for a dressing gown.
    She