Free Prelude to Heaven by Laura Lee Guhrke Page A

henhouse.
    To her surprise, no foul stench greeted her as she approached. She inhaled deeply, but the only smells were fresh morning air and a faint tinge of vinegar. She stepped inside.
    The coop was clean. Astonished, she stared at the loose, freshly raked dirt beneath her feet and the shelves of neatly piled straw where the hens roosted. Dumond must have cleaned it yesterday while she had thought him off sketching somewhere.
    She should have been grateful for his thoughtfulness, but instead, she felt dread burn inside her. Her reasoning mind told her it was a simple act of consideration, of kindness, and yet she shivered, suddenly afraid.
    A memory flitted through her mind before she could stop it, a memory of dresses and the horrible, ripping sound of silk.
    “ Pink! With your coloring?” Nigel's contemptuous voice seemed to fill the hen house. “Just once, I give in to you and allow you to select your own gown for a ball, and this is the color you choose? Pink? Your taste is appalling, madam.”
    She’d been glad, she remembered, for the unexpected bit of freedom he'd given her, but that had been foolish, for he granted her such unexpected pleasures only to snatch them away again. Tess stared at the ground, seeing not the raked dirt floor, but instead Nigel's boot grinding remnants of pale, peach-colored silk into a plush Axminster carpet. The gown had not been pink, but that fact hadn’t mattered to Nigel. He’d simply needed an excuse, any excuse, to punish her. She had not been able to attend that ball.
    Nigel had taught her well. Any act of kindness was suspect. Torment was sure to follow, or payment extracted. A man didn't show kindness for nothing. She wondered what payment Dumond might expect.

Chapter Six

     
    While Tess was out with the goat and the chickens, Alexandre picked vegetables in the garden, but when he returned to the kitchen to prepare them, he could not keep the kitten out from under his feet. Augustus insisted upon rubbing his ankles, meowing for his attention, and generally being a nuisance.
    “If it’s food you want, you'll have to wait,” he told the animal as he moved him to an out of the way corner. “I’m allowing the mademoiselle to keep you,” he threw over his shoulder as he returned to the other side of the kitchen and resumed his task, “but I'll be damned if I'll be the one to feed you.”
    Augustus, however, would not stay in the corner, and Alexandre was finally forced to capitulate. He allowed Augustus the dubious pleasure of lying on top of his foot, rubbing the boot leather and purring.
    He couldn't help wondering what the petite mademoiselle would say about the hen house. He hadn't cleaned it for her, of course. It was a task he’d been meaning to do for quite some time, and her slightly green expression had sufficed to remind him of that. Still, a tiny little part of him, a part he didn't want to think much about, hoped she would notice and appreciate what he had done.
    When she returned to the kitchen, he watched her out of the corner of his eye as she took the pails of milk and eggs to the table. She didn't say a word.
    Because she was facing away from him, he could not see her expression. The line of her back was rigidly straight, but her head was bowed, and her hands gripped the table, tenseness in every line of her still form. “Mademoiselle?”
    Her head came up. He heard a choked sound. “Yes?”
    He set down the knife and turned, disentangling the kitten from his feet, and walked over to stand beside her. She didn't move. Rather concerned now, he leaned forward and bent his head to see her expression, but she perceived the movement and turned her face away. “Are you unwell?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “You ...” She paused, taking a deep breath. “You cleaned the hen house.”
    “It needed cleaning.” He didn't like this, the way she stood so still, so rigid, as if to keep control over powerful emotions he couldn't fathom.
    “Was that the