Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) by Juliette Benzoni

sham pilgrim’s cloak spread under him. The silver embroideries on his tunic shone softly in the gloom, and where the candle caught them they gleamed gold. He tried to get up, but Catherine signalled to him to stay where he was. She knelt beside him and put the heavy platter, with its appetising burden, down on the ground.
    ‘You must be hungry,’ she said gently. ‘You will need all your strength tonight, so I took advantage of my sister’s going out to bring you some food. The house is empty at the moment. Papa has gone to the House of Pillars, Maman is at Landry’s house because Landry’s mother is having a baby, and heaven knows where Marion, the servant girl, has got to. If things go on like this, you should be able to get out of Paris tonight without any trouble. Landry is coming back at midnight. It’s ten o’clock now.’
    ‘That smells good,’ he said with a smile that seemed to melt the marrow in her bones. ‘I’m really quite hungry’.
    He began devouring the stew, speaking between mouthfuls.
    ‘I still can’t believe my luck, Catherine. When they were taking me to the gallows this evening I was so convinced my last hour had come that I felt quite resigned. I had made my farewells to everything I loved. And then out of the blue you come along and give me back my life! It feels quite strange!’
    All of a sudden he looked very remote. Fatigue and anguish emphasised the fine-drawn look of his features. In the dancing candlelight his golden hair shone like a halo round his handsome face. He forced a smile to his lips. But Catherine noticed in his eyes a look of despair that left her suddenly afraid. ‘But … aren’t you pleased you have been rescued?’
    He glanced up at her and noticed her face cloud over. She looked so frail stood there, cloaked in the shining hair that, now that it had dried, had recovered its usual brilliance. In her green dress she looked disarmingly like some little sylvan nymph. And those enormous eyes of hers, with their liquid depths, reminded him of the young does he used to chase as a child.
    ‘I would be truly ungrateful if I were not,’ he said softly.
    ‘Well then … eat some honey. And then tell me what you were thinking of just then. Your eyes looked so sad.’
    ‘I was just thinking of my own countryside. I was thinking about it on the way to Montfaucon as well. I realised that I would never see it again, and I think it was that that distressed me most.’
    ‘But you will see it again … now you are free.’
    Michel smiled and took a piece of bread, which he dipped into the honey and then chewed absently.
    ‘I know. But then this feeling I have gets the better of me. Something tells me I shall never return to Montsalvy.’
    ‘You mustn’t let yourself think that!’ Catherine said severely. ‘You are only thinking these morbid thoughts because you are tired and weak. Once you have got your strength back and feel safe again, you will find you think quite differently.’
    The passing reference to his native region of France had kindled Catherine’s curiosity. Her need to learn more about this young man who had so bewitched her was irresistible.
    She slid closer to him and watched him thirstily drain the pitcher to its dregs.
    ‘What is the countryside you come from like? Would you tell me about it?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Michel closed his eyes for a moment, possibly to evoke more clearly the beloved images of his childhood. He had imagined them so vividly and passionately during that long gallows walk of his that now they were easily conjured up against the dark screen of his closed eyelids.
    He described for Catherine the high, windy plateau where he had been born. It was a granite country, pierced with little valleys padded with green chestnuts. Around Auvergne the land was pitted with extinct craters, and it was from volcanic rock that the high-piled houses of the village of Montsalvy, crowded round the abbey, were all built – as was the family castle