Love's First Light by Jamie Carie

infatuation with the man had soon faded, leaving him forever gone on army business and she . . . lonely. But when she visited the grave, she felt, for reasons she wasn’t quite sure, peaceful. As if in remembering him and talking to him, they were finally close. Perhaps it was not so much his death she still mourned, but their distant marriage.
    Her room was in the back of the second story—unfortunate for nightly escapades. She had to go through Stacia’s room to gain entry to the short hall at the top of the stairs. Thankfully her frail little sister slept like the dead. Her mother, though, was another thing altogether.
    Her mother’s room, which was much larger and opened directly into the hall, was across from Scarlett’s room. Scarlett couldn’t make a sound on the stairs or her mother would arise amid tangled covers and come running to discover what crises had her daughter up and about so early on a Saturday. Without market day, they were all supposed to be sleeping later.
    It was curious, the way the night seemed to call to her and wake her during this pregnancy. She’d never had trouble sleeping until Daniel’s death. Now she only snatched five or six hours before something woke her. Was it loneliness? Anticipation for the babe to come? Fear for a future that looked so hazy and unwritten?
    Scarlett shook away the thoughts, bit her lower lip, and crept to the top of the stairs. If only there were some light. Her brow knit together as she took the first step. It creaked a little as she grasped hard on the handrail. Leaning her chest back as she’d seen all pregnant women do when traversing stairs, she crept down them until she was sure she’d reached the bottom, her foot feeling about to ascertain it was, indeed, the last step.
    Quicker now, her steps more certain, she made it through the sitting room and into the dark kitchen. One hand reached out in front of her, the other curled protectively around her stomach. My goodness, she was hungry. Reaching for a long baguette, she tore off a hunk, then seeing the leftovers of roast duck from yesterday’s supper, she picked up the plate, grabbed some cheese—and then laughed at herself. She might as well pack a basket, eat while sitting at the gravestone, and watch the sun come up.
    Thinking of the sunrise brought to mind the dark stranger from the market. He’d acted so odd! As if he hadn’t conversed with people in a long time and had forgotten how to comport himself in society. Though his black cloak hid him, she’d seen more of him in the morning light than on their first encounter. He was all tall, lean, tightly wound muscle and had a look as if anything might set him off into some ominous explosion. Despite his deep hood, she’d been able to see glimpses of his face. Longish straight black hair swung over brooding eyes. The memory of his eyes, so intensely blue and filled with fear and pain, brought her thoughts up short as she heaved the basket on her arm. There was a longing in those eyes . . . something she’d not seen before. Some remembered horror shining from them. Those sapphire-rimmed, pale blue eyes had struck her heart like a ghost visiting from a crypt.
    Or hell’s tunnels.
    She turned and made her way back to the sitting room toward her cloak hanging on a hook. She took it down, slipped into the sleeves, and tied the sash firmly above her stomach. With the basket on her arm, she eased open the front door.
    Carcassonne was beautiful at dawn. It was two cities in one. Across the Aude River sat the Cité, the ancient town, with its massive, crumbling castle. And then there was the Bastide St. Louis, where the people now lived, where she had grown up. A bridge, made of row after row of stone, connected the two in a graceful rise and fall over the foam of the river. Few people walked it these days, but there was a time when the castle was the stronghold of the southern boundary of France. Now it was mostly mounds of crumbling, fallen, dangerous