The dark, advancing autumn brought with it delayed sunrises, but nevertheless the most part of asylum's population woke early. Tucked up together in Anne's narrow bed, the Abbé and his lover had not slept a wink all night. The young woman curled her long legs around his, breathing languidly against his bare chest, and groaning loudly when the sound of the other patients' shouting sounded from the rest of the building.
"I would you could remain here with me all day," she said quietly, propping herself up on one elbow to face him, "But you have a job to return to, my love."
He kissed her, sighing with reluctance as he extricated himself from the warmth of her bed and her embrace to do just that. His alibi was already prepared – should anyone question why he was up and about so early, he had developed insomnia. It was not a total lie; he had, after all, been profoundly unable to sleep.
She gazed up at him, wide-eyed with admiration and renewed lust for his body as he started to dress swiftly. Impulsively, she grabbed hold of one of his hands and pressed it to her lips, clutching tightly his slender white fingers.
"Your hands are too beautiful for words," she gushed, ignoring his expression of bewilderment mixed with adoration. "The first time you touched me with them, I thought I would faint…François, how I love you!"
Wearing only his undershirt, he fell down to his knees to hold her close again, burying his face in her soft, abundant hair, trying to absorb her scent and the life within her. After a long moment, he unwillingly pulled away.
"And how I love you, my Annie…" He kissed her one last time, still unable to believe that she had loved him as long as he had loved her, and that she was finally his, body and soul. It was with a heavy heart, and a promise to be with her again that night, that he finally snuck out of her room and crept back to his own, unseen.
The Marquis was a sharp as ever when it came to detecting the change in his dumpling's life, several mornings later.
"You look tired, darling. Could it be that someone has been keeping you awake, at long last?"
Coumier feigned irritation at the question, but could not conceal his guilt for very long. His eyes felt hot and blurry, and his head was pounded with fatigue. It was true: he looked terrible, having spent each night of the previous week wide awake, enveloped in Anne's loving arms, only leaving her bed in the small hours of the morning, when it became feasible that he might be discovered.
Yet he had never in his life been this happy, or satisfied. What happened between the pair of them was not the dirty, sordid sex the Marquis wrote so copiously about – their lovemaking was a concept a world away, so tender and pure that the young man no longer felt any remorse whatsoever about breaking his long-held priestly vows. He now understood for certain that God could only be pleased that he had fallen so deeply in love, and made that wonderful young woman's life finally worth something again.
"Well, François? Tell me everything." The Marquis took a quill out of an inkpot on his antique desk and sat before it, ready to write.
The Abbé grimaced and snatched up the writing implement from the other man's hand. "You will not write about me or her. We will not be characters in your pornography; what we have is far too untainted to suit your pages. And you may not call me by my Christian name, either."
The old aristocrat smiled sardonically. "Now, now, my dear, there is no need to be ashamed. You have been so cheerful of late, so relaxed. Even kinder than usual. Except, of course, to your former love Madeleine."
"What are you talking about? I have never been in love with Maddie! I do love her, though not in the way you would like to think. She is only a child…she has so much to learn of this world. Anne has seen things that have made her mature beyond her years. We understand each other, you see, Marquis."
The older man was touched by the manner in which Coulmier still confided in him, when he had every reason never to trust him at all. "And why is that, my cherub?"
He paused for a moment, closing his eyes. "I, too, was an orphan of the Terror."
The Marquis looked him sombrely in the face. "Oh, but I already knew that about you. I always sensed the nobility in your blood, in your movements, your voice, everything about you. Have you told Anne?"
He shook his head. "I must choose the moment."
"Good. Very considerate of you. But do not think you can stop me from writing about Anne and yourself, for I already have."
The look the young priest gave him was one of heartbreak.
"…Though I will not publish, or even circulate. No one will ever see this particular novella, for even should I want to distribute it, our Madeleine has assured me, in no uncertain terms, that she will never advocate me."
"Madeleine…but…she believes I have rejected her for Anne, does she not?"
"She does. Yet I believe that part of her understands you, and wishes to remain faithful. For in helping me to publish the story of your antics with Mademoiselle Lenoir, she would not only be destroying dear Anne, but you also. That, she does not desire to do."
Coulmier was shocked, but touched at the same time. His brotherly affection for Maddie had never wavered, even as he had courted Anne. He had sorely missed her chaste hugs, kisses and playful conversation in recent days. Thanking the Marquis for listening to his troubles, he walked slowly into the corridor, realising that the situation with the skittish laundress had to be cured as soon as was possible.
* * *
Madeleine knelt on the floor before the door to Anne's quarters, longing to shout out some vicious comments to the other girl, but finding herself unable to do so, for precisely the same reason she had earlier chastised the Marquis for writing naughty stories about the Abbé and his new friend. François was her dearest friend, even as she hated his consorting with this obvious whore.
If she could even call Anne a whore. The classification was highly doubtful. Maddie knew that the Abbé was sharing Anne's bed – it was she, Madeleine, after all, who changed the other girl's sheets, and even in her artlessness she knew what it signified when suddenly they became a lot more crumpled and damp than usual. Anne had made love with a priest, which would ordinarily have meant damnation for both of them. But the Abbé de Coulmier was no ordinary man of God.
He was liberal, resourceful, and endlessly sensitive to the plight and emotions of others. Any time Maddie had felt the weight of the world upon her young shoulders, he had welcomed her into his gentle arms, his voice soothing her as she cried against his chest. He always encouraged her to be completely honest with him. Moreover, proof undeniable of his broad-minded, unconditional kindness and patience was in his genuine friendship with the Marquis.
The only possible occasion that could have made him break his vows of chastity was if he had fallen hopelessly and completely in love with Anne Lenoir. Because of this knowledge, Maddie's jealousy had been short-lived. There was no way she could attempt to destroy Anne, for fear of destroying the Abbé as well.
Madeleine too knew how it felt to be in love.
Through the small notch at the foot of Anne's door, she fed fresh sheets inside, knowing bitterly that later that night his exquisite body would be tumbling upon them with a woman other than she.
She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Mademoiselle Lenoir's quiet voice.
"Mademoiselle LeClerc? Are you still there?"
"…I am, Anne. Is something…wrong?"
From the tone of the girl's next words, Maddie could tell that she was smiling.
"No, nothing. You are surprised that I can speak, I know. Well, I do not, usually. I only speak to my friends…or those with whom I would like to be friends."
Maddie's could not help but grin with surprise and fascination. Perhaps the girl was not as strange as had at first seemed apparent – perhaps Madeleine LeClerc had finally met her match.
* * *
Coulmier was to remain ignorant, for the time being at least, that his dear friend and his lover had begun a tentative camaraderie between themselves. When dusk fell over Charenton, over a month after the first night he and Anne had slept together, all he could think about was being with her again. The stolen kisses they shared during the day were no longer enough. He constantly craved the sensation of pressing his body down on top of hers, pulling her as close to him as he possibly could.
Beneath her quiet aloofness lay an exoticism that she saved for him alone, and which excited him beyond belief. And beneath her drab clothes lay a body so beautiful he could not bare to be far from it for even a few hours.
Once finally within her quarters, the silent stillness of the night closing the rest of the world out, he went automatically into her open arms, his fingers creeping upwards to loosen the ties of her dress. She, on the other hand, did not seem so eager.
"What can be wrong, my precious?" he murmured, his lips pressing into the soft, warm flesh of her throat.
"Nothing awful, just something I feel I must tell you." She pulled her head away, looking intently into the soulful green gaze she could never resist.
"Of course." Still enfolded in one another's arms, they sat down together. Coulmier sighed with enjoyment as Anne trailed her lips across his jaw line and ran a hand along his thigh, before stopping to begin her latest confession.
"I spoke with the Marquis this evening. At the play we put on…"
"Oh, Annie," he groaned, stopping her short. "I asked you not to take part in the theatre! It is no place for a lady, and in any case…I knew he would approach you. He has a taste for young beauties, but he shall not corrupt you. He shall not…"
"He did not attempt to corrupt me! As I told you, he is not such a bad man as people speculate."
"But his writings…"
"How one writes and how one behaves are two different things!" Anne exclaimed, her tone more zealous than he had ever heard it. "He offered me his friendship. You are his friend, are you not?"
The Abbé cradled her sweet head on his shoulder, kissing her silken hair. "I understand, darling. I will not be hypocritical, but do take care if you will insist on keeping his company. You are my innocent little pearl, and I intend to keep you in that condition."
She pulled herself up to a kneeling position beside him, smiling mischievously before kissing him ardently, driving her tongue in between his lips. "Innocent? You call me innocent? I haven't been innocent since you first ravished me with those eyes and with these hands…"
Seconds later, they were making love more passionately than ever, fighting the need to scream out their shared pleasure as the rest of the old building slept soundly, never to know that their beloved Abbé no longer practised the abstinence that he preached.