Love's First Light by Jamie Carie Page A

a friend. And he has no family and barely eats.”
    “Probably can’t cook a carrot.” Her mother’s smile softened the complaint.
    Scarlett laughed. “Exactly. That’s why I have asked him to come here and have a good home-cooked meal.” Scarlett moved into the kitchen and took up a steaming bowl of leeks and greens and lentils savored with caraway seeds and butter. She leaned toward her mother as she passed by her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “He will be in raptures upon tasting your good cooking.”
    Her mother pressed her lips together, but more to suppress a smile than scold. “I suppose it will be good for us to extend some charity. He has no family? How did he come here?”
    Scarlett placed the heavy bowl on the table, one hand to her low back, which had been aching more and more of late, and sighed. “I don’t know all of his secrets yet, but—” she turned and smiled at her pretty mother—“I trust you will wrest them from him.”
    Her mother pulled steaming hot loaves of golden bread, made from their personal hoard of flour, from the oven. “You can depend on it, my dear.”
    They shared a glance, each knowing what the other was thinking. This man was something more to Scarlett than mere charity.
    A loud knock on the door had all three women pausing and shrieking. He was early! Stacia curtsied to her mother and sister, then smiled her cat’s smile. “Allow me.”
    She took off her apron on the way to the door, hanging it on a hook by the front door, smoothed back her straight dark hair and swung the door wide. Scarlett hurried behind her.
    He stood there, tall and darkly dressed in clothes that Scarlett could hardly credit to the meager belongings she’d seen thus far. He was dressed as a gentleman, as the Count he claimed to be, in dark blue satin from head to toe with a snow-white shirt complete with lacy, belled sleeves and an intricately tied cravat. He stepped inside, took off his hat with a flourish and brought, from behind his back, a delicate bouquet of cherry red poppies. He held them a bit awkwardly to his chest and then thrust them toward Scarlett’s mother. “I heard you liked the color.”
    She gasped, fluttered her eyelashes in a way that Scarlett had not seen in years, and reached for the flowers.
    “Welcome, to our humble home.” Scarlett’s mother waved him in, then turned and walked into the kitchen, holding the flowers like a prize from the fair. Over her shoulder she chattered, “Such lovely blooms! Wherever did you find them this time of year? Why, I thought poppies were all spent out, but they are one of my favorites.”
    Christophé placed his hat on a low side table and walked further into the room, his gaze never leaving Scarlett’s. “Why, good madam, I found fortune is all. I could not arrive empty handed.”
    Her mother started to say something, and then stopped and dug in the cupboards for a vase to place her prize in.
    Scarlett took advantage of the silence. “Christophé, this is my sister, Stacia. And my mother is Suzanne Bonham.”
    Christophé took up Stacia’s hand in his, leaned over it for a brush of a kiss and said, in such a gallant manner that Scarlett nearly threw back her head to laugh, “Stacia. So good to meet you.” He looked over her hand into her eyes, and Stacia giggled, looking toward Scarlett with a knowing twinkle.
    “How kind you are, sir, to grace us with your presence. Scarlett has talked of little else.”
    Christophé’s brows rose as he looked into Scarlett’s eyes. “Has she, now?”
    “Why, yes. We hear that you are a scientist and have a laboratory in the old Cité. Is it safe, do you think?” Stacia’s eyes were wicked with suppressed laughter.
    “I think your sister can answer that question, mademoiselle. She has, of late, been an assistant of sorts.”
    Scarlett glared at Christophé. “Dinner is ready. I hope you’ve brought your appetite along with your wit.” As she passed him to fetch more glasses