Unchaining Alice

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

To say her name out loud for the first time in so long felt strange yet comforting. It reminded her of the few innocent years she had in childhood where she, her parents and her brother lived in a tiny little apartment in Paris and enjoyed each other’s company.

“Alice,” James repeated after a long moment of silence. His dark blue irises were practically non-existent as his pupils had widened do much. His lips were parted and she could hear how quick his breathing was.

She so desperately wanted to trust him. She so desperately wanted him to know her, the real her, the her so few people knew.

“Alice,” Alice nodded. “Alice Devereaux.”

“Devereaux is your surname,” James nodded. “I hadn’t heard it before.” He was in disbelief. A pseudonym was clearly not what he had pictured her story would be. “Why do you use a different name?” he asked.

Alice abandoned the dishes and dried her hands on the front of her apron, holding on to it so that she could put some of her nervous energy into it. It was now or never. She had no idea how he was going to react, she just prayed that he wouldn’t run away from her. “Because if anyone knew who I was and what I had done then they could turn me into the French soldiers and I would be executed.” She didn’t want to be just another body. She would like to die in her bed when she is old and grey and not when she had life still there to live. She wanted a dignified burial, not an unmarked grave.

“You were a part of the revolution, weren’t you?” James said, clearly piecing together her comments about the revolution with the new information she had given him. His voice wasn’t understand nor was it accusing. She could not decide what he was thinking.”

Alice merely nodded, twisting her apron in her hands and looking to the ground, too afraid to meet his eyes. “My family was for decades. My grand-mèrè and grand-pèrè fought for Louis’ ‘ead all those years ago, but it went too far. I beg you not to compare me to them. The deaths were merciless and cruel. Just thinking of the awful guillotine made her shudder. She’d witnessed executions in the past with Jacques, he enjoyed them, but she couldn’t bear them. “Maman once joked about the dauphine’s death and since then I’ve always had a sense of right and wrong. The revolutionaries forgot what their fight was about.”

Taking a chance, Alice looked up at James but his face was blank. He looked like he was in shock. He probably expected her to be a poor pauper with not but a guinnea to her family’s name but there was so much more to her past, more than he could understand, she was sure.

“My grandmother remembers that revolution. She heard horrid stories. She told us. They murdered aristocrats … Alice,” James said tentatively. She couldn’t appreciate the sound of her own name when it was said so carefully. He pronounced it differently though, and she liked the English way. “Had I been there I would have been killed too. My family with me.”

Alice could feel tears forming in her eyes. That was the part that she hated. “I know. It was awful, believe me, ‘ad I been alive then I should have voiced my ‘atred of the actions. My revolution was much different, the cause was much different. I was but fifteen when we were suddenly armed and behind a barricade of furniture that the people had given us. You can’t understand what it was like. You’ve never gone ‘ungry or had to worry about infectious diseases. People were starving and dying every day and nobody cared. So we fought and we lost.” Thinking back to the haunting day, Alice felt a shudder travel down her spine. The noises of cannons, the smell of freshly fired gunpowder and the endless pools of blood all flooded her memory. It was as if the fight were yesterday and Jacques had only just been killed.