No Sweeter Heaven: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 2 Read Online Free

shall just have to think of a way to soften the blow.”
    Coffey glared at Lily. “You don’t intend to compound your sins by lying to an abbot, my lady?”
    “Oh, please don’t call me that, for then I know you are truly put out with me. No, I don’t intend to lie, but then I don’t think the abbot really needs to know about Jean-Jacques and his troubles, do you?” Lily tapped her mouth with her finger. “I’ll have to think of something milder by way of an explanation. Something harmless.”
    “You’ll only make more trouble for yourself, Elizabeth, by not telling the truth,” Coffey said sternly. “It is bound to come back to you. Take my word for it.”
    “Nonsense,” Lily said impatiently. “Anyway, I can’t think at all unless I have something to eat. Do you think you could ask the innkeeper to send up a supper tray, and perhaps some hot water so that I might wash? I ought at least to look respectable for the abbot when he comes.”
    Moving astonishingly quickly for a woman who needed a cane to get about, Coffey disappeared through the door.
    Having successfully distracted Coffey from the tonguelashing she knew was forthcoming, Lily breathed a sigh of relief and began to undress, looking ruefully at her ruined stocking. It was extraordinarily lucky that her stocking was the only thing that had been ruined.
    “But, oh, how is it that I am always getting myself into trouble?” she moaned and threw herself onto the bed, arms flung over her head.

2
    Lily washed, changed, and managed to eat a good dinner before Dom Benetard was scheduled to arrive at the inn, and she felt much better for all three. Not much could put Lily off her food, which she always approached with relish. That was why her usual punishment of bread and water for a week was so aggravating. Father Mallet’s philosophy held that starving her greedy body would feed her needy soul—but then Father Mallet never looked as if he enjoyed anything.
    Lily arranged a private parlor for the meeting, the innkeeper suitably impressed that she was receiving Dom Benetard. She gathered that the townspeople were in great awe of the man. Well, that was all well and fine, as it secured her the parlor with no trouble, but Lily was not nearly as impressed as the innkeeper. Dom Benetard was merely an elevated priest, and she knew from bitter experience how to deal with that breed. Keep one’s eyes down, pretend humility, agree with everything, say a penance or two, then go one’s own way.
    She settled herself in a chair by the fire, pulled her dress down to be sure it covered her ankles, and placed her hands demurely in her lap. She hoped she looked the picture of innocence, although the picture would be destroyed if her father had said anything to Dom Benetard regarding what he considered to be her impossible behavior.
    Coffey had brushed her hair until it shone and arranged it primly atop her head as the old nurse felt befitted a young lady. Lily could only hope that Dom Benetard would not be put off by the fiery color that Father Mallet called the taint of the devil, for she needed the abbot to think her beyond reproach. Satisfied that she had done all she could to deflect the repercussions of the plan that had so badly gone awry, she took a deep breath and prepared to receive the monk.
    In the end, it felt more as if it were Dom Benetard who received her. He arrived in his simple black habit, politely refusing her offer of fruit and wine, instead focusing his clear, tranquil gaze upon her. Lily realized instantly, and with strong confusion, that this was no Father Mallet. This was a man the likes of whom she had never met, whose very presence seemed to wrap her in a cloak of peace.
    He sat opposite her and she focused on the large but simple wooden cross that hung on his chest. Her eyes crept up again to his strongly boned face. His features were even and pleasantly arranged; she judged him to be somewhere in his early forties, young for the weighty