~Thirteen~By eleven the next morning the sun blasted the earth with an unmerciful dose of heat from its perch in the cloudless deep blue sky, smiting the small creatures roaming the earth.
As she crossed the Cour de Marbre, Jeanne removed her wide-brimmed hat, squinting in the brightness bouncing off the stone walls and marble floor. Though the millinery afforded her protection from the scalding sphere, she longed to feel the air through her hair and upon her head, still beating with dull pain. Instantly her moist scalp tingled as a faint breeze brushed against the thin layer of sweat hiding beneath her silky, cocoa-colored hair. Like a warm and loving hand, the heat from the sun touched the blood-crusted wound and a measure of pain lifted from the laceration and blew away on a zephyr.
M
