“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you said you’d marry me.”
“We say a great many things when we are young. Eventually, we grow wiser.”
She turned her back toward him.
They were both quiet, the murmur of the fountain the only sound inside the glass walls of the conservatory. The stone child, face upturned, appeared to be praying. Behind the fountain, in the mirror, she saw herself and Hector. He was staring at her reflection, his gaze burning her.
“Did you even love me, Valérie?” he asked.
She did not reply, her eyes fixed on the woman reflected in the glass, standing there in her dress of ivory chiffon, the purple satin belt around her waist, pearls dangling from her ears and neck.
He was asking about another Valérie, a Valérie she could only vaguely recall.
She saw him turn away from her in the mirror, his eyes now not on fire but cooling, filling with ashes, and the motion struck a panicked chord inside her chest. Valérie turned, too, grasping his sleeve.
“You know I did,” she said. “You know I did.”
She felt like crying now, like the fool she had told herself she would not be, and her fingers knotted with the fabric of his jacket, pulling him closer until he was appallingly near.
“Did you love him, too?” Hector asked.
“No,” she said. “But my family did.”
“What about now?”
Valérie thought of Gaétan. Her husband had disappointed her in a myriad of ways: his lack of passion, his blindness, his almost pathological devotion to his family, and his inability to provide Valérie with a family of her own as was expected—even if she might have resented him if he had given her children.
She could not muster more than a shrug.
“Gaétan is Gaétan. He is a busy man and a kind man, and often a weak man. I am as fond of him as I can possibly be.”
“And us?”
He trapped her wrist with his hands, snagging her, until her fingers were pressed against his chest. She thought of when they’d been younger, his lips against hers, their hands knotted together. She knew they still fit well, she felt it; fit like Gaétan and Valérie did not fit, grossly mismatched.
“There’s nothing to be done now.”
“If you do not love him—”
“He is Gaétan Beaulieu and I am a Véries,” she whispered, almost an automatic reflex.
“A Beaulieu of Montipouret, yes,” Hector muttered, his hands sliding down, releasing her. “An important family, I’ve been told. God knows every girl in every town would want to be married into it, and ladies in yesterday’s finery perhaps the most.”
His voice was vicious, wanting to cut her, and she was surprised to discover it did. It hurt, the way he hurled the words at her. He did not say “whore” but he might as well have.
She colored with anger and could not sputter a single word. Then she looked down and noticed that he’d let go of the bouquet. Nina’s flowers. Valérie picked them up, holding them with care.
“Men also wish to marry into families, hoping perhaps that they might rise above their station, though truth be told, I doubt such a feat could be accomplished.”
“It’s not her family’s name that beckons me, hard as that might be to fathom.”
“Remind me, what do lilies stand for?”
“Innocence,” he said.
“She would be, wouldn’t she?” Valérie held out the bouquet for him.
“There’s something to be said for it,” he replied.
“Indeed. Innocents do not question people’s motives. You’ve come to hurt me, Hector. You’ve come to toy with us. Feel free to toy with her. But you’ll find I am not a piece you can slide across your board.”
He grabbed the bouquet with slow hands. A petal or two fell to the floor.
“Follow Antonina around and wed her and bed her and have a merry life. It is not my concern,” Valérie said, her voice like nectar as she sat down on her stone bench once more.
“If you asked me now to leave and never come back, I would,” he said.
She knew he was telling the truth. Because it would be akin to a noble deed, part of a martyrdom he might relish. But she did not want to give him that satisfaction, the knowledge that he disturbed her, that she could not bear to have him near her. To admit it would be defeat and Valérie would not be defeated.
“I’m not going to ask anything of you,” she said.
“Very well,” he replied tersely.
Hector left the conservatory with his lilies under his arm, his steps loud upon the stone floor. She sat in the solarium for a long while, finally rising and sweeping into the salon, where she found Hector and Antonina. She was putting the flowers into a white vase.
“Look, Cousin. Hector has brought me lilies again,” the girl said, her smile wide.
“I know,” Valérie said. “I saw them.”
She patted Nina’s hand, a dismissive gesture, glancing at Hector with detachment.
* * *
He was now a regular fixture, dropping by three days a week, and the zeal earned smiles from Gaétan, who thought his cousin had finally netted herself a sweetheart. Valérie had thought he’d end the charade after the third, fourth visit. She’d quietly bet on it. But there came the tinkle of the bell, which never failed to draw a shiver from Valérie, and then the sure steps of Hector upon her polished floors.
Most days, she ignored him, wearing a stoic mask. Seldom did she permit him to glimpse a stray glance of affection. But one day, well, it had been a long day. Last week, her cousin had stopped by to ask for money. It was the same old conversation. They had nothing, only the stones of Avelo, which had once been a great fortress and was now a ruin, and the house in Loisail where she’d grown up, which was falling to pieces with each passing year. Wouldn’t Gaétan advance them money? They needed another loan.
Valérie despised this mendicant’s dance. She had accounts at the best stores in the city, but her family didn’t need gloves and hats and silver pins for their hair. She required cash, and that meant having to ask Gaétan. She put it as best she could, using her sweetest tone. Gaétan followed her lead in most things, but when it came to her family or his bank account, he was cautious.
“It’s a little nothing of a loan,” she said.
“Valérie, I have given him three loans in two years,” Gaétan protested.
“You could have bought him that army post, and then it would be no concern. But since you refused—”
“Buying an army post. Valérie, what a thought. That would have been in poor form.”
It was tradition that military officers who had not attained certain ranks at appropriate times were forced out of service, and this is what had happened to her cousin, who was rudely divested of his crimson uniform. It did not have to be like this. Merit was the usual coin in the army, men rising by skill and not due to their fortune alone, but although the system of commissions had been mostly abolished, it was not entirely gone: the king’s personal corps maintained the practice. There had been a chance for the cousin to find himself in a comfortable position, but Gaétan had refused to provide the required sum of money for this purpose. Now Valérie’s cousin faced the fate of all men like him: doomed to mingle at taverns frequented by soldiers, his clothes growing more threadbare, trading stories and drinking cheap wine.