In short, she was not his sweetheart, and this confused Nina. If he was to marry her, shouldn’t he spare a kiss for her and declare his love? She was certain they’d wed and had written practically as much when she corresponded with her cousins and her sister. The whole household watched them both with expectant eyes. It could not be her imagination, as Valérie implied. That day, when she invited him to Oldhouse, she’d thought he’d kiss her.
The answer, then, must be he was shy. She’d have to have enough boldness for the both of them. Should he remain aloof, she would put pen to paper and express her affections. She did like him, although she had not ever thought how a lady would go on about revealing this to a man.
As she was considering this, she saw a white object on the floor, half-hidden behind a curtain.
“There!” she exclaimed, and rushed to pick up the model she’d been looking for. It was heavy and Nina could not imagine how it had ended up there—though, when she was nervous or excited, she did have the tendency to move things around the room without touching them.
Nina held the model up between her hands.
“My brain, Mr. Auvray,” she joked.
“A fine one it is,” he said, grabbing the model and turning it around in his hands.
His finger traced the porcelain ridges and folds, the names of each region, which had been engraved upon the white surface.
“It’s chipped,” he said, showing the chunk missing.
“A tad of frontal lobe, gone,” she said. “Do you know that the physiologist Bertrand Ariste has been studying this area?”
“I did not know.” Hector set the porcelain brain upon a shelf and patted it before turning toward her. “You’re an exceptional specimen yourself,” he said. “Do not forget that point, ever.”
Nina decided it was the best compliment anyone had paid her. But he gave her a curious look that was, she thought, half sadness.
She wanted to extend her hand and touch his face, to ask him what made him sorrowful, and then, to kiss his mouth, to lavish caresses upon him. She did not dare, not yet, but she knew well that the quivering feeling inside her could not be contained any longer. If he didn’t, she would!
CHAPTER 16
Hector was not one for laxness. He’d spent his whole life climbing up the social ladder, running from place to place, jumping from task to task, asking his assistant, Mr. Dufren, to fetch him one prop or another. In fact, upon learning Hector was going to spend a few days resting in the countryside, Dufren had not believed Hector at first, thinking it was a practical joke.
Hector liked having markers in his life, elements that could guide him. Now when he opened his shutters in the morning, he did not know what he was supposed to do. A relaxing country stay baffled him, though it did not irritate him as it irritated Luc Lémy, who yearned for the city for entirely different reasons.
Hector quickly found a rhythm to Oldhouse. There was an early breakfast in his room, and then he’d venture down either to accompany Nina on one of her insect-hunting expeditions or for a walk around the house. Once this purpose had been accomplished, Hector tended to camp in the library. In the afternoon, there was supper to be had, everyone piling into the dining room. Afterward, several of them usually retreated to the great hall for conversation. There, or in the library, Nina and Hector put their talent to use.
In Loisail, Nina did not display her talent in public and they did not practice tricks in Valérie’s presence. But upon his arrival at Oldhouse, Nina’s mother had asked if he would not perform for them. Hector obliged, presenting the sort of act he might have executed in cafés or taverns in his youth: spinning two plates, opening a book onto a page, making a coin dance above his open hand. When he was done and they’d all clapped, Hector turned to Nina and asked her if she wouldn’t show her family the trick with the coin. At first she had not wanted to, shy, but then she’d changed her mind and made the coin hover above her hand, blushing and glancing down when she was done.
Her family was surprised. He gathered that Nina’s talent had been more about knocking down books from bookcases by accident or shuffling cutlery in the kitchen drawers without realizing it than any formalized application of the ability, but that was no longer the case. Thus, in the evenings, they generally settled together to practice in view of all.
That afternoon was no different. Luc stood by the fireplace, Valérie rested on an overstuffed chair, while Hector and Nina occupied opposite sides of an old divan. They played with a pack of cards in the dim, cool room.
He shuffled the cards and then inclined his head, indicating it was her turn. Nina moved her left hand, making three cards slide from his deck and float toward her waiting fingers. He shuffled the cards again and again inclined his head.
“Dear me, how many times are you two going to do that?” Luc asked, hovering over Hector’s shoulder.
Luc was bored. He had been bored for the past half hour, fidgeting and circling them, frowning and stepping back. He was like a child, quick to pick up a toy and quick to forget it, always seeking a new, shiny amusement.
“We are practicing,” Hector said. “It’s important to get it right.”
“Whatever for? It is not as if Miss Beaulieu is a performer at the Royal, as you are.”
“It’s not the point.”
“What is the point? It’s all incredibly odd, this business with the cards. Weren’t you building a house with them yesterday? What shall that prove?”
“Physics,” Hector said.
“I’ll say, it’s peculiar to see a woman doing this,” Luc declared.
“Perhaps Nina means to reinforce her reputation as the Witch of Oldhouse,” Valérie said.
Valérie sat half-reclined, her lips curved into a sneer, her pale skin contrasting with the darkness of the room and granting her a provocative air. She was alluring, but when Hector glanced at Nina and saw the way her eyes went wide with quiet pain, he felt desire wilting from him.
“That is a cruel taunt to repeat,” he said, his voice hard.
Valérie leaned back haughtily. “Are you to reproach me? These idiotic parlor tricks are fit for rogues in gambling dens, not a proper lady. Not that Antonina behaves like a lady. Half the time she is close to a savage.”
“Pardon me, but Antonina is a true lady, unlike some others who put on airs and merely pretend to be gentlewomen,” he affirmed, his eyes firmly set on the blond woman, the barb undeniable and as sharp as a saber.
Valérie stood up at once in a fury of pink damask and marched out of the room with such haste, several people stopped speaking. Hector sat in silence, letting the three cards that had been floating in front of him fall down upon the divan.
“Thank you,” Nina said.
Hector looked up at her and saw she was smiling. “You’ve slain a dragon for me,” she added.
“I’ve been crude and will no doubt pay dearly for it.”
“She deserved it,” Nina said, her voice low. “You don’t know how it was when I was small, how they’d taunt me for it. I didn’t mean to make the flour fly through the kitchen, I didn’t mean to make the stones rain or the porcelain shatter. It happened and they’d frown or they’d laugh or they’d say, ‘There goes the Witch of Oldhouse.’”