She smiled at that. “I don’t like jewelry.”
“Nonsense, all women do. I’ll buy you a horse. There.”
Only a man like Luc Lémy would think to bribe her with a horse and a ring. She turned on her heels, away from him, but then he wrapped his arms around her from behind and she felt his lips against her hair, his chest pressed against her back.
“Why won’t you marry me? It’ll be fun,” he whispered.
“I always thought I’d marry for love,” she whispered back.
“I love you,” he said so effortlessly, she thought it could not be true.
If it was a lie, was it so bad? If love was the terrible misery coursing through her veins and nothing but vain longing, perhaps it was not so wonderful as she had presumed. Whatever she had with Luc, he was there, with her, with smiles and jokes and embraces.
Her family wanted this, Gaétan was pushing the point. She needed to live up to their expectations. And Hector had made a fool of her once more.
She closed her eyes and the tears returned. She recalled Oldhouse and her tricks with cards and the trips to the Devil’s Throne, and how hard she’d tried to scorch Hector Auvray from her mind. It had not worked, and there she was again, like standing atop the rocks, ready to shatter once more.
Luc Lémy turned her around, and she was weak, she felt like she might fall, but he held her up. “Don’t cry,” he said.
“I’m not … It’s … If you’ll give me a moment,” she said in a paper-thin voice.
He gave her a kiss instead. He constantly did that, ambushing her with caresses, and she realized he’d always be like this, that he’d attempt to wash away any hurt and any sin with a kiss on her lips, but it didn’t matter now.
He said he loved her, and it had sounded pretty.
And when he kissed her she didn’t think, she simply felt, and it was better than to have to deal with the anger, the sadness, the despair.
She buried her face in his chest.
“Let me make you happy,” Luc said. “Let me take you away.”
It almost did not matter that Hector did not love her. Except it did. It absolutely did. But to heap on top of heartbreak the humiliation of having been twice passed over for Valérie, twice fooled. Loisail was poisonous; it made her sick. She wished to be far from it, and when Luc spoke, she listened. She really listened this time.
“You asked me if I ever wanted to get away. If you want us to go, we can go.”
“I do want to go away,” she told him. “Far from everyone, until I remember nothing from this city.”
She thought that for all his swagger and his posturing, Luc could be kind, and perhaps he was right, he could make her happy. And she wanted, more than anything in that moment, for someone to come and save her. For a hero to vanquish her fears and set the world right, and he looked the part of a knight in a book, he spoke the part.
“Then that is what we shall do,” he said.
Nina nodded.
“You’ll marry me, then?” His hand rose, coming to rest lightly against her cheek, and he smiled.
“I’ll marry you,” she said.
CHAPTER 18
He cut himself shaving and uttered a loud blasphemy at the mirror, sending his razor spinning against the tiles with a flicker of his eyes.
Hector enjoyed certainty. He followed a rigorous schedule; he paid attention to the tick of the clock, marking the proper hours for appointments and activities. Lately, though, he found himself terribly uncertain, and the feeling was not improving. That morning he felt as if he were sinking into quicksand.
More than a week had passed since Valérie visited him at the Royal, plunging him into a miasma. He had wondered what he might feel if he ever spoke with her again. But rather than a surge of the old love that once nestled in his heart, there was only sadness.
His mad ardor had withered.
There was also something liberating in the moment. He was like the man who is given a reprieve by the executioner.
And then she had swung the ax again, threatening to snatch Nina away.
Not that he could claim Nina was his in any way; it was ridiculous to imagine she might be carried off like a stolen brooch.
It was Thursday, and Hector had to go to the Royal. He was scrupulous in his punctuality. Mornings were not to be wasted. Yet he’d risen late.
Which was why he was in a bad mood that day. He made the blade spin in a whirl of silver and then stilled it. He leaned down to pick it up, washed it, finished shaving.
He concluded his preparations but stopped at the door.
Nina had not sent a letter, and the sensation that all was amiss, that Valérie had said or performed a new act of cruelty, was intensifying.
She is under no obligation to see me, he thought. And I cannot saunter into her home.
Perhaps he could send her a note. A simple, pleasant greeting. It would not be too bold. This thought revived him, and he set off to work, penned the note, and asked a boy at the theater to deliver it.
Unfortunately, the boy returned within the hour, looking mortified. “The lady said you should have your note back,” he told Hector.
“She said what?”
“She sent it back.”
He wanted to barge into her home, beg for an explanation, and he forced himself to remain calm. It would have been unseemly, and she would be put off by such rudeness. He sent another note the week after, and the answer was the same. Miss Beaulieu was not accepting his correspondence. What on earth had happened?
One day later, although it was a morning when Hector should have ventured toward the theater, he grabbed his coat and had a carriage take him to Three Bridges Quarter. There he waited in front of Nina’s address, though not for long.
He was relieved to see her walking out of the house on her own. It would have been awkward to have to pry her from a chaperone, perhaps impossible.
He quickly crossed the street and approached her, speaking before she had even caught sight of him.
“What has Valérie told you that you refuse to converse with me?” he asked, seeing no reason to waste time with pleasantries. His imperturbability had gone missing, he was near panic, and that more than anything pushed him forward, forgetting the politeness and conventions he upheld, which kept him safe.
“Mr. Auvray, I have an important appointment today and I cannot be tardy,” she replied, and though she looked surprised, she managed to sound utterly firm in her intent.
“Not until you explain what has brought about this change in you. I thought we were friends again,” he replied.
Nina stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. She sounded more hurt than angry. “Can you truly be this brazen?” she asked.
“If by brazen, you mean I enjoy knowing what kind of wrong I’ve committed, yes,” he said. And he was being ill-mannered and she’d think him vulgar, but he could not let her leave without an answer.
“You lied to me, again.”
“I do not understand.”
She walked as quickly as she spoke, her eyes fixed resolutely ahead of herself. “Valérie has told me how you have pledged your love to her, after you told me she no longer held a place in your heart. Well, the both of you can be happy, knotted in each other’s embrace, like the pair of snakes you are, for I refuse to play whatever sick game you wish to play with me.”