CHAPTER 22
It was the singing that woke him up, not the sound itself but the strangeness of hearing it. For a moment Hector wondered if he were dreaming.
But, no: singing coming from his bathroom.
He had never expected to hear such a sound, it was a domestic detail and it was misplaced, causing him to lie under the sheets with his eyebrows furrowed for several minutes.
He had shared his bed with a few women over the years, but it had not been something so intimate and cordial that one of them would have wound up in his bathroom, singing, in the morning. Moreover, if he had ever pictured a woman he might fancy living with, that woman had inevitably been Valérie, and not once had he thought Valérie capable of indulging in song.
Hector grabbed his lounging robe and followed the singing, standing at the doorway, his hands in his pockets, his fingers nervously rubbing against one another.
One of the most important considerations when he had taken this apartment was the bathroom. Hector could do without a number of things, but he demanded a first-class bathroom. When he started out in Iblevad, he’d been forced to content himself with water that was often icy cold and a landlady who begrudged him every single bath he dared to take.
This bathroom was generous and had green and white tiles, with the usual brass fittings, the added luxury of a fireplace and a claw-foot tub. Nina had climbed into the tub and piled her hair upon her head, and she was humming a tune he’d once heard when he was younger, a rhyme about a sailor who’d gone off to sea.
He saw her from behind, saw the curve of her neck, and extended a hand to brush a stray lock that fell down her back.
She jumped at his touch, splashing water, and turned her head over her shoulder in surprise.
“I should have announced myself,” he said quickly, realizing this was likely an embarrassing moment for her. He did not want to seem like a lecher. “I’ll let you be.”
“It is fine,” Nina replied, and stretched out an arm toward him.
He took her hand and planted a kiss on the back of it and she smiled prettily. He scratched his head, not knowing what one should say in this situation. He’d learned etiquette from a manual, but there had been no chapter on the matter of women.
“Do you always sing when you bathe?” he asked.
“The place an intelligent person sings is in the bathroom. One sounds better. Did I wake you?”
“Yes. It does not matter. I’ll make you breakfast, come.”
Nina slid down under the water, until only her head was showing, and bit her lower lip. “Hector, do you think you might lend me a bathrobe?” she asked.
“A bathrobe?”
“I could fashion myself one out of your bedsheets if you can’t bear to part with it.”
“I guess I need to buy you proper clothes,” he said. “I suppose it’s not what people mean when they say a trousseau, but things are what they are.”
Nina gave him a look of displeasure, and it confused him. He was attempting to be considerate.
“You do realize I am going to marry you,” he said, as it suddenly occurred to him that he had not mentioned the legalities before.
“It’s customary to ask rather than assuming a positive answer.”
“Well … one would think,” he mumbled.
“One would.”
She shook a hand, sprinkling his feet with water, and looked up at him.
“You might propose,” she said.
That was what was bothering her.
A proposal, yes. Did he have to kneel? In his robe, by the tub? He decided he’d look less ridiculous if he stood and clasped his hands behind his back, not wanting to accidentally send the green and blue bottles sitting on a shelf stumbling to the floor due to a careless expression of his talent. He ordinarily did not lack self-control, but then again, he was nervous.
“I have money, you shan’t be concerned about our finances. No name to speak of, but I’m certain you know that already,” he said. “I am not the easiest man to live with, and I am sure more than one person might say I am rather bothersome, but I will try to be the best man I can be for you.
“With that taken into account, perhaps you’d marry me?” he asked her.
Young women expected flowers and florid speeches, or so he had been told, and thus he feared it was not enough. But when he looked at her, he could tell she was content, even if her eyes were downcast in an odd gesture of demureness.
“I suppose I could spare your reputation,” she said.
“My reputation is dear to me. Now, let me lend you my bathrobe so you can get out of the water and give me a good-morning kiss.”
Nina held on to the edge of the bathtub and pulled herself up. She blushed but looked distinctly pleased as she stood before him, naked, sliding a hand up his neck. He bent down to kiss her.
“Good morning,” she said.
She did not have the ease of the consummate flirt, but there was something rather endearing about her, and he laughed and kissed her a second time, feeling terribly happy. Each word she had spoken to him since they met, he thought, had been like kindling, until in wonder, he had to admit he was on fire, and now that he looked at her in the morning light, he could not understand why he had not realized this truth sooner.
He found and handed her his bathrobe and went to the kitchen, wondering if he could possibly purchase a ready-made wedding dress for Nina or if she’d have to do with a common gown.
There came a heavy knocking, and he steered toward the entrance of his apartment instead, sighing at the knowledge that whoever was on the other side would be displeased.
It turned out to be Étienne, a small miracle.
“I am not going to ask whether Antonina Beaulieu is with you. I can see by the stupid look on your face it must be the case. You never smile before twelve o’clock, and you do not smile at all if you can help it,” he said, taking off his hat.
“I am not smiling.”
“It’s in your eyes, you fool. Let me in.”
Hector stepped aside, and Étienne sat on an old bench against a bare wall.
“Her family is beside themselves, and you do not want to know what Luc was muttering about you last night,” Étienne told him.
“I can imagine.”
“You could not, perhaps, have run off with her last summer? It would have been a lot more courteous.”
“I could not have fallen in love with her last summer.”
“And I thought I wouldn’t get to hear you utter those three words before I died. Several miracles this morning.”
Étienne flipped his hat between his hands and bent forward, looking rather tired.
“You need to go see Gaétan Beaulieu at once, if you do love her. He needs assurances.”
“I’ll marry her this instant if he wants me to,” Hector said.
“And my brother—”
“Hector Auvray, open this door or I will break it down!” came a loud, gruff voice, making both men turn in the direction of the sound.
“Speaking of the devil,” Étienne said. “Let me do the talking.”
Étienne straightened himself up and opened the door. Perhaps Étienne meant to launch into a greeting, but Luc Lémy rushed in with such fury, shoving his brother aside, that no words were exchanged.