“No,” he said. “Besides, I accepted. I gave him my word. A man is his word.”
Nina nodded and squeezed his hand.
“But I appreciate your generosity,” he said, his voice growing softer, “and know myself lucky that you’d give up everything you treasure for me.”
His gaze pinned her down against the pillows, steady and true.
“I love you, Nina Beaulieu.”
He had not said this yet, and his proposal had been almost an afterthought. It was perhaps silly how her breath caught in her throat when he spoke, given how obvious it was that he cared for her, but it was wonderful to hear it. The fears that, perhaps unreasonably, still dangled in a corner of her soul, were lifted with those few words.
“Would you say it back?” he asked rather timidly.
She bit her lip and then smiled.
“I love you,” Nina said, laying her hands on his chest, and she giggled when he spun her around, making her rest above him, her hair falling like a curtain over his face.
CHAPTER 24
Valérie had a dream that they were in Frotnac, in the intoxicating summer of their youth, when the nights were almost nonexistent and the days stretched on beyond the limits of the possible.
He wore that neat gray suit of his, cheap but carefully pressed, and they sat at a table in the café they used to visit. He was young, with a sheen about his eyes and a lightness in his limbs, and beautiful in the way only a boy can be beautiful.
In real life, the café had been bursting with customers, but in the dream it was the two of them sitting at a table. He held her hand and looked at her, and Valérie realized that their solitude was due to his gaze: he saw nothing but her. To him, the servers and the patrons and the people walking by the window did not exist. She existed, and she alone.
She was everything.
As though she were a goddess, he built a temple to her every morning and knelt before her, supplicating. She rewarded him, once in a while, with a smile or a touch of her hand, a kiss on the lips. But even when she gave nothing, he was happy because she was everything.
A clock struck in the plaza across the street, and he rose, silently bidding her good-bye.
Too soon, she thought.
She followed him outside, down the crooked streets. He was always ahead of her, and she could not catch up with him, but she managed to follow even when he disappeared around the corners or dashed sharply to the left.
He entered a building.
The stairs stretched up too high. This could not be a normal building. It must be a tower.
Up she went, up the winding staircase, and she stopped periodically to explore a hallway, open a door.
She pushed open many doors, but he was not there, until finally she shoved one last door of iron, stepping into a dark room lit by moonlight.
He slept upon the naked stones in this chamber, Hector, but not the young Hector. The Hector of the now, with stubble upon his cheeks and a face that had grown harder, more exact, as if a jeweler had chipped off bits of precious stone to reveal a faceted diamond.
She whispered his name, as she’d done in Frotnac, the exact same inflection, but he did not stir.
She extended a hand, as if to touch his shoulder, but then she noticed the woman at his side. Valérie couldn’t see her face, because it was nestled in the crook of his neck, but she had hair so black, it was almost blue.
Valérie yelled his name this time, and it bounced around the room, but he did not wake.
She noticed then that there was no furniture around them. No mirrors, no paintings, no chairs, no wardrobe. Just the naked stones on which they slept and the moon watching them shyly from the window.
It was because she was everything, and he needed nothing else.
But she’s no goddess, Valérie thought furiously. A creature made of earth and water cannot hope for divinity.
It occurred to her then that if she were divine, he could not hope to hold her as he did.
The girl turned her head. Valérie might see her face now, but she raised a hand to shield her eyes.
She stepped back, and the door closed behind her.
Valérie woke early and was glad to find Gaétan was not at her side. If he’d been there, she might have cried. The dream clung to her like a poisonous cloud, it threatened to reduce her to hysterics, and her whole body trembled.
Valérie snatched her robe and sat in front of her looking glass, a hand at her throat, like a claw, until she grew still.
Slowly she examined her fingers, as if trying to find an imperfection that was not visible. She took the golden band from the bottom of her jewelry box, and it was cool against the palm of her hand.
This angered her. She thought it should burn, it should scald her, as if to punish her for her wickedness. It was nothing but a thin piece of metal, a trinket given to her by a boy who had loved her and thought of her no longer.
Again she looked at her fingers, but they were as they always had been, pale and perfect.
“This spring is giving me an ulcer,” her husband said as he walked in, interrupting her reverie. “Luc Lémy came back from Boniface to tell me he’s challenged Hector Auvray to a duel and he wants me to be his second.”
Valérie ran a hand across her hair. It was happening so fast.
It had been fast in Frotnac, too, hadn’t it? They’d had scarcely one season together. But it had been enough. And love could not bloom again the way first love had, it could not scorch as it did, a fever and a curse.
“Then she’s with him,” Valérie said.
But she knew the answer already. She had spoken because it was a reflex, not conscious thought.
“Étienne is also downstairs. He didn’t see her, but he spoke with Auvray, and he says yes, she is with him and he wants to marry her. And it was as he was telling me that Luc interrupted him to say he was going to fight Auvray and he wanted me to be his second. I think I ought to remain impartial.”
“Impartial?” Valérie asked.
“I’m not sure I should be his second. Maybe one of his brothers can do it—he has many.”
Valérie thought quickly, furiously. The rules of duels established that the combatants could not communicate with each other. All matters were settled by their intermediaries. Only the seconds could speak to each other, write down terms, and determine proper conditions for the duel.
As Luc Lémy’s second, Gaétan would not be able to speak directly to Hector, nor would he be able to discuss anything but terms of the duel with Hector’s second. She did not want Hector and Gaétan chatting. The man was soft. With a bit of pressure from Auvray, he might feel compelled to intervene, even to bribe Luc Lémy to assure his precious cousin obtained what she wanted.
“He trusts you. That is why he’s asked you. And what better show of faith than to act as his second? He is her fiancé, and the grievously offended party. Go downstairs and tell him you’ll agree to it.”
“Valérie, I am not fond of duels. If there was another way—”
“Look at what this man has done!” she exclaimed. “If Hector Auvray had a shred of honor, he wouldn’t have placed us in this predicament. He has soiled your name.”
This caused him discomfort. Gaétan frowned. God, how she hated him then. How weak and stupid he was, with his mouth slightly open like a fish. As if he had not thought the same thing himself, as if he did not realize that the violation of Antonina was a violation of all the Beaulieus.