Once she arrived, she was quickly ushered into Hector’s dressing room. She noted the profusion of objects in there. Props, books, and the large desk dominating the space. Behind it sat Hector. She closed the door and he rose as she walked in. His smile turned into a frown.
“You expected someone else, I suppose,” she said as she took off her hat. This, along with the veil, would shield her. They were not of the same height, but casual observers would assume it was Antonina Beaulieu, not Valérie, who had visited. After all, she’d given that name at the entrance.
“I did. What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I’ve come to talk about Antonina.”
Valérie tossed her hat onto a chair upholstered in crimson velvet, a pattern of golden vines upon it. She ran a hand carelessly upon his desk, picking up a black box and looking at its contents. A beetle lay inside. This was so indicative of Antonina’s taste that it immediately confirmed Luc’s suspicions, and Valérie dropped the box as if she’d been scalded by boiling water.
She pressed her hands together.
“What about Antonina?” Hector said. His voice was hard as granite. But she’d expected this. She’d expected to meet his resistance. And she knew she could move him.
“She has a suitor. Luc Lémy. Young, handsome, charming, well connected. I think they’d make a lovely couple.”
“What seems to be the problem, then?”
“The problem is you,” Valérie said, her voice light, like crystal shining under a beam of sunlight.
Hector was leaning on his desk. In the privacy of his dressing room, he’d taken off his jacket; thus he stood in a gray vest and his white shirt, the top two buttons undone, no cravat. The casualness of his attire reminded her of their time in Frotnac when formalities were a distant consideration.
If Antonina had had a chance to see him like this … Valérie could understand her reluctance with Luc. Hector was terribly attractive.
“She’s very young, you see. I think she’s gotten it into her head that you might marry her one day, despite everything, and this holds her back from opening her heart to Luc,” she said, measuring him with her gaze. “I am certain you’d want her to be happy. For that reason I’d ask that you cease speaking to her. It can’t be that difficult, can it?”
“How do you know I’ve been speaking with her?”
“Hector,” Valérie said, smiling, “do you take me for a fool?”
“If Nina does not want to see me anymore, she can let me know herself,” Hector said, and he sat down again.
He began to scribble on a piece of paper, their meeting apparently at an end. His irritation only amused Valérie more. It always had. Like a match against the box, she’d caused the flame to bloom and enjoyed the ensuing fire.
“I understand your resistance. You’d be giving up a toy. But I’m sure you can find more amusing pursuits.”
Valérie rounded his desk and took ahold of another black box with a beetle inside. This time the sight of it did not upset her. It was but a lifeless thing, devoid of any power.
Like Antonina.
“Last summer, you wanted me to run away with you. That option is out of the question, but I believe I could entertain your company a few times,” she said.
Valérie let the box slide from her fingers onto the desk. It landed next to a silver letter opener.
Hector frowned, his attention focused on the box, his eyes narrowed. “You find yourself suddenly in need of a lover, Valérie?”
“I never find myself in need of anyone, Hector. I am merely offering certain terms.”
A tryst or two should be enough, she thought. She did not intend for it to amount to more than that. Valérie saw no point in a long affair, not when it was weighed against the danger it entailed. But a meeting, perhaps a couple, if it might pry him off Antonina, seemed a fair exchange. There was much to gain with Antonina’s marriage.
And there was also the personal satisfaction it would bring Valérie. Hector was hers. He had never belonged to another, nor would he ever. Whatever it took, he was hers.
“Do you think I am a dog to whom you can throw scraps?” he asked in a low voice.
He was attempting, she knew, to appear cool and distant. But it was an act, like his performances in the theater. The line his mouth traced was not born of irritation alone. She knew him better than he knew himself.
“I am Valérie Véries, and these are no scraps,” she told him.
She extended a hand to touch his cheek and he allowed the gesture, turning his chair to look fully at her. Then he stood up, his gaze never leaving her face, and she tilted her face up, smiling.
“How foolish of me. I should get on my knees and thank the heavens that you would open your legs to me for five minutes.”
The words hurt more than they should have, but more than that, it was the way he shook his head that made her want to dig her nails into his face. There was derision there.
Yes, yes, you should get on your knees, she thought.
“How dare you!” she said.
“How dare you, Valérie.”
The quality of his anger surprised her, not the emotion itself. She had expected anger; they were no strangers to it. But this was black and ice cold, not the red-hot anger they had shared. It was dead, festering.
For the first time, she doubted herself, and this doubt made her sputter, her voice too shaky for her own liking. “Try to pretend all you want. You still want me. You want me and not her.”
Hector scoffed and glanced down, as if examining the pattern of the rug beneath his feet.
Valérie’s hands twitched at her side. Close to panic, she shivered. “We both know it,” she told him.
Hector did not reply and she grasped his arm, maneuvering to ensure that he was looking down at her.
“You think me beautiful. Thrice as beautiful as she might ever be.”
Valérie was indeed magnificent in that moment, anger making her eyes shine like a delicate glaze had been applied to them, every line in her body harmonious. He looked at her, appreciative, and she was aware he recognized this perfection, that he could not turn from it.
“You are beautiful, Valérie. I don’t think you’ll ever cease to be beautiful, and you’ll continue to drive men crazy with your beauty. But there is no goodness in you, just poison,” he said without malice, as if he were explaining a difficult arithmetic operation.
She faltered, astonished at how painful it was to speak, how her heart coiled and snagged. But she did find words aplenty after a minute, each one bathed in animosity.
“And there is goodness in your virgin girl? What do you hope to gain? Blood on your bedsheets, the clumsy caress of a child. She has no more wit than a fish snatched from water, and a face as enticing as a piece of blank paper. You’ll be tired of her within a fortnight.”
She looked at him in triumph, satisfied by her speech, her indignation neatly laid before him. Her experience told her now he would reply with equal fury, and that, being familiar territory, she could navigate with ease. She could guide him through the waters of rage.
But he looked more confused than angry, and then he didn’t look angry at all.
“You know what is wrong with you, Valérie? You think everyone has the same low opinion of the world that you have. You simply cannot imagine anything else, stuck in the muck as you are. But I can at least hope for something better.”
Pity.
He was looking at her with pity, the look one might spare a beggar holding up a grubby, shaking hand.
Her palm collided with his cheek. He stood unmoving. Caught in his cold stare, it was she who was forced to retreat, to blink away the salt from her eyes.
“You’ll regret crossing me,” she whispered.
“I am sure of it.”
Valérie snatched her hat from the chair and put it on, rushing toward the door. She stopped by the entrance to give him one last look. “Best forget about the girl, Hector. I won’t let you have her. Ever.”
She was dazed by the weight of their conversation, and when she found herself back in her home, she stumbled into the conservatory. She stood there, the sun shining through the glass, the scent of roses invading her nostrils.
She took in a mouthful of air and pressed her hands against her face.
The cloying scent of the roses made her turn and look at the precious white blooms that she’d carefully reared. Yet, now that she leaned down, she saw one of them was blighted. One of her roses was slightly imperfect.
She took the shears the gardener used to trim the plants, carefully snipping off the offending bloom.
She stepped back, surveying her work, and cut off another rose. The flower landed on her feet, petals as pale as a new moon.
A madness struck her then, and unthinking, Valérie began to hack at all the roses. She cut and cut and cut until not a single rose remained upon its stalk.
When she had finished, her arms bore the traceries of thorns.
Chapter 16
GAETAN PACED BY THE TALL windows of his office as he read the letter.
His office was considerably larger than Valérie’s, though decorated in the same style. On one wall he had set up several hunting trophies, memories of his visits to the woods near Oldhouse. A deer’s head with a magnificent set of antlers was the central piece, commanding attention.
Gaetan had commissioned a portrait of Valérie to decorate the other wall, and she sat in it in a pale rose dress, with a fan in her hand. The painting should have been in a more visible space, atop the stairs perhaps, but he said he wanted to look at her at all times.
She thought he wished to display her, like the deer’s head. The artist, in an act of perversion, had painted her eyes as flat as those of the taxidermied creatures on the opposite wall, as if to enhance the resemblance.
“How did you come into possession of this?” Gaetan asked.
“I chanced upon Antonina while strolling in the park and offered her a ride home. The letter must have slipped from her purse because I found it on the seat after she stepped out,” Valérie said, the lie coming effortlessly.
He ran a hand through his hair, nodding, and folded the letter. Gaetan knew Nina’s handwriting; there could be no doubt in his mind that it was an authentic piece of correspondence. As for its provenance, he was credulous. She doubted he’d ask more than what he already had. If he spoke to Nina and she contradicted Valérie’s story, Valérie would simply say the girl was being deceitful.
“Gaetan, I had not wanted to tell you this, because I simply did not believe it. But I heard gossip that she left Haduier’s party with Hector Auvray. Such talk, and then this … she will ruin herself.”
“At Haduier’s? Who said that?”
“I’m afraid it was Agnes Haduier herself. Darling, I blame myself. We should have gone to the party and chaperoned her.”
He sat down in one of the white wing chairs placed in front of the windows. “I cannot believe Nina would behave improperly,” Gaetan said. “She is a sweet girl.”
“Yes, but a girl nevertheless, a girl who may be easily swayed by talk of love and kisses and throw her whole future away in an instant. Think what might happen, think what they might say.”
Gaetan gave Valérie a worried look. She could see the scenarios dancing in his head. Their names in the papers, the talk of the city. Antonina Beaulieu of Montipouret in a sordid liaison with that man, the entertainer, the talent. Yes, she’d always been odd, and now her bad character was confirmed.
They’d say that, they’d say worse, and poor Gaetan was hearing every word in his head.
“Antonina does not realize that he toys with her. She is like a puppet. He entices her, then discards her at Oldhouse. And now he is back. To finish what he started and stain her name.”
“I should speak to Auvray immediately,” Gaetan said.
Valérie adjusted the long shawl she was wearing, an expensive present Gaetan had bought her three years before. Its vivid greens, golds, and turquoise blues contrasted nicely with her pale face and the whiteness of her dress. Underneath the vibrant cloth, her arms bore the faint traces of the scratches from the roses. She could have explained them away. The shawl was more for her own benefit. She did not want to be reminded.
“Gaetan, no. Do you think that wretch can be spoken with?” Valérie asked.
“Something must be done,” Gaetan protested, looking confused.
“I agree. But I think you should be speaking with Luc Lémy.”
“With Luc?”
“He would be delighted to marry Antonina. He has told me that he loves the dear girl. Gaetan, Nina enjoys his company. Once she is married, she will come to her senses and forget that theater performer.”
Gaetan was relieved at the thought, but only for a second. “I told Nina she might choose her groom. I am not certain she would want to marry Luc,” he said cautiously. “Perhaps he loves her, but she has not told me she loves him. I’d think she would have hinted at it, if she were inclined—”
“‘Choose.’ What does a young girl know about choosing?” Valérie said.
“I wouldn’t want her to be unhappy.”
Unhappy. Women had no grounds for happiness, bartered as they were like hunks of meat. Why should Antonina be granted happiness? Why should a single thought be spared for her feelings?
Valérie’s feelings had not been consulted. She had been told she should marry Gaetan, and she’d followed her marching orders, as all women did.
“If you let her choose, she’ll end up that man’s mistress,” she said. “Are we to raise Hector Auvray’s bastard child?”
There. Gaetan blanched. Her choice of words was perhaps extreme, but Valérie was feeling snappish.
“Surely not.”
“You’ve read her own words. Nina does not understand what is the best for her. It is your duty to guide her as the head of the family. If you do not approve of Luc Lémy, by all means, propose another candidate, but we must act swiftly.”
“I cannot proceed without the consent of her mother.”
“That is but a matter of form. Ultimately it is your approval that reigns supreme, is it not?”
“I could telegram Camille, I suppose, to obtain her blessing,” Gaetan said.
“I’m sure she won’t object.”
“If Luc is disposed toward her, I think we might speak candidly and make the proper arrangements. I will still ask for Nina’s opinion, though. Her sister had a choice in the matter, and I won’t deny Nina her say.”
Valérie gritted her teeth, wishing she could speak a tart word or two about Antonina’s precious opinion, but instead she smiled.
“I’m sure she will agree once you’ve spoken to her and Luc has made a formal proposal.”
Gaetan nodded and rose, taking her hand between his and kissing it. “You are clever, my darling,” he said. “Nina is lucky to have you watching over her.”
Valérie gently pushed her husband’s hands away. His physical displays of affection never failed to irritate her. Hector, on the other hand—she had not been able to have enough of his embraces. He knew how to hold her, how to speak to her, soothing and comforting her and planting kisses on her mouth.
The wretch, she thought, and her fury was such that she had to turn from Gaetan and pretend to look out the window, clutching the curtain tightly with one hand.
“We must have the engagement party before the Grand Season concludes—the sooner, the better,” she said. Her voice sounded as if she were chewing broken glass, but her husband was oblivious to it or perhaps imagined she was overcome with emotion over Nina.
“It takes time, Valérie,” her husband said, put off by the thought. “We can’t possibly throw a proper party that soon.”
“A small affair, close friends and family. We can have a grander party in the summer, at Oldhouse, and I think you would agree a winter wedding may be the best choice. But as far as formalities go, this one is a necessary one.”
A most n
ecessary one. An engagement was a serious thing, but engagements behind closed doors could be more easily dissolved. Once the city was informed of the situation, it was another matter. No one wanted to be singled out in the papers as the party who broke an engagement. There were also the financial penalties incurred if the engagement was broken, the bride-price, which must be forfeited—but it was the scorn of the community that would terrify Gaetan.
“It’s not unheard of. Dellerière had the same arrangement for his two daughters, remember?”
“Yes, I know.”
She released the curtain and turned to look at her husband. “Gaetan, it would quiet any gossip and it would rein her in. With an engagement ring upon her finger, Antonina will abandon whatever silly notions she has acquired. In the end, she will do what is proper.”
“She will. I am sure of it. It is not malice that moves her. She is an innocent child.”
Valérie did not say anything to this. Innocent child. Ha. That girl would be at a whorehouse if she did not have a disgusting amount of money in her coffers; indecency resided in every fiber of her being.
Valérie closed her eyes, recalling exactly what she had proposed to Hector and, more than that, the sting of his refusal.
“I shall write to Luc and explain we must meet with him,” she said, needing an excuse, needing to get away from Gaetan.
“Of course.”
Valérie might ordinarily have retreated to her conservatory, to walk among her flowers, but the violence she had inflicted upon the roses the day before was fresh on her mind. That space had been corrupted. Antonina had ruined even that. She was a poisonous creature.
She chose instead to go to her room.
Paper in hand, she scrawled a few sentences for Lémy.
Dear Mr. Lémy,
I have impressed upon Gaetan the need of arranging a betrothal between you and Antonina. It is of the utmost importance that you act swiftly. I believe Hector Auvray may otherwise ask for her hand in marriage before you do, rendering your efforts null. You must meet with Gaetan at once and be at your most charming with Antonina. You may be married before the end of the year, as you wanted.
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