I must tell Hector of this find, she thought, and had to mentally correct herself because it was Luc. She ought to tell Luc about the beetle. She turned her head, ready to slip back into the party, and then did not move.
Because Luc would not care. He was in the smoking room, speaking to his friends.
The beetle flashed blue in a blinking, cycling pattern, then suddenly took off, fluttering away.
She followed it, drawn by its light, with slow steps, then faster, then so fast, she was running, almost tripping over her dress. Three blocks from the house, she lost sight of the insect.
Nina stood there, stunned, uncertain, not knowing what she was doing or why.
It came to her then, a single thought so overwhelming, it erased everything: the discomfort of the evening and the rational voice in her head pleading for her to turn back ceased. The thought was simply that she wanted Hector.
She ran toward the nearest avenue where she might catch a carriage, almost stumbling into the path of a horse. The driver yelled a curse and reined in his mount, the carriage stopping right in front of her.
“Are you mad, girl?!” he exclaimed.
Yes, she thought. Yes and no, for she had not been this clearheaded in days.
“Take me to Boniface,” she told the driver, and when he looked at her skeptically, she removed her pearl earrings and held them up. “You can have these if you do.”
He muttered under his breath but snatched the earrings all the same, and she hurried inside. The wheels did not turn fast enough for her taste, nor could she rush out of the vehicle fast enough as the carriage pulled up in front of Hector’s building. She forced the entrance open with her power, not even thinking to use it; the door simply sprang open, obeying her desire more than her mind. She ran up the stairs and knocked three times.
Hector opened the door in his lounging robe and stared at her, looking surprised.
She stood breathless before him and managed to speak in a low voice. “You will forgive me, but I had to see you,” she said.
She walked past him, and he was too startled to impede her path. An army might not have been able to hold her back at this point.
“Are you unwell? Is something amiss?” he asked, sounding worried.
“It was my engagement party tonight,” she replied.
She felt as if she were sinking into the deepest of waters and appropriately took a deep breath, a swimmer ready to dive under the waves. She was not sure he’d save her, he might let her dash against the rocks, but she must speak, she must attempt this.
“Hector, I cannot marry Luc Lémy. I do not love him, and I do not believe I could find true happiness with him.”
Now that she had started speaking, it all became easier. She was nervous but determined. She had broken to the surface. She was not drowning but living, everything inside her eager and awake.
“I am in love with another man. Since Oldhouse and before that. He is intelligent and dedicated and kind. He understands me, and I believe I understand him. I like the way he talks and the way he smiles. I like many things about him, I cannot ever remember all of them.”
She approached him and did not know what to do with her hands, she was too nervous. She settled for clutching them together, and her voice dipped.
“I love you,” she concluded.
The minutes went by in a dense silence. He looked more wearied than pleased. Then again, she was unsure how men should take declarations of love. This did not appear in any of her books.
“You have nothing to say to me?” she asked.
“Nina,” he said with a sigh, “Nina we must get you back to your party.”
He extended a hand, as if to point her to the door, and she tensed at once.
“No,” she said, brushing his hand away. “No, did you not hear me? I do not want to go back. I won’t marry him.”
He gave her an odd, brittle look. His shoulders were hunched.
Anger licked her skin.
“What is wrong with you? I am here, baring my heart to you, and you can hardly look at me.”
“Decisions made in the haste of the moment are often regretted. Come morning, you might see matters in a different light,” he replied.
“Different light?”
“Yes. What do you think will happen to your reputation? There will be a scandal if you break this engagement, doubly compounded if you break it for me.”
“I know exactly what I am doing. I have finally regained my senses and realize I cannot walk a path of lies,” she told him.
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a low “no.”
If she’d been wiser, she might have chosen this moment to leave him, mortified by the whole sorry chain of events that had led her to his home. Instead, Nina dug her heels in and she stared at him. It was the folly of youth that gave her courage.
“You are a coward,” she said.
He snapped up straight, tall and firm again, his shoulders stiff.
“Yes,” she pressed on. “I see it now. You can act the part of a secure man onstage, but you are nothing but a coward. You fear what they’ll say about you.”
“No, I fear for you,” he said vehemently.
He looked scared to death, and she felt like calling him every terrible name she’d ever heard because she could see him receding inward, his head falling. She thought, He intends to leave it at this.
Nina shook all over in disbelief.
“I fear for my heart, too,” he said, raising his head and piercing her with his eyes.
Hector made a noise—it sounded like he was chuckling, she could not be sure. His thick eyebrows were furrowed, and he raised his hands, then dropped them heavily at his side, his fingers curled tight.
“You have no idea, Nina, what it is like to love someone so much, it tears you apart, that you think you will die when you lose them. And after experiencing such awful pain, you never want to feel it again any more than a man wants another limb hacked off.”
“I have some idea,” she whispered.
He did not reply, but she noticed how his jaw clenched at that.
Hector walked away from her, moving along the table, to the other end of the vast room, which served as parlor and dining area alike, this odd home he filled with its jumble of eclectic objects.
“You are a coward.”
“Nina—” he began, and she bridged the distance between them as quickly as he had established it, reaching his side.
“Do you think you can put your heart in a box of iron and throw away the key? Do you think that is the best way to live? Keep your damn heart in a box and let nothing touch it!” she exclaimed.
Ready to depart, now that she had said her piece, she whirled away from him. Her chest burned with ardent sorrow, but at least she was glad she was not weeping.
“No, I do not think it is possible, because you are in there already!” he yelled back.
She gasped but remained afraid that if she said or did a single thing, he’d stop speaking.
“You are everywhere in my life. I did not want that,” he confessed.
She turned around. Hector was severe and the look in his eyes was that of a man in pain, not one declaring his love, but there was a sincerity that had been lacking when Luc promised her eternal happiness.
Nina slid closer to him. “Then why won’t you let me beside you instead of keeping me in a solitary corner of that box?”
“What happens when you stop loving me?” he asked tersely.
That was the crux of the matter, the invisible dividing line on the floor.
“Why should I?” she replied. “Because Valérie stopped loving you?”
She looked at him, straight in the eye. There was no room for coyness.
“I am not Valérie,” she said.
“I’ve noticed.”
“Then?”
“Then,” he muttered. “You were speaking of leaving the city a few days ago, of Luc Lémy, and I—”
“And you said nothing.�
�
He replied with a speechless stare, looking humbled. He was older than she, but one would have thought her the senior if they’d seen them then and noticed her carefully crafted boldness. “What would you have had me say? It would have been improper … and I thought you liked him, I thought—”
“I’ve thought silly things, too,” Nina said. “It doesn’t matter. But now? What will you do now? For a man who once gave me a pack of playing cards, I don’t think you’ve ever learned one must gamble in order to win. And despite all your talk of teaching me, that’s one lesson I can give you.”
She extended a hand and smoothed the cuff of his faded lounging robe, wanting to touch his fingers and not daring, because he looked like he might bolt out of sight, as he had bolted when they were in the tower at Oldhouse.
“Will you kiss me now, or shall I let you be?” she asked, and couldn’t help the fragility in her voice though she was attempting to sound resolute.
Hector pulled Nina to him, bending down to kiss her. She gripped his shoulders and kissed him back, her fingers dipping under the fabric of the robe, touching his skin.
He lifted his face and looked at her.
She thought if he pulled away from her this time, she might collapse in tears, but he smiled gently. Slowly, hesitantly, he caressed her cheek.
“You’ll stay with me?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“Yes,” she said, knowing he didn’t mean for a while, that she could not possibly go back after this, and he was right, there’d be a scandal. “I’ll stay.”
Nina removed the diamond comb from her hair, drew several pins from it, too, and shook her head, letting the heavy mass of hair spill down her shoulders.
She raised her hand and took off the engagement ring, setting the precious emerald everyone had fawned over on the table, next to his papers and books and a bright, painted wooden box.
Then she pressed the same hand against his chest. His heart leapt up, like a wave, drawn by her touch.
Chapter 21
NO ONE KNEW WHAT TO say or what to do in the wake of the colossal disaster. Instead they sat together in the drawing room, in a mute stupor laced with horror. Antonina’s mother and her sister were on a couch; Étienne Lémy sat on a chair while his brother paced in circles, a glass of wine in his hands. Valérie had lost count of how many glasses that made.
Luc was not sure at what point in the evening Antonina had stepped out for a breath of fresh air, but by the time the photographer from The Courier asked that they take the official portrait of the bride- and groom-to-be for the paper, she was nowhere in sight. When she was not found in her room, Valérie manufactured a lie and told everyone that the girl was a bit sick—this had a basis in reality, as Luc had explained she had not been feeling well.
“Nerves,” she had told the guests.
They had to endure another hour of the party, Luc gripping his glass, his favorite brother standing at his right while Valérie smiled at everyone, pretending all was well. As soon as the last guests were dispatched, the inquiries and recriminations began. Why hadn’t Luc stayed with her? Where could she be?
Gaetan walked in, and they all turned their heads. “She is not at our great-aunts’ home,” he announced.
“We must find her, wherever she is,” Madelena said. “She took nothing and could not have gone far.”
“We know where she is,” Valérie said, unable to contain herself any longer. “If there was any doubt, it has been erased. She has run off with Hector Auvray.”
Luc Lémy looked like he was about to hurl his glass at the wall, while Camille and Madelena clutched each other’s hands.
“It is late. We do not want to cause a scene, knocking on someone’s door at this hour,” Gaetan said, composing himself, ever tactful. “Come morning, we must head to Auvray’s home and see if she has indeed taken shelter in his abode.”
“Hector is my friend, and I can stop by his home tomorrow,” Étienne offered. “It may be best this way—it could be embarrassing if all of us burst in and Antonina is not there at all. For all we know, she might be halfway to Montipouret by now.”
“Yes, undoubtedly,” Gaetan muttered. “Let me show you to your rooms, gentlemen. Valérie, can you accompany my aunt and my cousin to their rooms?”
Valérie obeyed, courtesy making her muscles move, though she wished nothing more than to go to bed at once, her nerves frayed, her bones tense enough, they might split in two. A few minutes later, Gaetan joined her in their room.
“What shall we do tomorrow?” she asked as soon as he placed a hand on the covers.
Gaetan sounded resigned rather than upset. “If it turns out she is indeed there, I’m sure Étienne will bring them to us and we’ll have to make quick arrangements at the courthouse for a wedding.”
“You don’t mean to marry her to Hector Auvray?”
“What else do you expect me to do at this point?” he replied.
“Punish her!”
“She is not a child for me to spank,” Gaetan said.
“Our name, Gaetan,” Valérie said. “Do you think nothing of our name? What will people say when she is suddenly wed to Hector Auvray after we said she was engaged to Luc Lémy? You think no one will piece it together? That the servants will not talk?”
“I expect there might be gossip, even if I do my best to mute it,” he said. “That should be enough punishment.”
“You will have me walk around Loisail, people murmuring I am related to a common whore?”
“You will mind your mouth, Valérie,” he said, raising his voice. “I am tired and so are you. Save any words for the morning, and make sure they are more measured.”
Valérie lay back, her body feeling as if it were encased in iron. If she’d had the means, she would have stabbed the girl in the heart a thousand times. She’d thrice wronged Valérie: the business venture was spoiled, they’d be the laughingstock of the city, and Antonina would marry Hector.
She was stealing everything from Valérie, even the ground beneath her feet.
It will not go unpunished, she thought, furious. If Gaetan expected to reward that monster with a quiet courthouse wedding to Hector Auvray, he was wrong.
Once Gaetan snored away, Valérie grabbed her robe and went in search of Luc Lémy.
At the first knock, he opened the door, obviously as awake as she was. “What do you want?” he asked, his manners forgotten. His breath was heavy with alcohol and the scent of tobacco.
“I want to know if you are bold enough to finish what you started,” she replied.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Do you desire that hotel of yours? It is within your grasp. We told everyone Antonina was sick, and there is no reason why we cannot keep telling that tale, then have you marry her as quickly as we can. I’m sure you’ll profit even more. Gaetan will give you all the money you may want, both to placate you and in a gesture of gratitude.”
There was no doubt in her mind this would be the case. Gaetan was soft, weak. A man with more mettle might have dragged Antonina out of Hector’s house by her hair and beat her bloody before disowning her. But dear Gaetan, he could not even do this right. He could not even muster sufficient outrage.
Luc could, infused with the bravado of youth. She saw the fire in his eyes, that naked hatred swimming there. He was a ready ax, and all Valérie had to do was swing it.
“Even if I thought this a good plan, I doubt Auvray is going to happily allow me to wed her,” Luc said.
“He can’t wed her without her mother’s consent. She is not yet twenty-one. The law is clear on this point.”
“Consent that she is sure to grant. It is but a trifle, a signature on a piece of paper.”
“Which means your problem is Hector Auvray.”
Luc had been holding the door open a fraction, but now he opened it wider and stepped into the hallway as if to get closer to her, perhaps fearing their voices might be heard.
He whispered to her. “What a
re you suggesting?”
“Kill him,” she said.
The words were sweet, they dissolved like sugar in her mouth, and she savored them. Nourished with hate, she continued speaking.
“Challenge him to a duel in the morning, do not let your brother broker a peace between you, as I am sure he intends,” she said.
“And risk getting shot?”
“I know you to be a huntsman. Is your aim adequate?”
“Excellent.”
“Then you have nothing to fear. Aim for the heart. With Hector Auvray dead, Gaetan will want to put this whole mess behind us, and you will have yourself a bride.”
She could see her words were having the intended effect on Luc. His rage was now laced with greed, a powerful combination. And he was foolhardy. The fuse had been lit. He would explode.
“If she repulses you now in her soiled state, you need not touch her. Except to put a couple of children in her womb, that might be advisable. Otherwise, you may do as you please,” Valérie said, thinking perhaps this point was holding him back. But he hardly seemed to listen to her when she mentioned it.
Perhaps the silly boy had cared for her. In his mind, this might well be a rescue, Antonina playing the role of the poor maiden who is held in the claws of an ogre.
“He has dishonored her and dishonored you. He wants to make a fool out of all of us. Do not let him,” she said.
“I warned him to stay away from her,” Luc said.
“By all means you did. But this upstart man thinks he can do what he wants, that he can stomp on all of Loisail.”
“You will assure me Gaetan’s support?”
“Money was made to wash away sins. He’ll give it, more than you expected.”
“I think I might kill him even if I did not stand to profit from it,” Luc said, his voice a low, harsh tone. “I might kill him so he cannot have her.”
“We understand each other, Mr. Lémy,” Valérie said. “Make sure it happens soon, and make sure to be discreet. A duel in the front page of The Courier will do us no good.”
“Come morning, I’ll tell that bastard what awaits him.”
He closed the door, leaving Valérie standing in the hallway.
She took a deep breath.
The Beautiful Ones Page 28