Rather than feeling embarrassed, as might have been expected, she was incensed, guessing that he probably thought her a complete fool fresh from the countryside who could not say what went on in the marital chamber. They covered the genitals of statues with fig leaves, marble made modest in this manner, but not the drawings in anatomical books.
“Hector, I am a naturalist. I have read books discussing the mating habits of many species,” she told him.
“It is somewhat different when you are talking of something other than beetles.”
“It depends. Beetles have fascinating mating habits. When stag beetles emerge, all they want to do is mate, and the male encloses the female on the ground with its antlers.”
“I’m wanting to ask whether you are fine. Whether it was fine,” he said.
He ran a hand carelessly across the rumpled bedsheets, and it was that vague, intimate gesture that made her dip her head and blush.
“My cousin Cecily, all she’d say after she married Émile was that she wouldn’t rise for a week, but she is a liar and was surely trying to scare me, though her point about having to speak to the druggist, to ensure one doesn’t have a babe at the first opportunity, I think was true,” Nina said, frowning. “I don’t think I’d like to have a child now. But I didn’t think it was too awful.”
“Not too awful,” he repeated.
“Don’t take it like that. I hardly know what to say.”
He put both hands on her face, and she looked up at him.
“You can say, ‘Hector, you fool, you were too impatient’ or too unkind or anything at all. It is the way it gets better, if you correct whatever inadequate notions I may have.”
Nina considered this with care, her fingers twisting around a corner of the bedsheets.
“What?” he asked.
“We could try again, and I can keep better mental notes next time you seduce me and discuss the results of this experiment with you later.”
He laughed loudly, where before he had been speaking almost in whispers. “What a lovely creature you are,” he said.
She kissed him and undid the buttons of his vest.
“I think you seduced me and not the other way around,” he said as she eased him from his shirt.
“You might be right.”
He had not kissed her for a considerable length of time, but now he kissed her slowly, over and over. He wasn’t greedy on this occasion—there had been a volatile impatience to him, as though he’d thought she’d vanish from his arms—and she thought it pleasant, the weight of him on her and even more pleasant later as she gripped his shoulders.
Nina had spent the previous night in the darkness of his room, feeling startled, her eyes wide open as he slept next to her, the thought that the priest from her church and the martyrs on the stained-glass windows would have been cross with her. In the morning, though, she had sneaked into his bathroom, and lying in the tub all that came to mind were the songs she sang whenever she went by the river, the water reaching her thighs. Then he’d walked in as she sat in the tub, and even though there was her immortal soul to consider and also the scandal, she’d shoved those concerns away. They didn’t seem important anymore.
It wasn’t dark this time. She could see him as he lay next to her, his chest rising and falling, and it was a substantially more attractive sight than the images of martyrs. Not that she was ever worried about damnation; it had always seemed an abstract concept.
Other, more practical matters did disquiet her.
Hector toyed lazily with her hair, wrapping a strand around his fingers, and Nina turned her head to look at him.
“We could run away,” she said.
“From Luc Lémy?”
She folded her arms across her chest, and fear filled her, as water fills the lungs of the drowning swimmer. “Yes. We could get on a ship. He is not going to chase us all the way to Iblevad, is he?”
“Perhaps we’d evade him. And you’d spend the rest of your life as an exile.”
Nina did not reply. It was heartbreaking having to picture her family lost, her mother and her sister and her cousin turned into a distant memory. But it was the logical choice.
“Never to set your eyes on Oldhouse again. You think I’d do that to you?” he asked.
She knew the answer even before he spoke, resolution sharp on his face. There was no convincing him. He would not relent. Matters of honor were paramount to gentlemen, and he was more stubborn than most.
“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 th
at 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, Valere 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 Gaetan 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, Gaetan 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 Gaetan 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. Gaetan 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.
Too soft, too stupid. If Valérie had been in his place, if she’d been a man, she would have put a bullet through Hector’s brain herself.
“Étienne says they would marry.”
“Yes, because Auvray is a reliable fellow. Last spring he came by each week, bringing flowers and sweet phrases, but come summer, Auvray disappeared with hardly a word. Do you think him incapable of doing the exact same thing again?”
“I don’t know,” Gaetan mumbled.
He was retreating now, a tortoise into its shell. That was the only thing poor Gaetan knew how to do. Again she was struck with the unfairness of the world, which had given a fortune to this man who did not deserve a single cent. Antonina did not deserve anything either, but the accident of her birth had awarded her with a future.
Valérie stood up and looked at Gaetan. Her harsh words were not having the effect she wanted; she decided to change her tune. She’d talk about romance, a topic Gaetan did not understand but that, with his lack of imagination, he revered as a special holy item.
“Luc loves her,” Valérie said, clasping her husband’s hand. “He clearly loves her. He is willing to fight for her, he is willing to take her back even after she has flung herself in the arms of another man. Love should be rewarded. Tell him you’ll be his second.”
This convinced him, and he nodded. She squeezed his hand tighter, feeling triumphant in her victory. She decided to press further, knowing that anything would be allowed to her now and it was the time to ask.
“Gaetan, when the duel takes place, I’d like to go with you.”
He looked surprised. “I don’t think the duelists’ field is a place for a woman.”
“I want to be by your side. To give you strength.”
“It could be an awful sight.”
She expected it to be. She wanted it. She wanted Hector’s blood soaking the grass. She wanted Antonina’s tears when they lowered him into his grave, with a marble headstone to mark his final resting place. She wanted to stroll one day by that cemetery where he lay and kneel by his grave. When the weeds grew upon his tomb and no one stopped to place flowers, she wanted to know he slept upon that narrow cage of earth.
She wanted, most of all, to watch his face as he lay dying. She wanted to be the last person he ever saw.
A curse upon him, yes.
“I know,” she said firmly.
Chapter 25
THERE WAS A GENTLE KIND of pleasure in watching her move around the apartment, stopping to look at a book or to run her hand across the strings of the old violin that had belonged to Hector’s mother. She was there and she need not go anywhere. She was there and they were together.
They had breakfast, and as Nina nibbled her toast, he performed several tricks to amuse her. Despite the sun shining outside, there was darkness lurking in the corners of their home, like a hungry beast ready to pounce. He would not let her worry.
And it scared him, too, to be honest. The beast hunted them both.
Hector toyed with cards, with a napkin. He performed that trick that always seemed impressive, where he spun a glass filled with water in the air quickly and did not spill a drop of liquid.
“How do you manage that?” Nina asked.
“It’s control. But more than that, it is belief.”
“Belief?”
“All we ultimately have to do is believe. We focus our mind on one single point, one single purpose, and we push. We grasp. We manipulate wood and glass and iron. However, the greatest trick is the belief. Belief is what makes it real.
“I’ve now told you all my secrets,” he said. “You’d better not reveal them to my competitors.”
“As if you had any.”
“Hel de Grott seems to be getting nice press these days.”
“He bends knives,” she said, scoffing.
“I started my career juggling lemons above my head, my dear.”
“He’s not in The Gazette for Physical Research.”
Nina looked down at her cup of coffee, gently tapping her spoon against its rim, a blush spreading
across her cheeks.
“I read of you there first,” she said. “I had this idea that you were an old, distinguished gentleman, I don’t know why. But then I saw the posters across the city, and you were handsome and young.
“I think I stood in front of a wall near the Palace d’Ambelle for nearly five minutes, staring at your face. That is how I knew you at the party.”
Hector smiled. It was sweet, this innocent confession, and yet her cheeks grew more flushed by the second.
“You realize this means you loved me before you met me?” he teased her.
“Don’t be smug.”
“I grant you I can be, maybe, a little smug,” he said, and when she tried to slap his arm in mock chastisement, he pulled her to him, and she laughed.
Étienne arrived before noon. Although Hector had explained to Antonina that he was to be his second, she was still startled when the knock on the door came, her fingers gripping Hector’s hand. Hector murmured an endearment and allowed Étienne in.
“Antonina, you look lovely,” Étienne said, bowing low.
“It is gracious of you to say so,” she replied. “Will you be having tea? I can fetch you a cup. Hector does not think I can boil water, but I’m determined to prove him wrong.”
“That would be the utmost kindness.”
Nina left for the kitchen. Étienne sat at the table, facing Hector. He was bare that morning, as if he was missing his usual polish.
“I have met with Luc’s second, and I have basic terms to review with you,” Étienne said. “A physician has been chosen to be present during the duel, Henri Davell. He is a friend of the Beaulieus’ but if you would prefer to nominate another physician, they would be willing to consider a different name.”
“I do not object to the choice.”
“The pistols will be secured from Fabena’s in the Third Quarter. He is reliable and I’ve suggested his name. If you are satisfied, we could examine the pistols today.”
“Your choice is accurate, I am sure.”
“Two important conditions of the duel. First, under no circumstances are you to use your talent to manipulate the outcome of this duel,” Étienne said.
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