He glances at me. "For all your inventions, I think I'm glad I'm not from your time."
I might believe he was better off in 1938 too, if I didn’t know what lies ahead for him. "It's much safer.”
"I think you value safety far too highly," he says. "What use is it, if you have to give up the things you love in exchange?" I’m about to ask what precisely he thinks I’m giving up when he hands me a glass of wine. “Are you going to be okay with this?” he asks, nodding at the wine. “Walking back on the crutches?”
I laugh, holding the red liquid up to the dying light. "As you’ve stated, I have a hollow leg. I’ve never been drunk once in my life. And a glass back home is four times this size.”
"Perhaps that's why there's so much free love in your day."
I roll my eyes. “Rumor has it sex is enjoyable. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Rumor has it?” he repeats. “What does that mean? I thought in your time sex ‘wasn’t a big deal’?”
I feel my cheeks heat and stare out at the vineyard to avoid his eye. "I was raised in a very religious household. Waiting for marriage...it’s just one of those things my mother was very focused on."
He leans back. "For someone raised by a woman as awful as your mother, you certainly seem to care a lot about what she thinks."
I look at the sun without really seeing it. "She’s my mother. It’s not something I can help.”
His arms cross, broad shoulders straining the fabric of his shirt. “I think I’d try, in your case,” he says, not unkindly. “I certainly wouldn’t allow her to dictate my behavior if I were you.”
“She’s not,” I argue. “Mark and I…this summer when I get back, we’re…never mind.”
The tendons in his forearms are suddenly visible. "What do you mean?"
I flush. "I mean that part of the deal with me leaving this summer so suddenly was...that."
Henri's jaw drops. "You had to agree to sleep with this man solely in order to go on a trip?"
It irks me, the way he always manages to spin Mark’s behavior into something evil. "No, of course not. You're twisting what I said. We're getting engaged once I'm back, which is as good as married, for one thing. But also it was shitty, the way I cancelled on him. So I ...promised to make it up to him."
His jaw draws tight. "A good man would not accept that offer. And a woman who knew her own value wouldn't have made it."
I roll my eyes. "I'm not giving away a kidney. It's sex. I assume I'll enjoy it as well."
"That's not how you decide to sleep with someone. You choose it when you can no longer stand not to choose it, no sooner."
It all sounds good, but I’ve never felt like that and I don’t imagine I ever will. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’m just missing some hormonal impulse I’m supposed to have, although given how I react to the sight of Henri without a shirt, it certainly seems to be making an appearance now.
“Like I said, in my time, we don’t take everything quite so seriously. You’re allowed to just enjoy what you enjoy without it having to mean something.”
He is watching me again. “You’re so busy defending the attitudes of your time, but you agree with me that it should mean something, or you’d have done it already. And if you’ve been with him for two years, it probably should have meant something by now.”
I stare at the wine in my glass, as something rises in my throat, a lump that clogs it and makes me anxious I might cry. He's wrong, of course. I'm certain of it.
I'm just not quite as certain as I was.
"How did it go tonight?" Marie asks when she gets home. "Henri was not awful?"
I blink. The truth is that Henri has not been awful in a while, but it feels like something I don’t quite want to admit. "No more so than ever."
“How did you keep the kitchen so clean?” she asks. “You can’t sweep with the crutches.”
A surly voice in my head retorts yes, the crutches I need because of you, but I no longer feel quite as much rancor about it. "We ate outside, actually."
Her eyes go wide. "You did?"
"At that hay bale on the far side of the barn, where the sun sets."
She is speechless for a moment. And then, finally, a small smile. "A picnic? Well," she says. "Well."
17
The following weekend, Marie-Therese and Henri decide there's no way I can avoid mass again, as telling the village I’m not Catholic—my suggestion—would apparently be far worse than skipping mass.
So on Sunday, instead of sleeping in—not that there seems to be much sleeping in here ever—I rise early to don the hose and the blue dress and curl my hair. All the effort—plus wearing garters, gloves and a hat—no longer seems strange to me. I feel frilly and girly, but as long as no one from home can witness it, I don't mind.
When I leave my room, Henri is waiting, lean and handsome in his suit, comfortable in his skin and the fine clothes. He looks like a man who attended Oxford: intelligent and arrogant and confident, certain of his place in the world. I envy him that.
He stands when I enter the room, eyes tripping over the dress to the shoes. He swallows. "I suppose you'll do,” he says with half a grin.
I’m beginning to think that the more he approves, the less willing he is to say so. But would it kill him to compliment me just once? "You're such an asshole."
A brow raises as he heads toward the door. "I know it's asking a great deal, but if you could perhaps restrain your foul mouth and sharp tongue during mass, I'd greatly appreciate it."
I slowly raise my eyes to his. "Just because you don't curse much doesn't mean your tongue is any less sharp than mine."
His mouth tips up in an arrogant smirk. "Except I've had no complaints about my tongue so far."
I slide my gloves on and flash him a smile. "The only females I’ve seen you near since I arrived are livestock. Just because you can’t understand them doesn’t mean they’re not complaining."
He walks out the door, choking on a laugh.
Marie comes downstairs just then. "You look like the cat who got the cream," she says with narrowed eyes, observing me.
I exhale. "I'm always a little happier when Henri leaves the room."
"Hmmm," she replies, still narrow-eyed. "So you claim."
Henri drives into town and parks on the street. When I reach for the door, he casts me a warning glance. "Open that door yourself and I'll break your other ankle too."
He grabs my crutches from the trunk. "What a strange world you live in,” I say, when he finally reaches me and performs the heroic feat of turning a handle to release me from the car, “where it's not appropriate for me to open a door, but it is appropriate for you to threaten me with bodily harm."
"Have I ever touched a hair on your head?" he asks, opening Marie's door next.
"That would be a more convincing argument if you hadn't held me at gunpoint."
Marie groans. "Will you two not even stop on a Sunday?"
She marches ahead of us and Henri comes to my side. “You started that one,” he says.
"You know, I'm not argumentative by nature," I reply. "You just bring it out in me."
"Likewise." He glances my way. The sunlight hides his expression. "So you and Mark never fight?"
I sigh, wondering where he’s headed with this. I’m sure he can find a way to turn anything I say into an anti-Mark rant. "Almost never."
He grins triumphantly. "It means you will have no passion in bed," he says.
I roll my eyes. "Then I guess that means you and I would?”
He's so stunned by the question that he stops in his tracks. I feel burned alive by his gaze, by the way his jaw shifts and those eyes of his dip to my mouth before veering away. As if he allowed himself, for a moment, to consider it. “What a question to ask just before I walk into mass,” he mutters. He turns toward the church steps and places a hand on my back. "Prepare yourself," he says.
"For what?"
He nods to the crowd ahead, already turning toward
us. "This."
It feels as if every single person here is staring at me, and by the time we reach the first step, we are enveloped. His hand is on the small of my back, friendly to all who approach, but using his shoulders and the occasional menacing smile to make sure I get up the stairs safely, which is easier said than done with so many people stopping us to talk.
Ma cousine, Henri says again and again, aux Etats Unis. And then he apologizes for the fact that I don't speak French as if it’s a serious flaw, as if I’m a child who’s spitting everywhere or won’t stop hitting people.
Nearly everyone who approaches wants to meet me, aside from the young females, who only use my presence as a ruse to come hit on Henri. It’s grown tiresome by the fourth step and by the time we reach the top, I’m tempted to start swinging my crutch.
We are nearly inside the church when we are waylaid by yet another pretty girl named Claudette, all dimples and shiny eyes. Her wide smile is only for Henri, although Henri introduces us anyway, making sure, as always, to mention I don’t speak a word of French. I see something calculated enter her eyes upon learning this. She rests a gloved hand on his arm and moves in closer, casting a quick, mildly hostile glance at me. We barely see you anymore, she says to him in French. She’s stayed a very long time. It must be getting tiresome.
The bitch is talking shit about me right in front of my face, and I clench every muscle not to react, praying, praying that Henri puts her in her place.
She’s only here a few more weeks, he says mildly. Hardly the vigorous defense I’d hoped for. Disappointment twists a small knife in my stomach, and I turn away from them and begin heading inside, wishing I’d just refused to come.
Within seconds Henri has caught up with me, his hand once more on the small of my back. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“To sit,” I say between clenched teeth. “I don’t need your help, so don’t let me get in the way of your flirting.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was flirting,” he replies, steering me toward a particular pew. “And you have no idea what we even said.”
“I don’t have to speak the language to know flirting when I hear it,” I reply coolly. He takes the crutches from me as I slide sideways into the pew. “Are you dating her?”
He raises a single brow. “What?”
“Dating, courting, wooing…whatever stupid expression you use. Are you doing it with her?”
He gives a low laugh. “How can I, when I spend all my free time bickering with you?”
Heat climbs in my chest and I face forward, knees pressed tight, pretending he is not there. That’s when I see Marie, sitting to the left of the altar with the choir. She looks eager. Flushed and happy. Different than she is at home.
Her eyes flicker toward the door of the church and my head turns, wondering who she’s looking for. The crowd is pouring in. What was it she said just after I arrived? That there was someone she wanted but he wasn’t suitable. Is that who she’s looking for? I glance back at her and am suddenly certain it is. The longing comes off her in waves.
Her eyes drop to the book in her hand, and then back toward the door. Whoever he is, she likes him a lot more than she’s let on. She said he wasn’t suitable. Does that mean he’ll come in here with a fiancé or a wife? Or perhaps he’s a different race, though it seems unlikely—a Klan meeting is more diverse than the membership of this church. I peek around Henri a second time.
"Do you always fidget so much?" he asks.
"I'm just wondering where all the handsome men are."
He raises a brow. “Being so near me all the time has been like staring at the sun, hasn’t it?”
“Painful? Ill-advised?”
“Blinding,” he corrects. “My looks make it impossible for you to appreciate lesser men.”
I roll my eyes. “You may very well have ruined men for me, but not in the way you think.”
The choir begins the first hymn and the congregation rises. I can hear Marie’s voice, as angelic as her face, which is a quality we do not share. And she is still glancing at the door.
Henri holds the hymnal open for me.
“I don’t sing,” I tell him, and he smiles. A somewhat blinding smile, I reluctantly admit.
“Not enough profanity in the hymns for you?” he whispers.
I laugh quietly against my will and glance once more at Marie, who is watching the doors of the church now with something like reverence on her face. Except everyone is seated and she doesn’t seem to be looking at any particular person.
She’s still waiting, I realize.
Two altar boys enter, followed by an old man carrying a bible and a middle-aged woman carrying a chalice.
And behind them, the priest.
He is young, tall and extremely handsome, with the kind of broad shoulders that don’t come from baptizing babies and hearing confession. Father What-a-Waste, my friend Rina would have called him back home. Marie's eyes lower as he passes, as if the whole world will see what's in her heart if she doesn’t. And maybe they would, because I see it even with her eyes closed.
I wonder what it all means for the future—hers and Henri’s. If she's truly the hidden child of the prophecy, and if the circle of light is related to her giving birth, which is certainly what it seems, how will she ever fulfill her destiny if she’s so hopelessly in love with a priest?
And if she doesn’t ever move on with her life, how can her brother move on with his?
I glance up at Henri, who looks sleepy and mildly bored. Completely unaware of the whole thing. I wonder if he’d be so open to Marie spending the time she does here if he realized why she was doing it.
After mass ends, we make our way toward the back of the church where a small refreshment table is being set up—with Marie’s assistance, of course.
André is the first person who steps in our path. He bows his head. “I was hoping I might see you today,” he says.
Henri makes a small noise of disgust, placing his hand on my arm and giving it a small tug. “We can’t stay. We need to find Marie.”
André arches a single brow at this, and I don’t blame him. Henri is generally not rude to people other than me, but André appears to be the one exception.
“I’d be happy to take Amelie home,” Andre offers. “My day is quite empty and I’m sure you have things to attend to on the farm.” It’s a masterclass in posturing, the subtle reminder that Henri’s peasant labor is never done, while André is free as a bird. And though I’m annoyed with Henri, I can’t say I especially like it.
“We have plans,” my unhappy host growls, his hand still on my elbow.
Just then, the girl who accosted Henri before mass comes up to us, wide-eyed and delighted, as if it’s so very unexpected to find us here when she already saw us here.
I meant to ask earlier, she says, if you’ll be at the dance next weekend.
Henri glances at me. I'm not sure yet, he tells her.
You should come, the girl replies. There will be plenty of men to entertain your cousin. Though she’s a bit old for a babysitter.
You obviously don't know my cousin well, he says.
André frowns at them both. “They’re talking about the town dance,” he says to me. “I hope you plan to come. It’s still a week away—I don’t suppose you’ll be out of the cast by then?”
I glance down. "I have three more weeks, so if I come, I’m not sure how much dancing I’ll be doing."
Henri shoots me a hard look. "You won’t be doing any dancing. You’ll probably fall over and break the other ankle too.”
"Do you treat all your cousins as if they’re made of glass?” asks André.
Henri straightens. He’s several inches taller than Andre and for the first time, I get the sense that he’s trying to make a point of it. "Just the ones who tend to break easily. Excuse us," he says abruptly, and with his hand firmly pressing on my back he all but pushes me to the left, toward the refreshment table where Marie is talking to Father Edouar
d.
Her eyes are shining, her cheeks are flushed. And, I notice, so are his. Father Edouard is looking at Marie with a sort of reverence I did not see on his face during mass.
I push back against Henri’s hand. "Leave them alone,” I say quietly. “Marie can come home later if you’re in such a rush.”
He glances at me. "Why?"
I sigh heavily. Even though I can’t begin to imagine how this infatuation could turn out to be a good thing, I can’t bring myself to ruin it for her. “She’s busy.”
He shrugs. “It’s just Father Edouard. And we need to leave.”
He steps forward and shakes the priest’s hand, and then Father Edouard extends a hand to me. You must be Amelie, he says in French. Marie speaks of you often.
“Not often enough to tell you she only speaks English,” says Henri, and Father Edouard laughs.
“Apologies,” he says. “I forgot. But as Marie will tell you, I enjoy getting a chance to speak something other than French.” His English is as perfect as Henri’s, not even a hint of an accent.
“Are you British?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Just raised by a British mother. And Marie says you’re from Pennsylvania—I studied in Massachusetts for a while. That’s close, I believe?”
I smile. “It depends on your definition of close. Were you in—”
“I’m sorry,” Henri interrupts, “but I do need to get home. I think I may have left the paddock gate unlocked.”
Marie’s head tips, as confused as I am by his behavior. He’s never once left that gate unlocked, and the horses are too docile to run even if he had. “I need to help with the children’s classes,” she says. “I’ll walk home later.”
Henri practically pushes me out the door, his hand heavy on my back even as we reach the stairs.
“Stop pushing me!” I hiss. “You’re going to make me fall!”
His hand leaves my back, but he remains unhappy, some kind of weight on his shoulders that wasn’t there when we arrived. He’s silent on the walk to the car, his mind somewhere else.
Across Time: Across Time Book 1 Page 13