The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,114
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?
Gaétan 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.”