The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,120

to slide into her new home.

Nina stood in the middle of the living room and contemplated the space around her, a box in her arms. After setting the box on the table, she went to the window and looked outside, observing the clear sky and thinking this was the view she would see from now on. These trees below their windows, this street, that other building in front of their own.

Upon his return, Hector found her in the bedroom in front of the mirror, with one of the new dresses pressed against her body, trying to determine whether she ought to change into something else, doubting her original choice.

“You’ve succeeded in your venture,” he said as he stood in the doorway.

“I return like a triumphant conqueror,” she replied. “There’s some more items that will be delivered in a few days, but this should do for now.”

He nodded at her, a smile on his lips, before he removed his hat and began tugging at his cravat, his eyes unable to mask his worry.

“Where have you been?”

“I went to see your cousin, but he would not speak to me. I left a letter for him, but he sent a note back saying he is to be Luc Lémy’s second and cannot converse at this time.”

“Then I shall have to go see him.”

Nina sat down at the edge of the bed. In her childish excitement over purchasing new clothes, she had forgotten all about her mother and her sister and her cousin. She should have written to them at once; it might have smoothed the proceedings. They must all be thinking ill of Hector and of her.

“No, let it be. He has made a choice. After the duel, we can try to speak to him together and secure your family’s blessing.”

The duel. That, too, had been pushed from her mind, eclipsed by her mundane errands. Now the fear clawing at her heart washed over her anew.

“Luc hunts,” she declared.

“Yes, he does.”

“I mean he is a skillful shot.”

“I won’t deny it.”

“How good are you with a pistol?”

“I am a performer, not a hunter.”

At Oldhouse, Luc had made a show of riding on his horse and slinging a rifle over his shoulder. He’d know how to shoot; it was a gentleman’s pursuit. Hector had not been reared a gentleman, and even if he’d had a chance to toy with pistols at a later point in life, surely he could not overcome the edge Luc had.

“But then, what will you do?” she asked.

“I shall wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow he may have changed his tune,” he said calmly, as if they’d invited Luc over for tea.

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then tomorrow my second is coming to see me, to relay and negotiate the conditions of the duel.”

She’d thought duels romantic, but now that they were discussing this matter, now that this was real, she only felt alarm.

“If you can’t shoot properly, we might as well call it an execution,” she said, unable to soften the grim words.

Hector removed his jacket and set it on the back of a chair. “Let us not debate my mortality right this instant, shall we?” he asked, trying to make light of the whole affair. “There are more important topics to ponder.” He sat next to her on the bed.

“Like what?” she scoffed.

“Like you.”

“Me?”

He leaned toward her, his voice dipping, almost secretive. “I have a delicate question to ask. It is about us. About us last night. I hope I did not frighten you.”

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,