The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,28

encounter.

“I’ll remember.”

“And I haven’t upset you, have I? For asking about the card trick.”

“No. It’s not every day I meet a lady who could toss all my glassware onto the floor without touching it,” he replied in a neutral voice.

“You are teasing me,” Nina said, smiling. “I’ll practice. I most definitely don’t have two left feet.”

“I don’t think you do.”

She thought, she hoped, he might edge closer to her. She felt dazed and giddy, and it was a miracle her talent had not manifested and sent a chair scampering across the floor. But it was there, she thought, this feeling, like the scent of the coming rain, all around them.

Hector did not step closer. He held firm by the door, insulated, far away. She guessed this was the gentlemanly, proper attitude a man should have and was disappointed.

“Good-bye, Miss Beaulieu,” he said with a slight inclination of his head.

“Thank you,” she said. “Good-bye.”

He smiled at her, and her disappointment turned to joy because he looked pleased with her, happy.

When the door closed and Nina was alone, she took two steps down, then rested her back against the banister, the box with the cards pressed against her chest. She’d lost her train of thought and remained there for a bit, until she recalled that Valérie might notice her absence. She’d be flayed alive, boiled in hot oil, if Valérie knew she had gone out without a chaperone to visit a man. Nina hurried down the stairs.

CHAPTER 9

Dinner at the Beaulieus’ was a carefully choreographed affair, everything from the beautiful white roses at the center of the table to the selection of each dish signaling Valérie’s superb taste. She dominated the room with a trained certainty that made Nina seem drab in comparison.

As for Gaétan. Having spent many years trying to envision the man who had married Valérie, imagining his every gesture and feature, Hector found Gaétan’s appearance almost anticlimactic. He had pictured Valérie’s husband as somewhat older and more imposing. Gaétan Beaulieu, however, was a man who could never be called imposing. There was a distinctive banality about him. Hector almost felt sorry for him.

The conversation was stilted, and Hector felt that, if she had wanted, Valérie would have seamlessly made the whole dinner vivacious, but instead she sat, sphinxlike, conscious of her power, unwilling to lift a finger, smiling coolly as dish after dish was set down before Hector. Gaétan kept talking about people and places Hector did not know, with a petulant tone that made Hector stab the pale fish on display with his fork.

“But you must have met the Ludeydens,” Gaétan said. “Isn’t that right, Valérie? Everyone knows the Ludeydens.”

“Yes,” Valérie said. “Everyone does.”

“I don’t attend many parties,” Hector replied. He had given a variation of this answer now thrice, and Gaétan was incapable of getting the point. Irritated, he kept himself from making the glass of wine jump into his hand, as he wanted to.

“Hector says there are many odd butterflies in Port Anselm,” Nina said.

He’d almost forgotten she was there, at his side, and when she spoke, he was a little startled. He looked at the girl.

“Gaétan helped me catch a few when I was a child. He was a lepidopterist,” Nina added.

“Hardly! My cousin exaggerates,” Gaétan said. “But, say, you know about butterflies, too, Mr. Auvray?”

“I’m not a naturalist at all. But there was this occasion on which I had the chance to witness a moth drinking the blood of an ox. I’m told only the males do this and the females prefer to dine on fruits.”

“Goodness,” Gaétan declared.

Then the man began to explain his childhood hobby and how he’d pinned a series of fine moths, which decorated his room when he was a youth. The conversation was better after this.

Hector knew Nina had helped him out of an uncomfortable spot, and he wished he could have voiced his thanks, but since it was impossible at the moment, he looked at her again and smiled. She returned the smile. Sweet girl, he thought.

After dinner the men retired to the library, which, like the rest of the house, bore the imprint of Valérie’s hand in the deftly placed silver ashtrays, the potted ferns in the corners of the room, the white sofa near the fireplace, the plush carpet.

He could picture Valérie walking around that room, her fingers brushing against the spines of books, touching the curtains. It was harder to imagine Nina in this room, in this house, even though she obviously lived here. Valérie occupied