three steps above Hector.
“Pardon me, but you said you had to speak to me quick,” she told him as she clutched the collar of the robe with one hand.
He realized she’d headed downstairs in haste, for him, and the sweetness of the gesture struck him dumb.
“You said you need me?” she asked.
Hector nodded. He had not rid himself of his coat, nor his hat, which he held tight, running his hands around the rim of it.
“I was rude yesterday and wanted to apologize. I left like there were hounds chasing me. I am sorry.”
Her grip on her collar relaxed. “I understand, Mr. Auvray. Don’t feel guilty.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m the worst of friends to you. You ought to spend more time with people who are more animated than me, younger and lively. I am like a rickety, haunted house, Miss Beaulieu. Best find a new abode. I won’t be troubling you any longer.”
Nina descended the remaining three steps, standing in front of Hector, and looked up at him. She was small, where Valérie was tall; he never failed to notice this difference. And, well, Valérie wouldn’t have come down for him.
“Is it that you are annoyed at me?” she asked. “Or bored?”
“No. The opposite,” he said, and rubbed a hand against his forehead. He sat down on the bottom step with a sigh, resting the hat on his lap. Cautiously, she sat down next to him. They were quiet.
“Hector, you can tell me,” she said.
“Nothing, nothing, dear girl,” he said, chuckling. “Nothing worth hearing.”
He thought of his days in Loisail spent staring across the room at Valérie and the years before that spent conjuring the woman in his mind, and the misery that stamped his footsteps. He was unhappy; he could never be happy. And he liked Nina, she was good to him, but she was not Valérie.
Nina was smiling. “If you were not around, I’d be lonely,” she said softly.
He thought to tell her something gallant, which might please her. Like “surely not for long” or another compliment that could be easily tossed and easily forgotten.
“I’d be lonely, too,” he admitted instead. A deeper truth instead of shallow words.
Nina was silent. Her hair, falling down her back, curled a little, rebelliously, a detail that had been impossible to divine because each day she wore it up like all the other ladies in the city, pulled into dainty chignons.
“Everyone seems to think I’m an idiot or a child, but you don’t treat me as either,” she said. “I appreciate it and I appreciate the tricks you teach me, all the advice you give me. If you were to cease visiting, I would be sad—but I would not resent you, because you’d still be my friend. A good friend, Mr. Auvray.”
She reached out to him, as if to grab his hand, which rested upon the hat, and instead he gripped her hand and pulled it up to his lips, kissing the back of it.
“You are too kind,” he said.
They sat looking at each other and for a minute he was absolutely absorbed with her, a graceful quietness bracketing and protecting them. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could remain like this? If the world grew smaller and everything else melted as easy as wax, his worries, his past, the whole lot of it. Then came sure footsteps and Hector turned to look at Valérie, who regarded them with a wintry glance.
“I see you are back,” she told him. “And I see Antonina forgot herself again. Go get into a proper dress, at once.”
Nina hurried up the stairs with a hushed apology. Hector stood up, inclining his head at Valérie, while she rested a hand on the banister and turned her face to show him her profile. Her cheeks had some color to them, the slightest blush.
“You must not be angry at her,” Hector said, thrusting his left hand into his pocket. He felt odd, like a thief who has been caught stealing a precious stone and is dragged before the magistrate. “I said I was in a rush, and rush she did, to speak to me.”
“You did not seem in a rush,” Valérie replied. “What were you discussing? The names you’ll give all your children?”
“I was rude yesterday and came to apologize to her.”
“And not to me. I see.”
“I apologize to you, too, Valérie. I should not have snapped at you as I did,” he said, pressing his hat against his chest and inclining his head again, signaling his