The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,43

and sent several stones skipping across the water behind her own.

“When did you know you were a talent?” she asked.

“Ever since I can recall.”

“But who taught you? Someone must have taught you, as you have been teaching me.”

“My parents were both performers of a sort—she played the violin and he could sing. We were part of a troupe. There was an old woman who performed with us. Grandmother Sandrine, they called her. She was a talent. She’d juggle objects in the air without touching them. I learned from watching her, and then the rest was me testing my limits. Once in a while I might catch sight of other performers and try to determine what they’d done. I made my professional debut at eight.”

“Did you get to travel much?”

“Somewhat. All through the spring and the summer, but in the fall and the winter we’d head back to Treman to rest. There’s no business at that time of the year in the small towns, and the roads are hard.”

“What about Iblevad? Did you travel often?”

She flung two stones this time and they both skipped gracefully across the water.

“Yes, and far in the beginning. I went with small acts to obscure towns because those were the places where you’d be booked. But then, if you were good and you were lucky, you could claim better spots and remain in a significant city.”

“It seems strange. To spend your life wandering from place to place.”

“It was a living.”

“And now? Have you fallen under the spell of Loisail and wish to remain there forever and ever?”

The mention of Loisail brought to him, unbidden, the memory of Valérie’s face. He associated her with the city, her white dresses and pale face seemed to reflect the beautiful, clean lines of the metropolis.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“That is no answer,” she reproached him.

“I am sorry if my words do not please you,” he said, his voice harder than he had intended.

Nina quirked an eyebrow at him, perhaps trying to determine what was souring his mood. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers and stared at the water.

She, in turn, began humming to herself and walked a few steps from him, picking a twig, tossing it at the water first with her hands, then grabbing another and flinging it away without touching it. Nina was lighter on her feet now. More practiced, as if she was better suited to navigating slippery stones and muddy banks than dancing on glossy parquet floors.

Unlike Valérie, who had been made for elegant dances and the lights of the city, the whisper of a fan against her cheek, her smile sparkling under a glass chandelier. The most beautiful woman he’d ever met.

He tried to imagine what he might be like if he’d never laid eyes upon her, if they’d never spoken. Whether he might be happy or equally miserable. Perhaps he was predisposed to follies, the victim of a nervous ailment.

Hector looked across the water, at the trees on the other side of the riverbank, and he breathed in deeply.

Nina turned toward him, her smile full of mischief. “I can make a stone skip farther than you,” she proclaimed.

Hector looked at her and shrugged. The game had lost its appeal for him.

“Try me. If I win, I am mistress of this river and it shall bear my name. If you win, we can call it the Auvray.”

“It is silly. The river already has a proper name, and no doubt you know it.”

“What if it is silly,” she said, standing on a rock, close to the water. “Are you afraid I’m better than you at this?”

“Surely you are not,” he said.

“Toss a stone.”

Hector decided to humor her, feeling that she would not cease if he did not concede. He sent a stone across the water and it skipped four, five times.

“I am better,” she said as the stone disappeared into the river.

When she proceeded to demonstrate that this was the case with ease and panache—her stone skipped six times—he chuckled and placed an arm around her shoulders in a gesture of gentle camaraderie.

“You are mistress of the river, Nina Beaulieu.”

“You can borrow it once in a while if you like,” she said. Nina glanced up at him, resting a palm against his chest, her fingers on the buttons of his coat.

He was scrupulously well behaved when it came to the girl, not even daring to kiss her cheek. He did not fancy himself a cad. He was cautious. There could be no