The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,50

told him, pointing down.

“There’s a sheep carved above the entrance of the tower. Is that a heraldic symbol of some sort?”

“We’ve never been nobility, no,” she said. “It’s supposed to be lucky. I know a lot of rhymes about lambs—we learn them by the dozen when we are children.”

“Appropriate, I suppose.”

He had learned the bawdy songs of taverns; there was precious little time for rhymes. At the age she was being first fitted with corsets, he was making a living going from town to town, his voice thin as he announced himself and took off his cap, promising to show the audience miracles for a few coins.

“Do you like it here?” she asked.

“I do. It’s peaceful.”

“Have you ever been to Bosegnan?”

“No.”

“It’s by the sea. It’s warmer there and the sun bakes the sands until they are white, whiter than any lady’s linen. The fishermen have tiny boats, all painted red and lacquered as is tradition, and everything tastes like salt. You’ll eat fish every day and drink sweet wine every evening with the Lémys.”

She had a way of talking that he enjoyed because there was often merriment in her words.

“Will you write once you leave with your friends next week? I’ll miss you if you don’t,” she told him.

Nina moved from the window, her right hand brushing the stone walls of the tower and looked at Hector.

“You won’t miss me, not for a moment,” he said, smiling.

“You could stop by on your way back.”

She rested her back against the wall. It was cold, as if summer had been erased, the wind blowing and carrying droplets of rain into the tower.

“I don’t think I can,” he said.

She sighed.

Hector had not thought her beautiful in the city, under the light of large chandeliers with her hair up and gloves on her hands. But her loose black hair, thick and long, contrasted well with the rough stones behind her, and there was a charm about her hazel eyes, which never bore the same color in this land. She was looking at him now with eyes that were more golden than green, stung by his refusal, and he felt moved to place a cool, chaste kiss upon her forehead.

The girl seemed amazed and he himself was embarrassed by the gesture, but before he could apologize for it, he felt her hands slipping up and pulling him down for a kiss on the mouth. There was a comical element to it. A lady coaxing a man into a kiss, and she did not know how to do it properly, anyway.

Nina pressed her mouth to his, though, and he found his hands knotting in her hair, brushing down her side. And all of a sudden it wasn’t funny and he was tipping his head forward, kissing her again, like a lover, not the delicate kiss she’d given him.

She grabbed the lapels of his waistcoat, drawing him near, until there was no space between them. Her hands were distressingly soft when they touched his face, sliding down between his chin and the collar of his shirt.

He stroked her hair and looked into her eyes. For once, there was no teasing in them; she was not playing. He’d thought the whole world was one unending game for Nina, chasing dragonflies and speaking her facts and attempting card tricks, but abruptly she’d grown serious and full of longing.

She was beautiful, her eyes brimming with intent. He pressed his face against her neck, his hands racing down her body, and he felt himself caught on the edge of something, as he had not been in a painfully long time.

The boom of thunder startled them both, making them jump, and the flash of lightning brought him back to his senses.

He was both mad and stupid.

Nina managed a tremulous smile and this sent him three steps back from her, though he ought to have put an ocean between them, the way he felt right that second.

She’d been, until that moment, an abstract concept, a bunch of jumbled lines that did not amount to a clean figure. She had been rendered flesh and blood, alive and supple.

Hector did not live the life of a monk. He understood desire. But desire was not passion and passion was not love. He might give himself to desire while keeping the vault of his passion and his love for Valérie intact. She was like a saint he venerated at her altar. There’d never been any space for another. But now he felt as though a thief had