HECTOR WAS NOT ONE FOR laxness. He’d spent his whole life climbing up the social ladder, running from place to place, jumping from task to task, asking his assistant, Mr. Dufren, to fetch him one prop or another. In fact, upon learning Hector was going to spend a few days resting in the countryside, Dufren had not believed Hector at first, thinking it was a practical joke.
Hector liked having markers in his life, elements that could guide him. Now when he opened his shutters in the morning, he did not know what he was supposed to do. A relaxing country stay baffled him, though it did not irritate him as it irritated Luc Lémy, who yearned for the city for entirely different reasons.
Hector quickly found a rhythm to Oldhouse. There was an early breakfast in his room, and then he’d venture down either to accompany Nina on one of her insect-hunting expeditions or for a walk around the house. Once this purpose had been accomplished, Hector tended to camp in the library. In the afternoon, there was supper to be had, everyone piling into the dining room. Afterward, several of them usually retreated to the great hall for conversation. There, or in the library, Nina and Hector put their talent to use.
In Loisail, Nina did not display her talent in public and they did not practice tricks in Valérie’s presence. But upon his arrival at Oldhouse, Nina’s mother had asked if he would not perform for them. Hector obliged, presenting the sort of act he might have executed in cafés or taverns in his youth: spinning two plates, opening a book onto a page, making a coin dance above his open hand. When he was done and they’d all clapped, Hector turned to Nina and asked her if she wouldn’t show her family the trick with the coin. At first she had not wanted to, shy, but then she’d changed her mind and made the coin hover above her hand, blushing and glancing down when she was done.
Her family was surprised. He gathered that Nina’s talent had been more about knocking down books from bookcases by accident or shuffling cutlery in the kitchen drawers without realizing it than any formalized application of the ability, but that was no longer the case. Thus, in the evenings, they generally settled together to practice in view of all.
That afternoon was no different. Luc stood by the fireplace, Valérie rested on an overstuffed chair, while Hector and Nina occupied opposite sides of an old divan. They played with a pack of cards in the dim, cool room.
He shuffled the cards and then inclined his head, indicating it was her turn. Nina moved her left hand, making three cards slide from his deck and float toward her waiting fingers. He shuffled the cards again and again inclined his head.
“Dear me, how many times are you two going to do that?” Luc asked, hovering over Hector’s shoulder.
Luc was bored. He had been bored for the past half hour, fidgeting and circling them, frowning and stepping back. He was like a child, quick to pick up a toy and quick to forget it, always seeking a new, shiny amusement.
“We are practicing,” Hector said. “It’s important to get it right.”
“Whatever for? It is not as if Miss Beaulieu is a performer at the Royal, as you are.”
“It’s not the point.”
“What is the point? It’s all incredibly odd, this business with the cards. Weren’t you building a house with them yesterday? What shall that prove?”
“Physics,” Hector said.
“I’ll say, it’s peculiar to see a woman doing this,” Luc declared.
“Perhaps Nina means to reinforce her reputation as the Witch of Oldhouse,” Valérie said.
Valérie sat half-reclined, her lips curved into a sneer, her pale skin contrasting with the darkness of the room and granting her a provocative air. She was alluring, but when Hector glanced at Nina and saw the way her eyes went wide with quiet pain, he felt desire wilting from him.
“That is a cruel taunt to repeat,” he said, his voice hard.
Valérie leaned back haughtily. “Are you to reproach me? These idiotic parlor tricks are fit for rogues in gambling dens, not a proper lady. Not that Antonina behaves like a lady. Half the time she is close to a savage.”
“Pardon me, but Antonina is a true lady, unlike some others who put on airs and merely pretend to be gentlewomen,” he affirmed, his eyes firmly set on the older woman, the barb undeniable and as sharp as a saber.
Valérie stood up at once in a fury of pink damask and marched out of the room with such haste, several people stopped speaking. Hector sat in silence, letting the three cards that had been floating in front of him fall down upon the divan.
“Thank you,” Nina said.
Hector looked up at her and saw she was smiling. “You’ve slain a dragon for me,” she added.
“I’ve been crude and will no doubt pay dearly for it.”
“She deserved it,” Nina said, her voice low. “You don’t know how it was when I was small, how they’d taunt me for it. I didn’t mean to make the flour fly through the kitchen, I didn’t mean to make the stones rain or the porcelain shatter. It happened and they’d frown or they’d laugh or they’d say, ‘There goes the Witch of Oldhouse.’”
“It was like that, too, for me at times. I almost burned a guesthouse in Zhude—I knocked over a lantern. I did not mean it. They threw me out in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“You were angry?” she asked. “When I’m angry … it’s hard to keep a grip on it. I fear it will overcome me at times.”
“I was,” he said. This bit of their talent they had not discussed, both too afraid to voice the limits of their control. “But, the talent, you use it, it doesn’t use you.”
“That boy. I shoved him off a horse.”
“Yes, you mentioned it.”
“He was almost trampled. But I did mean it, I did,” she said, her voice faint.
“We all make mistakes.”
She looked at him, her eyes catching the light in the gloom of the large room, a winsome green shade in that instant. “Why were you angry, when the fire happened?” she asked.
“I’d had my heart broken.”
It shocked him because it was an honest and deep answer. He had hardly ever told people about his troubles; he guarded them. His secrets were not for Nina.
He turned his head. If they continued in this vein, if she looked at him longer, he might tell her about the times he wished to die in his bed, the moment when he’d contemplated the never-ending sea. Hector excused himself.
The next day they sat outside, on the grass in front of the house. Étienne lay on his back, hands behind his head. Valérie sat under a white parasol, shielding herself from the sun’s rays, although it was not a sunny day. A few of Nina’s cousins and assorted relatives were nearby, chatting with each other.
He had stayed out of Valérie’s way, but could not help frequently looking in her direction, magnetized.
“We should play a game,” Luc declared. “Have some fun.”
“What game would you like to play, Mr. Lémy?” Nina asked.
“Tag!” a younger cousin yelled.
Others agreed eagerly and Luc thought it a splendid idea. Even Étienne was roused to his feet by his brother.
Nina stood up, brushing bits of grass from her skirts, and looked down at Hector. “Are you joining us?” she asked.
“Not this time,” he said.
She smiled at him before running off with the others, their shrieks and giggles soon sounding distant. Only Valérie and Hector were left behind.
He turned toward her. Valérie wore an embroidered, white silk dress with a smocked waistline and her ever-present pearls, her blond hair carefully coifed and pinned in place. She had a book with her, but was not reading it. Several times he had seen her grab it, open it to a page, then close it and place it at her side again as if she’d thought better of it.
Valérie’s eyes were fixed on the sky, and when she spoke, her voice sounded relaxed, even languid. “You should have gone with her,” Valérie said.
“Valérie, I—”
“Good day,” she declared with a chilling finality.
Without looking at him, her eyes still on the sky, Valérie stood up, then walked back into the house.
Hector watched her disappear inside Oldhouse and instead of following her, as he badly wanted to, he took a side path and walked away from the house, his head down.
Valérie had never been gentle or simple. But her passion, tucked under her perfect exterior, had echoed the passion within him. They were both creatures of tempestuous seas and stormy nights. But how it hurt sometimes!
He walked for a while, attempting to fill his head with the songs of birds instead of memories of this woman, and failing. Hector tried to satisfy himself thinking that Gaetan had not inflamed her heart. No, he could not picture the pleasant Mr. Beaulieu inspiring anything but the most insipid feelings. Neither the rolling anger nor the yearning of their days past, nor the tumultuous reconciliations when—after a day of scowls—Valérie suddenly turned toward Hector and declared breathlessly that, alas, she loved him. They always came apart suddenly and suddenly rejoined, as if nothing had ever been amiss, caught once again in their joy.
But now, now this meeting did not take place, the gap between them only growing by the day, and he stood at the edge of a chasm. It could not end like this.
The clouds had multiplied and he sensed the impending arrival of rain. Hector retraced his steps and returned to Oldhouse, walking past the strange, ancient tower that loomed behind the main building, as raindrops began to splash more forcefully upon the land. He felt old and tattered and wanted simply to lie down and lie still.
“Hector, here,” a voice said.
He raised his head and saw Nina standing at the entrance of the tower, wrapped in its shadow.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “I thought no one goes in there.”
She’d said so herself the day she took them on a tour of the grounds, though he ought to have known the rules did not apply to her.
“We are playing hide-and-seek. I’m hiding,” she replied.
“I think you’ll win. I did not see you standing there at all.”
“Good,” she replied. Even if he could not look at her properly—she stood in shadows—he could tell she was smiling. “You probably haven’t seen the room in the tower. Come up. It’s a gorgeous view.”
It was raining harder, the summer drizzle threatening to become true rain.
“I’ll break my neck. This does not look solid.”
“It has stood for a few centuries, it can stand one more day for us. You’ll get soaked if you stay there,” Nina said, and disappeared inside.
He looked up at the tower, which was square in shape and rose five stories above the ground. One could almost hear the stones groaning with exhaustion. Atop its entrance was carved the image of a lamb and a word that had been smudged with time, perhaps her family’s name? This must be a tower house, an independent structure and not a part of a manor in times past, though the ones he’d seen before were usually by the sea.
He wished to remain outside, with his melancholy.
Instead, Hector followed Nina up a spiral staircase.
“What is up there?” he asked, curious despite himself.
“You’ll see.”
“I can’t see, that is the problem.”
“Don’t be afraid now, I’ll catch you if you fall,” she joked.
He was right to be cautious about entering the tower. The steps were narrow, it was dark, and there was no proper banister, but soon they reached the top floor.
The tower had been uninhabited for a great deal of time and the chamber they walked into did not have a stitch of cloth or furniture left. But there was a tall window—its shutters long crumbled into dust—on the east wall. The builders of the tower had carved stone seats to contemplate the scenery with ease. This was the prize.
“See,” Nina said, rushing to the window and looking out.
The land spread beneath them, green and alive. Hector could see the river they had visited, its waters gleaming, and farther away, tall mountains. The ground was a chaos, sloping up here then down there; it was not neatly flat as in the north, and the air smelled of wet earth. Flocks of sheep grazed not far from the tower. Water and wood, this was her world, while he was forged in the city, on the road. He breathed in slowly, feeling better.
“Those are all ours. That’s our flock,” she 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 stolen into the vault, desecrating all the noble romantic dreams he’d built.
He’d allowed himself to feel passion for someone else.
This was a betrayal.
“That was not proper of me,” he told Nina. He did not recognize his own voice, raspy with dread.
“I did not mind,” she said.
“We should go.”
He went quickly down the stairs and did not bother to slow when she called his name. Outside, Nina managed to catch up with him, pulling at his arm.
It was raining hard and he welcomed the cold water sliding under the collar of his shirt because the rain nested in her hair like minuscule jewels, it crowned her in summer glory, and he dearly wanted that desperately lovely girl. Thank heavens then for the rain, which cooled his spirit.
“Hector, we must speak,” she told him.
He knew what she wanted to say, it was written clear on her face: she loved him. How stupid he had been, telling himself he was no cad yet being a cad all the same. He’d crossed the border he promised himself he would not cross with her, the shield of his polite distance disintegrating.
She loved him and it stung. Before, he could have neatly snapped his ties with her, stepped away, and let another fellow court her. She would have forgotten him in a fortnight. She was young.
Yet.
She loved him and he knew he’d done this, and he ought not to. He should have known better how easily the sentiments of a young woman could be swayed. He should have known she was not the experienced coquette who flutters her eyelashes at one fellow and another, nor the calculating rich merchant’s daughter who measures the weight of a man in gold. He should have known that she loved him already.
He’d been selfish and ignored this truth. This more than anything dampened any ardor.
Nina tried to touch his face and he was forced to turn his head.
“I shall not use you in this way,” he said.
“What?”
She was confused, but he could not explain. Not then and not there. Perhaps later, once he’d managed to unravel his thoughts, he’d calmly sit down and speak his mind. Or not. Hector could not tell her about Valérie, for one. He might be able to make her understand that he was entirely unworthy of her and that she would be better off setting her sights on a good man, someone who was not a fool longing after a woman he could not have.
He should have left long ago, should have abandoned her at the foot of the stairs that time back in the city.
“Forgive me,” he muttered.
She looked terribly forlorn, her long hair now a wet mess and her dress soaked through. He felt the weight of guilt as he hurried into Oldhouse, but there was nothing more he could say.