NINA BEAULIEU STOOD ADMIRING THE great papier-mâché horse’s head resting in his dressing room. It reached above her waist and had been damaged a bit during a recent performance: an ear had fallen off. Hector had plenty of people who could repair it for him, but he liked to do these things himself when he had the chance. He’d handled all his props and costumes by necessity when he was starting in the business, and could even mend trousers and shirts.
“How do you like the reality behind the spectacle?” he asked.
She’d insisted in taking a look inside the theater, although he had meant to meet her outside of it and head for a walk. He’d offered her a tour of the whole building, Dufren walking with them as a sort of impromptu chaperone, and Hector showed her the inner workings of his show. She seemed pleased looking at the backdrops and ropes, but he saw no harm in asking.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “Did you always know you wanted to do this?”
“I didn’t have a choice, seeing as both my parents performed—but, yes. I enjoy it.”
“You could have done something else, I’m sure.”
“Possibly. But why waste my talent?” he asked.
“True enough. It’s not as if every man you pass on the street can lift an elephant with his mind.”
She patted the horse’s head. She was guarded. He did not ask what was wrong, feeling no need to rush the conversation. She’d asked to see him, and they were both slowly stumbling along a path, trying to determine whether they could become friends again. He was glad to be silent and let her speak her mind when she felt like it.
“Did you ever wish you could be normal?” she asked. “Did you ever wish your talent away?”
“And miss the chance to lift those pesky elephants?”
She smiled at that and turned around to look at him. “No doubts, then?”
“Maybe when I was young. I suppose you’ve considered it. I didn’t realize that.”
“At times. I … I want to control it, but sometimes I want it gone.”
“You or others?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
“It’s an important distinction.”
Nina sighed. “Certain days I believe that it might be easier to be like any other, ordinary lady.”
Hector held both her hands between his and smiled down at her. “Nina, you can never be ordinary.”
The warmth of his gesture was both genuine and unexpected, and it startled them both. There was a distance, a bracketing of their emotions, that held them at bay. When either of them breached the line that separated them, it was uncomfortable.
They could speak now, they could even smile at each other, but the wounds were there. These were not old battle scars, but fresh lines upon the flesh. They might mend, one day.
“It seems I also can’t be a lady,” she said, sounding nervous. She turned away from him, and her eyes alighted on the boxes of insects he’d left strewn across his desk. She drifted toward them, picking one up and examining its contents. “More beetles,” she said.
“I did say I bought twenty,” he replied, standing next to the desk and glancing down at the boxes, then back at her.
“But there are so many here. Your numbers don’t add up.”
“I bought a few more,” he admitted.
He’d bought a few books, too, trying to determine exactly what he was looking at.
“Are you purchasing them in bulk now?”
“I’m starting to appreciate the beauty of insects.”
“You say that to make me happy.”
“I do not say things merely to please you,” he replied, rather serious.
“But you didn’t care about them before,” she countered.
“A man may change his mind.”
Again she appeared guarded, silence stretching between them. The discomfort of neither knowing their place, or proper role.
“I won’t ask you why you’ve come to see me today, but you may always tell me what you are thinking,” he told her.
Her eyes flicked to him but they were interrupted before she could speak.
“Hector, a word with you?” Mr. Dufren asked. He was standing at the entrance with papers in his hands. Hector had left the door wide open, thinking it would be less unseemly that way. Nina was an unmarried lady, after all. Appearances mattered. The open door, however, invited conversation from others, like now, Dufren awaiting him.
“I’ll be back soon,” Hector told her.
“Soon” turned out to be closer to fifteen minutes. When he returned and walked in, he saw Nina had moved behind his desk and was looking at his books, her fingers drifting across the spines, like a musician teasing the strings of a guitar.
She stepped back and made a book drift toward her, opening it as if it were a fan, the pages making a soft rustling sound.
There was something about Nina, something he struggled to name. It had to do with her hair like blackbird feathers and the way her hands fluttered when she was excited and how she bit her lips when she thought no one was looking.
Hector was focused. He looked at details. And nothing made him nervous; he could tame a crowd of hundreds with ease.
Yet he was nervous now, staring stupidly at her, and the force of that something held him in thrall.
She must have felt the weight of his gaze because she suddenly caught the book between her hands and pressed it against her chest. “Practice makes perfect,” she said, sounding unsure of herself. She placed the book on his desk and pointed across the room, her voice cheerful yet strained. “What is that? I can’t figure it out,” she said. “Is that an ostrich feather?”
“That’s a pirate’s hat,” he said, glancing at the corner where he kept the changing screen and his clothing.
“No.”
“Do you want to try it on?”
He pushed the screen aside to reveal the mirror and a wardrobe. It was a tattered old screen, faded golden lions against black. He’d had it for a long time. The wardrobe was also a humble piece of furniture, scratched and battered, but big enough to contain an array of clothes.
The mirror was grander. Gilded, tall, allowing Hector to see himself entirely. He’d had to do with a cracked hand mirror when he was young, enduring costume changes in the back of patched-up tents.
Back when he thought only of Valérie.
That had been long, long ago.
He’d taught himself how to dress properly, how to speak properly, what items to order from a menu, and the fashionable dances. All for that one woman.
What good had it done him?
None.
And now, this woman, nothing of what he knew could help with her. That was the crux of the matter. He’d learned so much and yet so little.
“Come on,” Hector said, setting the hat atop her head. “There’s a coat to go with it.”
“When did you dress as a pirate?”
“Two years ago, maybe. I despise costumes, but Dufren says it can’t always be me in a black jacket. Here.”
He pulled out a coat of rich, crimson brocade from the wardrobe and set it on Nina’s shoulders. It was far too large for her, but the color was pleasing. It gave her an impish quality.
“If you ever compete against me, dress in brocade,” he told her. “Though maybe you’ll leave me without any business if you do.”
He had meant to rest a hand on her shoulder, but at the last second, he stilled himself and his hand hovered but did not touch her.
He caught her gaze in the mirror and froze.
He was not used to this.
Everything about Valérie had been violent, hasty. There wasn’t any time for them. The minutes of the day escaped them, and they suffered each lost second. Swift excesses and even swifter emotions.
He’d been young. Now that he was older, wiser, he ought to comport himself better.
He was a man grown, self-assured and seasoned.
He was behaving worse than when he’d been a boy. At least back then, he understood what he wanted, he could string a sentence together.
Now it was like stumbling in the dark, like stuffing thorns in his mouth.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling ridiculous.
What he wanted to say, what he should say, was I keep thinking about you, it frightens me.
He might have said it, but then she slid the coat from her lean shoulders, straightened herself up, and took off the hat. “Luc Lémy courts me now,” she said in a small voice. “I thought I should say this.”
He finally understood why she’d been nervous and those uncomfortable pauses between them. He understood why she’d come to see him. It was Luc Lémy.
The invisible thorn, it bit into his tongue, and yet he found he could speak at last and his voice was cool.
“You must be pleased.”
“He’s fun,” she said, and luckily Hector did not wince.
“I’m sure he is.”
Hector went behind his desk. His papers were all in their place, but he pretended to look for an envelope so he could keep his eyes down and away from her. He was irritated and he did not want her to notice.
“He said you fought the other day,” she told him.
“We had a misunderstanding.”
“About me.”
“He’s hotheaded.”
“Hector, Luc is—”
He did look up at her now, and his gaze was flat. “Very fond of you. I know. It makes me happy to see you happy.”
Nina looked confused and also relieved and who the hell knew what else. He could not tell. He also had no idea if he meant what he had said, and that was deeply troubling.
No, he had. He wanted to see her happy. It was, if it hadn’t … but … Luc Lémy. But Hector had no reason to voice an opinion when he had not been asked to give one, and no reason to be upset after the way he had behaved the previous summer. As Luc had cheekily put it, he’d had his chance. It was Luc who was courting Nina now, Luc who would attempt to win her affections. For a gentleman, it would have been unseemly to interfere.
For the man who had broken Nina’s heart, it would be even more unseemly.
Hector had no right to whisper a word or think an ill thought of Luc.
He swallowed the thorns and smiled at her.
She smiled back tremulously, like a butterfly testing her wings, and he thought, She does like Luc.
“I should go. My great-aunts complain that I miss mealtimes and then the maid must warm my supper,” Nina said.
“It’s been a pleasure seeing you again.”
“I’ll stop by another time,” she promised. “I’ll send a note.”
After she’d left, he wondered when that would be and shook his head.