Page 52

52

THE END OF AN AFFAIR

L éon moved quietly down the stairs, trying to avoid notice.

Every breath caught sharply in his throat, and his lungs felt like they might explode.

He went to the kitchen, dimly lit by a single candle, the food he’d bought with Henry’s money and such good intentions sitting there on the bench, mocking him.

It would never pass his lips.

He was certain of it.

He gripped the bench, his eyes clouding.

“Léon?”

Souveraine’s voice.

He stared down, one drop then two colouring the wood in front of him.

He didn’t have it in him, after everything, to be brave or strong, or to pretend anymore.

Her hand slid over his arm.

He gazed once into her worried eyes, then fell on her shoulder and burst into tears.

She held him, two arms around his back, supporting him with all her strength as he cried great racking sobs, like he had only ever in his whole life cried for Henry.

Always and again, Henry, his link to all things human and beautiful and destructive, on a level he had never known before.

“I can’t,” he wept. “I can’t. I can’t take another day. I can’t stand it.”

She tightened her grip and let him cry until all the pained energy seemed to run into her strong and loving arms. Then she cupped his face and lifted it.

The face she loved. The face that brought tears to her own eyes when she witnessed his suffering.

“What’s happened?”

His eyes flicked to the floor, but desperate for her understanding, for some spark of the friendship he’d known all his life, he made himself meet her gaze.

“It’s Henri.”

She gave a small and slow nod.

“Is he…”

“Soon. Soon. And I don’t…” He turned away as the words broke on his tongue.

He walked across the room, rubbing his face with shaking hands.

How was he supposed to start?

“I have to tell you… Souveraine… I have…”

He could almost feel the small gasp she took in, one tear falling from her wet lashes and down her cheek.

He met her frightened eyes and whispered, “I have fallen in love.”

She said nothing, holding the bench behind her back, fingers white with tension.

“I have fallen in love with Henri. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for it to happen.” In two fast strides, she had crossed the room to him, arms tight around his shoulders, pulling his head to her neck as he cried.

“I’m so sorry. I love you so much, you know I do.”

“Oh, Léon.” She cried against his hair, stroking it.

“He’s dying. He’s dying, and I shall never speak to him again.”

“My love,” she whispered.

“I don't know what to do. I can’t go on.”

“You will, Léon.”

“Not this time. Not anymore. It’s too much. It’s too much. My whole heart…” He shook against her, and she never once loosened her hold until some time later she felt him ease—felt the exhaustion take him, the tears cried out until he was numb.

“Come and sit,” she said gently. She led him back to the bench, where he climbed onto the countertop at her instigation. Taking a knife, she began to chop the food he was supposed to be preparing. He watched her fast and trembling fingers, and he admired her courage, just as he always had. She was thinking of émile. Of Catherine. Of him. Of how they’d all need to be fed no matter what was happening, and she had instantly taken the role of the backbone of that house, prepared by the death of her own parents, and his, for what would come next.

He slid down, took up another knife, and began to chop. “Thank you.”

She looked across briefly, tears still in her eyes. “Did you think you couldn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t… I thought we’d go home. I thought no matter how much…” The statement that he loved Henry would have brought a new deluge on. He drew his brow against it. “I never thought I’d stay.”

“How long have you known?”

“I don’t know. It just happened. Over time. And my feelings grew so strong, so fast.”

“And does he return them?”

“In full.” He snuck her a melancholy look, and she sent a sad smile back. He tried not to think on the many confessions of love, the promises they’d made one another. Especially Henry. All the beautiful things he’d said. All the beautiful ideas and dreams and hopes, and the lot of it vanished in the space of a day.

Souveraine filled his silence tentatively. “You’ll forgive me. I hadn’t once thought it possible. You’re both…”

“Men,” he said.

“Enemies,” she corrected. “You despised him before you went away. I saw you, the things he put you through. I saw it, and I never would have thought… Enemies to lovers.”

He smiled wanly. “It’s a ridiculous notion.”

“Completely unbelievable.”

“But here we are.”

“Here we are.”

He threw the vegetables and meat into a pot with some water and hung them on a hook over the fire, giving the lot a complacent stir.

Souveraine placed the knife down and leaned her elbows on the bench. “Will you tell me what Guillotin said?”

He didn’t want to. He’d reached the end of his inclination to talk. But it was important. He withdrew into himself then, staring and stirring. “If he’s not improved in the next few hours…” He blew out a long, steadying breath. “He won’t be. He needs to wake up, and he needs to drink something. But this thing, this infection… It’s my fault. He got shot because he was trying to protect me. He saved my life.” Those innumerable tears filled his eyes, hazying his vision. “I can’t ever repay him.”

“If he knows you love him, I believe that’s payment enough.” The gently spoken words added a bittersweet stab to his chest, hearing it from her of all people. “And what you did for Catherine… How could he ask for more than that? You probably did him the greatest service one man ever did for another. It’s no wonder…” Souveraine gathered vegetable scraps into a pile with shaking fingers, speaking as lightly as she could manage. “It’s going to be hard on her. We’ll need to make plans. I will stay with her and see it all through.”

“Of course,” he said mechanically. “We can’t leave her. But Souveraine…” He rose and walked to her, even as she turned away from him. “I have to ask you something more… Things are difficult. And… I don’t know how to say this.”

She let out a sad and stressed laugh. “How can it get worse than it already is, Léon?”

“You might be surprised,” he returned.

She nodded slowly. “Then out with it.”

Lowering his voice, moving closer, “We can’t tell Catherine yet.”

Her eyes shot up to him. “Are you quite mad?”

“No. It’s… She’s very volatile. She feels things deeply.”

Nostrils flaring, “Are you worried about her womanly hysteria?”

“No, it’s not that?—”

“That’s her brother lying up there!”

“I know! Souveraine, listen?—”

“If that was you, and they kept it from me because they were worried I might be a bit upset?—”

“Not a bit upset. Catherine is known for overreacting to things?—”

“Known by who? She’s been perfectly calm-headed since I’ve known her.”

“Souveraine, listen. I will tell her. I will. I just need you to please take émile out when I do.”

“Oh, so you’re hiding it from him, too? He adores Henri. Don’t you think he has a right to say goodbye? And…” She thrust two hands into her hair before shaking them angrily in his general direction. “Do you see the way you infantilise her, a grown woman, as much as you do a literal child?”

“Why do you keep saying that word, ‘infantilise’? I don’t even know what it means!”

“It means I’m not going to let you keep treating her like this. You expect no more from Catherine than to sit there and shut up while you and Henri do all your ‘important’ things together, and now you want to keep this from her too?”

“That is not the situation at all?—”

A finger slammed down between his ribs. “You tell her, or I will.”

Desperately, he hissed, “You cannot tell Catherine!”

A puff of plaster cracked above Léon’s head, and a lightning shape gashed its way up the wall, back, forth, back, forth, then across the ceiling.

Léon, heart nearly bursting out of his chest, turned, his eyes settling on Catherine, fuming in the doorway.

“Tell me what?”