Page 58 of Across Time

“You’re exquisite,” he says quietly. “You’re exquisite when you’re outside feeding the chickens and when you’re in here scrubbing laundry, sweaty and annoyed with me. You took my breath away when I walked in the room tonight…something I assumed you must realize since no one at the dance could look away from you.”

I swallow and turn toward him. His dismissal tonight hurt more than I could even admit to myself until now, and my eyes threaten to well over. He places one hand on my waist and I feel like I can scarcely breathe.

“Then why didn’t you say so?” I whisper, my voice rough. “You acted like you didn’t even want me there.”

He glances between us, at his hand on my waist, at the hint of cleavage rising above the bodice of the dress, and takes a deep breath. “I didn’t want you there tonight because I knew exactly what would happen.”

“What did you think would happen?”

His lips press to the top of my head. “That everyone would discover a secret I wanted to keep to myself,” he says quietly, and then he turns and walks away.

21

Nothing has changed, and everything has changed.

I was awake for a long time after he left me at the door to my room, facing some facts I probably should have faced far sooner—about how much more I feel for Henri than I should, and how much my feelings for Mark seem to pale in comparison. I don’t know what this will mean when I go home, but what it means while I’m here is that I can’t look at Henri the way I did before. It’s more than a crush or infatuation, and maybe it’ll all die away when I leave—it would certainly be for the best if it did—but I know now that a part of me wants it to never end.

I'm sitting with Marie at the kitchen table shelling peas when Henri walks in.

"Good morning," he says.

"Good morning," I reply. I am blushing.

“No jokes about murder today, then?” Marie asks, regarding the two of us with amusement in her eyes.

He glances at me and I flush again. Something has shifted between us. It feels dangerous but also beguiling, like a beautifully wrapped gift I know I shouldn’t open. I'm drawn toward this thing knowing full well I should head in the opposite direction.

* * *

There's a good breeze and the sun is strong, so when Marie leaves for town I grab the laundry basket full of wet sheets and head outside to hang them on the line, accustomed enough to the cast that I can manage small distances without crutches.

The sheets billow as I hang them and the air is heavy with their fragrance. My dress whips around my legs in the breeze, a stray lock of hair flying across my face. I wonder what it's like here in the fall, in the spring. I picture the winter hard and cold, yet even that has a certain appeal. I could make Henri cocoa again, I find myself thinking. A smile crosses my face at the thought when I see Henri climbing the hill, his eyes fixed on nothing but me. I meet his gaze and he doesn't look away. He keeps walking towards me until we stand only feet apart.

His eyes dip to my mouth. "You shouldn't be doing that," he says. "You could fall." His voice seems to come from far away, but his eyes are right here, on me, in a way I swear I can feel.

"I'm okay," I reply. "I've gotten used to the cast."

He considers me for a moment. I see the tiniest hint of vulnerability in his eyes. "It's supposed to storm later in the week," he says. "If you'd like to go riding, we might want to go today."

I feel faint. I'm so consumed with whatever this new thing is between us that it's hard to even understand what he's saying.

"I have to read to Madame Perot this afternoon."

"Afterward, then," he says, pulling one end of the sheet from me and draping it over the line.

I smile. "Okay."

His mouth lifts, just a hint of pleasure. "Okay."

* * *

Henri drives me to Madame Beauvoir’s a few hours later, the two of us saying little.

"You don't have to do this," he says, "if you don't want to."

I swallow. I desperately don’t want to do this, and yet I think of Marie last night with her pleading eyes, silently begging me not to cause problems. "She's expecting me. And who will she have to yell at if I'm not there?"

"Isn't that what they have servants for?" he asks with a small smile.