“Take me to Boniface,” she told the driver, and when he looked at her skeptically, she removed her pearl earrings and held them up. “You can have these if you do.”
He muttered under his breath but snatched the earrings all the same, and she hurried inside. The wheels did not turn fast enough for her taste, nor could she rush out of the vehicle fast enough as the carriage pulled up in front of Hector’s building. She forced the entrance open with her power, not even thinking to use it; the door simply sprang open, obeying her desire more than her mind. She ran up the stairs and knocked three times.
Hector opened the door in his lounging robe and stared at her, looking surprised.
She stood breathless before him and managed to speak in a low voice. “You will forgive me, but I had to see you,” she said.
She walked past him, and he was too startled to impede her path. An army might not have been able to hold her back at this point.
“Are you unwell? Is something amiss?” he asked, sounding worried.
“It was my engagement party tonight,” she replied.
She felt as if she were sinking into the deepest of waters and appropriately took a deep breath, a swimmer ready to dive under the waves. She was not sure he’d save her, he might let her dash against the rocks, but she must speak, she must attempt this.
“Hector, I cannot marry Luc Lémy. I do not love him, and I do not believe I could find true happiness with him.”
Now that she had started speaking, it all became easier. She was nervous but determined. She had broken to the surface. She was not drowning but living, everything inside her eager and awake.
“I am in love with another man. Since Oldhouse and before that.He is intelligent and dedicated and kind. He understands me, and I believe I understand him. I like the way he talks and the way he smiles. I like many things about him, I cannot ever remember all of them.”
She approached him and did not know what to do with her hands, she was too nervous. She settled for clutching them together, and her voice dipped.
“I love you,” she concluded.
The minutes went by in a dense silence. He looked more wearied than pleased. Then again, she was unsure how men should take declarations of love. This did not appear in any of her books.
“You have nothing to say to me?” she asked.
“Nina,” he said with a sigh, “Nina we must get you back to your party.”
He extended a hand, as if to point her to the door, and she tensed at once.
“No,” she said, brushing his hand away. “No, did you not hear me? I do not want to go back. I won’t marry him.”
He gave her an odd, brittle look. His shoulders were hunched.
Anger licked her skin.
“What is wrong with you? I am here, baring my heart to you, and you can hardly look at me.”
“Decisions made in the haste of the moment are often regretted. Come morning, you might see matters in a different light,” he replied.
“Different light?”
“Yes. What do you think will happen to your reputation? There will be a scandal if you break this engagement, doubly compounded if you break it for me.”
“I know exactly what I am doing. I have finally regained my senses and realize I cannot walk a path of lies,” she told him.
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a low “no.”
If she’d been wiser, she might have chosen this moment to leave him, mortified by the whole sorry chain of events that had led her to his home. Instead, Nina dug her heels in and she stared at him. It was the folly of youth that gave her courage.
“You are a coward,” she said.
He snapped up straight, tall and firm again, his shoulders stiff.
“Yes,” she pressed on. “I see it now. You can act the part of a secureman onstage, but you are nothing but a coward. You fear what they’ll say aboutyou.”
