His hand reached up to her cheek, and Nina pressed a kiss against it, squeezing her eyes shut.
The physician was speaking excitedly to Gaetan, asking whether he needed to tend to the men and which one would he tend to first.
She heard Luc groaning. “What in seven hells was that?” he asked.
“It was her. The silly witch. You must load the pistols and proceed anew,” Valérie replied.
It was the tone Valérie employed that cut most acutely. How neatly she spoke. It made Nina furious. She looked at the woman and noticed Valérie’s face was as pale as bleached linen and her eyes were bright with pain, and yet she dared to speak those words.
“You are a viper,” Nina told her.
“Call me what you want, you fool. Lémy issued a challenge, and it will be answered. There are rules to this game.”
“It’s no game.”
Luc was now standing. He had picked up his revolver from the ground and held it between his hands.
“Step aside, Nina. Valérie is right. There are rules,” Luc said.
Nina turned around. Luc had not raised his pistol again, but he was itching to load another bullet into the barrel and shoot. She might stop that second bullet, too, but there could be a third and a fourth. Her talent could not solve this conflict.
Hector’s hand was on Nina’s arm, and she gave it a light squeeze before stepping away from him.
Nina went toward Luc, slowly, without haste. Up close, he appeared as he always had, gilded, but also different, his luminosity tarnished.
He looked at her curiously, not knowing exactly what she intended to do. She pressed her hands together.
“Luc, you kept me company on many a day and we spoke of numerous things, in honesty and confidence. I want to think that we were friends,” she said. “I think you meant what you said when you proposed to me about making me happy. I apologize if I hurt you, but you cannot make me happy, despite your best intentions.”
He opened his mouth as if to utter a sharp word, but ended up observing her with eyes that were very blue, very confused.
“If you must be angry at someone, it should be me. Not him. I do not think you truly want to do this.”
“You do not understand,” Luc said.
“Luc, I want to believe… Iknowyou are a good man. You are silly and impulsive, and you are a good man.”
There had been a wild and unpleasant spirit inside Luc, but when she spoke, it died out, like cooling embers from an extinguished fire.
“Luc Lémy, do not be a coward now,” Valérie said. “Will you allow this man to stomp over your honor and ruin your future? Remember why you are here.”
“Will you let him be?” Nina exclaimed.
Valérie held her shawl with one hand and chuckled in indignation as she approached them. “They’ll be laughing at you throughout the city, Lémy. Engaged for scarcely a day, and suddenly your bride is missing. And there are manyotherconsiderations one must not forget.”
“Are you truly that desperate for blood that you must goad him?” Nina asked.
“Do not be weak now, Lémy,” Valérie said, ignoring her. “Do not allow this silly child to take away what is rightfully yours.”
Luc’s eyes had been on the revolver, but when Valérie spoke, he raised his head and his eyes fell on Nina.
She knew he had loved her a little, just as she’d cared for him, the gentle love of friends. He had forgotten, and now remembered this detail and it was that memory that doused him.
“Nothing is rightfully mine, and it never was,” Luc said slowly.
Valérie’s body was as tense as a wire, her shoulders raised. As Luc spoke, she grew stiffer, her jaw twisted in its tightness.
“You are wrong to think me a good man. I have been terrible. I wanted to arrange a lucrative business deal using land owned by the Véries, but lacking the proper funds, I thought I could obtain the money by marrying you,” he said. “When you went with Hector, Valérie and I decided the only way to ensure the marriage took place, the only way to obtain the money I needed, was to kill Hector in a duel.”
