“You mock me.”
Nina reached above her head, holding on to an overhanging branch with her left arm while she pointed with her free one at the lake. “We should rent a boat and row across the water.”
“I’m afraid I’m not a man fit for manual labor,” Luc replied.
“I’ll row you if you can’t,” Nina said with a chuckle.
“That would not be gentlemanly.”
“It would be fun.”
Luc looked up, frowning. “It’s sunny. I’ll burn.”
“A few freckles never killed anyone.”
“I didn’t say they’d kill me. I don’t like them.”
“You are the vainest man in the world.”
Perhaps he had earned his vanity. The light filtered through the leaves, making his hair golden, like a halo, and his eyes were of a magnificent blue.
Luc moved closer to her and pressed her back gently against a tree, bending down for a kiss. She rested a palm against the trunk of the tree, tracing the rough texture of the bark, while her other hand rose to touch his cheek.
She had forgiven him for their tiff the other day, and quickly at that. He was an expert at begging for forgiveness, contrite words slipping easily from his tongue. Though she accepted the words and the peace offering in the shape of this walk through the park, she felt sad.
“Someone will see,” she said, turning her head, her eyes on the lake.
“No one can see us here.”
He was right. The grove was shady and cool, a wall of leaves and tree trunks shielding them from passersby. Not that there were passersby. No path led by the grove. They were alone. He had, perhaps, chosen this location strategically, knowing they would not be bothered.
“Maybe,” she conceded. She tried to slide away from him, her eyes on the lake. “We must hurry if we are going to rent a boat, or they’ll all be taken.”
“There’s time enough for that,” he replied.
She parted her lips and Luc kissed her again, and this time he was too eager. He pressed her more firmly against the tree; the bark bit into her back, and his hands rested on her waist.
They’d warned her of men who took liberties with women. Both her mother and Valérie, and her cousins back at Oldhouse. They hadnotwarned her that sometimes she mightwantto have certain liberties taken. They had also not explained what might happen when her body thrummed, electric, yet her heart remained subdued.
The books she’d read were of no help either—the heroines in them fainted whenever a man kissed them.
She did not feel like fainting. Her pulse did quicken, but it was not the same—she did not want to think it, but it wasn’t the same as it was with Hector. When he’d walked into a room, she could not help but smile, and when he stood in front of her, she’d been very alive, heart hammering in her chest. Sometimes she had held her breath in anticipation, thinking he might kiss her, and that day at the tower, he had.
Luc’s fingers traced her neck now.
She caught his hand and looked at him. “Luc, stop.”
“Hmm?”
She shoved him back, only a smidgen of her talent on display, and he stumbled, frowning. “Luc, I would not want to mislead you,” she said, glad she had the presence of mind to speak firmly.
“How so?” he asked.
“I enjoy your company and you are one of the most charming men that I’ve ever met, but I do not want you to think we are sweethearts. Or that anything may come of this.”
He chuckled, but it was not a merry sound. Even so, he tried to maintain a mask of good humor. “You sound like me. I didn’t think a woman would ever tell me this.”
The memory of Hector’s words, when they’d first met, echoed in her mind.Do you talk to all men in this manner?
