Chapter 14
J ean-Luc shot up from the bed tucked into the corner of the cottage, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow and back. Silvery moonlight spilled in through the cottage window.
His gaze darted about and then he spotted Nimue beside him.
Her eyes were wide, her hair a riot about her beautiful face, and she was staring at him with alarm. Her pale hand was on his shoulder, and it was clear that she had been shaking him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
No, he was not all right. Mon Dieu!
He swallowed, his gut twisting with horror. He had not had a dream like that in some time, and the only explanation for it was her. No, the agony-inducing images he had seen tonight had not visited him in years.
Instinctively, he knew it had to be because he was feeling happy, because he was falling… He was falling in love with her. And then there was the fact that he was beginning to loosen his grip on all that he had kept at bay so that he could accept the world as it was. That control was slipping away. So, of course, the dreams were coming back.
He had gotten a handle on them years ago. At that time, they’d been out of control, and he’d barely been able to navigate his life. So, he’d decided to travel by himself. For a period of time, he’d left, spending much time isolated. And on that journey, he had locked all of his darkest pain away and thought it would never come back.
But over the last weeks, in her company, in her embrace, sharing his heart, his soul, his thoughts, his loves, his favorite poetry, his hates, and with her sharing everything that she felt in return, a door had begun to open.
He had not realized it, but now there was no denying it.
“What happened?” she asked. “What is it?”
Did he dare tell her? Did he dare say what he feared? He did not want to cause her distress or make her feel as if it was her fault, because it was no one’s fault but his own. He’d known better.
Why had he not kept this a simple affair of physicality? No, he’d had to go and be a fool, and he knew why he’d been a fool. It was because they had talked about books, the books that she loved so very well, the books that he loved too. And books were doorways to feelings. Books were portals to emotions and shared ideas about how life should be, and that was why they were so bloody dangerous, and so wonderful.
She had to understand. He had to make her understand why he was going to leave her, why this affair was coming to its natural conclusion.
As he sat there with her hand on his shoulder and the silvery moonlight spilling into the place where they had been so happy, he knew there would not be another time like this. He would not come back next winter and awaken a spark that lay dormant between them. This would not become a yearly union. He had to leave her behind, to save himself, to save his heart, to save his sanity, to save her, but first, he had to make her understand.
He locked gazes with her, though it was tempting to look away because this was going to be hard. He did not like to say the words. He had not said any such words in years.
“I see them,” he said flatly.
“Who?” she whispered gently.
He drew in a long breath, curling his hands into fists. “My family, my friends, the boys I grew up with and went to school with. I see them in my mind, how they were, totally and fully alive, foolish, sometimes idiotic, arrogant, but beautiful. I see them in their rich clothes, in their formal court wigs. I see them hunting and dancing and singing and promenading up and down the court. I see them manipulating and maneuvering and trying to get a better place with the king and the queen. I see some of them arguing for a better world, reading volumes by Voltaire and Montaigne, and watching the changes in the world, hoping beyond hope that they could bring reformation to Paris. I see my mother in her resplendent clothes, dancing with my father. I can still see the way they looked at each other, the way they loved each other.”
He winced. “I am grateful my father died before the revolution and I was the comte. He did not have to see my mother—”
His voice broke then. A wave of agony traveled through him, and he tried to shove it back down. Blinking rapidly, he forced himself to go on. “Despite the fact that they were not the closest of parents to us children, we knew that they loved each other, and we knew that they loved us. My mother went to her death and no doubt joined him. I tried to get her to leave with us, but she refused.”
“Oh, Jean-Luc,” she whispered, “I am so very sorry.”
He shrugged, even as he choked on his pain. Part of him wished he could cry and sob. But he had done that before, and the pain had still stayed. The pain was never going to leave and that was the truth. All he could do was bear it and not let it spill onto others. He hated the fact that he was burdening her now.
But he had to, so that she would understand him.
“In my dreams, I see my cousins, all of them, good and bad, living their lives as they were destined to. I see philosophers who taught me, tutors who helped me to have a better education of the world. I see the king doing his best to seem competent, though he was not ever a great ruler. I see the queen, who everyone tried to hate and vilify because she was different and she wasn’t French. Do you understand?”
She was quiet. He waited for her to say, “Oh, yes, I understand,” but she did not.
Instead, she leaned forward and said softly, “Tell me more.”
He blew out a harsh breath, the words rattling out of him. “I don’t see these people on the guillotine. I think most people think that I do. They think I see their bloody deaths. They think I envision them being ripped apart by the mobs as some of them were.”
He ground his teeth and dug his nails into his palms and then his eyes burned. “I see them at their most beautiful. I see the lights in their eyes. I see their ignorance of the future to come, how completely unprepared they were for it. And then it is like they are ghosts, slipping away, calling to me.
“They call my name. Over and over again, they call to me as if I was supposed to join them. They call as if I should be with them, and by all reason, I should be.”
She sucked in a shocked breath. “Oh, Jean-Luc.”
He waited for her to tell him that he should feel differently. But she did not. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him. She held him so tightly, as if she could keep him here with her always and forever.
He tensed in her hold for a long moment and then he relaxed into it, dropping his forehead to rest against the top of her head.
“I cannot understand it, why I survived when they did not. Do you understand? I survived. Not all of them were bad. Some of them were trying to change things for the good, to change France with everything they had.”
His voice was a bare whisper in the dark, and even to his ears, it was chilling.
He lifted his hands and pulled her tightly to his chest as if she could assuage the tautness there. But the brutality of the past would not let him go. “And they were killed by the very people they were trying to help. Do you understand that?”
Her hands pressed against him, holding him firm, keeping him from rattling apart.
He began to shake. “Changing the world is a cruel thing. People think it’s going to go one way,” he ground out, “but it doesn’t. It cannot be anticipated what way it will go. It’s like the flip of a coin. You can predict some outcomes, but you can’t actually know if it’ll land a certain way. You can hope it does, but in the end, it could go against you. Do you see?”
He lifted his head, took her face in his hands, and searched her gaze.
“I cannot ever see as you do,” she whispered, her own gaze filled with horror at what he’d experienced, and yet she did not flinch. “But I can try to understand.”
“This is where the world is going,” he bit out as his fears rose to the surface, his fears of the threat that was now raging on the Continent. “Again, we will not know what will happen. We cannot know who will win or what is coming. All we can do is prepare for it.”
“Prepare for what?” she asked.
“Napoleon,” he growled. “We must prepare for the war that will spread like an infection. We must prepare for the fact that France is ripe for another dictator. We must prepare for the fact that what has happened in France will change the world. It will not be a small thing. Thousands will die if it is not stopped,” he bit out. “Thousands have already died.”
“I can feel your suffering and your worry,” she said softly, calmly, “and I think I’m supposed to say I wish I could take all you fear away, but I won’t.”
He blinked as if she had thrown cold water on him. “What?”
“I can’t wish the world to be different, Jean-Luc, because if I did, you wouldn’t be who you are. You wouldn’t be this good man. And the truth is, changing things is very dangerous. This is the world.”
He stared at her, then pulled back, astonished. “You mean all those people were supposed to die?”
“Supposed to?” she whispered before she drew in a long, steadying breath. “I am not wise enough or powerful enough. I am not omniscient. The loss of innocent life is so horrible. But they did die, and we cannot go back and change it, and so we must accept it.”
“Accept,” he breathed. “Yes, accept the way the world is. Allow the atrocities to continue. Do nothing.”
“I didn’t say that,” she rasped.
“Didn’t you?” he queried harshly.
“You are twisting what I’ve said to suit your fears,” she said. “There is no point railing against the past. Change the future if you will. Get involved, be active in it, but the past is done. It doesn’t exist anymore. Tomorrow doesn’t even exist. You know that, don’t you? Yet, you are already afraid of Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“Afraid? You should be afraid,” he said. “We should all be afraid.”
“I refuse to be afraid,” she bit out. “Every day, I wake up here,” she said. “Every day, I know France is just across the water. Good God, if they’re going to invade, this would be a perfect spot. Nothing is secure. The history of the world, Jean-Luc, tells us that nothing is secure. No country is safe, no government is permanent, no king. Not even the average, everyday citizens can guarantee their bread. We wake up every day, and dear God in heaven, if we are warm, if we have books, if we have clothes, we should be grateful beyond all measure, and I am so grateful that I have gotten to know you. I don’t know what you were like before you left France, but I know this, you weren’t like you are now, and the man you are now is who I…”
“Yes?” he whispered softly, taken aback by her passionate diatribe.
She swallowed. “Nothing.”
“Say it,” he said.
“I love you,” she replied.
He winced.
Her eyes shadowed at his wince. “I know I wasn’t supposed to, but it is perfectly acceptable if I love you,” she said. “Love doesn’t mean we have to marry. It just means…” She shrugged, a surprisingly accurate imitation of one of his own shrugs. “It means that I love you. And I know that I always will because you’ve helped me become who I am now, today. In just a short few weeks, I have transformed, and I am so grateful to you.”
“I don’t want your gratitude,” he said, feeling now as if the world had turned again on its head, and he did not know which way was up or down.
“I can see that,” she replied softly, “and I’m sorry for it.”
“I thought we were doing this simply so that…”
“Well, we have,” she said, her gaze growing misty as she gave him a sorrowful smile. “Even so, you’ve transformed me, but I’m not certain if I have transformed you, and I suppose I shall have to be all right with that.”
Quietly, she slipped from the bed.
“What are you doing?” he asked softly.
She gave him an odd, resigned look. “What you want.”
He shook his head. “You’re—”
She stood in the moonlight, her chemise whispering about her beautiful body. She gestured with her delicate hand back and forth between them. “You know this is coming to an end, as do I, and I don’t want to fight with you. I want to remember my love for you kindly, in a good way,” she said softly. “So, promise me, we will not fight to end this. We will not end bitterly because that would be the cruelest thing. That is not what we wanted, so let us not think that we have to tear each other apart to let each other go.”
Then, quietly with great dignity, she dressed.
He watched her from the bed, paralyzed. He’d just spent several moments trying to drive her away. To make her understand the state of the world and why the future was to be feared. She was doing what he had wanted. And yet, now that he had it, he burned with the agony of it.
He was losing her. He’d wanted to lose her.
“I’m going to leave you alone now,” she said, “because I think that’s what you truly wish. I would be very silly indeed to think that I could change that. So I wish you the best, Jean-Luc. I hope you take the love I have for you and hold it in your heart. Perhaps you will do nothing with it. But know that it is yours.”
“Are you ending things with me now?”
“Of course not. We will be at an end when you and your family depart, and that is very soon,” she said, “but I want you to know where I stand, and I will stand with you until the day you leave the Isle of Wight. I hope that will be enough for both of us. To guide us through, as you say, what is to come.”
She paused, her turmoil written on her face. “I can still stay tonight. Ask me to stay, and I will. Tell me that is what you actually want. It’s what I want.”
Almost every part of him begged him to stop her from slipping out the door. Yet, he did not stop her. How could he? He’d never lied to her. He’d always been honest. This was always going to end.
Nimue’s shoulders drooped slightly and then she gave a small nod before slipping out into the dark.
He sank his head into his hands. How had he let it end like this?