Chapter 14 Eden
Fourteen
Eden
Oste went after her.
He’d have run in his socks if that was all he had. He ran, knowing she was quicker, but her stumbles and swaying permitted him to keep up anyway. Hardly any souls were milling about at that hour; it made their chase proceed.
“Dorotèa!” Oste shouted, but he got no answer. He pushed through a door. She made a turn, realized it went nowhere, and doubled back. He yelled again. “Dorotèa!”
But Dorotèa was busy shoving her way past a door that led outside and into the humble garden attached to the hospital.
The small patch of benches and florals lacked any loveliness at this hour, and their colorless silhouettes rose and reached out like spindly claws.
A couple outdoor torches lighting the way inside offered some additional visibility, but not enough; the duelist caught herself on a rose bush and yelped when the thorns dragged across her arm and dress sleeve.
That was the only interruption that Oste needed to finally catch her.
Though already wholly out of breath and dizzy from the run, he clamped his hand around her wrist like old times and tugged.
Dorotèa whirled around and staggered. The sun finally rose a sliver from the horizon at that moment, and he managed to see, with clarity, the tears that stung her eyes and rolled down her ruddy cheeks.
“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Dorotèa cried. He’d never heard such a fragile sound spill from her mouth. It made him want to draw her into his arms immediately, especially when she didn’t fight against his grip. “I didn’t—it just kept happening. It all got away from me. I only… I only…”
“Listen—”
“I’m so sorry. When I first saw you fight, you had the most unique style I’d ever seen.
I—I’d never seen others try the tactics you did.
And even when it didn’t work out, you’d laugh, and I…
I think I fell a little bit in love with your fencing then.
I just wanted to experience it myself. It was so much fun.
I’d never had such fun. No, I—I fell a little bit in love with you, didn’t I? ”
Oste drew her other wrist up with his free hand. He kept her grounded, and grounded himself. She was as much a crutch to him as he was to her as adrenaline chewed through his body and squeezed his heart with a burning touch. He felt her pulse, and it pounded and skipped as much as his did.
“Take me back,” Dorotèa sobbed. “Take me back to a time when I didn’t know what it was like to be looked at with your disgust. Oh, God, I can’t bear it, even though I only have myself to blame.
No, no, I cannot take a life where the person I cherish the most looks at me now with such horror, and contempt—”
Oste silenced Dorotèa when he pressed his lips against hers.
She didn’t taste remotely like he expected.
Wine and salt, yet he thirsted for her in spite of such things being that which bade him need water.
Dorotèa’s mouth was hot, but it parted so easily for him when he dared to go deeper even with her eyes paralyzed open in shock.
Yet once he did, her long lashes fluttered, and drifted closed.
When she put her arms around his neck, Oste felt and heard the sob that came with her kiss and made him shake as he held her aloft.
He hardly knew how it had happened. Not a single thought spirited along his embrace.
When Dorotèa drew back for air, Oste wrapped her up in his arms and spoke into her ear. “Is that how I appeared? That you disgusted me?”
She rocked back on her heels, and Oste hastily let her go as quickly as he gathered her up in order to grasp the sides of her face and gaze into her with nothing less than his deepest intent. Dorotèa gasped, and he spoke.
“No, no, Dorotèa. What you have seen is nothing less than my truest starstruck stupor,” Oste laughed, and he felt his own tears form. “My word, displace your weeping, for I had clumsily shown the truth of that which I tell you again now: I deeply respect you.”
No, that wasn’t only it. The other side struck him as forcefully and as swiftly as the shot from the musket had.
He felt devoid of air, devoid of sense. He was certain of one thing, and it was maddening, for it had been so long since he dared to dream enough to want another.
She came over him like an explosion of colliding stars when he saw not the Duelist of Aix-en-Provence, not Mademoiselle Galoup of Saint-Mitre, but Dorotèa.
Dorotèa, silly, wild Dorotèa, who held his heart.
“I respect you. And I cherish you.”
Dorotèa’s tear-soaked eyes searched his face.
Her cheeks quivered slightly beneath his gentle hold while she carried out her task of tracking him like a book, following the lines of his face as though they were lines on a page.
He hoped she liked what she read. He hoped she liked everything she did.
She spoke, painfully quiet. “You do not detest me?”
Oste shook his head.
Dorotèa didn’t look any less perplexed. “You… kissed me.”
“Not the most well-mannered thing I’ve ever done, but I meant it.”
“Could you… do it again? So I can pay attention this time?”
The side of Oste’s mouth quirked. He let go of her face to draw her into his arms, then spun her around towards the rustic wall of the hospital.
She gasped again when her back pressed against it, and he greedily kissed her waning exhale.
Her eyes closed more readily this time, and her hip cocked to welcome him closer towards her body.
Oste obeyed, pushing against her with his warmth, and delighting in the hesitant exploration of her own touch.
She ran her hands over his messy stubble and let them slide over his shoulders until she was holding him right back.
They broke away, breathed, and came together again.
“Oste?” Dorotèa asked softly. It was a sound so gentle he felt he could wrap himself up in it for sleep.
“I think… I’ve always loved you.” He kissed her jaw and rocked her back again.
Her soft skin distracted him so readily from his creeping dread.
“On… account… of you kissing me—ah—might I presume you have some measure of affections yourself? Can I… allow myself to hope?”
The physician slowed his displays and forced a more sober mind to the front through a long, steady breath. He let it out, hot breath over her skin, which made her shudder. “Dorotèa, you shouldn’t.”
She stiffened under him. “Shouldn’t hope?”
“Shouldn’t love me as you do.”
“How could I not, when you say such things, and look as you do? How could I give you anything less than my love?”
Oste shook his head and buried it into her neck, and Dorotèa wove her fingers into his hair. “Because I don’t know where I could put it.”
“Does love have to be put somewhere?”
“I could make a joke about where it goes, but I’m being serious. I don’t… I’m not…”
Dorotèa swallowed. She pressed harder against the wall to peel herself from him partway. “Perhaps we should have a sit. This has been a little too—ah—invigorating for your convalescence? Yes, yes, I’ve decided for both of us that we’re having a sit.”
The departure of their shows of affection let his desperation and unease that had been creeping in come down in a heavier stream.
It washed over him as he allowed Dorotèa to take his hand and lead them both towards a bench, where they sat amongst lavender and plum trees.
His enamorment and delight had become uncomfortably embroiled with his shame and the despair that came with it.
Oste had no explanation in his medical texts for how quickly a man could go from feeling immortal to so, so very small. When he sat, his hands fell firmly into his lap, placed atop the pedestal of his legs squeezed firmly together. The distance between them felt impossible again.
“There we go,” Dorotèa breathed. She immediately broke his position when she reached into his lap and tugged his hand to the space between them.
Fingers laced around his, nimble and firm like the fencer she was.
“If you must let me down, then let me down gently, Oste, because I feel things too strongly for my own good. But first tell me why you suddenly seem so very sad. Was I a dreadful kisser?”
Her final sentence took him by surprise, and he weakly chuckled when he shook his head. “No, no, not at all. You’re a natural.”
“Oh, good. I shall add that to things I feel I can brag about,” Dorotèa hummed, but, with him still wilting, she gave his hand a squeeze. “What is it, Oste? You know my secret, now let me carry yours.”
Oste squeezed her hand back and bit his lower lip.
He'd not even had the heart to tell his parents such things before they found out through other means; and even now, any hint of the subject reminded him of the fear he wore like a cloak. He’d never been as careful as he should have been considering what the aftermath could very well be.
Anyone he found pleasure in the arms of could turn around and see him lose his head for it.
Sometimes he thought he’d deserve it, because ‘sinner’ was a word he’d stopped hearing and started feeling instead.
“Lust is a very easy emotion to feel,” Oste started.
He placed his words carefully and tried to stymie his nervous fumbling.
“Lust, I have experience with. Love—Love is something I’d only ever want to do right by, because that sort of thing is meant to stay.
I… I’d only ever wish to fulfill it utterly, and ardently, and be a good man and husband like I watched my father be.
I couldn’t give anything less than a marriage, good morals, a proper home, and complete… complete…”
Dorotèa inclined her head. “But all of those things sound as they should.”
“Yes. And I do not think I am up to the task of delivering them. No, I know that I am not. I have no business taking a partner if I cannot fulfill the basic standards of being a decent man.”