CHAPTER FIVE #5
Again she eyed him. A calculating look? “Your identity paper describes you as an aide. With such friends as those I met today, I must suppose you to have been aiding someone in the government.”
She was acute, he had to give her that. He could neither confirm nor deny it, aware Grace would likely take his silence for assent. Her eyes narrowed a little, and he waited, with a faint feeling of apprehension, for what she might next say.
“That you have been pursued to England presupposes a change — either of your employers in the government, or of your own loyalties. These men, who are no longer your friends, must be part of that change. You are government business, a fugitive, so they said. Yet it appears they are bent upon destroying you, not returning you, in the cause of justice, to France.”
Her tone was flat and unemotional, but Henri was not deceived.
Her eyes signalled her distress. The temptation to unburden himself was strong.
She had picked up the very anomalies he was assured must plague the authorities.
Readily could he answer them, but there was a price to pay when he did.
One did not lead life on a knife edge without shouldering consequences almost unendurable.
How far these might be taken as the ravages of war was a matter for each man and his own conscience.
Except that when it came to authorities, the recoil became unpredictable.
As if she read his thought, Grace spoke again. “Have you thought what you will say, when Wooferton or Sir James is asking you these questions?”
Henri laughed out. “Ma chère, I have thought of little else since I found it was my destiny to live.”
“Then tell me,” Grace pleaded, a catch in her voice.
“Don’t you see it is worse for me not to know, when a little knowledge may be enough to give me hope?
You will go from here, and I will be left with conjecture and surmise, and a hideous tangle of confusion.
If you are shot as a spy, Henri, I will have saved you for nothing! ”
She could not prevent the uneven rise and fall at her breast, and there was no pushing back the moistures gathering upon her lower lids and tippling on to her cheeks. Grace raised her hands to dash them away, hiccupping on the choking sobs threatening in her throat.
Dimly she heard Henri’s voice. “Ah, no, chèrie!”
There was the scrape of a chair, and in a moment Grace was pulled up by one strong hand and gathered into a warm embrace. Forgetting his injury, she sank against Henri’s sound shoulder, desperately swallowing her tears. Tender words were murmured close to her ear.
“Grace, ma petite, you must not weep for me. I am not worth…”
His lean cheek was pressed against hers, and the warmth of his half-embrace was inexpressibly comforting. Still the tears came. He shifted, and she felt his breath across her cheek, urgency in his tone.
“Peace! Tais-toi! Doucement, doucement…”
Before Grace knew what was happening, her mouth was covered by Henri’s, as if by this means he might enforce her silence. The urge to weep gave way to an exquisite sensation, as of liquid heat spreading through her veins.
Grace stilled, afraid to lose the contact of his lips upon her own, the certainty rising in the back of her mind that Henri would surely take them away before she had a chance to savour this enchanted moment.
They mouthed hers softly, a pressure that increased the melting within.
Grace willed herself to die so that she need never face reality again.
But it was too late. The contact broke, and Henri was moving away. Grace had forgotten how it had happened, knew this was the only time it would. An impossible dream, made possible by her weakness.
Shame coursed through her, and she pulled sharply back. Her fingers came up to brush across the imprint of his kiss. Words jerked from her mouth, unthought and futile.
“I beg your pardon! I should not have — it is my fault. It was foolish of me. Pray have no fear. I will not think of it again.”
Henri was frowning deeply, the hand that had held her supporting him on the table. He had not moved back, and the look in his eyes froze her. She tried again.
“You did not mean it, I know. It was just to comfort me. My fault, Henri. It should not have happened. I had no intention of — of —”
She broke off, aware she was babbling. Henri was on the move, turning towards the door. He spoke as he went, gruffness in his tone.
“There is no blame, Grace. Not for you. It is better that I return to bed now.”
At the door, he halted, turning. His eyes were sombre, but he smiled faintly. Grace thought there was effort in it.
“Let tomorrow bring that which it desires, I have no regret. To know you, Grace, it has been a privilege.”
She saw him turn again, and longed to call him back.
But the words refused to be uttered. That she had hurt him was all too obvious.
How to mend it was beyond her. She had never been kissed in her life before, but instinct told her what sort of a kiss it had been.
It had nothing to do with passion. Bleak at heart, she listened to his footsteps climbing slowly up the stairs.