CHAPTER EIGHT #5
“Indeed you did, Jemima. However, since he is to rise before dawn, we had best get him to bed.”
The maid bustled about finding and lighting single candles in silver sticks, and dousing those in the candelabrum.
She engaged to wake Henri herself, “for I’m up with the cockerels,” and ushered them both upstairs, leaving Grace with no alternative but to say a quick goodnight and go off to her own room.
As she readied herself for bed, the evening replayed in her mind, and it came to her she had allowed herself to be beguiled by her feelings for Henri.
How dreadful to have her emotions involved so deeply she was willing to overlook the horrors to which he may have been party.
To which he was party. Had he not admitted as much?
He had worked for the Revolutionary Government, for Robespierre.
Only Grace could not believe there were not mitigating circumstances.
She had been upset, angry, shocked at Sir James’s revelation.
With Henri before her, witness to his gentleness, it became impossible to accept.
Had he been forced into that situation? He was a gentleman.
Had it been a way to escape the fate that awaited so many of his class?
As she undid her boot, she recalled his tender handling of her foot.
Grace was tempted to the dangerous thought he cared for her.
Had he meant to show her that her deformity was nothing to him?
She dared at least to believe he was not repulsed by it.
Certainly he did not pity her. It was comforting, but it could not persuade her to the alien idea Henri might want her. Desire her?
She slid between sheets, curling up against the thought and shutting her eyes tight.
Why must her mind insist upon reviving the feel of his arms about her?
There had been no amatory advance there.
Was she mad to look for interpretations that could not exist?
Mad with longing, yes, plagued by a physical ache that began to throb with the thought of Henri lying in the bed across the hallway.
Oh, that she had not those days and nights of his weakness to recall, of him lying there, handsome on the pillow.
Disgusted with herself at a memory that should never have invoked such feelings, Grace turned over in the bed, threshing as if she could rid herself of those intrusive images.
Or others, that came in to replace them.
Henri smiling. Henri, mischief in his eyes. Henri, frowning his puzzlement. Green eyes, alight with amusement, sombre with secrets, tender with affection.
He did care! Enough to have stayed. Enough to signal the closeness of friendship at least. Why was enough not enough?
Grace turned on her stomach and pummelled her pillows.
Then she threw her face into them, willing herself to rest. Sleep proved elusive and intermittent.
She woke frequently, convinced it was well past dawn.
But night was yet at her window, creeping into the gaps at the curtains round the bed.
Time and again, she sank back upon her pillows, weak with exhaustion, but unable to sleep.
Jerking awake once too often, Grace sat up in sudden conviction she had missed the deadline, and Henri was gone. Thrusting aside her bed-curtains for the umpteenth time, she was greeted by blackness outside. Her heart was pattering in a frantic dance. It must be near dawn.
She could bear it no longer. Throwing aside the rumpled bedclothes, she pushed herself out of the bed. Too anxious to trouble with her boot, which besides would make far too much noise if it was too early to wake him, she peered into the gloom until her eyes began to adjust.
Moving with her floundering barefoot gait, Grace half-felt her way to the wall.
She could make out her own door as she passed through, and the outline of Henri’s door across the landing.
She paused, listening. No sound, nothing.
He would not have left without coming into her room to say farewell. He must be there.
But the doubt lingered. Hardly aware of moving, she lumbered as stealthily as she could, holding her breath as she sneaked through the aperture.
Her eyes had become accustomed to the dark, and she immediately saw the hump in the bed that signalled Henri’s presence.
Relief threw a choking sob into her throat, and she clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle it.
The bedclothes shifted, and she saw the outline as he raised himself on one elbow. “Jemima? It is time?”
Grace wanted to flee, but the monstrosity of her leg prevented her. The outline shifted, and Henri sat up in the bed. His voice took on surprise.
“Grace, it is you?”
What possessed her then Grace never afterwards could fathom. Unless it was the wild fluttering at her heart and the thunder of need in her head.
She was unaware of moving, but she found herself at the bedside. Whether it was she or Henri who lifted the bedclothes, Grace could not tell. But a moment later, she had slipped into bed beside him and he had received her in a close embrace.