~*~
In between catnaps, Jacque bathed me until the water was clear from all pink remains. He washed my hair in silence. When he cleansed my body, his nose flared and his eyelids became heavy and drooped from time to time. I teased him and asked if he was bored.
“It is not boredom, chér. I’m praying.”
“Praying?”
He smiled at my breasts and nodded. “Thanking God for all the glories of the world.”
“You don’t think that some glories are too small? Too thin and bony?”
He softly chuckled and shook his head. “Non.” His fingertips ran across my ribs, making me giggle and squirm from his touch. He let a shock of leering smile appear as he whispered, “Parfait.”
Another time when I’d been awake, Jacque had fed me and had me drink the champagne. He’d also given me water with mint steeped in it. It was his mother’s remedy for any ailment, the champagne and minty water. With the evening half spent, slightly drunk, and I couldn’t seem to stop smiling, I had to agree with his mother about this cure-all.
As day turned into night I believed in fairy tales. In the hours of darkness I curved my finger along Jacque’s long nose, while he closed his eyes and smiled. Jacque played devil’s advocate to my devil’s advocate, both of us arguing just for the sake of arguing, and chuckling about inductive versus deductive thought and reasoning and rationality versus empiricism. We laughed until we both agreed to be utter skeptics, except regarding Voltaire and poetry. “Ah, we must never be cynical about poetry,” Jacque said while he swept his nose against my shoulder as we lay in my bed.
All of the day had been spent in conversation laying on the bed, the chaise, or sitting on Jacque’s lap on a chair. The night turned into lazy poetic murmurs with shy touches to each other’s shoulders, necks, arms, hands, and each other’s faces. It was past the witching hour when I fought sleep with every ounce within my body, but after Jacque’s voice took on a deep, musical melody, reciting Shakespeare’s love Sonnets, number eighteen, in French—“Te comparerai-je à un jour d'été? Tu es plus aimable et plus tempéré. Les vents violents font tomber les tendres bourgeons de mai, et le bail de l'été est de trop courte durée . . . Mais ton éternel été ne se flétrira pas et ne sera pas dépossédé de tes graces . . . Tant que les hommes respireront et que les yeux pourront voir, ceci vivra et te donnera la vie.”—I let slumber embrace me.
Upon waking in the early morning, I despised the fact that I’d let sleep win. I felt robbed from hours I could have spent adoring Jacque. The sky was still dark blue, so like Jacque’s now opening eyes. Yet the heavens cracked with golden rays that bit the sky, bleeding it with crimson and tender pink. For a moment, while in Jacque’s strong arms that currently tightened in their hold of me, I thought about running away with him. I fantasized about leaving, never to see the Joneses or Mathew again. I would never see the farm either. I would run with him, and have my nights filled with his body, my days filled with his tender dark blue eyes. I didn’t think of honor or respect or circumstances. My only thought was of him. Until my mind skipped over a memory of Hannah—her smiling face.
Before I thought of Hannah I had almost asked him to run away with me.
Instead I kissed him.
Volcanic heat poured from his body into mine as he returned my kiss. This was the last moment I would have Jacque in my life. I would marry soon, and I might bear children that could look like my sister. Yet I would never taste Jacque again. I would never see colors again or fairies or hear a man tell me that he had searched for me for decades.
I pulled at his undershirt, grasping it in my fists, forcing his body to meld with mine—side by side we lay kissing. His hands gently explored my hair, smoothing it, then journeyed down my neck. His other hand found my waist and embraced me all the more.
I tasted his salty, metallic tears. He released me enough to whisper, “Je t’aime, chér. Je t’aime. Vous êtes un ange descend sur terre.”
I sobbed at him calling me an angel come to earth. I whispered, “Vos yeux sont aussi bleus que l’océan. I’ll never look at the sea without thinking of you, your eyes. Je t’aime. I love you. I love you.”
He kissed me in a frenzy. I reciprocated.
Then he pulled away, held my hands still. He swallowed, his whole face tense.
“I—I . . .”
I kissed him lightly. “I know.”
“You kissed me. I—but you kissed me.”
“I love you so much, Jacque. You must know, I always will.”
He looked at me then, his face so tense, his nose flared, his black brows furiously furrowed. Then suddenly he let out a breath. The tension seemed to go, as if he were resigned to our fate. “How do you feel, chér?”
I softly laughed. He was so sweet and considerate. “I’m nauseated. Sick. My head is killing me from drinking too much or . . . from the thought of losing you. Forever. By God, but I will love you for as long as I live.”
He found a small smile and nodded. “Bien.” He rose to one of his elbows and reached for an empty goblet. From somewhere he retracted a silver flask, so similar to Colonel Devlin’s that it surprised me. He unscrewed the lid. “This will help with the headache,” he said, as he gingerly poured the clear liquid into the glass.
“Another of your mother’s tinctures?”
His smile was tight, but he shook his head. “Non, this is one is mine. Not of my creation. It is one I . . . discovered.”
I reached for the glass. Today would be the day I’d have to explain how champagne flutes landed in my room, how the velvet chairs came to be, how I was a betrayer of the worst kind, yet couldn’t seem to help myself from being anything but.
“Chér?”
I lifted the flute to my lips, but arched a brow to let him know I was listening.
“I—I love you. Please, remember that,” he whispered.
I kissed him again, but was so thirsty that the kiss was quick as well as my gulping down the oddly icy cool water he’d given me. It was just water, no herbs or taste other than the purest water I’d ever had in my mouth.
I smiled at him. He smiled back, but held his breath.
Then my throat closed.
I reached for it, letting the flute fall to the floor and could hear the flat melodies of shattered glass, but my hand could only go so far before I couldn’t move anymore.
“Ah, cher, I’m so sorry.”
I tried to suck in a breath, to communicate my need for help, but I couldn’t breathe. I struggled, but felt my body start to shake of its own accord.
“Oh, the tremors,” Jacque whispered. “I’d forgotten about the tremors. I forgot that I was paralyzed too, but I remember now as I watch you die.”
Chapter Sixteen: Traitor