Page 125

“I see him.” His throat was so tight.

“You don’t see him. You see yourself,” she whispered.

The white handkerchief unfurled in his mind. He couldn’t see anything through it. Or else it was the sudden flare of pain blinding him. His leg was a spike driving toward his spine.

“I’m going to fall. I’m going to fall down.”

In an instant, she was pressed to him, small and soft, unbelievably strong. Bearing his weight. The sofa was only steps away. They tumbled onto it. He collapsed backward, stretching out his leg.

“Are you all right?” she asked, breathless.

“No.” He wanted to disown the truth as soon as it passed his lips. To shape his lips into a sardonic smile. Fix his mask in place. Instead, he let his head tip back.

“No, I’m not all right.”

She didn’t say anything. She resettled herself carefully beside him. In two tentative movements, she laid her cheek on his shoulder, her arm on his chest. His breath shuddered out. And then the ice in his chest melted. His taut muscles began to ease. He inhaled deeply, a bigger breath than the pain wanted to allow.

He wrapped his arm around her and held her close.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Sometime later, Nina stirred. Alan’s heart thumped beneath her, the beats steady but far too quick. His hand slid up her arm, then smoothed her hair back from her temples. She stilled and let him stroke. He repeated the slow, soothing motion. She found it soothing. But she understood why he did it. Alan was soothing himself. A lump formed in her throat.

“I feel like Charlemagne,” she said at last, pressing her nose into his coat. Alan paused his stroking, hand cupping her head.

“The cat,” she clarified. And then, to clarify further: “It’s a favorable feeling.”

His hand grew heavier.

Her own heartbeat quickened. “How do you . . . feel?”

“As though I finally understand why you prize cats.” His hand began to move again.

She pushed her whole face into his coat. He smelled better than good. She couldn’t get enough, not through the fabric at any rate. She sat up, and he lifted away his arm so she could readjust next to him. He sucked in his breath. She saw his cheeks hollow, his cheekbones leap forward.

“Alan?” His name was the question. She wasn’t sure what else to ask.

He didn’t look at her but instead looked straight ahead.

“Greek romances.” He angled his gaze and met her eyes. His were narrowed, a silver gleam. “The Song of Songs. Old French epics. Elizabethan sonnets.” His face regained a hint of drollery. “Love is a wellspring of language.” He paused. Stark lines appeared on his brow. “Pain, on the other hand. Pain makes language run dry.”

She felt dry, as though she might crumble and blow away. “You don’t have to say anything.”

She’d needed him to show himself, the hurt part he hid away. But now she worried she’d rushed him, that she should have trusted, and waited.

“I’m here,” she whispered, flushing at the inadequacy. His expression softened. When he reached out, she thought he’d resume his stroking. Instead, he framed her face with his hand, studying it as only he ever had, with an enraptured intensity that sent a shiver through her entire body.

“With me, the pain comes and goes. Now it’s going.” His thumb grazed her jaw as he withdrew his hand. He let his head fall back on the sofa. “Sometimes it keeps me up all night. Sometimes it strikes by day, and I can barely keep my feet. I do, though. Usually.”

“Usually you smile.” She pictured him in the Olgilvie Gallery, his waxen face, the curve of his lips.

“Part of the act.” He was smiling now, a dark smile. He stretched out his leg again, a long, muscular leg, encased in black cloth. It looked solid.

“Your injury still pains you.” She spoke slowly as she tried to work it out.

Pain, not as a constant, but as a constant possibility, introduced that hesitancy into his gait. He was never certain his next step wouldn’t hurt.

“You don’t know why.” She watched his face. “And that makes it difficult to accept.”