The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (12 page)

My arms were pressed into his chest, and my hands rested on either side of his neck. One of his arms wrapped around the back of my waist, the other held me higher, pressing me even further into him.

“Why did you come early?” Jacque’s voice was low and tremulous. His eyes suddenly adjusted to the deeper, more lucid color I loved. And just as his eyes made the adjustment, he pushed me away.

He held me at his arm’s length. I noticed his chest heaving, his eyebrows cast down, and his nose flared.

I shook my head, wondering if he was angry with me. “I . . . I wanted to see you. I couldn’t just wait—” 

“Why did you want to see me?”

I kept shaking my head. “I enjoy our time together, as friends often do.”

He slumped his shoulders. “Of course . . .
mon ami
.”

“Is something the matter? Are you not well?”

“I am leaving, leaving Massachusetts, perhaps leaving America.”

He said it so quickly I didn’t know what exactly he had said, then I wondered if I had heard him correctly.

“No,” I whispered.

He looked surprised with a tiny smile. “No?”

I blinked, completely shocked with myself too. I thought I would ask him to forgive my impertinence, but instead out of my mouth came, “That’s right, I said no. You cannot leave.”

He drily chuckled then shook his head. “Am I to understand this correctly? That you are commanding me to stay?”

I nodded, swallowed, and nodded again. “Yes. Since the Regulars had that stand-off with Salem, all the militias in Massachusetts have been drilling for another stand-off. They need your help and would not ask you to leave. I seriously doubt your country would ask you to leave either with all the tension building. Therefore, I can only deduce that you have not actually been ordered to leave.”

Jacque didn’t speak for almost a full minute, but then his jaw moved slowly, as if he had a toothache. “I did not say I was ordered to leave.”

“You’re leaving because you
want
to? What could have happened that would make you want to leave?”

His naturally flared nostrils distended more, which I adored, but when he shook his head and let his hands strengthen in their grip around my arms, I knew I had overstepped his boundaries.

But in an instant the red anger was gone, and his eyes were diverted to my hair. “You have a twig in your tresses.” He retrieved it, slightly pulling my locks too. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

He soothed my hair, my scalp. I tried to shake my head, but I didn’t want to move too much to make him stop touching me.

“Why are you leaving?” My voice sounded gritty and on the cusp of desperate.

“I must.” He slowly retracted his hands from me.

I stepped closer to him, hungry for his touch, searching those dark, dark eyes. “You’re not telling me something, and you promised me that I would be your confidante.”

He laughed with a sharp, brutal tone, one side of his face lifting in a sarcastic smile. “Such a smart girl.”

“Are you mocking me?” I heaved, and cursed myself as I felt the sting of tears in my eyes.

“
Non
. If anything I am mocking myself.”

I was shaking, trembling. Not from being cold, and not from our strange enigma of a conversation. I loved him, and he was leaving me.
Yes
, I knew I loved him. As much as I shouldn’t, I did love him.
Yes
, I knew I couldn’t have him be mine, but I could have him close, couldn’t I? I could grow old while we talked in the woods. I could have my children with Mathew, but have our blessed dialogue in the wilds. Please, couldn’t I, please, have just this one thing? Just have him close to me?

I hit him on the shoulder, enough to make him take a step back.

“No!”  I yelled stepping closer to him just to hit the other shoulder. “No, you cannot leave.”

I was about to hit him again, when he caught my fists and held me close to him. I had fought so hard not to let one tear fall, but Jacque hadn’t. Two tears spilled over when I looked up at him.

He shook me as he growled. “You know why I leave. You know it.”

“No, you cannot do this to me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If I stay . . . I cannot stay. I am not strong enough.”

I clutched at his overcoat, making fists with the fabric, slightly pounding my balled hands into his firm chest. “Find the strength! I beg of you. Please. I,” I choked and felt two cold tears leave my own eyes, “I haven’t asked for anything in—in almost three years time. Not one thing. I—I picked up the pieces after my da died. I started farming because we couldn’t afford another hired man. I didn’t complain. I just did it. I never asked for one thing, but I’m begging you, please, don’t leave.”

Another one of his own tears cascaded out of his eye, trailed down his hollowed cheeks where black whiskers promised a full beard if he’d ever give it a chance to grow. He looked up to the suddenly gray sky—when had the sky turned bitter and metal gray?–shaking his head. “I cannot stay. I cannot.”

I grasped onto his coat more. “Why are you doing this to me? I have no friends—”

“I am not your friend!” 

His voice was so loud I flinched as if his words had slapped my cheek.

He pulled on my arms, looking down at me with his brutal honesty. “You know. You have to know it. I’ve tried to hide it from you, but I know it’s become obvious. I think even Mathew knows of my . . . emotions regarding you.”

“Your emotions? You’re not my friend?”

He actually chuckled then. “You know how to compute integral calculus with a stick for your pen and the earth for your paper, but you are unsure what I’m discussing? Are
you
mocking
moi
?”

“No.” I pushed on his chest with my fists.

“You really don’t know,” he said as he penetrated my eyes with his stare. “It is such a bizarre world, you know? You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, but you are by far the most unassuming. Such a strange combination. Lovely, but I know in a hundred years more time, I’ll never meet another woman like you.”

I swallowed.

He finally choked, “I am not your friend because a true friend would not have fallen in love with you.”

“Forgive me. I tried to fight it.” His voice rasped. “I didn’t want to love you, not this way. I love Mathew like a brother, and I hate that I may be hurting him.
Non
, with Mathew’s good intentions and noble pursuits, I love him more than I did my own brother.”

“You have a brother?” I sniffed.

“Had. Had a brother,
oui
. He was killed.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss. I—”

“I don’t want to waste time talking about him.”

“But can’t I still be your confidante? For this little amount of time I’ve got?”

“Ah,
chére
, you are torturing me, you know?” His grip softened, but remained glued to my arms.

“No, I don’t know. I want you to tell me everything about yourself. I want to know every tiny detail, so I can carry that with me when you leave me. I haven’t asked for one thing, not even rain when I needed it, and I ask you to stay and you won’t.” 

A tear slid down his cheek, as he clutched at his heart, like I had inserted a dagger through his breastbone. He shook his head and we swayed, as if the earth had forgotten how to hold onto its gravity—back and forth, hither and thither. Jacque was holding his breath, and when he finally inhaled his face was mere fingerbreadths from mine.

He whispered, “Forgive me . . .”

I opened my mouth, but could not offer any words, as I realized his face was lowering to mine.

“Stop me, Violet. Stop me. Hit me again. Please, stop me.”

I didn’t.

His lips softly landed on mine. A miraculous warm breeze shuffled all the white, pink and lavender wild blossoms around us, creating a soft vortex to shelter us in our kiss. They sky wasn’t gray; it was white and pink. All of nature surrounding us was in love—the oak’s green branches reached out to embrace us, the weeping willow ceased its crying, and the pine trees stood as sentinels for our kiss.

Jacque caressed my lips with his own, softly feathering mine, until I submitted and began to move my own lips with his. We melded our lips, then our tongues. It was me that forced my tongue in his mouth. In our kiss he clutched at my waist, at my back, pulling me tighter against him, as I pushed my body to his.

Suddenly he pulled away from me, huffing on my face. “What are you doing?”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry at his question, the absence of his lips on mine. “What am
I
doing? What are
you
doing?”

He looked baffled and bewildered, but he answered all the same. “I’m being selfish and taking from you and  . . .
I’m
in love with you. I fought it as best as I could—”

“As have I,” I blurted, feeling wild and brave. So that was what a Noreastern storm might feel like. I did feel powerful for finally admitting my feelings, but I also knew what destruction I could wreak.

He blinked. His head jerked, then tilted, then jerked again. He began to shake his head as his eyebrows drew together.

“
Non
. . .” He let go of me completely and stumbled away. Recklessly, I followed but allowed him a couple feet’s distance.

“
Non . . . Serait-ce vrai
?”

I nodded just once. “’Tis true. I fought my . . . love as well. But, I love you, Jacque. I do.”

I touched my lips. They were raw and swollen. I looked up at him, his eyes taking in my mouth, and he must have thought about the fact that I loved him as well.

He fell to his knees. “The gods are cruel.”

I bumbled to my own knees in front of him.

He reached for my face, my cheeks between his hands, looking at me like a man who had just been told he was going to die. “I didn’t believe in love like this.”

I chuckled, despite my pain. “I didn’t either.”

He wiped at my tears with the pads of his calloused thumbs. “I don’t know what to do. I never thought you’d love me in return.”

“I didn’t know there was anything to do.” Tentatively, I covered his hands with my own, and closed my eyes, savoring his touch to my touch. Moist heat surrounded us, the soft earth under us, the smell of dewy forest, his breath on me.

When I opened my eyes, I saw another tear of his fall and find a way down his face through his black whiskers that I wished I could caress with my own cheek. He held a tiny smile.

“Of course there is nothing to do. Of course. I . . .
Runaway with me
. I live in Marseille; it is very much like Boston—the people are hearty and love much, passionate people, like you. I live by the sea, where some days the ocean waves are filled with the same green color of your eyes. Would you like to live by the sea,
chér
? With me? I could buy more land for you so you could farm, if you wanted.”

He sniffed his nose as he wrapped his thumbs around my hands and guided them to his face. When my fingertips touched that sandpaper-like cheek, there was electricity around us, like a burgeoning storm.

“Are you serious?” My voice sounded unfamiliar, raspy.

He shrugged as he moved my palms to caress his neck too. “
Non
. . . yes. I don’t know.” He let two more tears fall from his face before he ventured on with a quaking voice. “I never knew of this kind of love I feel for you. I’ve lived for what feels like forever some days, but I never knew this love. I always pitied the people who acted on their passion; it always ended badly.”

“I did too.” I softly laughed. “I remember reading
Romeo and Juliet
and thinking to myself, what complete idiots!”

“
Oui
, idiots.” Then his voice lowered, “And now
I’m
the idiot. I love you, Violet. You’re what I think about as soon as I wake up, and you’re what I dream of at night. I had no ill intention when I asked you to meet me to talk of philosophy. Truly, I just thought it would be so nice to talk to you more. Within one day’s time, I knew I was falling . . . I should have stopped meeting you, for Mathew, but I couldn’t resist you.”

“For Mathew,” I agreed, “I should have stopped too, but I couldn’t. For Mathew I shouldn’t have fallen in love with you either. I’m very angry with myself for falling in love with you. I—I thought I could talk myself out of it. I thought it was just an infatuation. I thought . . . mayhap it is all just a dream.”   

I plopped down on the damp wood’s floor. Fallen leaves were perforated in minute designs, reminiscent of doilies. As I sat on the forest’s lace, Jacque scooted to sit next to me, an arm around my shoulders. I turned toward him, threading my arms through his and held him, hugging him, closer. But he pushed me away, barely touching my arms, while shaking his head. His eyes had grown insanely lucid. “
Non
, I cannot be that close to you.”