“I told you.” I let out a sigh, gently brushing away the tears as I reach for a washcloth. “I don’t know.”
Helping him bathe is a laborious process too. I do my best to clean the wounds without soaking them or letting them start bleeding again, and I wash the rest of him, inch by inch. When I reach his hips, I feel him shudder under my touch, and I see his cock twitch ever so slightly again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t get hard, as sick as he is, but I can see his body trying to respond to my touch anyway, and a flush of heat washes over me.
“Noelle—” he groans my name, low and raspy, and something tightens deep in my belly in response. “Please—”
I don’t know what he’s asking for, and I don’t think he’s capable of fully articulating it right now. I feel my cheeks heating as I wash him, feeling his body tense, the twitch of his muscles, the way he arches up ever so slightly into my touch. I feel the shudder that ripples through him, and I fight the urge to linger, to run my hands over him gently, soothing him.
Why do I want to care for him?I don’t think he’s agoodman. I think, regardless of whether any harm came to those other women or not, that there’s something deeply disturbed in him. I don’t know his story, but I’m certain that he’s not what others would considergood. But what I feel for him isn’t only pity. I want to go home, more than anything—but I can’t deny that at least part of what’s keeping me here is that I don’t want to leave him…not like this, anyway.
As I finish bathing him, I tell myself that it’s only curiosity. That I want to satisfy my own conscience by making sure he’ll live, and discover the secrets of this house, so that I can fully close this chapter without wondering or thinking back on it. I can’t allow myself to linger on anything else, that I might have desires or feelings for Alexandre that are holding me here. It simply doesn’t make sense.
When the water has cooled completely, and it feels as if his fever has eased a bit, I start the process of helping him out of the bath. There’s a stool next to the wall, and I help him sit on it, bracing him with one arm as I towel him dry. There are more medicinal supplies under the sink, and I use those to bandage his wounds again, helping him to his feet once more and back to the bed. He’s shivering again, but I don’t want to leave him long enough to go through his room for clothes. Instead, I help him slip naked under the blankets, piling enough of the soft throws from the end of the bed onto him that he won’t catch a chill.
It’s after eleven by the time I get more broth and water down him, more medicine, and slip into my room to change into fresh pajamas. He looks asleep when I return to the room, and I slip into bed next to him, using a quilt from my room as my blanket. I’m all too aware that he’s naked under the covers, and I can’t bring myself to slip under them myself. The thought makes another flush of heat go through me, and I push it away, reaching for a book to give myself something else to think about.
The book I reach for isLes Miserables,a copy with both French and English translations under one cover, thick and heavy. I prop it against my knees as I pick up where I left off, reading out loud to Alexandre even though I’m sure he can’t hear me. I have a vague hope that it might help him sleep better somehow.
“He fell to the seat, she to his side,” I start to read, my voice low and quiet. The room is dim, just my bedside light on, and I catch a glimpse of snow starting to fall again. “There were no more words, the stars were beginning to shine. How was it that the birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose blooms…one kiss, and that was all.”
I swallow hard, thinking of what I’d thought I dreamed before I woke up that night, the soft brush of Alexandre’s lips over mine, and how I’m not sure any longer that it was a dream. I reach up, touching my lips softly, wondering how it would feel if he actually kissed me. If I would want him more, without the fitful violence of our previous encounters. If he gave in, instead of fighting it.
“She did not ask him, did not think where and how he managed to get into the garden. It seemed so natural to her that he should be there.”
Alexandre stirs next to me, and I reach out, gently touching his forehead as I pause. His fever feels a little less intense, and I feel a flicker of hope that maybe it’s improving. That he might be getting better.
I keep reading aloud, through the passages of Cosette and Marius meeting each other. “They told each other, with a candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth and the remnant of childhood that was theirs, brought to mind. These two hearts poured themselves out to each other.”
I pause, biting my lip. “I’ve never had anyone like that,” I say softly. “No one I could talk to that way,pour myself out to. I only had my mother for a little while, and she struggled so much. Our lives were always so hard. And then I only had my father and my brother, and I had to care for them both—and then just my brother, and I still was the one caring for him. It’s always been that way. Me, caring for others. No one has ever just taken care of me.”
Glancing over at Alexandre, who still seems to be sleeping, I keep reading. ““The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
For almost another hour, I keep reading until exhaustion starts to creep up over me. I begin to close the book, only to hear Alexandre’s voice, faintly, so out of nowhere that it makes me jump.
“He never went out without a book under his arm, and sometimes even two.” He clears his throat lightly, his words strung together in a sentence for the first time since I found him. “That makes me think of you.”
I look over at him, startled, to see his eyes partially open, blue and hazy, the circles under them dark and purple. I reach over to touch his forehead and find him clammy and sweaty.
“I think your fever is breaking.” I sit up, setting the book aside. “Wait—was that from the book?”
Alexandre smiles faintly. “It’s my favorite. I believe I have—it—memorized.” His voice cracks again, but he sucks in a shaky breath. “You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love is to live by it.”
“That sounds like something a Frenchman would say.” I pull some of the blankets off of him, touching his neck and chest. He’s drenched in sweat, and I let out a relieved sigh. “It is breaking. I’m going to have to change the sheets.” I rub the back of my hand over my forehead. “And here I thought I was about to go to sleep. At least this hopefully means you aren’t going to die.”
“It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.”
I glare at him. “I’m going to hit you in the head with that book if you do nothing but quote it at me now. I’m trying to make sure you live, okay?”
That ghost of a smile flickers at the edge of his lips again, as if he wants to smile, but can’t quite find the strength. “Oui, mademoiselle.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m going to help you up, so I can change the sheets and blankets. Just bear with me, okay?”
It’s well after one in the morning by the time I finish. Stripping and remaking a bed with a man barely able to hold up his own weight is no joke, and the fact that he’s naked makes it so much harder. Touching him feels far too intimate after what’s happened between us, especially now that he’s more fully awake. I can feel the weight of his eyes on me, the reactions of his body to my touch, and by the time he’s once more ensconced in clean blankets, his bandages checked, and both of us ready for bed, I feel both physically and emotionally exhausted.
“Goodnight,” I whisper, laying on the pillows facing him. He looks as drained as I feel, and his eyes are closed, his lashes long and dark against his cheeks. I reach out to touch his fingers, knowing that he can’t really move his hands right now, but I swear I feel his fingertips twitch against mine.
Low and quiet, his voice drifts through the moonlit darkness toward me.
“Promise to give a kiss on my brow when I am dead—I will feel it.”