“I am certain they will give you a copy, as a keepsake.” He nods to my left. “Did you see that as well?”
I turn my chair. On the wall, there are shelves filled with items from “the original Rosalind.” That makes me laugh. The original Rosalind’s rubbish, they mean—all the kitchen utensils and such that she didn’t bother to take with her when she closed the shop to marry August.
“Ooh, see that bowl?” I say. “The one with the blue stripe and a crack in it?”
“I presume you dropped it.”
I sniff, straightening. “Certainly not.”
“Ah, my mistake. You threw it at someone.”
I waggle a finger at him. “That is most uncharitable. Had I thrown the bowl, it would have shattered. I simply dropped it onto a gentleman’s hand. The poor man had fallen into a trance, staring at my bosom, and I had to snap him out of it.”
Nicolas grins. “Your bosomisvery entrancing.”
“And you have my permission to be entranced, as you are not a fifty-year-old man ogling a fifteen-year-old girl.”
“He got off easily, then.”
“Only because I did not yet know how to use a sword.”
He reaches for my hand again, and we hold hands atop the table.
“I will be rewarded for this later,non?” he says.
I arch my brows. “For suffering through tea at my sister’s former bakery?”
“I said that is no hardship. I mean a reward for not seizing upon that conversational entrée.”
“Conver—? Ah.”
“You mentioned swords, and I did not leap at the opportunity to remind you, yet again, that you needn’t give your gladius to the museum.”
“Thank you. My mind is quite made up on the subject.”
“I know.” He lifts my fingers and kisses them, just as Suravi returns to the table. Seeing that, she seems quite ready to swoon and gives me a look that is both envy and appreciation.
“Your bubbly,” she says and sets down two flutes of what looks like champagne. Then she adds two small pots of steaming tea and promises our trays will be out soon.
I lift the bubbling wine. “Champagne?”
He sniffs it and says, “Non,certainement pas,” with a curl of his lip that has me laughing.
“Well then, having no such refined taste, and being very fond of ‘bubbly’ in any form, I shall take yours.”
I reach for his glass, but he whisks it from my grasp. “I did not say I would not drink it. Only that it is not champagne.”
“Then you cannot drink it. It would be an insult to your nation.”
“My ‘nation’ does not produce champagne. It produces coffee.”
My cheeks heat. “Apologies.”
“You were teasing, and so I only tease you back.”
Still, I won’t make that mistake again. Having been to Martinique, I better understand his situation. Nicolas is the son of a French marquis, but he was born and raised on an island where people who look like him work on slave plantations owned by his grandfather’s countrymen.
Nicolas has family aiding in the revolts in Haiti, and he already knows, from our forays into the future, that Martinique will follow and become free. He is “French” in the sense that it is the language he speaks, but he does not consider himself “French” in nationality.