Chapter 250
"As you wish." True to those words, Ines drew his head down. Their lips met in small, quick touches. He gently suckled her lower lip and rubbed the tip of his nose against her warm cheek, then, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him, he lifted his mouth slightly away.
"…But—'anytime'?"
"Mm."
"What did you even tell Mendoza, to come back here like this?"
"My parents think I suddenly took to bed with a recurrence of my old consumption and am convalescing at Luciano's villa."
"…"
"As for House Escalante and the Court… I understand Mother smoothed things over somehow."
"The Duchess of Valeztena."
"Mother dislikes my 'defect.'"
At that word, which Cárcel particularly loathed, his expression darkened a shade, and she teasingly rubbed his lips, a little damp with her saliva.
"She'd be the last person to want the world to know about such matters. That's all I meant."
"…Don't say you have a defect. In anything."
"That doesn't make me perfect, though, does it?"
"You're perfect. From head to toe."
"To you, perhaps."
As if to say, you're blinded by love, aren't you, she murmured in a mock-haughty tone. Lowering his lips to her throat, Cárcel asked carefully,
"…Ines, are you truly hurting anywhere?"
"No."
She had warned Juana and Alphonse to keep quiet about her fainting on Mercedes Street, so even Raul couldn't know; there was no way it would reach Cárcel's ears. The memory of his separately contacting Luciano during the Formente match flickered through her mind and left her uneasy, but Luciano, of all people, had been anxious that her collapse might be the return of "that" from the past. He wouldn't rashly tell her husband that.
"You've grown thin."
His mouth, traveling up the line of her neck, murmured as he suckled the tip of her lifted chin.
"That's because it isn't Calstera. No Yolanda's cooking, no Arondra bringing food all day long, hn…"
"And no me. Right?"
"Right. No Cárcel Escalante shoving meat at me whenever he's bored…"
"Even so—you've suddenly lost too much, Ines."
Coming back up, he brushed a light kiss to her lips and nipped the tip of her nose.
"So you dislike it?"
"No. It hurts my heart."
"…"
"When I look at you, my heart hurts, Ines."
Ines knit her brows. It sounded all at once like something entirely different. She gazed at his blue eyes, still faintly wet with a boyish sheen. She thought, she'd have preferred he avoided her gaze like before; compared to this, that had almost been cute.
Just what…
"You haven't lost so much weight it should make your heart ache."
"I'm afraid you'll break."
"…"
"I'm afraid I'll harm you."
With lips he couldn't quite set to hers, he skimmed the corner of her mouth and murmured. The breath he let out stung. His dampened voice seeped in with a strange poignancy.
"…How would you harm me?"
Ines spoke as if it were impossible. In that one question, everything was contained: the belief that he could never harm her—trust in that itself. With a hazy feeling she imagined what it was he feared.
The assassin in the bedchamber he would never confess to her—before that, and after that…
She stroked his brow. How could it be, even like this, that the one who worried was her? How could he think that he—even in the least—might harm her…
'Ines, would you pray for me, perhaps?'
'Must I?'
'No. You don't have to. Only—if I come to mind, now and then.'
'…'
'…If you feel like it, just very occasionally… will you think of me?'
'Prayer—'
'Truthfully, you needn't. I'm always doing it, diligently.'
'You're so bland.'
'Sorry I'm a boring man.'
Unaware, Ines drew a long breath she had been holding.
'I always prayed.'
'…'
'That you'd return safely, this time too—that I could see your face again.'
"Ines?"
Suddenly, she felt as if the man before her were saying different words. The same place. The same man. But something had shifted. In the Ines whose eyes looked at him, her lids blinked quickly; with every blink, an afterimage of a room subtly not this one hovered as a background.
The uneasy gaze with which she had looked at him, that unfamiliar sensation, felt like a blade along her eye.
"Ines—are you sure you aren't unwell somewhere?"
"No. No, Cárcel, it's not…"
'Do you think there will be a day when you miss me, even a little?'
"Ines."
"I…"
'I always missed you, Ines.'
Her trembling hand cupped his cheek.
'Even if you didn't miss me at all.'
No. Not that…
'Just once, I wish you would. If you wanted to see me…'
Ines pressed her mouth to his, desperate. The hand on his cheek forced its strength and seized the back of his head. In an instant their deep breaths tangled. She willingly drew in his questing tongue.
'Even that alone would make it feel certain I could return alive.'
A new kind of guilt lanced through her whole body. That deep-rooted guilt she'd harbored toward "that man."
'Go back to Esposa.'
'You were the one who put me here in the first place.'
'I know. I'm sorry for that… But I can't stand to leave you here alone while you're hurting, Ines. Calstera is dangerous now.'
'…If you're anxious, then don't deploy.'
'Ines.'
'If you're so anxious that I'll be dead while you're gone—'
At the moment of dying, her gaze, wandering an empty field of view in which he was no longer…
'You won't die. Swallow words like that and don't ever say them.'
'You always act like you don't know what you know…'
'I'm going to the front because I believe you will keep on living, Ines.'
'…'
'Because I have to protect the land you'll live on.'
Ah. I was regretting it even to the very moment of death.
'Please listen. This time I might not come back.'
I should have told you not to go. That it was all right if we died together—no, that it was all right if only I died…
'I've asked Colonel Noriega to see to you. If the tide turns against us, move at once to Esposa as he relays.'
I should have told you that I missed you so I could hardly bear it. Just once…
'Please give me your word.'
So you wouldn't fret even like that—I should have said I'd do as you asked. Even if it were a lie…
Ines pressed into him as if to rob him of all his breath. She needed to feel that they were alive. They were alive. He, she, and everything was all still there. Relief was short; unease was long.
It felt like at any moment she might snap back to that instant of meeting death alone in their bed. That it was all over now. All of it over. The end where I—where he—could do nothing…
"…Just a week."
"…"
"No—ten days. Let's stay here, Cárcel."
"…"
"I want to have a child."
Whispering against his damp lips, Ines slipped the Scripture from his hand. Then she took that hand and left kisses along his fingertips and palm.
"…Ines, don't rile me."
"I'm not riling you."
I don't know how much time we have. I don't know what's different from then. Nothing yet… so…
"Hold me."
With a sigh of a kiss, Cárcel gathered her up. Carrying her to the settee by the window, he carefully set her down. From the hollow of her throat, the buttons came undone one by one.
Their breaths brushed mouths and cheeks, and they smiled. It was good—being able not to cry. As cloth fell away, he set tender kisses on every inch of revealed skin.
"…Cárcel."
"Mm."
"I like you."
"…"
"I like you—right now."
"I know, Ines."
"I always pray you'll be safe."
"…"
His back, bent over her bosom, went taut for an instant. Gently stroking his back, she whispered,
"I'll pray now that you won't be hurt."
"…"
"So don't get hurt."
"Okay."
"Don't be in pain."
"Mm."
"Wherever you go, don't forget I'm praying for you."
Slowly, Cárcel lifted his head. In the quiet, their gazes locked. For a time they only looked at one another. Then, with a helpless little laugh, he scrubbed his face dry with his hands and covered it.
He was crying, without question.
"…Ines, if you make me cry, I can't get an erection."
"I know how to fix that quickly."
Mischievously, from beneath him, she drew one knee up and rubbed against him as she embraced him.