The Lost

“Angelique was tall and I guess you would say buxom, but in 1810, her size meant she was healthy and well-to-do. Her skin was a creamy brown and she was beautiful in that way that mixed-race children can be. Her blue eyes were startling and her teeth so white and healthy they did not look real. She was perfect.”

“You have no portrait of her?” Isabelle reminded herself that Angelique was a memory two hundred years old and did her best to ignore the sting of jealousy.

“No, I have no painting.” His voice was filled with regret. “The artists here were not very skilled. I did not want to waste my money on a second-rate image when I had the real woman beside me all the time.”

They sipped more coffee, and Isabelle ate some of the bread if only to pretend that everything was all right.

“What version of the story did Esmé tell you?”

Isabelle recounted the conversation as accurately as she could recall.

“Esmé is honest; I will give her that. It’s the truth or as close as makes no difference.” He shrugged, not very successful in hiding the misery the story recalled. “To this day I can dream of Angelique drowning, her heavy cloak and skirts dragging her down, fighting, fighting to stay afloat, to stay alive.”

“Stop. Stop it, Sebastian. It does you no good to relive something that you had no control over.” What kind of love had they shared that he could still feel this pain two hundred years later?

“You think I had no control? I could have told her to wait until the storm season was ended. I could have tried harder to control my lust. I could have prayed instead of cursed when she told me she wanted to stay longer.”

“You missed her.” She swallowed hard. “You loved her. It is perfectly understandable.”

“I do not know if it is. I didn’t miss her so much as I missed the comfort of her body, the way she worshipped me and everything I did. Does that sound like love to you?”

Isabelle didn’t answer.

“No, Isabelle, it was no more love than what you feel for me.”

“And how would you define that?”

“Curiosity. You are a normal, healthy woman and much too old to be a virgin. You are a generous woman and think that if you share yourself with me enough, then all my problems will be solved. You are wrong.”

“No,” she said slowly, “what I think is that if you love me enough, then all your problems will be solved.”

“After two hundred years of trying, I suspect that love is beyond me.”

“Only because you confuse lust with love.” Her hand shook as she put her cup down.

“Do not play with the words,” he said, showing the first anger since the discussion began. “Love and lust are not the same and I know the difference.”

“But they are not exclusive,” she said with heat in her voice. Not that anger would make him listen to her. “I think lust is the body’s longing for love. Lust and love combined are as perfect an intimacy as a man and woman are capable of.”

With a jerk of his hand he dismissed the subject, standing. He looked away from her, his expression more frustrated than a

Isabelle stood up too. It took a lot of trust to argue, and they had pushed trust to the limit for today. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek into his back.

“I have to work. I will come back to sing this evening.”

She felt him relax. Because she had stopped questioning him? Because she had said she would come back? Because she left the choice about their future up to him? Because she had not said “I love you”? Probably all of them.

“I will walk you as far as the gate.” This time he took her hand and wrapped it around his arm. “Holding hands is for children. This is much more intimate.” The way his arm brushed against the side of her breast was proof enough.

They walked halfway across the courtyard in silence. Isabelle breathed in the morning air, living in the moment, knowing there was more to come. “It’s so lovely not to be in a hurry. Life in the States is lived at a ru

“Two hundred years of this much quiet is more than anyone needs.”

“Do you wish you could die?” The question popped out before Isabelle remembered she was not going to pester him with any more soul-searching.

“Isabelle, if I knew the answer to that, I am not sure I would tell you.” He was quiet a moment more and then told her, “I don’t think I can. I tried to drown myself before I had been cursed for six months. But someone rescued me. I paid someone to run me through with a sword, but he fell and killed himself instead. I ran into a burning cottage to rescue a child, hoping I would die. I wound up miserably burned on my hands and arms. It took two years to recover completely.”

“I imagine that you gave up after that.”

“Yes. And before you can ask, I tried to leave for the last time about twenty years ago. I ca

He was nobler than he gave himself credit for.

“Woman, stop looking at me as though I belong with your martyred saints. Go now. I will see you this evening.”

She kissed him, a quick kiss of promise and parting. If she had known what was coming, she would have made the kiss a farewell embrace he would never forget.

Isabelle was committed to her work. It had always been what came first in her life. Last night had changed that. She could hardly wait to see Sebastian again, to do whatever he wanted to do up to and including making love all night long again.

She was not sure if Sebastian loved her beyond amused affection and passion, but she loved him. Their future was uncertain at best, but their present was filled with hope.

Isabelle changed and washed up as quickly as she could and hurried to the healer’s house. Esmé looked awful, as though she had drank and smoked everything she could think of. Why was she at work if she felt so bad?

“You bitch!” The healer wailed and tried to slap her. Isabelle knew how to defend herself and, in less than a minute, Esmé was on the floor, with Isabelle sitting on her back.

“Why are you calling me names?”

“You slept with him.” With that, Esmé’s rage disappeared. It felt as though she were a balloon that had lost all its air. Isabelle moved off her back and sat on the floor beside her.

“Yes, I stayed the night. Why does that upset you?”

“You are still as pure as you were yesterday. He loves you?”

“I don’t know!” Isabelle’s uncertainty came out as anger, and she took a deep breath and tried again. “He hasn’t said the words, but I love him and I think that’s what matters.”

“How can you love someone you hardly know?”

“I have never thought loving someone was about time, but about the co

“You hate me.”

A hangover-i nduced pity party was imminent. Isabelle got up and went to find the teapot. “I like you and respect your work immensely, Esmé. But there is something missing. Or something so important to you that it will keep us from being any closer than professional colleagues. If friendship is important to you, then you will tell me what it is.”

“No.” Esmé struggled to her feet. “But I can tell you that I can no longer work with you. Leave this house and find some other way to amuse yourself.” Esmé grabbed the teacup from Isabella and pushed her toward the door. “And stop being a fool. Of course it matters if he loves you. If he doesn’t, you will be sent away the moment he grows tired of you or when you begin to demand too much. He is just a man after all.”