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Étienne opens the door and is surprised to see none other than Nicolas upon the doorstep, a few carnations clasped in one hand. Étienne narrows his eyes. Wrong flower, he wants to announce. Really, it ought to be reason enough to slam the door in the man’s face. To bring carnations to the man who has tried his very best to cover every inch of himself and his home in roses, what ignorance! Étienne could laugh. He settles for adjusting his spectacles and hoping his gaze portrays what his mouth cannot.
“May I help you, sir?” Étienne asks as cordially as he can.
“I’ve come to see Pierre,” Nicolas says, standing on tiptoe to try and peer around Étienne into the hall. As though the lord of the house would be wandering the foyer. Étienne fights the urge to roll his eyes.
“I’m sorry to say that Monsieur du Montmarin has fallen ill as of late.” Étienne bows his head. Maintaining eye contact with the awful man will only end in something drastic, like Étienne mangling his face as a wild cat might. “In a few days time I am certain he will be back in fine spirits and ready to receive your most welcome call.”
He is not strong enough to keep the venom from the words “most welcome,” but Nicolas doesn’t seem to notice.
“Are you certain? Perhaps he shall change his mind if he knows who has come to see him.” Nicolas is polite enough in speech, but there’s something in the way he squares his shoulders that seems belligerent. Étienne wonders if the man would try to force himself into the house should he continue to deny him entry.
“I assure you only what Monsieur du Montmarin has told me himself, that he wishes no guests. My employer is of a delicate constitution, of which excessive visitation would only make worse.”
Nicolas’s eyes darken. He purses his lips and rises once again on tiptoe to get a glimpse of the hallway. Étienne steps to the side to block his view. Those long-lashed, handsome eyes lock with his, and Étienne’s skin prickles before Nicolas smooths out his expression into something more pleasant.
The man makes him dreadfully uneasy.
“Would you entertain me a little longer?” Nicolas pleads. “Pray let me sit in the parlor, and you will let your Monsieur know I am here? If he still wishes me gone you will see no more of me, but I’m quite sure he will find my presence very persuasive.”
Étienne is loath to let him into the house, but there is no hospitable way to turn him down.
“Very well, sir, but please do not be disappointed should he turn you away.”
Étienne leads Nicolas down the foyer and into the parlor. Leaving Nicolas alone in the room feels like a mistake. Especially when he does not sit upon the sofa to wait, but rather stands and plucks a porcelain figurine from the side table, turning it about in his hands.
The stairs up to Pierre’s room are neither long nor treacherous, and yet it seems to take Étienne more time than usual to traverse them. Nicolas’s shadow weighs heavy on his heels. Several times Étienne has to stop himself from looking over his shoulder. He would have heard footsteps on the staircase if Nicolas were following him, but alas! His uneasiness is not so easily assuaged.
When he gets to Pierre’s room, he makes sure to step loud enough to be heard and to clear his throat before he knocks on the doorframe. Several times before, he had accidentally frightened Pierre by coming up on the bedroom too quietly. “You walk like a cat!” Pierre had laughed, once he’d recovered from the startle.
There’s a soft sound that might be the shuffling of blankets, then only a slightly louder, “Come in.”
Étienne pushes open the door to reveal a most pathetic sight. Poor Pierre is nuzzled so deep into the pillows it’s a wonder he can breathe, the silly creature. From what little Étienne can see of his face, Pierre is still flushed with fever. His hair is slightly matted, and it sticks to his sweaty cheek in swirls.
Not that Étienne doubted what Pierre’s answers to Nicolas’s insistences would be, but now he is certain. Even if Pierre was not ill, he would rather die before letting anyone see him as disheveled as this. Well, anyone but Étienne. He’s not sure if that is something to be smug about, but it warms his heart nonetheless.
“There is someone to see you,” Étienne says softly. He sits upon the blanket as gently as he can. Jostling poor Pierre about while he has a headache would not do.
Pierre whines petulantly and turns further into the pillows. “Tell them I am on death’s door, and there is only room for one upon the threshold.”
A smile grows on Étienne’s face despite himself. Though he is miserable, it seems Pierre has not lost his wit. “I tried to inform him of your fragility, but Nicolas was insistent that I come send for you.” Étienne doesn’t bother to hide his eye roll in the safety of Pierre’s room. “He’s waiting in the parlor now.”
Pierre positively shrieks, and Étienne almost topples over from the speed at which Pierre yanks the covers over his head.
“Nicolas? In the parlor?”
“Are your bedchambers so vast they have an echo?” Étienne teases, and Pierre ignores him in favor of clutching the bedsheets over his eyes and whining again.
“No, no, no, he can’t see me like this! What would he think?”
That you are charming even now, and somewhat silly, and entirely too vain, and too beautiful for your own good, Étienne thinks, and then he stamps that thought down because that thought is his and his alone. Nicolas would probably think that Pierre looks no different than after a night spent being ravished.
He stamps that thought down too, with much more difficulty. If Pierre is fond of him, there must be something likeable about Nicolas.
Then again, that likeable quality might be what is endowed in his breeches.
“I will tell him to go, if that would please you,” Étienne says.
Pierre lowers the covers from his face. Beneath the sheet, there is a lovely smile and pink, pink cheeks. Illness and fatigue have shadowed his warm brown eyes, but there is still a spark of life in them, bright and fierce.
“Would you be so kind? Only do it gently for me, and tell him that it was good of him to visit, ill as I am.”
Étienne will relay the message through gritted teeth, but if Pierre wishes it, it will be done.
He tells Pierre so (minus the bit about gritted teeth), then stands and turns towards the door. Pierre catches his hand before he’s out of arm’s reach.
“Wait,” Pierre says, and all Étienne can register is the fever warmth of Pierre’s fingertips. “He has been so generous to come all this way and seek my companionship, surely he will be sad at being turned away. If he insists upon seeing me, would you tell him that a handkerchief from him would keep me company in his stead?”
Étienne thinks of knights and princesses and ribbon favors tied around lances, and a more romantic, secret part of him wants to fall to his knees and cradle Pierre close. To swear that as long as he draws breath, Pierre will have flesh and blood and not fabric as company. He does neither of these things, but he does squeeze Pierre’s hand. A slight indulgence to steel himself for the confrontation downstairs.
“Of course, Pierre,” Étienne smiles, then he pulls away.
He shuts the bedroom door behind him quietly. It would not do to disturb poor Pierre more than he already has.
Étienne finds Nicolas thankfully still in the parlor, now running his fingers over the framed portraits on the mantelpiece. He jumps when Étienne clears his throat to announce his presence, and Étienne has to focus intently to keep a grin of satisfaction from curling across his face.
“Monsieur du Montmarin says it is good of you to visit, but that he is simply too ill to receive guests at this time. He thanks you for your generosity in coming all this way.” Étienne bows and extends a hand towards the foyer.
“A shame indeed,” Nicolas says, looking more irritated than sad. He does not take Étienne’s hint to step out of the parlor. “I had looked forward to speaking with him.”
“If it was company you wished to give, my Monsieur has said he would be content with the handkerchief from your pocket.” At the startled look on Nicolas’s face, Étienne adds an extra clause. “Though, of course, it would be returned upon your next visit.”
Nicolas’s eyebrows remain high upon his forehead. Étienne will admit it was rather forward of Pierre to ask for such a thing, but he was under the impression they were sweethearts. Wasn’t gift giving customary? Surely the exchange of trinkets was nothing between lovers. Nicolas had come with flowers for Pierre. Was a handkerchief for one’s sick darling too much to part with?
After a pause, Nicolas laughs awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck. “Truth be told, in my excitement to come and see him, I have forgotten my handkerchief entirely.”
The lapels of Nicolas’s outer coat conceal the pocket of his waistcoat where a handkerchief might be kept, but somehow, Étienne doubts this is true.
He waves his hand a bit more urgently, and this time Nicolas seems more than happy to be ushered out the door.
It is only after Étienne has shut the latch that he realizes Nicolas never offered the carnations either.