Page 76 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
Léon remained where he was and regarded Henry, who, after all his affection in the heat of the moment, seemed to have no better idea how to react than Léon.
He looked… smaller. He had none of his finery, only Léon’s sweater, which fit tightly. Without his collars and his cloak, only the light and dirty shirt they’d given him in prison beneath the sweater, he shivered. He’d kept his breeches, but they ran down to bare shins and ankles, naked and dirty feet. His face showed scratches from the straw, from whatever other mistreatment he’d suffered. The bruise was probably from the last time Léon had punched him, knocked him down into the mud to be arrested.
But his expression spoke nothing of that memory.
Léon was clean and bright and beautiful, and Henry saw him then, just as the new day dawned around them, as all the love and care he’d been missing for years. Léon, who’d seen deep into Henry’s heart at the most vulnerable time in his entire life, at his most awful, and somehow, liked what he found there.
Henry started forward, the feel of Léon’s biceps beneath his hands like a magical potion, bringing a peace over his weary body, the feel of his soft lips, kissing him back, really flesh and blood Léon kissing him.
He didn’t want to talk. He had no idea what to say. Where to start with any of it. He just wanted it to be and to exist.
But Léon, breathless, broke the kiss and looked down, golden hair hiding his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” Henry brought his face back up with gentle hands. “I’m sorry. You were never meant to be caught up in this.”
“This.” Léon wondered if Henry had any idea how much of ‘this’ he had pieced together. Henry didn’t know what happened in Saint-Quentin. He had no idea Léon knew about his sister’s powers—that it was one of the reasons he’d broken him out.
But Léon knew it wasn’t the main reason. And that was terrifying. Now he’d had time to stop, to think about what he’d become…
His hopes hung threadbare when he looked deep into Henry’s beautiful eyes, so close and so fond, and on a tremble, with real fear in his heart, he asked, “Did you bewitch me?”
Henry’s look was somewhere between confused, amused, and hurt. “No, Léon. No, even if I wanted to?—”
“Are you a witch?” Words so quiet, in the crumbling cottage, in the empty field.
Henry’s head shook slightly, his body reacting by instinct to keep up the lie, but his voice came low and confiding. “Yes. Not by choice.”
Léon’s fingers stretched across Henry’s chest. Desperately searching his face, he repeated, “Did you bewitch me?”
“No.” Henry was twice as firm.
But all it did was pull a hurried and frantic, “I think I must have gone mad. The things I’ve done.” He stepped away from Henry, crossing the room to thread fingers into his hair. “I killed someone today,” Léon murmured, eyes not focusing on Henry or any of the detritus all around them.
The stretched quality of Léon’s voice kept Henry silent, watching the frenetic trembling of his hands.
“He tried to stop me. He tried to… I just wanted to go.” His hands began to open and shut, then he shook them out, all anxiety, remembering the gore of the scene, thinking of Mollard still dead on his floor, a pillow of blood congealing beneath his broken head. “It was Souveraine.” Léon glanced up at Henry, his lips hardening, just as his heart did, against her name. “And it was Émile. And Catherine, of course, Catherine. But, Henri, it was you. God help me, it was you.” Henry started towards him, but Léon spun away, his hand at his temple. “It was so simple. All those years, there was no one—no one I wanted, and even if I had… I could never be with them. There was no one. And then you walked in, and everything I’ve done, my whole life, everything I’ve worked for…”
Léon’s eyes shone with tears not yet fallen, and Henry refused to let him step away this time. He caught his hands, and though Léon pulled them back, Henry closed his tighter. “We’ll work through this. What did you do?”
“No, Henri! It’s you! You just destroyed it all. And in a matter of days. And I don’t know who I am, or where I’m going, or what I’m to do. Everything that I was, I tore it all apart for you. Why did I do that?”
“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly. He pulled Léon’s head against his shoulder, and he hadn’t expected it to fall thereso easily, for Léon to cling to him the way he did, fingertips scrunching into him. “Come with me. Come with me, and I’ll make it all better. I will protect you. I will give it all back and more. Please, trust me.”
Léon raised his eyes, a shiver to his lashes. The expression of someone who’d just realised a great truth—a distant, faraway look. “You’re like death, Henri. I can feel you in my veins. And I long for you. So help me God, I long for you.”
Léon’s words were cold lead in Henry’s heart. He saw in full what he’d become to Léon. He was a promise and an idea, like the revolution itself—he was freedom. And yet he was flesh and blood and no more than that. But though the thought terrified him, that Léon understood him as a concept, he felt all the duty and responsibility of it only as a feather to the weight of his earnest desire to be those things for Léon. He’d found one other heart that was broken and betrayed, just like his—one other person driven near madness with the world the way it was just then. Everything in Henry wanted to deliver Léon safely to the other side.
“I am not that.” Henry grasped Léon’s cheek in a strong hand. “Not to you. I’m the man who’s going to save you from all of this.”
“It’s over. I would be a fool to go on with you.” But Léon dropped his head back to Henry’s chest and wrapped his arms around him, squeezing him with all the very great strength in them.
Henry’s hand settled in his hair, holding him, his other arm wrapping him tight. “You have it wrong. You can’t see because this life… This life has never let you see.” Léon resisted the movement, but Henry pulled his arms free, and lifted his tear-stained face to look clear into Léon’s eyes. “I am freedom. And I am safety. And you’re too scared to let yourself have any of those things. You’ve never let anyone take care of you. You’ve never letgo of that control for one minute, because you never could. But now it’s time. Léon, I’m the one. Choose me. Over all of it, choose me, and I won’t let you down. I’ll take you away from all of this.”
Léon yielded to the many splendored kisses that fell on his lips and his cheeks and his jaw, kisses and all the ardour of Henry’s physical passion, the caresses he so desperately desired, not for one night in a broken-down tower in Reims, but forever. On and on and it would never be enough, not to close up that chasm inside him that wanted love so badly—thatneededto love so badly.
Henry pressed him back against the wall, into a cool and soft tangle of ivy, and it felt to Léon as though he were drowning in it, sinking beneath the green and the kisses. He floated down and down to the floor, and Henry never relented. Léon wanted him, and Henry was desperate to prove he was there, solid and real, and that he would remain there, that he wanted Léon.
Léon’s fingers wrenched at his sweater, and if it was cold outside, it wasn’t in the cottage, not anymore. All the anger and frustration came out of Henry, and he ripped his clothes to the floor. Léon sat up, licking over his chest, kissing his shoulder, taking arms around his neck to pull him down. But Henry needed the feel of his skin, and he pulled Léon’s clothes off, the beautiful man compliant beneath his touch.
