Lenobia's Vow (House of Night Novellas #2)(20)

His face reanimated and he closed the few feet that separated them. “No, cherie. You cannot love me.”

“Cannot? I already do.”

“It is impossible.” Martin reached out, took her hand, and lifted it gently. Then he raised his own arm until the two were side by side, flesh to flesh. “You see the difference, you?”

“No,” she said softly, gazing down at their arms—their bodies. “All I see is you.”

“Look with your eyes and not your heart. See what others will see!”

“Others? Why do we care what they will see?”

“The world matters, perhaps more than you understand, cherie.”

She met his gaze. “So you care more for what others think than for what we feel, you and I?”

“You do not understand.”

“I understand enough! I understand how I feel when we are together. What more is there to understand?”

“Much, much more.” He dropped her hand and turned, walking quickly to the stall to stand beside one of the watching grays.

She spoke to his back. “I said I would not lie to you. Can you say the same to me?”

“I will not lie to you,” he said, without turning to look at her.

“Do you love me? Tell me the truth, Martin, please.”

“The truth? What difference does the truth make in a world like this?”

“It makes all the difference to me,” she said.

He turned and she saw that his cheeks were wet with silent tears. “I love you, cherie. It feels like it will kill me, but I love you.”

Her heart felt as if it were flying as she moved to his side and slipped her hand within his. “I am no longer betrothed to Thinton de Silegne,” she said, reaching up to brush the tears from his face.

He cupped his hand over hers and pressed it to his cheek. “But they will find someone new for you. Someone who cares more about your beauty than your name.” As he spoke he grimaced as if the words hurt him.

“You! Why can it not be you? I am a bastard—surely a bastard can marry a Creole.”

Martin laughed humorously. “Oui, cherie. A bastard can marry a Creole, if that bastard be black. If she be white, they cannot marry.”

“Then I do not care about being married! I only care about being with you.”

“You are so young,” he said softly.

“So are you. You cannot be twenty yet.”

“I be twenty-one next month, cherie. But inside I am old, and I know even love can not change the world—at least not in time for us.”

“It has to. I am going to make it.”

“You know what they do to you, this world you think love can change? They find out you love me, you give yourself to me, they hang you, or worse. They rape you and then hang you.”

“I will fight them. To be with you I will stand against the world.”

“I don’ want that for you! Cherie, I will not be the cause of harm to come against you!”

Lenobia stepped back, away from his touch. “My maman told me that I must be brave. I must become a girl who was dead so that I could live a life without fear. So I did that terrible thing I did not want to do—I lied and tried to take on the name, the life, of someone else.” As she spoke, it was as if a wise mother were whispering to her, guiding her thoughts and her words. “I was afraid, so afraid, Martin. But I knew I had to be brave for her, and then somehow that changed and I became brave for me. Now I want to be brave for you, for us.”

“That not brave, cherie,” he said, his olive eyes sad, his shoulders slumped. “That just young. You and me—our love belong to a different time, a different place.”

“Then you deny us?”

“My heart cannot, but my mind—he say keep her safe, don’ let the world destroy her.” He took a step toward her, but Lenobia wrapped her arms around herself and stepped back from him. He shook his head sadly. “You should have babies, cherie. Babies that don’ have to pretend to be white. I think you know a little what it like to pretend, don’t you?”

“Here is what I know—that I would rather pretend a thousand times over than deny my love for you. Yes, I am young, but I am old enough to know that one-sided love can never work.” When he said nothing, she wiped the back of her wrist angrily across her face, sweeping away her tears, and continued, “I should leave and not come back and spend the rest of the voyage anywhere but down here.”

“Oui, cherie. You should.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No, fool that I am. It is not what I want.”

“Well, then, we are both fools.” She walked past him and picked up one of the curry brushes. “I am going to groom the grays. Then I will feed them. Then I will return to my quarters and wait until tomorrow’s dawn calls me free. Then I will do the same thing all over again.” She moved into the stall and began brushing the nearest gray.

Still outside the stall, he watched her with olive eyes that she thought looked sad and very, very old. “You are brave, Lenobia. And strong. And good. When you are a woman grown, you will stand against the darkness in the world. I know this when I look into your storm-cloud eyes. But, ma belle, choose battles you can win without losing your heart and your soul.”

“Martin, I stopped being a girl when I stepped into Cecile’s shoes. I am a woman grown. I wish you understood that.”