Desiderio did not like to be touched. Mother had told him that he was fragile, and that even more than rough-housing, he was not to let the other children so much as lay a hand on him; that way, she could be sure he was safe. She had said it rather angrily, he remembered, though he could not remember when or why. Mother had bruised his arm once, when she had caught him trying to climb the western staircase which had not then been repaired. That must have been when. He remembered it hurting, but that was because he was fragile; it had been a terrible shock to Mother.
But Aurelie’s little hand was very gentle, and he did not think it could hurt. What hurt more was the sense that he was at any moment going to dissolve into tears like a baby.
Her little hand and the way that she leaned forward and spoke softly only made it worse. It wasn’t fair! He was the older one. He did not need to be comforted. Besides, he almost never cried. Or at the very least, he had almost never cried in Bastia, before. Before Brunnhold, before Benoit Bellecourt, before Briarwood Hall and the whole business of marriage.
But he looked up, and Aurelie was smiling, and so he smiled too. A little. It was the least he could do. His breathing, which had started to come fast – oh, any more and he would make himself dizzy – had calmed, and when he blinked, his eyes were sore but not wet.
Desiderio meant to reassure her. Awkwardly, he placed his hand atop hers. He hated holding hands with other children, because their hands were always so very clammy and his hand always came away smelling rather strangely.
Hers was all right. He patted it even more awkwardly, then cleared his throat and shifted. “You shall see it someday, then,” he pronounced matter-of-factly, never mind that he knew it was a lie. When she grew up, she would not want to see Caroult; least of all, when she understood why the Morandi house was full of birds and holes. Besides, it was cold, and he Aurelie did not sound much as if she liked the prospect. “And you shall see the drawings. Much sooner. I shall show you them when you take me back to my room. All right?”
But it was nice to think about, just now, and it had been very sweet, what she had done. She was very sweet, he had to admit. It was a good quality in a wife, he supposed. Not that he knew anything about it. Not that anybody would tell him anything about it, really.
She had never been to a mountain, though! How very difficult for Desiderio to imagine. It was so difficult that it might have been impossible, that she had never seen such things as he missed so dearly. Well, he had never seen a place like this before, either.
“I should like to see the fish, too, another day. I should like to see how pretty they are.” He cleared his throat again, because it seemed to him even higher than usual.
She had said they were very pretty, and she had been very quiet about it, which he did not understand. The fact that she thought they were pretty rather made him want to see them more; he supposed little girls were supposed to know a great deal about which things were pretty and which weren’t.
Mother had said there had been fish in some of the ponds in Father’s house, once, too. Not even too long ago. They were empty, now; some, especially the one in the chapel to Hurte, was covered in green and smelled strangely. He did not think Mother would have wanted him around it, but it had been his secret, back in Caroult. It had been his place, the old chapel.
Somehow, the thought of going to sail boats and see pretty fish with Aurelie made him miss it less. He still missed it horribly, and he hated Anaxas. But perhaps he could have a secret and a place here, too. Perhaps they could, he amended. Together. It was a very unfamiliar thought, sharing a secret and a place with somebody else.
“But first,” he said, shifting a little to resettle the sketchbook in his lap, “would you tell me what happened to the tin soldier and the paper dancer?”