I do not see Mariusz again for the rest of the day. Even in the evening, when dinner is served, he remains absent from our quarters. I eat alone, not very much, and none of it tasting good. There is a lingering bitterness in my mouth from the events of the day and the night before. I bathe and go to bed early, taking up my usual place on the sofa with bedsheets all round me. Perhaps the reason Mariusz stayed away last night was because I took the bed.

I am half-asleep and the room is dark when the door opens and he fumbles his way in by the light of a single candle.

I sit up. "Mariusz?"

"Yes. It's me."

"It's late. Where were you at dinner?"

"I went for a long walk. It stopped raining, and I needed to move."

He sets the candle down on the bedside table, then comes closer and sits down on the edge of my sofa, near my feet. I don't smell any wine or spirits on him. He smells like rain and wind. I pat at his coat.

"You're drenched."

"It started to rain again. And I still needed to move." He sits there in silence for a long moment, then says something short and soft in Selician.

"I don't understand," I say.

"You don't understand?"

"Those aren't words I know."

"I was saying sorry." He sounds disappointed. "I'm sorry for the words I used about you last night. The word. I was... I was not a gentleman. I was very wrong. I apologize, Alexandra."

I stare at him in the murky light, guilt and shame sinking down over me. I used harsh words too. Should I apologize as well? But it will look like I am apologizing because he did. It will look like a courtesy, without meaning behind it.

"Alex?"

"Don't call me that."

"I'm sorry."

"My uncle used to call me that," I explain, fearing that I have snapped at him once again. "He spoilt it."

"I won't call you that, then." He shifts, his coat oozing dampness into the blankets around my feet. "In Selician, we have many nicknames for your name. Sasha? Do you like Sasha?"

"Sasha is fine."

"That's good." He waits longer. "Will you say something, Sasha?"

I don't know what to say. I don't know what he expects from me. But he waits so patiently and so silently that I must say something, and into that patient silence I let slip what presses most on my heart and my pride. "I hate that Celina gave you her stocking for the race. I hate more that you used it. It's not right."

"It was not. It was a joke on you." He shakes his head. "I am sorry for that too."

There. He has managed to say sorry twice now. If I say it, it will only sound hollow, belated, an echo of his sentiments.

"Do you... accept my apology?" He asks after a long wait. "Do I need to say more? Do I need to do more?"

"Um. No. I accept."

"Thank you." He raises my hand to his lips and kisses my fingers. "Thank you." He kisses them again.

He lets my hand drop to the blanket again, but keeps his over it.

"We will move into new quarters soon," he says. "No more honeymoon suite."

"I know."

"We will have our own bedrooms. There will be no need for you to sleep on the sofa to avoid me."

"You were the one who started it."

"No. I never asked you to sleep here. I just asked that you not..." He hesitates. "...that we not make love. Sleeping in the same bed was never a concern of mine. You're the one who started that."

"You made it your bed. Not ours."

"But it is... ours."

His hand is still on mine. Slowly, he interlinks his fingers with mine and raises my hand to again kiss it, this time on the underside of my wrist. His lips are wind-chilled and slightly damp. They set a shiver running through my veins.

"Come to bed with me," he says. "Let's... let's be man and wife." There is sorrow in his voice, and resignation.

"I don't know how it... I don't know... that..." I whisper.

"I know you don't know." His chill fingers trace circles on my palm. "I've never told you this, but you're pretty, you're really very pretty. Even when you're half-asleep, perhaps especially when you're half-asleep, with your hair all scattered across your shoulders and your eyelids low..." He leans forward — the same way Konrad leaned over the table this morning.

I lean back. "What are you doing?"

"I'm kissing you."

"Please don't."

He freezes, then slowly sits upright. "I won't hurt you. I'm ready now, to take you to bed with me, and I promise I won't hurt you."

"But I'm not ready anymore." My heart races, and I raise my hand to my chest only to discover that it is shaking. "I can't. I don't want to."

He looks at me in the half-light. The faintest sigh escapes his lips — relief or regret? I cannot tell. "Of course. I should have known." He looks around, takes up his candle, and then heads to the screen to get changed. "You're right, Sasha. We shouldn't... make love. It won't be making love when we're not in love."

I watch the shadow the candle throws up on the screen as he strips himself of his coat and vest and shirt and pants.

"What if we're never in love?" I ask.

The shadow flickers wildly as a draught threatens the candle and Mariusz puts on his nightshirt.

"Then we're never in love."

"What if... what if you love me, and I don't love you?"

The shadow stills for a moment. "I suppose my heart breaks. It would not be the first time."

"My heart has never been broken."

"Never? I don't believe you."

"Never. I've never been in love."

Mariusz blows out his candle and his shadow disappears into the darkness. "It isn't always love which breaks a heart."

__

2024-09-15: That conversation isn't foreshadowing at all. Alex isn't tempting fate. No. Not even a little bit.