Page 42 of Across Eternity

Luc Barbier stands there. I met him at the last town dance, where he flirted and bought me a drink and tried to convince me to run away to Paris with him. He hasn’t changed much in the past year but he looks older—in a good way. His boyish charm is still there, but it’s a bit more roguish now, and weary.

His hair is shorter and there’s a grim determination behind his smile that wasn’t present back when we met. “You’ve changed,” I comment.

He holds my eye for only a moment. “I enlisted. I’m home on leave after six months defending the Maginot Line.” He pulls one of the shots off the bar and raises it. “What are we drinking to? The reunion of old friends? Or the blessings of fertility?” he adds with a nod toward Henri and Yvette.

“All of the above,” I reply, slamming the first shot and proceeding to the second.

“I won’t even have to try to get you drunk,” he says. “You’re doing my work for me.”

I look at Luc, who was handsome before and is extremely handsome now. I gave myself to Henri without a second thought, under the impression that it was special somehow, and he only waited three months to replace me. So, perhaps I shouldn’t wait another year to replace him. Perhaps special is a myth that serves no purpose.

“Who says you’d have to get me drunk?” I reply.

His eyes sweep over my face, slowly. His lashes are long, and his smile is languid and sad all at once. As if he knows, like I do, that the end is coming, and recognizes the only thing to be done for it is to live while you still can. His hand goes to my hip, something slightly possessive in the press of his fingertips.

“I don’t actually take advantage of drunk women,” he says. “And I don’t take advantage of heartbroken ones, either.”

I shrug. I like him better for how unexpectedly honorable he’s being right now, even if it’s not exactly part of my plan. “Your loss,” I reply, throwing back the third shot.

“Not so fast,” he says. “Give me a chance to fix your heart first. Let’s go to Paris.”

“How is Paris going to fix my heart?”

He grins. “Drinking and dancing in the world’s most beautiful city can cure more problems than you might think.”

Luc’s friends Jean and Marc slap him on the back. “You know he only enlisted because beautiful American girls love soldiers,” says Jean. “Don’t let him fool you with his idealistic nonsense.”

“You’re talking to my future wife, Jean,” Luc replies. “Let me keep the magic alive through our honeymoon.” He winks at me. “Paris?”

The whiskey is beginning to work its magic. I don’t feel like I’ve had three shots, but I feel like I had one and it’s a good start. And no one said I had to remain in Saint Antoine for whatever Cecelia is so worried about. Except Henri has been watching from across the room the entire time, and right now his jaw is clenched tight. I’ve got no doubt he’ll try to stop me, and I’m not in the mood for his paternalistic bullshit tonight. I glance behind me at a door that is painted so that it appears to be part of the room.

“Why not?” I reply. “But I might need some help getting out of here without an argument from my family. You three go out the front and I’ll meet you.”

“You’re going to make a perfect wife,” he says with a grin, and my heart folds in on itself. Because Henri said those words once too, and he apparently meant them no more than Luc does now. Perhaps it’s time I came around to this way people have of saying things they don’t mean. If I’d realized sooner that this is how the world works, I’d be so much better off right now.

* * *

I find Luc and his friends within two minutes of exiting the hidden door and am quickly shuffled into his car. “How do you have the petrol for this?” I ask. “I thought everyone had to save it.”

He gives me another of those smiles of his. “I have my methods.”

Jean leans between us from the back seat. “He means he has his father’s checkbook and can buy whatever he wants on the black market.”

Luc merely laughs. “Yes. That’s the bulk of my method.”

Jean and Marc try to open a bottle of champagne out the window and I glance at Luc. What kind of man is wealthy enough to afford things no one else can and decides to enlist in the military anyway? Shouldn’t he be like Andre, coasting on the family’s success and assuming it puts him above the rest of us?

“How did your family feel about you enlisting?” I ask.

I see a hint of that sorrow in his eyes again. “My father passed away last fall,” he says. “He was never especially proud of me in this world. I can only hope he’ll become proud of me in the next.”

I sigh. Luc joined up out of guilt, but that’s the kind of guilt that will get him killed, and I’d like to see him survive what’s coming.

“There will be lots of chances to prove you deserved his esteem,” I say. “Don’t blow it all on this.”

He glances at me. “I feel I should say the same to you,” he says. “I can’t imagine why Henri chose Yvette. If it’s any consolation, I feel certain he’s regretting it now.”

I’m inclined to agree with him, but it doesn’t change anything. “He’s not regretting it enough for my liking.”