At the Edge of Summer by Jessica Brockmole Page B

hand.
    “Okay, the lines beneath. The shapes.” He lifted my hand from the paper and put the pencil back under my fingers. “The circle behind the apricot.”
    His fingers were warm. “That’s all?”
    “Start there.”
    I squinted down at the paper, erased, drew, erased again. It took shape, almost. He watched, patient. Finally I threw down the book. “It’s not…never mind. Why am I even trying this?”
    He picked it up. “Stop being frustrated.”
    “Stop being nice. I’m not an artist. I’ll never be Mother.”
    “No. But you’re Clare.” He took my pencil and used the back end to trace the lines of my drawing. “It’s the cheek, right there. And see the line of my jaw? It’s not that round. You’re almost there.”
    “Lines and circles, lines and circles,” I murmured under my breath. The bones underneath. “Let me see.”
    Eyes closed, I leaned forward and put my hands flat on his face.
    I think he stopped breathing.
    I know that, for a split second, I did.
    I had more important things to worry about right then. Like the fact that my heart was near to pounding out of my chest. That his cheeks were soft and rough, all at once. That he was close enough for me to feel his breath on my face. Close enough that I could kiss him.
    I opened my eyes. He watched me. His were brown, ringed with gold. “So that’s your face,” I said softly. I licked my lips. “I understand now.”
    I counted three heartbeats, three seconds of wishing, three seconds where I thought that he really would lean forward.
    “When you didn’t want me to draw you earlier…”
    “Yes?” he asked.
    “…were you afraid to be captured to paper?”
    He exhaled. “I’m already caught.”
    His eyes looked everywhere on my face. Beneath my fingers, his cheeks were warm. I could see the light catch on his eyelashes. His lips moved.
    I was counting breaths, one two three, when I heard her.
    “Luc!” Madame’s voice carried all the way from the house.
    He didn’t move, didn’t even seem to hear her. He closed his eyes.
    “Luc René Rieulle Crépet!”
    His eyes flew open, wide, guilty. He jerked back, leaving my hands empty in the air. I could still feel the warmth of his face.
    Madame strode across the lawn. She wore a tall turban of brilliant blue silk and looked as imposing as a voodoo priestess. As she approached the chestnut tree, I scrambled to my feet.
    “I was just drawing his face, Madame.” I fumbled in the grass for my pencil. I didn’t even remember dropping it.
    She didn’t even look at me. “Luc, you have a visitor.”
    It was then that I noticed the man behind her. He was tall, not much older than Luc, with smooth dark blond hair and a khaki suit. Draped over one arm was a motoring jacket and a pair of goggles. He looked rich and relaxed in his sporting duck, like a gentleman about to yacht or take the automobile out to shoot. Luc yanked off his striped scarf and stuffed it in his back pocket as he stood.
    “Bauer, what are you doing here?”
    “I was in the area,” the man said, with a raise of an eyebrow and a German accent. “I thought I would visit your château.”
    Luc ducked his head. “We…we aren’t prepared for visitors.”
    “Luc, don’t be impolite,” Madame said. “I’ll have Yvette set for tea in the salon.”
    In Madame Crépet’s salon, each wall was a different color, like a riotous fruit bowl. Strawberry red, plum purple, pear yellow, the deep orange of a nectarine. Embroidered pillows piled on every surface, beneath paintings of long-haired women on tropical beaches, as bright as Gauguin. Her salon was like falling into a paint box.
    “Mr. Bauer,” she said, with a sudden, coy smile, “I’m sure you’ll permit me my Earl Gray. I am not wholly French, after all.”
    He bowed, but Luc shook his head. “The salon, Maman, it’s…the rugs are being cleaned.”
    The rugs scattered throughout Mille Mots had been there since the Crusades, I was sure, faded, patterned things