Lisette

Chapter 33 ~ Enjoy it While it Lasts

Lisette. 

In some ways, the diminutive felt strange - almost alien - but mostly, it just felt very, very right. As though something that I had never known was missing had slotted into place. I looked up at Enjolras again, stroking my fingers through his curls. He bent his head, and kissed me back, tenderly, one hand on my waist pulling me closer, the other gently brushing my cheek. 

"I've been wanting to tell you for a while," he said, pulling away. "I've never been quite sure how to put it, and didn't want to upset things - didn't want to lose you."

"You shan't lose me. I'm not going anywhere," I smiled, and reached up to twine my fingers through his hair again. "Was it this - was this what you were trying to say - that evening when we got back from the Jardin des Plantes?"

"Yes. I managed to say it back then - tell you that I loved you, but you didn't hear. I was drowned out by you putting that log on the fire."

"Sorry. I had no idea. Truly."

"I know. And in some ways, this is just as perfect."

"A perfect moment," I said, leaning my head against his shoulder and wrapping my arms around him.

"We should go back," he said, kissing the top of my head. "The others will wonder where we've got to."

"Some of them, perhaps," I smiled ruefully. "Courfeyrac and Musichetta, though - I think if they suspicion anything, it'll be precisely this."

When we returned to the ball, hand in hand rather than with linked arms, they were dancing a relatively new Scottish dance - the Dashing White Sergeant. It was danced in groups of six, with each set of three dancers rotating around the room to find the next set of three to dance with. Musichetta, being able to dance with both Bossuet and Joly at the same time, was positively sparkling. With the end of the dance, she came and sat down next to me, radiating happiness, and half raised an eyebrow at me. Before she could say anything though, Courfeyrac came over and spoke to Enjolras:

"Might I borrow Lis for the next dance?"

"I don't know," Enjolras said, half smiling. "You'd be better asking her than me - she knows her own mind."

"Well then, Lis, might I have the pleasure of the next dance?"

"Depends," I shrugged. "Any idea what it'll be?"

"A gavotte, by the sounds of things."

"Oh good. Slow and stately. I might be able to cope with that. Not sure I'm up to anything lively after the strip the willow!"

"And if I dance with Joly," Musichetta interjected, "that'll make a four, which is how many we need."

It was a dance with the four of us in a line - ladies in the centre, gentlemen on the outside, with tightly linked arms, progressing slowly and hypnotically around the room. 

"Well?" Courfeyrac asked, as the dance began.

"Well what? You don't mean to tell me that asking me to dance was all a ploy for the two of you to quiz me out of Enjolras's hearing?"

"Might have been," Musichetta half shrugged, grinning at me. "I might have been dancing when you came back from 'taking the air,' but that didn't make me entirely blind. He was holding your hand, and you were grinning like the cat that got the cream!"

"So," Courfeyrac continued, "we want to know what happened."

"If you must know, we walked through the gardens a little way."

"And?"

I rolled my eyes.

"And? And things continued in much the same manner they have done so far between the two of us."