Cold Angels, Chapter 7
“Shall we have coffee again?” Cosette asked as dinner drew to a close.
“I’m afraid I have paperwork,” he set his fork down, “This business with the rebellion has created a necessity for properly filed reports, and a good deal of my inferiors are incompetent as to that particular skill.”
“Oh,” she looked down, not entirely certain why she was disappointed.
“I can work in the parlor, if you prefer,” he offered, going to the hallway and retrieving his document case.
“I think I would like that.”
He set himself up at the desk in the parlor, which he had positioned to face the window with a view of the street. Looking up from her place by the fire, she thought he looked rather like a bird of prey, perched watchfully while the last stragglers of the evening went on their ways. Occasionally his lips moved as though he spoke to himself, but for the most part, the room was silent save for the scratch of his pen. The stack of papers before him was formidable; being Deputy Prefect, he had explained to her, nearly everything that went through the offices required his signature.
She grappled with herself for a considerable amount of time before she got up and moved to a chair nearer to him.
“Can I get you something?” he asked without looking up.
“Oh, no. I’m sorry, I just wanted to…” she looked down at her hands.
“Wanted to what?” this time he did look up, rather puzzled.
“I wanted to be closer to you.”
His expression changed to a soft shock. “You did?”
She nodded.
Mme. Jules, who had been watching from the hallway, came in silently and set something down to one side of the Inspector’s feet. Closer examination revealed it to be a small kitchen stool. The older woman winked at Cosette, and was gone.
“If you would rather not…” he began, but she had already stood and crossed over to him. Tucking her skirts beneath her, she sat down elegantly, her head coming up to just at his elbow. His hand twitched once, as though he meant to move it.
She looked up at him and smiled. “I like it here.”
He felt his stomach do something odd, akin to dropping or flipping, as he cleared his throat. “I’m glad.” He looked down, and when the corners of his own mouth turned up, there was almost a warmth to his expression. At the very least, there was a patronizing sort of affection in his eyes borne of his position as Cosette’s caretaker.
The pen resumed its scratching motions, and his eyes turned back to his work, though they did occasionally flit to the young lady at his feet. He bit down slightly on his tongue to keep the previous night’s thoughts at bay, striving to keep his mind singly focused on his papers, and his papers alone.
It grew even more difficult as Cosette yawned quietly and let her head droop, coming into contact with his thigh just above his knee. She smiled up at him again and nuzzled down against his leg, closing her eyes.
She was such a sweet thing, so naïve, so trusting. There was not an ounce of ill will in her, not a bit of contemptuousness. This, he thought as his hand ventured around to rest on her opposite shoulder, was why a man such as himself needed a wife. This is what had been absent yet unnamed all the years of his solitude.
She must have fallen asleep, because after a moment, she started and blinked, looking up at him with an expression of pretty confusion. Her cheeks went bright red.
“I…should be getting to bed,” she murmured as she stood and curtsied, turning upstairs.
He sighed and felt the warm spot on his thigh where she had leaned, and told himself, three days. Three. Days.
“She won’t admit it to herself yet,” came Mme. Jules’s voice, “You must help her along.”
“I am no expert in the art of courtship,” his mouth was a soft, straight line, “How do you propose I go about it?”
“I have heard,” she mused, “That the great tamers of horses do it by first showing gentleness, and then walking away.”
He made a noise somewhat akin to a laugh in his throat and set down his pen.
“I shall have to try that.”
He ascended the stairs, standing for a long moment at her door, once again sorely tempted by their encounter. With a flick of his wrist, he turned the lock, and was gone.
Lying in bed, Cosette still could feel the ghostly sensation of his leg against her cheek as she began to drift off to sleep. For the first time since she had come to stay with the Inspector, her dreams would not be of Valjean, or even Marius.
Her dreams were of Javert alone.