Loveless: Day 9

Word Count: 54,004

Summary of Events:

Thérèse searched the castle for the keys some more, until she got too cold. Le Démon, trying to find his name, tried to search through a book, a painstaking process in page-flipping, and was embarrassed and upset to be come upon by Thérèse, attacking her. Thérèse, her dress reduced to mortifyingly immodest rags, sat and thought about how hopeless Le Démon was. Le Démon, cold and mad, went into the dining room to keep warm, and then to eat. Thérèse apologised to Le Démon for embarrassing him and other things. Le Démon thought about her apology and then decided to take her a dress so she wouldn't be just sitting around in tatters. Thérèse put on the dress the next morning, which took awhile because she wasn't sure she should be allowed to wear such fine fabric, and went to breakfast. Le Démon, startled by how nice the dress looked on her, and the fact that she knew he'd brought it to her, spent his breakfast in discombobulation.

Excerpt of the Day:

"He looked away from her, wishing he could leave the table and eat his meat on the floor before the fire like he'd been doing the past several days. He felt completely uncomfortable around her.

She was being so nice to him, and on top of that, she looked better than any woman had a right to look in Maman's dress — which he'd noticed was a bit short on her, but not too much — other than Maman herself.

He felt guilty about not forgiving her for having thrown books at him, screamed at and gotten away from him, and hit him on the head, and all of the other things that she'd done to him. It wasn't really that much, he'd done worse to her.

And he probably owed her an apology for all of that too, she didn't deserve it, and on top of that it was probably all rather counterproductive, although a lot of it had been motivated by the fact that she'd been frustrating him.

Sitting in her presence was pure torture, he wanted to leave and eat somewhere else, or have her just go back to taking her meals in the bureau, or something that would keep them from being together.

"Would you like to come into the bureau and have me do some reading for you again today?" she asked as she finished. "Or are you going to stay out here today?"

He glanced at her and then shook his head. He wasn't the least bit comfortable, he'd stay out here and see if maybe Maman would have a sewing kit and a cloak, he might as well, but then again, if it would keep making her nicer, he wasn't sure that he'd want to.

"Well, if you would like me to read to you, feel free to come in," she said. "Or even if you don't want to be so cold."

Finally she rose from the table and left the room. He sagged back in his chair. It was nice to be free of her presence. He'd never felt more wracked by guilt in his entire life. He felt terrible.

It was like, because she was wearing Maman's dress, he could feel Maman's gaze, intensely weighty, yet not really raging so much as weightily saddened, that gaze she'd always looked at him and his siblings with when they'd done things displeasing to her.

He'd done a lot of things Maman wouldn't be happy about, and having seen her looking so similar to Maman had torn him up as he could still feel the feeling that gaze had caused within him — which he felt surprising, being as he didn't remember the sound of his name on her lips.

If it weren't for the fact that she was his key out of this nightmare he would've sent her back home and tried to find another woman instead, but time was too short for that. It had taken long enough to get her, forget the idea of trying to find someone else instead of her."

Pronunciation:

bureau: buhroh