"Perry, Anne - The One Thing More" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Anne)

and what I said." He looked at her steadily. He had a powerful face
with lean, hard bones a face of hunger and tragedy. But one expected
dark eyes and his were blue-grey, very clear, as if his mind were
visible through them, both the light and the darkness of it.

These were the days of equality. She wanted to understand why he sent
St. Felix, who was apparently his friend, out on all sorts of errands
in the cold and the dark. Often he came home exhausted, sometimes even
injured, and it seemed he went willingly enough. Certainly he never
argued. But why did Bernave not sometimes go on these dangerous
missions himself?

Bernard was staring at her. He smiled with a twist to his lips.

"Are you cold and tired, Celie?"

"Of course I am!" she said vehemently. Her legs ached and her feet
were soaking wet and numb.

He leaned back a little in his chair, his eyes meeting hers
unwaveringly. "Is Amandine in bed?"

It was the last thing she had expected him to ask. It was utterly
irrelevant.

"Pardon?"

His eyes widened. "Is Amandine in bed?" he repeated. "Is that not
plain enough? I am hungry. Like most of France, I can work on an
empty stomach but I cannot think on one! Perhaps also, like most of
France!" A flash of humour lit his face as he watched her, but it was
full of the knowledge of pain.

"I'll fetch you some bread and cheese," she offered. And an onion, if
you like?"

"The only woman in Paris who cannot cook!" he said with a sigh, but
there was no unkindness in his voice. "You have done well, Celie. You
have intelligence and courage. And at the moment since there is hardly
any decent food to be had, but a great deal of work to do, and most of
it dangerous those virtues may be of more use to us. What a comment on
our times!" He looked at her steadily for a moment, to be sure she
understood that he meant what he said, then turned back to his book. It
was dismissal.

She went out through the hallway to the kitchen again, taking the
candle with her, his praise still sweet in her ears. A corner of the
room had been set aside for the flat iron and a basket of sewing
needles, scissors, threads, and pins so she could care for the
household linens and occasionally make a garment or two. But the