The sellers of flowers buy up old roses
They pull off dead petals, like old heads of lettuce
And sell 'em as new ones, for cheaper and fairer
But they die by the morning, so who is the winner
I pushed open the church doors and was startled to find Adrien standing just outside—alone. He was dressed in a white coat and hat, with a brilliant red rose tucked into his buttonhole. An umbrella shielded him from the worst of the rain. He looked at me, the letter, and the handkerchief, and his face softened with concern. He moved closer so that we could share his umbrella.
“Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng, are you all right?”
I almost burst into a new set of tears. It was only bitter anger that kept them at bay. “I know that you married Mademoiselle Bourgeois,” I said.
Adrien’s expression was unmoved, but he look down at the letter in my hand. “What did Mademoiselle Raincomprix tell you?”
“This isn’t from Mademoiselle Raincomprix. This is from Chloé Bourgeois.”
Adrien turned as pale as his jacket. He lunged for the letter and water slid from the umbrella in a cascade, clattering against the stone steps and my heels. His reaction was all the confirmation I needed. He and I struggled both to stay under the umbrella and keep a hold of the letter. I had the advantage of two hands, since one of his was occupied, but he had the advantage of height.
“I’m going to tell your father,” I said, ducking under his arm. “All of this ends now.”
He reached around my back to get to my hands, crashing into me in his attempt to grasp the letter. “You misunderstand, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng. Please, my father cannot know that letter exists.”
“You can’t stop me from telling him—”
I stared up at him, stunned to stillness. We both panted for breath after our brief tussle, eyes locked in equal terror and cheeks flushed. “But—you told me not to tell him.”
“I asked you not to let rumor reach him. My father would do anything to keep this from coming to light. Please, Mademoiselle, I am begging you to let this go or—or I don’t know what he’ll do.”
He reached for the letter again and this time, I did not move away. He pulled it from my hand. Belatedly, I reached out to stop him but he had already torn the paper in two.
He continued to rip up the letter until it was nothing but fragments, which he tossed into the rain.
I watched as my best hope of stopping this marriage disappeared into a puddle and slipped down the steps of the church, following the stream of rainwater until it washed out into the street and over Monsieur Agreste’s shoes.
“Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng,” he called as he climbed the stairs, “thank you for coming to look for us. Is Mademoiselle Tsurugi ready?” Monsieur Agreste crested the top of the stairs and reached for the church door, but I got between it and him.
“I won’t let you go through with this,” I said.
Monsieur Agreste raised his eyebrows in something that looked less like surprise and more like amusement. “Mademoiselle, I can understand why you would be upset by the end of your companionship with Mademoiselle Tsurugi, however—”
“But Adrien’s already married to Chloé Bourgeois. He can’t marry Kagami!”
Monsieur Agreste frowned, but it felt at once condescending and false. “You must be mistaken. Mademoiselle Bourgeois visited us after her father’s death, but left once she had married in order to find her mother.”
“But that’s not true,” I said, heart racing with panic, because Monsieur Agreste’s next response was exactly what I was afraid of.
“Do you have any proof of these claims?”
I swallowed. “She—she wrote to Mademoiselle Raincomprix. There’s a letter…”
Monsieur Agreste turned away from me to look at Adrien. “Is there a letter?”
Adrien kept his eyes on ground, and I was uncertain if it was my gaze or his father’s that he was afraid to meet. “No, sir.”
“Then, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng, I believe you have been indulged long enough.” He pushed me aside and I stumbled into the pouring rain as he pulled the heavy church door open. Adrien caught my wrist before I could tumble down the steps, but Monsieur Agreste did not so much as turn back to look at me.
Adrien pulled me back under his umbrella and gestured for me to follow his father, as if I was expected to face this devastating loss like nothing had changed. He looked for all the world like the angel I had first pictured, lit from behind by the glow of the church’s lamps, dressed in white, with a bloom of red on his breast like the wound of a saint.
“You could stop this,” I said. I reached for his hand where it gripped his umbrella and squeezed his as if I could transfer all my desperation into him directly.
I had no other options. Kagami had not listened to me. Madame Tsurugi had not believed me. Monsieur Agreste had shoved me aside. Adrien was my very last hope.
I looked down to where our hands met, felt his grip on the umbrella tremble. His ring finger was now bare, but before I could ask what he had done with Kagami’s father’s ring, Adrien disappeared into the church without a word, leaving me alone to face the rain.
Not the roses, not the buyers, not the sellers,
Not the tellers of the stories,
Not the fathers, not their children,
Who's the winner
Maybe winter...
Read A Lamb to Slaughter on Ao3
