Hi everybody! I'm so sorry about how long it has taken me to update this; I was stuck revising for my A2 exams for a long time, and then by the time I had finished, the episodes weren't online anymore and my inspiration had petered out. Still, I saw an advert for Season 3 last week and what with Season 2 finally being put on Netflix, I have finally managed to get some more done. It's hopefully quite a lot but we'll have to see where Season 3 takes them! Anyway I hope some people out there somewhere are still reading/following this! If so, enjoy!
Valerie looked at him, her eyes full of what Henri thought might be remorse as she spoke. "I made the wrong choice," she said, and she looked down as Henri studied her. She was well dressed, as always, but there was something missing, and it wasn't just in her air or her toilette - she was completely the wrong person, and not the one he wanted to see at that moment. It occurred to him suddenly that helping him was a selfish thing for her to do - she knew their history and could guess at how he felt about her - or had felt about her. He wondered whether she had thought that taking Morgan down would keep her safe from the law while at the same time allowing her to ingratiate herself with him once more.
She did not, standing there, look as beautiful as he had once thought her to be, and the realisation that she was not at all who he wanted was welcome. He had known for a long time - perhaps since before he had even left the boat and set foot in New York - that it was Agnes he needed, but it was this conversation here that finally rid him of any vestige of his love for Valerie. He was free, and not only from jail.
He had said no before she had barely finished her question; Agnes had spent so long trying to help him, even after all he had done to her and how rudely he had snapped at her - even beyond the bounds of propriety, he thought (who could tell with those silly English anyway), whereas Valerie had always - he saw it now - been self-serving.
But he could not be cruel to her, not even after all that she had put him through; she was still one of his oldest friends. So, when she asked him if he had fallen in love with someone else (and he replied, "Oui," because he had), he told her it had taken all of that for him to realise it. Without this, without finally realising what Valerie was like, he wouldn't have realised how much he loved Agnes. And he did, with all his heart. He was not a good man, and he was not the man that she deserved, but he wanted her anyway. If she would have him, then he would have her and damn anyone who tried to come between them.
So he said, "Merci," and, with that one word, he thanked her for everything she had done, thanked her for the times they had spent together and for her ill-fated attempt to heal him when he had first met her in New York (even if love was not an illness that needed healing), thanked her for reappearing at the time when he needed her most, even if that was due to Harry. He knew, then, that he would never see Valerie Maurel again.
Henri was lying in bed, thinking about Harry as he smoked a cigarette. His best friend… He was far too good to him, always fixing things for people. He wondered idly whether that was the real reason behind his request for Henri to return to the store all that time ago.
Sure the store had been having some problems with its workers, but Agnes had hardly needed his help. She had been stressed, Henri could see that, but she had been coping. However, he hoped that it wasn't arrogant of him to think that her designs had improved since he had started working with her again; he knew that, for him, he had found his work in New York seriously lacking. It could have been because of everything that had been happening with Valerie, but at the back of his mind lingered the truth - that it had been because he had missed having Agnes to discuss his ideas with. Valerie was a passably good woman and a good friend, but she was never able - or prepared - to stand with him and have her thoughts follow exactly in the path of his.
He suspected, too, that Harry knew bringing her up would entice him back, even if he wished it didn't. He hadn't wanted to see Agnes, hadn't wanted to see how she had blossomed since he had left, and yet he had; he was unable to resist the siren song of the store, the siren song of his little ingenue. He wondered how Harry had known though; he had always thought that he was being careful with her. And, of course, Harry hadn't seen the expression that crossed his face when he said that he had sent her to Paris and that she was the Head of Displays. Harry had such a talent for finding talent and Henri was glad that his friend had enabled Agnes to progress so far. That, at least, justified him leaving.
But he had never expected any of this to happen and he had dragged Harry into it, and caused all sorts of trouble. It was mostly due to that beastly Thackeray but, if he traced the events all the way to their roots, it was because he had been incapable of taking away Agnes' independence, incapable of choosing the difficulty and danger of falling in love with someone new instead of the safety of returning to Valerie. But now here he was, lying in bed a free man, smoking a cigarette and thinking about the world. All he had to do now was to hope that some divine providence, or maybe Harry, interfered in Agnes' engagement. She was too good to break it off, too good even to listen to him when he tried to tell her what a fool he had been and that he loved her, even if he could see that she wasn't as happy as she ought, or deserved, to be with Mr. Colleano.
That was not the interference he had wanted; he had never wished to bring any celestial wrath down on Agnes' brother, but it worried him to see her so upset. It had not escaped his notice either, that the reporter - what was her name again? It had flitted from his mind almost as soon as she had been introduced to him - seemed to think he and Agnes were… involved.
Which was true, in a way. Perhaps, for that split second, she had thought that the ring on Agnes' finger was from him. Agnes seemed to pick up on it too; why else would she mention Victor Colleano so hurriedly?
Agnes had picked up on it; she saw the woman's glance between them, detected her insinuations and, for a moment, had wondered what it would be like to be engaged to Henri. But that was past now, she had Victor and stability and the future of the restaurant… So why, when he had been comforting her after the soldier that was not George, had she wanted to block out the words 'together as man and wife' or whatever it had been that he had said: she hadn't listened because she was so rattled. She was happy, wasn't she?
His freedom came at a price. When Harry told him, his first thought had been happiness but slowly it faded. His duty to his country must come first, and it loomed over him as Harry gazed at him. "You know what is going to happen now, do you not?"
"Is there no way I can change your mind?"
"Unfortunately, no," Henri replied. "I must arrange my passage to France and do what is right. It would not be… good for me to stay here when my countrymen are fighting."
Harry had tried and tried to convince him to stay, plying him with all sorts of claims that he was irreplaceable and promises that his job would still be waiting for him when he came back. Neither of them mentioned the inherent, delirious hope in that sentence: more accurate would be if he came back.
And now he had planned it all and was leaving, just in time to miss Agnes' wedding - another reason he had wanted to wrap up his affairs in England - and his divine intervention hadn't come. He had run out of time, in more ways than one, and by the time he returned - if he returned - she would be running a household and a restaurant, perhaps with a child or two hiding in her skirts. Harry had made him promise to return as soon as the war finished but he did not think that he would; he would not come back to the store so soon after her departure; he would not come back to England so soon after he had lost her. Perhaps he would return to the chateau and resume his place amongst the fairies, take up his position as the fairytale prince and fade out of Agnes' memories into someone she had perhaps loved once, many, many years ago.
And then he spoke to Victor, apologised for their last interaction, apologised for Agnes, and said that he wouldn't be returning to Selfridges. It was an unconscious decision, one that he had toyed with but not committed to, but saying those words… Well as he said them he realised they were true. He would not return to Selfridges, and he knew that it was for the best. He could not stand to see a Selfridges without her.
As they took their one last walk through the park, Agnes couldn't help but think of those times they had spent together. "He'll miss you," she said, veiling her true feelings in the guise of Mr. Selfridge.
"He'll miss you," Henri replied, and she wasn't sure whether he had picked up on what she had really meant. "He thinks the world of you." Why couldn't she be brave enough to tell him that she did too?
Well anyway, if he was leaving, and they were going their separate ways, and this was the last time she would ever see him - Victor had told her that Henri wouldn't come back, and she wouldn't be there to see him anyway - she wanted to be straight with him. She wanted to hear it from his mouth, talking about himself; she wanted to know, even if it was too late. "Will you miss me?" she asked, stopping behind him.
Henri turned to face her, and nearly shook his head in exasperation. "Of course I will," he said, wondering how she could be oblivious to the love which he was certain poured out of every glance he sent at her. Agnes' heart skipped a beat as she looked up at him, remembering what it had felt like to know that the man opposite her was hers, even if it had been so long ago and only for a little while. He was never really hers though, she reminded herself, because there was Valerie.
He didn't ask her to miss him, he didn't expect her to miss him, he just wanted her to think of him sometimes. If that was all he could have, if this final walk was all he could have, then he would take it. It was better than nothing. And then he mentioned her children - their children - and laughed to cover up the shooting pain that thought had sent through his soul.
"It's hard to imagine that right now," she replied, and Henri almost thought that that was a good thing, except it would happen eventually, he was sure. Agnes gazed at the floor, imagining sharing a bed with Victor, and she felt herself recoil a little. It would be different from Henri, she was sure, but the only person she could imagine that with was him. It felt wrong for it to be any other way. She could feel him studying her as she looked at the ground, focusing on the path through the darkness. It was solid, and yet she felt like she was losing her footing as the world span around her. She did not, she realised, love Victor. She didn't want a family with him and she couldn't have a family with him. The only person she could imagine waking up to, the only one she could imagine having any kind of intimacy with at all, was standing opposite her. Even kissing Victor felt wrong and she had thought that it was just because he was different, but now she realised that it was because she was in love with Henri, had always been in love with Henri.
And now it was too late. She couldn't do anything about it.
If only it were possible for all her dreams to come true, she thought as he said that that was what he wished for her. The weight of the future pressed down on her, along with the knowledge that Henri was leaving for war. She could ruin everything, and yet still end up without him because she had been so stupid and so blind. She couldn't stand him looking at her like that, so she looked away, reminding both of them of the limit placed on their time. This final night together had been stolen from reality, and neither of them would be able to cling onto it.
He still didn't tell her he loved her, and she started to leave, walking away from him slowly as she felt an unendurable pain spread from her heart all the way through her body, spiking with every beat of her pulse and making tears prick in her eyes. It would be alright in time though, because she still had Victor, and she could depend on him. She loved him in a different way, she supposed. Even if she didn't, in time, she would come to love Victor properly, she was sure of it.
He could think of nothing more suitable than spending his last night in England in the park where he had spent some of his best times there. He wasn't tired and he couldn't sleep; his thoughts kept spiralling round and round, always focusing on Agnes. He wondered what Victor Colleano had done with the knowledge that he loved her - nothing, he presumed. He doubted he would have told Agnes.
He was gazing at the fountain, finally letting his mind calm down, when he heard Agnes call his name. For a moment he thought he was going crazy but, when he turned round to check, he saw her running towards him; when she said his name he realised that she wasn't an apparition and he wondered whether he might get everything he had hoped for. Right before it was taken away, of course.
She stumbled through her sentences falteringly, telling him that she wasn't marrying Victor Colleano and that he had told her to go to him instead and, in that moment, Henri had never felt more thankful or indebted to the man. He hadn't been expecting this, hadn't wanted to tell him the truth, and yet here was Agnes, in front of him, and it was all because of Victor Colleano. He had been prepared to give her up, even if it caused him more pain than ought to be possible, and clearly so was Victor. In that one moment he realised that Agnes had been utterly right when she had said that her ex-fiancé was a good man, because it was true. Henri knew that, had he been in Victor's position, he would not have been good enough to give Agnes up.
He almost laughed when she asked if Victor was right, because he had never been more right about anything in his life, and the idea that he was capable of not being in love with Agnes, and not wanting to see her was laughable.
And then he told her that he loved her and kissed her and she returned his kiss and everything in the universe aligned and nothing mattered anymore, apart from Agnes, there in his arms after all these years. As she whispered, "I love you," he felt his heart constrict with joy and he swore that he would do everything he could to come back to her. He gathered her into his arms and tucked his face against her coat, between her neck and her shoulder, shutting his eyes and wishing that they could stay like that forever.
Her skin still smelled of the Yardley Lavender she wore, and he realised that she truly was unforgettable.
