Vixen

by Jillian Larkin

  “No, no, they’re fine,” she said. It wasn’t just that the shrimp seemed alive; they seemed to be judging her. They knew where she’d spent the afternoon: at the Green Mill, in the basement with Jerome. A world away from where she was now.

  Even though the Drake Hotel had opened three years before, the members-only club was still considered extremely exclusive in the circles Bastian ran in—the waiting list was two years long. But Bastian had connections with the right people.

  “Let me give you some of my dish.” He shoveled some of his striped bass appetizer onto her plate. He was wearing a dark navy suit, looking dapper. His hair was perfectly combed and oiled, and he was freshly shaven—he could have been a movie star. “Try this, dear.”

  She took a small bite and grimaced. “Ugh, I forgot how much I dislike Hollandaise sauce.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since right this second.” She considered spitting it out into a napkin, but Bastian would have an absolute heart attack at how unladylike that was. Which made her want to do it even more.

  “Gloria, when are you going to stop being so fickle?” he asked, dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. “It really calls attention to your age. What are you going to do when we host dinner parties? Serve only simple sandwiches? Flush the caviar down the toilet?”

  “God forbid I should do that.”

  He scanned the room with his icy green eyes. When they were together, she always got the sense that he was looking elsewhere—anywhere but at her.

  She sighed. “Is there anything else I should learn to like while I’m at it? Parsley, cilantro, thyme?”

  Bastian put down his fork. “No, I think that will be all for now.”

  There was a long silence, and Gloria stared at the flickering candle between them. Nothing like the silence between her and Jerome earlier, which had been fraught with possibility. This silence was just awkward. Gloria imagined dinners with Bastian for the next sixty years of her life—if it was like this now, imagine how it would be once they were married. And not just dinners: they would be living together. That would include breakfast and lunch. Even snacks.

  Bastian cleared his throat. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having a marvelous time.”

  Gloria burst out laughing. She took a sip of water, hoping to calm herself down. This was the second time in one day she’d laughed when something got serious. She needed to pull herself together. But then she imagined Jerome again, sitting across from her in a stuffy, straitlaced place like this, and she began to chuckle. “I’m sorry.” She covered her mouth, the water dribbling down the corners.

  “What has gotten into you?” Bastian growled. “Try not to be such a flibbertigibbet, Gloria.”

  She laughed again. “Did you really just call me a flibbertigibbet?”

  He acted as though she hadn’t said anything at all. “You’re not going to be like this when we’re married. I can’t have my wife going around acting like a child. If you don’t shape up, you’ll simply stay home all the time. And I do mean all the time—I’ll see to that.”

  Gloria breathed in and out through her nose, and suddenly nothing around her seemed funny anymore. The stiff couples, the cloying roses, the garish wallpaper—all of it was depressing.

  Bastian folded his napkin and repositioned it on his lap. “Rudolph Wright told me that the Debutante Committee is seriously considering extending a pledge to Clara at this year’s ball.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Gloria asked flatly, biting off the head of a judgmental shrimp.

  “Clara is becoming the talk of the town,” Bastian said. “Even my father asked me about her the other day.”

  “Well, you’ve always wanted to marry a debutante. Perhaps Clara would be a more suitable option.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Gloria.”

  “Dramatic?” He knew she despised it when he called her that, and suddenly she realized why: Bastian wanted a wife who would serve his every whim dutifully, without so much as an opinion or a thought of her own. Or a voice. Unlike Jerome, who was trying to give her just that. “My comment was based on strict observation.”

  He chortled. “Leave the deep thinking to the men, Gloria.”

  “Bastian, I’ve had a great education. I may not have graduated from Harvard, but I know a thing or two about the world.”

  “Gloria, please be serious. Your education doesn’t matter one way or another to our understanding.”

  He placed a cool hand on her bony wrist. A chill shot through her.

  Jerome had touched her there only an hour ago. There had been warmth in his touch, and an honesty—those elegantly long fingers, callused at the tips from pounding the piano keys. Every time he came near her, she could feel the heat sparking between them. Unlike now, when all she felt was cold, cold, cold.

  She promptly drew back her wrist. “What ‘understanding’ are you referring to?”

  “I don’t know why you insist on playing the fool.” He hunched forward, lowering his voice. “Surely you must know by now why we’re getting married.”

  “Please, illuminate me.”

  “Gloria, you know damn well your parents have arranged this understanding. I was planning to save you the humiliation, but I heard about your misconduct last week at your party. I hope you got whatever it was out of your system. We certainly can’t afford to jeopardize our engagement with bad publicity. Especially considering your mother’s situation.”

  “Wait, what do you mean by my mother’s situation?” she said, a lump rising in her throat. Nobody knew about her parents’ pending divorce, not even her best friend. Her mother wouldn’t dare tell anyone.

  “It’s a business transaction.” Bastian stared at her unflinchingly. “Now that your father is about to ruin your family’s reputation, I am going to ensure that you have an honorable last name to replace your own. Pure and simple.”

  Gloria swallowed hard. Sure, she was having doubts about Bastian, but in the beginning he had said he loved her. And she’d thought she felt the same way. All those dates, and parties, and dinners together; the romantic summer courtship. “Nothing is ever so simple,” she began, trying to keep down her rising voice. “What do you get out of this?”

  “What do you think, Gloria? A fortune. A position of responsibility at your father’s firm. And an annoying wife. Really, must we discuss this now?”

  “No, you’re right.” She closed her eyes and moved her head in time to the classical music that the club’s pianist was playing. “Who is this?” she asked.

  “Vivaldi,” Bastian said, distracted. “Gloria, we can live a good life together once you start behaving yourself. I know this is only a phase you are going through, but—”

  “The ‘Winter’ movement,” Gloria said with satisfaction.

  Bastian shook his head. “It’s the presto section from ‘Summer.’ ”

  Gloria started to tell Bastian he was wrong, but she listened closely and realized that he was, in fact, correct.

  She sank back in her chair. How could she have gotten so mixed up? She’d listened to The Four Seasons dozens of times.

  “You’re right, of course,” she admitted. Bastian was always right, wasn’t he? She had mistaken the piece—and, glancing about the room, she realized that she’d mistaken everything else around her—for something she cared about, something she wanted. Only, the truth was that she’d never cared about or wanted these things at all. Fancy restaurants, expensive dresses, classical music—they could disappear from her life and she wouldn’t blink.

  All she really wanted was jazz. All she really wanted was Jerome.

  His voice interrupted her thoughts. “The service has really gone downhill lately,” Bastian was saying to her while the waiter stood beside him. “I must speak to the manager about this. Do you know what you’d like for the main course?”

  Bastian might have had a fancy last name that would save Gloria from social ruin, but she was well aware of what she, as a Carmody, brought to the table. “Y
es, I know exactly what I want.” I want so much more than this, she thought.

  “Finally, a little decisiveness,” he said.

  The waiter leaned forward. “For madame?”

  “Mademoiselle,” she corrected him. “I would like a slice of the dark chocolate gâteau.”

  Bastian gave the waiter a patient smile, then said to Gloria, “Dear, we can have that after dinner.”

  “I don’t want it after dinner. And seeing that my father is paying for it, you really don’t have much of a say in the matter.” She widened her eyes and rested her chin on her hand.

  Bastian snapped his menu closed and handed it to the waiter. He didn’t utter a single word for the rest of the meal.

  The cake, Gloria thought, was delicious.

  CLARA

  Clara pulled up to the Carmody mansion in a taxi just as it began to rain. Of course she didn’t have an umbrella.

  She paid the driver, opened the door, and, covering her head with her minuscule clutch, was about to sprint into the house when she recognized the brand-new Cadillac blocking the end of the driveway.

  It belonged to the last person she wanted to see right now: Marcus Eastman. For a guy with so many friends and ex-girlfriends, he seemed to turn up by himself an awful lot.

  She bolted for the doorway but was drenched before she was halfway there.

  Safe from the rain, she stood dripping under the awning. She needed a moment to collect herself. She felt about as wrecked as the crêpe de chine floral print sheath that clung wetly to her body.

  She’d just come back from dinner with an old New York acquaintance. Well, not an acquaintance of hers, but of the Cad’s. After the last mysterious note, she hadn’t been able to rest easy until she found out whether the notes were from him, whether her deepest fears were true. Was it the Cad who was stalking her? Or the Petty Crook? Or the Bootlegger? Or someone she didn’t even suspect, someone holding a grudge? There were too many possibilities. Clara had to start crossing them off her list and find this person before he—or she—found her.

  So she’d arranged a secret meet-up with one of the Cad’s friends. He was an architect named Barton Bishop, who had recently picked up and moved to Chicago to work for Frank Lloyd Wright. She’d concocted a story for Mrs. Carmody—an opportunity to join the Chicago Socialites League!—and slunk out to meet him for dinner at the Cabin Club, a snooty private supper joint downtown.

  But her investigation was a total washout. Barton didn’t know anything, especially not about the Cad, her number-one suspect. Worse, Barton actually had the nerve to hit on her!

  In the taxi on the way home she asked the driver to roll down his window. “Don’t be startled,” she told him, “just keep driving.”

  “I beg your pardon?” the man said. He was gray-haired and friendly-looking, like her grandfather.

  “Just keep driving,” she repeated. Then she screamed. She shouted and pounded her fists on the upholstered seat and hollered until she was out of breath and empty of anger. The noise from the car made couples on the sidewalks clutch at each other and stare as the taxi rolled past.

  And then she was done. She composed herself. “Thank you.”

  “Are you sure you’re not sick, miss?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, but on the inside, she was afraid. Deathly afraid.

  What did this mystery person want from her? Did he want anything at all, or did he just want to mess with her head? Were the notes really from the Cad, or from someone worse?

  Watching the rain wasn’t going to get her any closer to an answer. Time to get into her pajamas.

  Clara walked into what seemed like an empty house. It was nine o’clock, which meant Mrs. Carmody must be in bed and Gloria must be doing homework in her room. Clara took off her pumps, which had been brutally chafing her heels all evening, and walked through the east wing to the master coat closet.

  “Just in the nick of time,” came a voice from down the hall. Marcus walked toward her, holding a large open container of ice cream with two spoons planted in the top. “The ice cream is almost melted.”

  “I’m really tired, Marcus. Not to mention soaked.” The ice cream looked good, and so did he. Surprisingly casual in a navy-blue sweater, dungarees, and loafers, he was even cuter than she remembered. “I’m going to dry off and go to bed.”

  “Why are you so tired?” he asked suspiciously. A clap of thunder echoed in the hallway. “Where were you tonight?”

  She hesitated. “I went out to dinner.”

  “With whom?”

  “Just a friend, Detective Eastman. Don’t you have anything better to do than loiter around Gloria Carmody’s house?”

  Marcus scowled. “You were out on a date, weren’t you?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Male intuition,” he said, wiping away a drop of water that was trickling down the side of her face. “I am particularly in tune with mine.”

  “Marcus, I’m going upstairs.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t!” she protested as a streak of lightning lit up the hall. “My aunt would never allow you in my room—”

  “I have the run of this house, always have. My parents were never around and Mrs. Carmody practically raised me.” He scooped a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. “Gloria’s like my sister.”

  Clara felt an unexpected pang for him.

  “Besides,” he went on, “don’t flatter yourself: I’m here for one reason and one reason only.”

  “Which is?”

  “Henri’s homemade ice cream.”

  Clara’s willpower was weak when it came to ice cream.

  “Fine,” she said casually, wringing out her hair with her hands. “You can come upstairs, depending on one thing.”

  “What?”

  “The flavor.”

  “I’m decent,” Clara whispered, opening her door a crack. “You can come in.”

  Marcus was slumped on the floor of the dark hallway outside her room, right where she had left him a few minutes before. She’d told him she needed privacy to change out of her wet clothes—which was true—but she also was petrified there would be another cryptic note waiting.

  She had cased the room but found nothing. Thank the Lord.

  Now Clara eyed Marcus’s slim frame as he preceded her into the light of her room.

  Marcus sized her up in her plush, terry-cloth robe. “You look brand-new.”

  “I feel brand-new.” She was still toweling dry her hair as she stood awkwardly before him. “Though I really should remove my stockings.” She looked at her legs. She shrugged, realizing she was more nervous around him than she’d thought. “So … this is my room.”

  Marcus gave her a wounded-puppy look. “You don’t remember I was here before?”

  She thought back to their initial encounter, her first week in Chicago. “That’s right,” she said, walking over to the old Victrola Aunt Bea had parked here and putting on a Marion Harris 78.

  The opening strains of “After You’ve Gone” filled the room. Clara had been aiming to make the temperature in the room more casual—just two friends hanging out—than romantic, but somehow that had backfired.

  Best to shrug it off. “You left me with quite the first impression,” Clara said, trying not to reveal too much. “I’m still not over it.”

  “You mean you found me irresistibly attractive?”

  “More like irredeemably aggressive.”

  “I thought I redeemed myself after our date!” Marcus protested, sliding down to the floor and leaning against the bed.

  She raised one eyebrow. “Date?”

  “When we went to the movies. To see Buster Keaton.”

  “I thought that wasn’t a date,” Clara said. “I thought you were merely saving me from Ginnie Bitman’s tea party.” Marcus plunked the carton of ice cream between his bent legs. “It was a date for me. At least, I wanted it to be. It was the best date I’ve ever been on.”

&
nbsp; Clara didn’t know how to respond. She thought for a moment, then decided her shrewdest move would be to ignore his comment. “I think I’m finally ready for that ice cream.”

  “If it’s not soup by now.” He held out a spoon, gesturing for her to sit. Clara kept the distance between them wide. “I like Neapolitan,” he said, scrutinizing the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry stripes, “but I do hate having to choose.”

  “Agreed.” It felt so natural, sitting here with him. “Is Gloria home?” she asked, suddenly registering that Gloria’s door had been closed when they had quietly snuck upstairs. It was strange how often Gloria seemed to be mysteriously absent recently. And at odd hours.

  “Claudine said she was over at Lorraine’s, doing some group project,” Marcus said, sounding bored.

  “A ‘group project’ is the oldest excuse in the book,” Clara said, skimming off the top of the strawberry ice cream with her spoon.

  “And how would you know?”

  “I did go to high school, Marcus,” she said. “And I wasn’t born yesterday. In fact, I do believe I’m older than you.”

  “Older, maybe. Wiser? Not a chance.” He gave her a wry grin, shoveling all three flavors onto his spoon and lifting it to her mouth.

  “I have my own,” she said, waving her spoon in his face. His gesture was sweet—very sweet, in fact—but Clara couldn’t let this evening go in that direction. She had to keep reminding herself that Marcus had some sort of “plan” with Gloria and Lorraine. He couldn’t be trusted. She dunked her spoon into the chocolate, avoiding his eyes. “So, seriously, what were you doing over here if Gloria isn’t even home?”

  “So, seriously, you’re not going to tell me who you were out with on your date?” Marcus shot back, licking the rejected spoonful. “Whoever it was, he clearly didn’t satisfy your sweet tooth.”

  “I told you, he was just a friend!” Clara insisted. “An old friend—”

  “From back east?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Oh no, don’t tell me”—he gasped melodramatically—“Pennsylvania.”