The wainscoting scraped Cyril’s scalp. He looked up into Aristide’s face, watched his hard-lined snarl collapse into desire. Aristide slipped his knee between Cyril’s thighs. He let Cyril’s jacket free from his grasping fists and put a hand on the wall to either side of Cyril’s head.
“Ari,” said Cyril, nerves strung taut. “Ari, not here.” But his voice was weak, breathless, and belied his words. He opened his mouth. Aristide’s face was very close; Cyril could feel the warmth of him, smell his sweat. Like Cordelia, he hadn’t bathed between the stage and drawing room, though he’d touched cologne to his throat: a Padgett and Sons vanilla musk, redolent with cinnamon and ambergris, leather and white flowers. Cyril took a ragged breath, inhaling as Aristide exhaled, drawing the other man into his lungs.
He closed his eyes against a sudden scent-memory: Aristide’s big hands unstoppering the bottle, the sheen of drying perfume on each pulse point, his nakedness in front of an open window. It was his special scent, for occasions and indulgence.
Aristide’s tongue traced the burning skin of Cyril’s ear.
“Not here, Ari.” His voice broke.
Aristide laughed, quietly, against Cyril’s temple. The sound made his knees buckle.
“This is I Fa’s house.” Aristide dropped his pitch to an animal growl. “Who will care?”
Cyril gathered his wits, shoved Aristide back, and wiped his ear. The cuff of his shirt came away stained with lipstick. He pulled his jacket down to hide the purple smudge. “You know as well as I do that someone will. I’m here on business, and there are Ospies in that crowd. The baroness may not realize, but you and I both do.” Shaking himself, he settled back into his clothes, then touched the back of his head. His fingers came away slick with blood. “Damnation.”
Aristide shook out his pocket square and gestured for Cyril to turn around. He pressed the linen to Cyril’s bleeding scalp. “Hold it there,” he said, and Cyril did.
Toeing the broken glass, Aristide drew an arc of spilled champagne across the floor. “Shall we get someone to clean this up?”
“This is I Fa’s house,” said Cyril, bitterly. “Who will care?”
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Standing on the boardwalk in front of the Fischer Building, Cordelia squinted against the wind. Her hair snaked around her face, lashing her cheeks. It was nearly four in the morning, and the harbor spread out before them, cold and black.
A crowd of party guests spilled into the street, looking for cabs. One of them wolf-whistled, and the others looked where he pointed—toward Cyril and Cordelia.
Feeling showy, she gathered him closer. “Wanna go to yours?” she ventured.
He was still staring at the group that had followed them out of the party. His pale eyes narrowed, sharp as the steely edge of a razor. The skin at their corners puckered into faint, nervous wrinkles.
“Someone over there prettier than me?” she asked, jostling his elbow. “Come on. Take me to your place.”
The edge of a smile flirted with his mouth, and then was gone. “All right. Sure.”
They took a cab. She could get used to late-night car rides. The trolleys were fine, when the weather was. But on a windy night like this, the breeze cut something wicked.
Leaving the harbor behind, the hired car took them north, up Armament. They drove past the spires of the university, black against the city-lit night haze. Cordelia wondered what sort of place Cyril called home. She was guessing just west of Talbert Row, maybe somewhere south of Seagate Hill, when the cab drew up at the corner of Mespaugh—not quite as swell as she’d been thinking, but Mespaugh ran straight into the Sergia Vailescu Arch, the eastern entrance to Loendler Park. No wonder Cyril knew his way around the place.
He handed her out of the cab and paid the driver. “I’m afraid my landlord only offers hot coffee until midnight,” he said. “But I can rustle up a glass of something, if you like.”
“Don’t you have a domestic?” asked Cordelia. “Somebody to dress you, and do your breakfast?”
He shook his head. “No. I live alone. No servants.”
“You’re a curious swell,” she said, and took his arm.
Cyril lived up on the third floor. The sleepy lift attendant had to be told twice. When Cyril opened the door, the drawing room was dark. Cordelia reached for the light switch, but he stopped her.
“Wait,” he said. “It’ll ruin the view.”
He led her across the sitting room. The curtains were drawn, but he pulled one set back to reveal Loendler Park and, far away across the dark expanse of green space, the cherry trees of Talbert Row. Streetlamps lit them from below, so they glowed like rosy eggs candled with a torch.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
“I had them make it up, just for you.”
She snorted. “They fall for that one?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Bet I wouldn’t. My line of work, I seen people do some dumb stuff when they’re dazzled.”
“Are you calling me dazzling?”
“You’re smooth as an elver, I’ll give you that.”
“And just as long and slippery.” He winked. “What can I get you?”
“A little gin’ll never go amiss.”
He disappeared into another room—library? Study? She heard the hollow whoop of a cork withdrawn from the bottle. He called out, “Tonic?”
“Hang it. Why not?”
In the quiet after the hiss of the siphon, she tried to pick out the sound of his returning footsteps but only heard the scratch of a needle on a record. The gramophone whirred to life behind her, soft trumpet and a crooning tenor. With no warning, cold glass pressed against her back where her dress dipped low. She gasped, and rounded on Cyril.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I took off my shoes. Did I frighten you?”
“Gave me a chill, is all.” She took the glass from him and knocked it back.
Cyril was a little shyer with his whiskey, tipping the glass so the rye caught the light from the streetlamps. He took a small sip and set it aside, staring after it. He didn’t come closer to her, though she saw his eyes move and knew he was watching.
Mother’s tits, but she was tired of waiting on him. He was a fine piece and knew it, but the way he danced around … If he was angling for a ride, well: the poor jockey didn’t have the first notion how to mount up. She set her glass down and stepped forward. When he lifted his face, startled by the movement, she kissed him.
He froze, and she drew back.
“Oh, for queen’s sake, DePaul.” She slipped her hands beneath his jacket and pulled him closer. “I ain’t made of glass.”
He nearly laughed. Encouraged, she drew his face down and kissed him again, running fingers beneath the straps of his backless waistcoat. His shirt was warm and damp with sweat where the linen tape trapped it against his skin. She tugged his jacket away and finessed the buttons at the top of the vest, pulling the tape through his collar loop. The waistcoat fell from his chest, hanging awkwardly until she opened it at his back and unhooked the trouser tab. The piqué crumpled on the floor.
He pulled back, eyes wide. “You’re fast at that.”
She pushed his braces down the curve of his shoulders, relishing his embarrassed flush when she asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t answer: just tugged his bow tie loose, smiling ruefully.
She pushed his collar stud from its hole and his collar sprang away. Slipping one button free, and then the next, she pulled the fabric of his undershirt down at the neck to rest her lips on his collarbone. His breath caught. He seemed to like the water all right, now she’d pushed him in. She finished unbuttoning his shirt and dropped it to the floor with his jacket and waistcoat.
“My dry cleaner will be furious.”
She tugged his undershirt over his head and sent it after the rest. “More like grateful; after all, I’m keeping them in business.” Turning her back, she said, “Unzip me.”
He did, in one smooth motion. The dress came loose around her waist and she let it fall. Kicking her feet free of the puddle of black satin, she looked over her shoulder at Cyril.
Oh, but he was easy on the eyes. Hazy light from the street picked out the gold patch of curls in the shadow of his lean chest, the fine stripe of hair below his navel. His belly was sliced clean down the center by a neat silver scar, but Cordelia liked a man who’d been marked a little by life. Blue shadows lay across his face, and a piece of hair had fallen in a curve over his forehead. His lips were swollen from kissing.
He didn’t scold her for staring. Instead, he backed away, snatched up his glass, and drained it.
“If that’s what it takes,” she said. She meant it as a joke, but he sighed into his chest and then, so quick it made her jump, snapped his empty glass back onto the table. The impact made the record skip.
“All right,” she said, crossing her arms. “What’s wrong?”
Something about the slump that came into his shoulders—she knew where she’d clocked him before. “You and Ari was together at the Bee one night.”
Streetlight shivered across the sharp movement of his eyes. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“Swineshit. I know it. I seen you both, cozy as kippers.”
“What’s your point?”
She took him in, from his downcast face to the flat front of his trousers. “You don’t go in for tits, do you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” But it came out lackluster.
When she laughed, he looked genuinely surprised. “Queen’s sake,” she said, “I ain’t pinned about it. Just curious how come you got Ari to pick you up a peach. I mean, I know what’s in this scheme for me, but I can’t clock your why-sos.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his face slack with wonder. Or horror. She couldn’t tell which, and not knowing pinched her sharp. “What?”
“It’s just … I’d realized you were from the Mew. But it certainly comes out, doesn’t it?”
“I cover up pretty good,” she said, though she wasn’t bothering now. “We’re alike that way.” She offered him her empty glass. “Now be a swan and top us up, and we’ll have a nice jaw over all the little gems our Ari didn’t tell us.”
He laughed again, this time with genuine humor, and caught the rim of her tumbler between two fingers. “You could make a whole necklace out of mine.”
* * *
“How long you two been sparkin’?” she asked, a while later. They were sitting on Cyril’s sofa—fine linen damask, soft as lily petals—with the better part of his liquor cabinet in their bellies. Sometime in the last hour, the radiators had gone off. Cyril had fetched a flannel dressing gown for her, and draped an afghan around his own bare shoulders.
“A year,” he said. “Give or take.”
“You oughta get a medal. I can’t stand him for more than ten minutes. Say, you got any straights?”
“Liquor cabinet,” he said. “In the office.” A loose wave of his hand indicated the direction.
She got to her feet, steadying herself on his knee. Through heavy double doors, she found a book-lined room done in dark wood, highly polished. A desk topped in red leather fronted a big bay window. Across from it, under an unlit stained-glass panel, was a three-sided cabinet with a marble-topped wet bar.
“What exactly do you do?” she asked, scanning the labels of his stock. She didn’t recognize many of them. What she did clock, she knew she could never afford. “Or don’t you work at all?”
“Oh, I work,” he said.
But tastes like this didn’t come with steady employment. “You’re from money though, ain’t you?”
“DePaul,” he said, his voice pitched loud enough she had no trouble hearing. “You don’t know the name?”
She shrugged, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Not as I can remember.” She started pulling drawers out, searching for his cigarettes. Each one was silent on its casters. There were shakers and shot glasses, sugar and stir sticks. No straights, though.
“Diplomatic service,” Cyril went on. “My father was ambassador to the Asunan court, and my sister’s in Porachis, now. Grandma was a military genius, a decorated general—you could say she won the Spice War for us, and you wouldn’t be exaggerating. Amberlough’s done well by the DePauls. And the DePauls—” Here he stopped, and she thought she heard him laugh. “Well, the DePauls have always done well by their state in return.”
“You don’t have a city accent,” she said.
“I spent most of my childhood in the northwest weald. The family has an estate there, near Carmody. Moved south too late to pick up the drone.”
She was glad he couldn’t see her face, the rueful shake of her head. “Course you did.” She opened a shallow drawer beneath the slate-topped counter and found a humidor, stocked with cigars and straights. “You want anything?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
She put a handful of cigarettes in the pocket of the dressing gown, and one between her lips. There was a table lighter tucked at the back of the bar. She pushed it down and pulled the wick out, burning. Once she’d lit the straight and drawn a breath, she said, “So, you work. Doing what?”
There was a long silence. She went to the doorway and leaned against the frame, watching him. She took another drag on her cigarette. The orange spark flared with her breath.
“Put another record on,” he said.
“What’s your pleasure?”
He shrugged, and adjusted his blanket. Kneeling behind the sofa, she started to shuffle through the collection stacked beneath the gramophone. He spoke while she was still sorting, so she couldn’t see his face.
“Let’s just say it’s the kind of thing I can’t tell you much about,” he said. “Unless you like the idea of a quick bullet with your head in a bag.”
She was proud she only fumbled with the records, instead of dropping them. Even prouder when she kept her voice steady. “Sounds a treat.”
That startled a noise out of him, but she couldn’t tell if it was mirth or bitterness. “How about that music?”
Whatever she picked, she didn’t read the name. It surprised her when the needle struck the grooves and she recognized the song. Marcel Langhorn’s “Don’t Let the Sun Rise.” She’d worn her own copy clean through.
“Did you bring me a straight?” he asked when she settled on the sofa. In answer, she drew one from her pocket and put it between his lips.
“It was all right at the start,” he said, talking around the cigarette. “The work, I mean. Especially when my other option was being sent down. My last year at university, too.”
“I’d ask why, but … a piece like you?” She leaned in for him to light from her. Their foreheads touched, and he closed his eyes as he inhaled. “I think I know. Caused a little trouble with some teachers, didja?”
He smiled tight, like it hurt him. “A little. Luckily, my father had enough connections that the family could pack me off to serve in a foreign country. The gossip died down. I was gone so long I think people forgot the DePauls had a second child.”
Silence settled over him, after that. Ash crept up his cigarette. When he finally tapped it clean, he paused with one hand hanging over the ashtray. A chance flutter of his breath made the scar on his belly flash silver in the gloom. Ghosting her hand down the plane of his stomach, Cordelia asked, “What happened?”
“They barely pulled me home in time for the doctors to help.”
“Help what?”
Smoke curled in twin columns from his nose. “Peritonitis. I was beaten so badly I … you’ve never felt anything like it.”
Her sister had died like that. Took a solid whack from her man when he had his work boots on. It had taken days for her to go.
“I … the work I used to do…” Cyril put a hand over his mouth, pressing his thumb into the muscle of his jaw. “Lady’s name, Cordelia, I shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“You don’t have to tell
me.”
“When I was younger,” he said, ignoring her, “it seemed so exciting. Everything was a game, and ruthlessness had a kind of … romantic appeal.” Then, he looked up, and his eyes widened, gleaming like mercury. “I’m sorry. You’re from the Mew. I wasn’t thinking.”
She licked her teeth, tasting good tobacco and clean gin. “Nah. I ain’t pinned. We’re all idiots when we’re kids. Only difference is, I stopped being a kid a lot sooner than you.”
The shame was plain on his face, and satisfying.
“You’re still in it,” she said. “Right? The game. And now you’re dragging me along.”
“That’s the thing: I was wrong. It’s not a game. And I don’t want to drag you.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I want … I want you to work with me.”
“Then you oughta tell me what I’m doing,” she said. “At least as far as I need to know. I ain’t keen on following blind.”
He drew in a deep lungful of smoke. It came out in a cloud when he spoke, hiding his expression. “Right now, you know enough.”
“And if that changes? If I need to know more?”
“Let’s just hope you won’t.” He waved the screen of smoke from his face. She expected his expression to be calculating, but all she saw was fear.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Cordelia came to Aristide at the beginning of the interval, just after Tito dropped his payload of cards and bribery.
“I got your note,” she said, falling across his chaise longue as gracefully as a silk ribbon in a breeze. “Cyril’s here; I can’t spend long with you.”
Aristide’s grip tightened on the thick stack of cards Tito had left him. Cyril’s was not among them. He bit the inside of his cheek. That’s the way you want it, fool.
He took his coat from its hook and reached into an inner pocket. Removing a package wrapped in brown paper, he offered it to her. “Take that.”
She weighed it in her hand, her expression considering. “There’s a lot here.”
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