“It’s frowned on here,” she said, shoving the box into my arms.
“It is?” I felt my jaw sag at this bit of startling news. Heterosexuality was frowned on here? Was it in the lease?
“Loud music.” She nodded toward the CD player. “Disturbs everyone. No loud music after ten p.m.”
“Oh, the music! No problem, I’ll keep it down low. Thanks for your help, and let me know about dinner one night. You and Bert and me.”
She flashed a blinding smile, nodded, gave a little wave, and trotted back down the stairs.
After a quick shower in the minuscule bathroom that shared a wall with the cubbyhole kitchen, I spread out all of the hair products and tried to pick one that looked like it wouldn’t harden to the consistency of shellac. I did my best to follow Manuel’s hastily spoken instructions for duplicating my kicky ’do, pulled on another of the cool Indian gauze dresses from the shop in the tube station, and ran back downstairs to pick up my mail. Generally most of my mail consisted of Stephanie’s mail that I forward to her parents; this day was no different, with one letter for me, a handful of what looked like junk mail for Stephanie, and something from British Telecom addressed to Philippe Aspertaille, Flat 3.
“Mr. Aspertame, I just bet,” I said, and went to plug in the new boom box. I rummaged through the few CDs I had brought with me and tried to think what I was in the mood for.
“When in Rome,” I sighed, and popped in the Austin Powers soundtrack. I waited for my favorite song to start, and almost jumped out of my skin when the music blasted out at a decibel level I didn’t think was possible from a cheap knock-off CD player. I leaped for the volume control, well aware that with the heat, everyone’s windows were open to catch a draft, and no doubt the music was being heard all over the neighborhood. I turned the knob to the left, but the song still blared at a deafening volume.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I swore, and turned the knob to the right. The volume dropped slightly, but I was sure it was still loud enough to be heard throughout the house. I tipped the player face down on two pillows, and deciding it was bearable, grabbed Philippe’s letter, bossa-ing my nova down to the floor below.
Right foot back, close left foot to right. Left foot forward, close right foot to left. Remember to bend at the knees and add a touch of hip action.
I danced my way downstairs, the sound of the Soul Bossa Nova drifting after me. I tapped at Philippe’s door, improvised a turn, and let my happy feet go wild while I waited for him to answer.
I had just worked up a nice rhythm when Philippe appeared in the doorway wearing a thin white cotton shirt and matching pants. I bossa nova-ed a step to him, handed him the letter, and on the backswing explained it was delivered to my box by mistake.
He looked at the letter, frowned at it for a minute, then tossed it onto a chair and stepped out toward me. I was just dancing my way back to the stairs when he grabbed my hand and spun me around. As I stepped back in surprise, he stepped toward me. Suddenly it struck me what he was doing.
“You bossa nova!” I said with delight, holding out my hands to him as I gave thanks the CD was set up to repeat the song.
“Doesn’t everyone?” he asked with a charming smile. I grinned back and we cut loose, dancing all over the landing. Philippe was a bit taller than me, had a lovely head of soft black curls, and skin the color of a double tall latte. He was from the Bahamas, Isabella had told me, and had an accent that could melt butter. He was also very, very thin, probably weighing a good thirty pounds less than me.
A rush of warm air swirled around us as the door behind me opened. I looked over my shoulder and saw Ray Binder glaring at us with her hands on her hips. Behind her was a tall woman dressed in linen pants and a green raw silk tunic.
“Sorry, the volume control doesn’t seem to work very well,” I called out to them as Philippe pushed me through a twirl.
“What’s all this?”
“They’re dancing, Bert,” Ray answered the tall woman, frowning a little at the sight of us.
“We haven’t danced in an age, Ray.”
The two women watched us for a moment, looked at each other, and with a shy little smile, Ray pulled Bert out to join the fun.
“Don’t you know how to bossa nova?” I asked them when they did a sort of polka step around Philippe and me. “It’s easy. One step forward, pull in your other foot, do the same back, then repeat it in the other direction. Watch!”
Philippe threw himself into the demonstration, bringing an elegance and sophistication to the dance that seemed to pass me by.
Ray and Bert were just catching on when a young couple on their way down the stairs joined us. The woman, a short redhead, squealed when she saw us. “O-o-oh, Basil, look! Dancing! Right here on the stairs! How romantic!”
“My apologies,” I said as Philippe twirled me past them. “The volume knob seems to be broken on my new CD player.”
“Looks like fun. Shall we, love?” The squealer’s companion, a friendly-looking guy with a brown goatee and a little gold nose ring, grabbed her, and they joined in, laughing and trying to match our steps. It was getting crowded on the landing, but we were all having such a good time no one really cared. I switched partners and danced for a bit with Ray while Bert tripped the light fantastic with a glowing Philippe.
“What—” Isabella suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by Detective Inspector Steamy Lips. Her eyebrows were raised in surprise, but other than that she showed no sign that the sight of her tenants having a mini rave on the landing was anything out of the ordinary.
“Sorry. Little volume problem with my CD player. I’ll get it fixed as soon as possible.”
I was dancing with Basil at that point, but he dumped me when Isabella set her bag down and stepped forward, her lips curving into a smile of delight.
I grinned at Alex’s cool gaze, and danced over to him holding out my hands. If Isabella wasn’t going to dance with him, I sure as hell would. “Hi, Alex, your black eye looks better. What do you think of my hair? It’s kicky, huh? Come on, dance with me.”
He shook his head and tried to step around me to the stairs going up to the next floor. “Your hair looks lovely, but I will pass on your invitation. I don’t dance.”
“Neither do I, not very well anyway, but anyone can bossa nova.” I grabbed his hands and dragged him toward the corner where there was a free spot. “It’s easy! Come on, how many chances do you have to bossa nova on the stairs? Live a little, Alex! I promise you it won’t kill you.”
He frowned at the others, laughing and dancing and having a good time.
“I don’t—”
“But now you do,” I said, squeezing his hands and explaining quickly how the dance worked.
His scowl got blacker as I let go of his hands to dance a little circle around his unmoving body; then he gave a martyred sigh, tossed his satchel on the steps, and grabbing me by the hips, swept into a perfect bossa nova.
It was heaven, sheer heaven. Alex was a marvelous dancer. For a man who professed to not dance, he was grace personified, moving with me in a manner that Philippe hadn’t, moving as if he were part of the music, the rhythm flowing from him until it swept over me. It was very sensual and definitely started my motor running, but I took a quick look at Isabella and demanded that my motor turn itself off. Motors seldom listen to threats, however, a fact that might have caused difficulty once Alex pulled me so close we were almost rubbing on each other, but his action served as an effective dampening device once I realized that he was flirting with me. In front of Isabella!
He danced with me for the duration of the song, never once cracking a smile, but I swear I saw a little flicker of enjoyment in his emerald eyes. I alternated between anger that he was such a cad he’d act in this manner in front of his girlfriend, and a familiar sense of failure. It seems like I always end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. As the song ended, I took a step back from him, praying the bout of self-pity welling up inside wouldn�
�t make me cry in front of everyone.
“See?” I said as I took another step back, trying to force a light note into my voice. “You survived the ordeal.”
His eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t an ordeal, Alix. Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, scooting around him and dashing up the stairs.
He shot a look over to where Isabella was dancing with Philippe, then grabbed his satchel and started up the stairs after me. Damn it! Didn’t he see she was watching him? “Put yourself down in that manner.”
I shrugged, anger swamping the self-pity. So he wanted to play games. The old “make Isabella jealous with Alix” game, eh? Been there, done that, won’t do it again.
“Self-preservation. I’m aware of my flaws. I just bring them up before anyone else can,” I snapped, wishing with one breath he’d just leave me alone, and hoping with the other he would tear off our clothes and make mad, passionate love to me. Right there on the landing.
Alex grabbed my arm as I started toward my flat. “Why do you think I would insult you like that?”
His spicy cologne coiled around me, sinking effortlessly into my pores, kindling fires deep within me, but it was the slight look of hurt in his eyes that was my undoing. That and the memory of Isabella’s cool, possessive smile during lunch when she spoke about him.
“You bastard,” I snarled, and shoved him backwards. He staggered back, surprised by my attack, but started toward me with a look that should have dropped me where I stood. I spun around and stormed toward my open door.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he bellowed.
“What’s the matter with me?” I yelled back, loud enough so Isabella, coming up the stairs behind him, would hear. “I have no intention of being the third side of a triangle, Detective Hot Pants. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find a hammer so I can beat some sense into this stupid CD player!”
I closed the door with more force than was strictly necessary, and jerked the CD player’s plug out of the wall.
“I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry,” I chanted to myself as I went to the tiny kitchen sink to run cold water. I had just stuck my head under when someone knocked on my door.
“Doesn’t know how to take a no,” I growled to myself as I stomped over to the door. I flung it open, snapping, “What?” before I could see who stood there.
It was Isabella. Her bright blue gaze rested for a moment on the water dripping down from the back of my head, then moved to take in the accompanying wetness on my cheeks. She reached out one elegant finger and touched the trail of a tear.
I stepped back as if she had burned me.
“I thought you might like to know that Alexander and I are no longer lovers.”
I blinked at her, not understanding. Not lovers? “Since when? Ten seconds ago? Not good enough for me.”
She smiled faintly. “Our affair has been over for more than two years.”
“Oh.” I blinked again, suddenly realizing what she was saying. Joy welled up inside me, making me want to sing and shout and dance a victory dance. “Oh! You mean, there’s hope for Alex and me?”
Her smiled faded as she sadly shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think so, no.”
The wellspring of joy shriveled and dried up into a hard, painful knob in my stomach. “Oh, right, because I called him a bastard. You don’t think he would understand why I said it? That I thought he was trying to get a bit of nooky on the side?”
She shook her head again. “It’s not that. Alexander has never been a man to seek shallow relationships. I’m afraid if that is all you are looking for, he won’t wish to become involved, no matter how much he might otherwise desire it.”
“Gee, thanks for not holding back on me, Isabella,” I managed to get out despite the pain at her words. I would have said more, something to hurt her as she had hurt me, but deep down inside I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Shallow, cheap, easy—I’d heard all of those words before, but I had hoped to be past all that. It looked like my usual run of luck was following me here, too. I swallowed hard and rallied a smile.
She smiled back, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and just gave my arm a squeeze instead. “I didn’t intend on hurting your feelings, Alix, but I like you and Alexander too well to see you unhappy with each other.”
I nodded. There was nothing else to say.
“I enjoyed the dancing. Thank you for the music.”
I nodded again, watching her walk up the stairs to the floor above, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. I turned back to survey the sanctuary of my flat, but found there wasn’t a whole lot to be seen through tears.
Chapter Five
Rowena waited in an adjoining room for the opinion of the mysterious Spanish surgeon, Sabatino. The veil had been torn from her heart, and she saw, for the first time since the phantom had made its unholy appearance in the ruins of the abbey, its true emotions. She loved Thomas! But how could that be—she loved Raoul as well!
At length the surgeon came out of Thomas’s chamber. She inquired as to the state of his wound.
“You are, perhaps, a relative of the gentleman?” the dusky-eyed Spaniard asked her.
The question vexed her. In her embarrassment, she repeated her inquiry into Thomas’s health.
“Perhaps madam is the gentleman’s sister?” asked the surgeon, disregarding her question much in the manner she had his.
She blushed and wrung her lace handkerchief between her hands. The ebony-haired surgeon leaned closer and ask in a sultry whisper, “Perhaps you are his wife?”
Rowena stepped back, and snapped, “Attend to my question. How does your patient do?”
The surgeon bowed. “That is a very difficult question to be resolved, but alas, it is in my office to discharge ill news—for it is surely ill news that he will die.”
“Die!” Rowena exclaimed in a faint voice, then seemed to gather her wits. “Die!” she shrieked, rending her handkerchief into minuscule little shreds. “Die! Die! Oh, not die!”
“So, what do you think so far?”
The gray-haired man sitting next to me on the park bench scratched his head and thought for a moment. He was one of those people of indeterminate age, so buffeted by life he looked at least eighty, although I knew from his voice he must be a good deal younger. “I think that chap’s in for it.”
“No, not about whether Thomas is going to die, what do you think about the mystery. Does it add a certain something to the story? Does it pique your interest? Does it make you want to hear more?”
He scratched at the dirty checkered shirt that covered his narrow chest. I eased away a hair, starting to feel kind of itchy myself from watching him scratch. He cleared his throat, spat off to the right, reached down to make a slight adjustment to Big Jim and the Twins, then sucked his teeth and said, “No, it don’t.”
“Oh.” I looked back down at the manuscript in my hand and scratched at a spot on the back of my neck. “Well, if you read romances, do you think you’d like this one?”
He rested his left foot on his right knee, took off a ratty tennis shoe, and started to peel off a holey sock. I backed down the bench a bit farther and scratched at a spot on my back. Damn him and his creepy crawlies!
“Mebbe.” He started picking at his toes. I scratched at a spot near my temple and stood.
“Oh, well, OK. Thanks for your time. Here’s your pound.”
He paused in his foot examination long enough to catch the coin I flipped him. I backed off hastily, promising myself a long shower the second I got home, but just as I was about to scratch myself out of the square, he called out.
“You need more shagging!”
I stopped and turned to look at him. “Me personally? I’m with you there.”
He looked me up and down and winked. I grinned back.
“Not you, your book.”
“Oh, the story. Do you know, someone told me they thought it had too much,
and that romance wasn’t about sex, so I took a bunch out.”
He pulled out a pocketknife and started paring his toenails. “They was wrong, then, wasn’t they? You add in a bit of rumpy pumpy, that’s what you do, just like proper books has.”
“OK. Sure. More pumping rumps. Thanks for the advice. I’ll think about it.”
I hurried away from the bench and out the gate. I itched all over, but I thought about what he said. More sex. Well, he had a point there—sex does sell. I had read somewhere that in the world of romance books, sex was good, readers ate up graphic, no-holds-barred sex. But Isabella thought my first sex scene was too brutal and unrealistic, which meant…
“It’s research time!” I said happily to a couple who were snogging while waiting for the light to change to the happy little green man.
“Eh? What?” One of the snoggees asked me.
“Never mind, you’re doing just fine,” I reassured them, and headed home, going through my mental list of men I’d met since arriving two weeks before, men who might be willing to help me with a little research. Alex, of course, headed up the short list, but according to Isabella, he wouldn’t be interested in helping me with anything, let alone a practical demonstration of my love scenes. So that left Karl.
I jumped into the shower and tried to picture Karl naked. The thought of him sprawled out on my bed made me feel vaguely queasy. I turned up the hot water and let it pound away the thoughts of Clammy Karl, then allowed my mind to dally with the mental image of Alex minus garments, lying all sleek and elegant, his emerald eyes hot with desire. Immediately I started sweating. I turned the hot water off altogether and lectured myself about my foolish thoughts.
“OK, so I’ve got the hots for one particular guy, not just any guy. Fine. Now what the hell do I do about it? It’s not like I can just go up there and say, ‘hey, Alex, you wanna get it on?’ If he’s only interested in serious, possibly permanent relationships, he’s not going to want to break in a few of Cait’s raincoats in the name of fun.”
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