by kimberly
Getting up, she took the last of her coffee into the dressing room. She sat down at the vanity table in one corner and ran her hands over its surface. Had this, she wondered, belonged to her mother? It was easy to imagine a young and dreamy-eyed Cassandra sitting here, putting on her makeup in anticipation of a coming date. She looked into the mirror. Now, the reflection was not of her mother, but of herself. Leaning forward, propping her chin on her hand, she took the time to examine her likeness.
The mirror gave back an uncompromising image of a face that was too pale. This time, she did not flinch while looking at the scars, nor did she turn her gaze away from the frail, huge-eyed wraith staring back. Her fame, she knew, had come from the allure of her ambiguous beauty. It was timeless -- the swanlike neck, the wide green eyes with the level look of appraisal. She had been popular because she exuded wholesomeness, freshness--and a sexuality of extraordinary power. Beneath the crispness of her gaze was a suggestion of daring, intelligence and vulnerability, the whole complex of contradictory impulses that had made up her fantasy persona.
Julienne lowered her gaze away from the glass. All that she had been was a fantasy created in strobe lights, primped, posed and photographed. It was as Morgan Saint-Evanston had told her: everything about her was false. She wasn't a human being. She was a product, set up in a magazine rack and sold over and over like a prostitute.
There's a dead soul somewhere deep inside me.
She was, she felt, an incomplete thing left over from the little girl who had bowed her head submissively whenever people disapproved, who had gone to self-destructive lengths to please the people in her life. She was well-practiced in the art of pleasing, first performing to keep her unstable mother on an even keel and then, later, to advance her career in a profession that, like a hungry ogre, regularly ate up young women and chewed them down to bone. She could be a warm, vivacious, and satisfyingly solid woman in many ways, but still there was that innermost emotional core she could only diagnose as immature.
The only constant trait, which had seen her through to this point in her life, was her will to survive, and this remained her talisman. In that area, she was a tank, steaming steadily forward, her eyes focused on her main goal of overcoming her addiction even if her vision remained clouded. Her instincts were a representation of her tough and perverse life.
Julienne cocked her head. At a certain angle, the scars on her face vanished, revealing a lot of solid jaw under her troubled countenance. It was time she employed it to her own advantage and got a more intelligent grasp on what she was doing with her life. She needed to be strong, be smart. Such a bellicose attack plan was not her usual style. She was almost never direct in her aggressiveness. She had been trained to hide anger and disappointment, not flaunt it.
Things are about to change, she thought resolutely. She experienced a strange sense of calm and strength. She was a woman on the cusp of moving into her destiny--the thing she had wanted all her life--without knowing what it was. It was time for her to wrap up her old life and throw it away. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I am going to build a life for myself, with or without these people.
Flipping open her cosmetics case, she began to work on her face. I might have to live with these scars, damn it, but it doesn't mean I have to let them command my life. Picking up a cover stick, she began to utilize the tricks of her trade, applying a thick foundation to cover them, and the dark circles under her eyes. By time she finished, there was barely a hint that her face was not perfect.
Next, she took up a comb and began to attack the tangles in her hair. She thought about blowing it dry, decided not to and instead began to braid it before wrapping it into a tight bun, pinning it in place with several attractive clips. It would be wavy when let loose for the evening. She arranged her bangs to hide the thicker scar on her forehead. Somehow, cosmetics didn't seem to quite cover it.
She was making a last-minute nervous check of her makeup when she heard the light patter of footsteps in the bedroom. She glanced over her shoulder. "Melissa?"
"Are you ready to go downstairs?" The clinking of dishes followed Melissa's words.
"Almost." Still dressed in her heavy robe, she peered around the corner.
"You look better." Finished stacking the dishes back on the tray, Melissa began to strip the bed of its sheets. The scent of incense still lingered heavily in the air; and she'd opened the French doors, letting in the sunlight, and thrown wide the windows to air out the room.
"Thanks. Can I ask you something?"
Melissa looked up from her work. "Sure." She tossed the dirty sheets into a basket beside the bed and began to put on a fresh set.
Julienne moved from foot to foot, nervous, her hands clasped in front of her body as if she were a child expecting a severe scolding.
"Um, what am I supposed to wear? You know, days and nights? I haven't a clue." She cast her mind toward her sparse wardrobe, realizing she had almost nothing in the way of dress clothes. The hospital had limited her wardrobe to blue jeans, sweaters and tennis shoes. She needed to go shopping, buy a few personal essentials.
Melissa wiped her hands on her apron as she considered the question. She wore the uniform expected of Blackthorne's employees, a simply cut white blouse and navy skirt, hose and shoes designed for long hours of walking.
"For days, you can wear virtually anything. Miss Anlese dresses a little more formally in her gowns, but that's her. And, unless he's going out, you rarely see the master in more than casual wear -- shirts, slacks and boots."
"What about evenings?"
"Whatever you care to wear to the table, Miss," Melissa replied. A crease wrinkled her smooth brow. "It isn't a formal household around here and dinners are catch-as-you-can."
"I see."
Melissa finished spreading the sheets into place, pulling the quilts across Julienne's bed, saying as she worked, "Well, Miss Anlese is an old lady. She eats like a bird. A bite here and there, and sips her tea. Miss Ashleigh, she's a vegetarian. Always on a diet. Mister Morgan…" She shook her head and an out-rush of exasperated breath escaped her.
"You didn't finish your sentence," Julienne prompted. "What about Mister Nasty?"
Melissa smiled, flashing perfect white teeth. "Mister Nasty? Oh, I like that one!" She pulled the edges of the quilt down over the bed corners, her hands smoothing out the wrinkles before beginning to cover the pillows with their shams, plumping them as she put them into place.
"Seems to fit him. That man is ice enough to sink the Titanic." Julienne sat down on the edge of the bed, drawing her knees to her chest.
Melissa picked up her dust rag. She stood, twisting it in her hands, as if trying to decide if she should continue or not. "I probably shouldn't say," she finally blurted, "but you'll find out for yourself, I guess."
"What? Tell me."
"Well, Mister Morgan hardly ever comes to the dinner table. If he does, he usually ignores food and hits the bottle. Just drinks. He can do it well enough. I've been here seven years, and I've seen him take straight whiskey like some people drink their morning cup of coffee. It's nothing for him to have three bottles emptied in an evening."
"So, he drinks." At last she had it, the name of Morgan Saint-Evanston's demon. Alcohol. She remembered his words to her on the day she arrived. His voice, with its strangely accented overtones, sounded through her head. You can escape, temporarily. We all have poisons we ply ourselves with in search of the perfect oblivion. Drink, she mused, must be his perfect oblivion.
What was it he sought oblivion from? She nibbled her lower lip.
Cassandra?
"Oh, yes, he does," Melissa confirmed, then hurried to add, "You'll never see him stagger, though. His accent will get thicker and his words will get meaner, but he's never falling-down drunk."
"Sounds like he can be a handful."
"Well, don't worry he'll cause you trouble," Melissa hastened to explain, her eyes shadowed with worry, as if afraid she'd let too much informatio
n slip. "He's a binger. He'll pass a good amount of time off the whiskey, and then something…"
Ashleigh? Julienne wondered.
"…will set him off. He'll drink, mutter in his language not a one of us understands, disappear for a while, then come back, pale and shaken, but sober."
"Where does he go?"
"No one asks," Melissa hurried to say. "In this place, you can spend days alone before someone might think to look for you. Sixty rooms, not counting storage spaces. Most of it's closed up now, the east wing where the nurseries and children's rooms are. Full time staff lives in the west wing, where the apartments are."
"Where does he stay?"
Melissa pointed over their heads. "There. Whole third floor's his. I clean it, tend his clothes and get out. He can come and go from there without being seen."
Julienne nodded, filing away the information.
"Well, thank you for filling me in."
"You're welcome, miss."
She inclined her head. "What you said stays with me, you know."
Melissa smiled, relieved. "Yes, Miss."
"Good."
Deciding she should dress, Julienne rose and untied her robe. "Think I'll play it safe. Jeans and a tee-shirt for me today." She crossed back to her dressing room and shut the door behind her.
"Sounds fine, miss," Melissa agreed, continuing her work. With a deft hand, she lifted each item on the bed-table to dust under it. Feeling a small lump, she bent closer and saw a translucent film about the size of a quarter on the surface. Testing it with the tip of her finger, she saw it was the dripping of a wax candle. Using the edge of her fingernail, she pried it up and swept away the evidence of the two visitors who had attended Julienne's bedside the night before.
Chapter Twelve
Twenty minutes later, Julienne exited her suite. Melissa walked beside her, carrying her basket of dirty linens. As they went down the staircase, Julienne heard an angry male voice overriding a teary female one. She paused in mid-step and glanced at Melissa.
"What's going on?" she mouthed.
Melissa rolled her eyes and lifted a finger to her lips in a shushing motion, then pointed down. "He's throwing a fit," she whispered.
Following Melissa's cue, Julienne grasped the banister and looked over its edge. In the foyer she immediately spied Morgan. Seeing him, she felt a surge of nervous anticipation in her stomach.
Though he was not an exceptionally tall man, he was well built. His physique was a stalwart one, and even from the distance separating them she could see the ripple of muscle under his crisply starched shirt, the cording of tendons under his skin as he tensed in anger. Standing a whisper over five-ten, he had not an ounce of fat on his lean frame. A lifetime of hard exertion had first developed and then honed his muscles to their strongest. He moved with the grace of a lynx starved before the hunt--deadly, accurate and verging on desperate.
Hand to her mouth to stifle her breath, Julienne's scanned the spacious room with narrowed eyes, and she quickly caught the gist of the drama.
A girl of about eighteen stood petrified under Morgan's scrutiny. Clothed in dark skirt and blouse, her brown hair tied up in a white kerchief, she cowered and, face flushed, clutched her mop in a death grip. A bucket of soapy water was at her feet. Mute under Morgan's wrath, fighting to hold back her tears, she could only nod, assailed by a torrent of Gaelic cursing interspersed with enough English for her to catch the gist of his displeasure.
"How many times, woman, have I told you to move things to clean under them?" Morgan's eyes narrowed, and his austere features, customarily formidable, hardened even more. Dark eyes ablaze, he paced the foyer like a caged tiger circling weaker prey. "Lhig cur baght er shiu hene," he demanded with sharp sternness. "Explain yourself."
"I'm sorry, sir!" the girl protested in trembling haste. "I wasn't thinking." Her voice came out slightly above a squeak that he crushed ruthlessly into silence.
"You are not paid to think, you are paid to clean. Instead, you seek to get by with half-done and think I will not notice. All I ask of you is to do your job right. Is it a problem?"
The girl shook her head. "No, sir. It's just that some things are too heavy for me to move."
Morgan ceased his pacing and came to stand before the girl, stuffing his hands into his pockets. When he spoke, his voice was steady. "Is that all it is? Well, if you think things are too heavy for you, then ask one of the men to move them. Is that too hard to remember?"
Relieved, the girl offered a small smile. She loosened a hand from her mop to wipe her running nose. "No, sir. It's not. I'll get someone to help me."
Morgan glanced around with that swift, searching look that took in everything and missed no detail. "Good. Then this will get you started."
Lifting his foot, he placed it on the bucket's edge and tipped it over. Dirty mop water flooded the white marble in rivulets, snaking under the heavy grandfather clock. "Now get someone to move it, and you clean it," he ordered.
In trembling haste, Julienne rushed down the stairs. She'd watched him berate the girl, but his last act was one of pure spite. Voice raging, she couldn't stand silent any longer.
"What a low thing to do!"
Stepping out of the water's path, Morgan turned to greet this new disturbance. At the sight of her anger, a ridge of muscle briefly tightened his jaw. She could tell by the look on his face that he was not pleased to see her. He cut her off with an impatient gesture.
"So, the sleeping princess awakes." One hand came out of his pocket, bringing with it his watch, which he snapped open to compare with the face of the grandfather clock.
"Just ten after twelve. Quite an early rising for you, I suppose." He snapped the watch shut and returned it to his pocket. Dressed casually in gray slacks and a white shirt open one button at the neck, he appeared utterly unperturbed by her rage. He glanced at the girl. "Go and get yourself some help." Grateful for the reprieve, she nodded, curtsying clumsily before leaving the foyer.
Ignoring his flip words, Julienne rushed at him, flaring. "You wicked-hearted bastard!" she shot. "There was absolutely no excuse for that."
Morgan sent her a look that clearly told her he was in command here and nailed her protests into the ground. "She is paid to do a job correctly," he answered crisply. "Hence, a reprimand when she does not. She is fortunate I did not fire her on the spot. I have been aware of her laxness for quite a while. I am attempting to be fair and give her a another chance."
"Instead of chewing a piece of her ass," Julienne seethed, "why don't you show her how to do it?" She snatched up a few cleaning rags from a pile on the table and dropped to her knees. "Or are you too good for a little bit of hard work?" Setting the bucket right, she began to mop up the water.
With a swift movement, Morgan stepped forward, bent, curled his fingers around her arm, and bodily hauled her to her feet. His touch seared into her skin.
"Lhig lhiam." His open hand came down in a firm whack across her rear. "You are making an ass of yourself."
"Let me go!" Julienne yelped, twisting away from his grasp. "Don't ever do that to me again!" Backing away from him, rubbing her stinging butt, she took note of his chilling ability to turn his black eyes to steel at a moment's notice.
He rose to her challenge. "Are you going to stop me?"
"Touch me like that again and I'll stop you or die trying." An undertone of rebellion sounded clearly in her voice. She held herself very stiff and erect, jaw thrust out, her hands stubbornly clenched, her frigid voice filled with offense. Suddenly, she felt filled with a torrent of indefinable strength and anger, so much that she was trembling.
Her words seemed to amuse him. He smiled, a sardonic grin that narrowed his eyes and lit up his shrewd features. "Aye, that would be the end of it, wouldn't it? Do you really believe you could?" he asked wickedly.
Julienne refused to back down or let him see her waver. What the hell is he grinning about? I should slap that smile right off his smug face
She gr
itted her teeth. "Yes."
"Good," he said, eyeing every inch of her shaky form. When he spoke, his voice was steady and shaded with innuendo. "I shall enjoy the pain."
Jaw dropping, she stared, dumb, and a little bit nonplussed. How was it he could deflate and deflect everything she threw at him? Inwardly, she cursed his false flicker of a smile, his refusal to ever reveal what was going on inside his head. He could, she thought, annihilate anyone he targeted, exhibiting an unblushing indifference to the feelings of other people. He is tied up in himself and totally oblivious to those he might hurt.
"You probably would," she sighed, losing some of her confidence toward defending the girl. "I was just trying to say you didn't have to be so mean to her. She's trying to do her job."
Morgan did not move, but the lift of his eyebrows, the curl at the edge of his mouth and the slight movement of his broad shoulders, gave the effect of a shrug. He had not taken her tantrum seriously for one single second.
"I will not show benevolence when it is undue," he said. "I said my words and reinforced them as necessary. It is not your place to question my disciplines, nor am I asking you to."
Dismissing her with a glance, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the foyer, disappearing into a vestibule leading into the library.
"Fuck you!" Julienne snarled under her breath after his departing figure. She thought about snatching up the vase on the table and sending it whizzing at his head. She had a feeling more than one woman had probably wanted to bash his brains in.
Melissa quickly came down the stairs, glancing around, making sure the coast was clear before letting out a brief laugh.
"Wow," she congratulated Julienne. "I can't believe what you just did. I've never seen anyone stand up to him like that."
Julienne's shoulders sagged. She pressed a hand to her gut. Breakfast was not sitting well. Her legs felt watery and weak, her stomach tied in knots, as if she had undergone a severe internal bruising. "I didn't do very good at all. He still won."
Melissa reached out and patted her arm. "You got further than most," she said. "He has the mind of a feudal lord and the attitude to back it. I tell you, when I first met him he scared the hell out of me."