The words left a tinny taste in his mouth. He expected rejection. Hoped she'd still meet him. But this?
This made no sense.
Even after his fourth reading, the words jumbled in his mind. What did she know about Maria? Why would she bring her up? His hands curled and uncurled, forming fists and releasing, crumpling the thick, fine paper. His relationship with Maria was open. He'd never been that fond of her, but when he'd read about sodium nitrate and possibilities in Chile, and then seen a few poor kids from Southie go to Latin America and come back rich, he'd hatched a plan.
Sleeping with Maria had never been part of that plan, but it had its perks. She used him to make another lover jealous. He used her to gain access to her father's ear. Marco Escola was a minor character on the Boston social register but in Latin America he was the great-grandson of a Viceroy and had the pockets to prove it.
Investing a few thousand in James' mines was nothing to him, but was everything to James.
So why would Lilith bring this up?
His tight shoes still bedeviled him, thick, red welts burning as he strode. Walking the streets had been his balm for years but now this simple problem made him stumble – literally – and he had no way out. Escola's money didn't extend to his daily life; he'd receive a ship's passage and basic supplies in Chile and nothing more until – unless – he made his mark. And his fortune.
A fortune, he hoped, that might not rival John Stone's but that would set him for life. Allow for a wife.
Lilith.
Ah, he willed the thought away, yet it crept back in, like gnat in summer's hot sauna that wouldn't stop hovering. Her note didn't say no to Thursday's meeting.
But it didn't say yes.
Damn it, woman! What was this trick? He was simple. Eat when hungry. Have sex when a woman was willing. Work when money was needed. Create opportunity when despair made it necessary.
These games the rich played, with words and bon mots and the social mazes that only leisure could allow, were so petty.
James used what he knew – forthrightness – as his only weapon.
Dear Lilith,
If you're asking me whether I am sleeping with Maria Escola, the answer is no. If you have other questions, please ask me directly.
I'll show you how this is done in my neighborhood: do you wish for me to visit you on Thursday, as planned?
No airs. No innuendo. Just a straight question.
Sincerely,
James
The servant left James' note on her dresser. Lilith read it quickly and felt a flush of heat and anger barrel through her. Of course! How stupid of her. Delivering the perfect barb jabbed at the right moment without ownership of the poisoned word had been imprinted on her since birth, it seemed. James lived by a different social code.
And yet...he hadn't answered the question of whether he was sleeping his way from millions to billions. If she were a notch on his well-worn belt, then...
Then what?
Did it matter? Would she sleep with him if it meant nothing more to him than a luscious encounter? A way station to investment? A connection to money he could only witness from afar?
The touch of his fingers on her chest felt as fresh, now, as it had the other night. Rising heat drifted from her womanhood to her heart, a relief map of desire.
Was it dignity she sought? A guarantee that he might have feelings deeper than the blood that would fill him enough to take what he wanted? She fought to be a modern woman, to claim that women could have what men had, yet here she struggled with very dainty feelings that threatened to reduce her to the sort of muddle-headed frivolity that she despised.
In the heat of her fury, her wanton reckless abandon, she composed a note and quickly handed it to a courier.
Dear Mr. Hillman,
My direct answer: yes.
And now, my direct question: are you mapping a path through Beacon Hill that will be marked by sexual encounters with women of increasing net worth? And if so, to what purpose? I assure you that John Stone has no interest in any man who considers his daughter's vagina a conduit for investment.
Sincerely,
Miss Stone
Bribing his way into John Stone's five-story Beacon Hill mansion had not been easy, but he knew too many people who knew a cousin who worked on Beacon Hill who knew a servant in the Stone family home for it to be impossible. A promise to help a friend's aunt's daughter's husband with an application for a clerk's position with his law firm was enough to get back door entry. Access was the grease that lubricated where money could not.
Here he stood, skulking about the servants' stairwell, squeezing into passages that threatened to cut off the blood supply to his arms. It was Thursday night, and he stood outside her door and tried to find a way to ask her if he could come inside and talk to her. He'd read the final letter and realized that this was what she did. She used a bitter, caustic sarcasm and wit to express her anger, then she'd cool down later. Right now he was as concerned with talking to her as he was with controlling his raging arousal. The angrier she got the more it excited him, and he wanted to strip off her clothes and take her right there on the hallway floor.
Moonlight poured into the hall through a warbled window, the light rippling and distorted, showcasing the glassmaker's imperfections. He looked outside and up, noting the cloudless sky. Stars appeared so close and their light diminished in comparison to the smiling moon.
Rap, rap rap. Thick knuckles made muffled sounds on the heavy oak door. Padded footsteps made their way and he felt the doorknob slide counter-clockwise in his hand. He held loosely, hoping to keep her quiet and calm lest he be revealed and subject him – and her – to the inevitable scandal that his discovery would provoke.
“James!” she hissed, surprise blasting from those glittering eyes, proper shock emanating from her pores. She stood straighter and leaned into his chest, looking up. “What on earth do you think you're doing here?”
Wisps of light cotton floated under a thick flannel gown lined with silk. So this is what that beautiful body looked like in simple form. She wore no undergarments and the hallway chill tightened her nipples enough so that he could see them, practically feel their texture in his mouth, a nub that –
Stronger than she looked, the force of her hand clenching his upper arm pulled him into her bedroom. She shut the door slowly, softly, behind her, then stood before him and crossed her arms over those arched nipples that possessed him.
“Are you mad? Breaking into my father's home?”
“You once asked whether I have a healthy fear of billionaire fathers,” he began.
She smirked and tipped her head to the left, like a wife evaluating her husband after a night out drinking with work friends. Her hair was mussed and the overall effect of her nightdress, the bed behind her, and his mad dash up the stairs as an intruder made him cross the simple feet between them and grasp her shoulders.
“My answer is 'no.'” And with that he leaned in and kissed her, pinning her arms to her chest for a few seconds before she wiggled and slid them around his waist, his hand cupping her jaw and bringing her lips to his. They were breaking so many rules in one embrace, here in her father's home, in her bedroom, his hands roaming down her back, embracing her and bringing her in to him, hips pressing against him as she stood on tip-toe.
Somehow they found their way to the bed, her mouth matching his with passion, her hands roaming through his hair, their short breaths the only sound as the moon watched from afar. “Come here,” she said in her signature sultry tone, the voice matching her taste. He kissed her, his hands burying in her soft, curly hair. Soon naked before each other, they pulled back and he saw her teasing smile, realized that what he wanted was, for once, to have all the control.
He was a live, bulging wire. He wanted to make love to this woman who was giving him so much pleasure, who had given herself to him earlier and who now tweaked and perfected his arousal with such mastery. What he wanted, more than anything, was
to make her match how she was making him feel right now.
He felt large and lumbering over her frame, his hands covering the terrain of her soft flesh with roaming fingers and an eager tongue. One hand floated down her breastbone, over her navel, and found her warm and wanting as he slipped one finger in. He could feel her wall of muscle tightening against his finger as his tongue wandered lazily down past the ribs under her breasts, across her navel, over one hip. He explored her, teasing through soft curls to find her swollen and ready.
Every woman had a distinct taste, and she tasted like a deep, musky wine with a hint of cinnamon. He wanted to be in her, could feel the blood rushing to make him turgid and ready as he fought back a rush of urgency.
She spread her legs and he used his tongue and finger with the mastery that came from knowing a woman's body well; so many lovers before her had given him an education no formal institution could provide. Soon he felt the familiar clench as she seized with ecstasy and then something more, a new sensation he'd never experienced with any woman, a rush of fluid from her, a sweet liquid that spotted her sheets with plate-sized circles. Her nipple was rock hard under his fingers and the taste of her fluid filled his mouth. The sudden warmth and wet enveloping him so swiftly and abruptly that he nearly came himself that second.
Not like this, though; he didn't want to come like this. He wanted to be in her, but he couldn't control himself for much longer.
Lilith sat upright and nearly died from humiliation, forcing James to pull back and shoot her a perplexed look.
“What was that? Did I? Oh, my God!” Hands flew to her face, covering it to spare her the embarrassment of having James look at her.
She had urinated during sex. How horrid. Whispers about such incontinence were common among her mother's friends; she'd heard them discussing the need for pessaries after a fifth child, or how to fold a cloth napkin discreetly to catch small indiscretions of the bladder. But Lilith had an unstressed uterus and, until her trip to McLean seven years ago, had not had an accident since she was a wee child being trained by her nanny long before memory.
In her brief interlude with Jack Reed she'd done no such thing. What a monstrosity. She couldn't even succeed at the most basic, instinctual act of all mammals. Her father was right: she was a complete fraud as a woman. The wetting incidents had been confined to night time, a once-a-month affliction that brought the sweet-scented fluid, the spot of shame so great that it transferred from her sheets to her soul. Passion and frustration seemed to bring them out after fitful dreams that lured her in but never remained in her memory when she awoke, chilled by a sticky release and contentment that quickly turned to horror when she wiped sleep from her eyes and found evidence of the night's reveries.
If she'd been a man, she'd have understood the affliction. But in a woman, this was physical madness, undocumented in any physiology book she'd examined at Wellesley. Her father was right: she should have been a man. Nature said otherwise, however, finding ways to make her freakish episodes a visual and sensorial reminder that she was, no matter how hard she tried to the contrary, abnormal.
And now James stared at her. Hands covered her eyes but she could feel him, inches away, naked and glorious, here in her bed where her broken womanhood made a spot that marked her inadequacy.
“Lilith,” he said gently, one hand touching her knee. She flinched. Please leave, she thought, but the words were wrong. Leaving wasn't what she wanted. A giant sinkhole that would make her disappear would do the trick, though.
“Lilith.” The voice was more a command this time, and she peeked out at him through her fingers, then looked down once more.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I've, oh, I can't speak. It's unbearable.” Slick, bitter tears filled her mouth as her eyes joined in, the moment ruined, all arousal drained in a flash.
As if Lucifer himself studied this surreal scene and added a dose of cruelty, Lilith watched James lean down and sniff the sheet where the large wet spot screamed her name. “It's not – it's not what you think.”
“Then what is it?” she cried.
“I don't know.” He reached toward her and then stopped, seeming to think better of it. His hand stayed in place in limbo, uncertain.
“It can't be anything but – you know.”
“But it isn't. Sniff for yourself.”
Where was that sinkhole?
Lilith stood, pulled her nightdress on over her head, and reached for her robe, modesty overcome by the need to crawl out of her skin, to evacuate James, to run away and throw herself into the Charles River at once in an effort to end this mortifying moment.
“Please leave,” she implored. Don't leave. Her heart ripped in two, the pain worse than any she'd felt at McLean.
To her simultaneous chagrin and relieved resignation, he began to get dressed, starting to speak twice and then stopping himself. The room shrank with him in it, the bed like a piece in a dollhouse, the doorways tiny and scaled down. When he stood at full height, his reach could have touched the ceiling, and she envied him for it, but instead he bent down and lifted her chin up, gently brushing her hands from her face. She felt as dry and delicate as aged tissue paper, so fragile one harsh word could turn her to dust and ragged edges.
A tender kiss was his only goodbye.
Leaning against her bedroom door, Lilith stared at the center of her bed and began to shake soundlessly, the prospect of letting any sound emerge too dangerous. A sob would turn to a howl and, right now, she wasn't sure the world wouldn't break in two from the vibration of misery her soul could create.
Sneaking out of John Stone's home was more difficult than slinking in. A small party of smokers in the den took up valuable servant staircase space that he'd used to access Lilith's room; flattening himself behind a door was not possible given his girth and breadth, and he'd received looks askance and a few overt gawks until he rushed out a side door, the cold rain a welcome break from human faces.
He burned with confusion and emotion. What he'd thought was a good idea turned to a miserable mess, and being evicted from Lilith's room, with so much business unfinished, left a caustic taste in his mouth and a ringing in his ears that turned to a buzz, like a swarm of bees racing to nowhere, kept together sheerly through inertia and oblivion.
Aching for Lilith, he replayed the scene in his mind. The fluid didn't bother him. It wasn't piss. Those words had stood on the tip of his tongue, ready to come out, but he'd kept them back out of propriety. Stupidity. Confoundedness. He'd wanted to shout that at her, to explain that he'd had another lover who had the same reactions to arousal, that it was no source for embarrassment or fear. Words had failed him in that moment, though; mentioning a prior lover hardly won a man points with a naked woman. Even the daftest idiot knew to keep his mouth shut then.
Her fear, though, seemed outsized. She was a virgin – barely, he knew – and unworldly but very willing. Such need. Such intensity. All wrapped up in those tiny hands and incisive eyes that tempted him with the promise of something more, something so real it needed no words to grow.
And yet he'd needed words to explain that she needn't make him leave. He’d wanted to stay. Wanted so much more.
Cold rain nipped at the edges of his soles, a welcome contrast to the heat in his body, dimming like a candle nearing its base. James let the night's turn of season clear his head, a white blur that erased as much as it could, leaving only the etch of an ache of the unknown.
Chapter Six
LILITH CONSULTED THE ONLY PERSON in her world who would have the slightest perspective on the mysterious fluid: Esther. “Thank God you left the rat at home,” she announced as Esther poured a cup of coffee.
“Dog. It's a dog.”
“It's a rat that barks,” Lilith deadpanned.
“Rodrigo the rat,” Esther added, holding her stomach and barely able to breathe through laughter.
“You could just get a sewer rat from the underground and put a leash on it,” Lilith teas
ed.
“If I wanted a Boston rat I could just leash your father,” Esther retorted.
Lilith collapsed into whoops of laughter. A maid scurried out, no doubt spreading the gossip tidbit. Esther didn't care. Unlike Lilith, Esther had inherited her trust already and was, as John Stone called her, “a misfit and an abomination to women.”
But a wealthy abomination had freedom.
Lilith was jealous, but she was also so close – less than a year and she could join Esther in wealthy spinsterhood, never needing to marry to get away.
“Speaking of Boston rats, is your father still up to his dastardly deeds?” Instead of a rat dog, Esther plucked a small kitten from a large carpet bag. Carrying small animals about town was the least of her idiosyncracies, and Lilith's servants had learned to keep animal food on hand, though the head cook drew the line at the request for a live mouse made once when Esther brought a rather large snake into the parlor.
“Of course, I told you about the meeting last month. I haven't seen Jack Reed around since then,” Lilith sniffed, furiously shoveling sugar into her coffee, “but Hanlon has been scurrying about like a fly drawn to horse manure.”
“Your father is racing against the clock. Mine had no choice; at eighteen my money was mine. I just timed out in McLean.” A rare sigh from Esther startled Lilith. Her friend petted the kitten's neck and added, “Nine months is a long time, Lilith. We were only in McLean for four and look what they managed to do to us.”
In many ways, Lilith couldn't quite remember what they had managed to do. The electric treatment she'd received at the hands of Dr. Maurice Scott had been shameful. Only seventeen and understanding little of her reproductive and sexual parts, Lilith had not understood what he meant when he described her “obvious hysteria” and need to reach “hysterical paroxysm.”
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