by L. J. Greene
We all froze, but after a moment I saw Alice shake her head as though bothered by a persistent fly.
“No? Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do, after all. God knows he’d never consummate the marriage.” Cresswickham gave a short screech of laughter that made me jump. “He might as well be impotent when it comes to women. Isn’t that right, Leo?”
“Yes, Reggie,” he replied, but his eyes were on me as though gauging my intentions. Was I going to do something foolish? I didn’t know myself.
“Coleridge, then,” Cresswickham droned on. “I know you like him, and you’ve always had a fondness for the Romantic poets. Yes, I’ve seen you watching him. What do you think?” She did not reply, but the Englishman gave a genial smile. He hadn’t moved from his chair, but he lolled around in it from side to side as if to get a better view. “Do you think him sweet? Do you believe he’d want you without the promise of your inheritance, or without your pretty face? You should know what kind of man he is, this truckling vagrant.” He looked at Leo. “Let’s show her. Show her she’s wasting her favors. Coleridge’s heart is taken, is it not?”
The air felt suffocating to me, as though Cresswickham had polluted it with the slow hiss of his poisonous words. I found it hard to catch my breath.
“Go on, then,” Cresswickham insisted. “Show her, Leo. Kiss and make up.”
Leo shot an agonized look at Alice, and a wordless dialogue passed between them. When he came at me again I shrank back, but he gathered me up in his arms and kissed me ardently, swallowing down my air and breathing it back into my mouth.
I gasped in huge lungfuls once he let me go and sat me on the bed. Alice had swung to the other side of the post now, putting some distance between herself and the main event, but Cresswickham had her number.
“Alice, my dearest, you’re not usually this reticent. Go on, sit next to him. Don’t be shy.”
And so she couldn’t escape getting smeared by the whole mess. She slipped back around to sit on the foot of the bed, close enough that the dip of the mattress made me lean into her. Her full satin skirts—she had not changed from the jazz club—brushed my fingers, smooth and cool. Leo, meanwhile, was stripping off my tie and opening up my collar. I recoiled as his knuckle pressed against the bruise he’d left there.
“You see, Alice?” Cresswickham giggled. “There’s a love bite if ever I saw one. Can you guess whose it is? I believe we could take teeth imprints off it if we had to.” The three of us ignored him. Leo nudged my legs wider by kicking gently at my ankles. I looked up at him, helpless, my neck aching, and he brushed his fingertips over my cheek.
“Don’t,” I whispered, and he snatched them away at once. But I hadn’t meant that. What I’d meant was, don’t make me do this. I expected, any moment, the order from Cresswickham: for Leo to take my mouth while I sat there next to Alice, to put on a show for him and for another audience member, unwilling and appalled with a front-row seat for the whole thing.
“On your knees,” Cresswickham said, and he sounded amused.
I shook my head. But I’d been wrong, all wrong.
It was Leo who sank down, pushing my thighs open as he did so he could slither up close to me, and pull at the button of my pants. I jerked in confusion as he flicked it open, and made short work of the zipper.
“Always blushing,” Cresswickham murmured, his eyes peering shrewdly at my cheeks.
“Stop—” I said, but it was too late. Leo had fished me out with a practiced hand, and paused only to spit in his palm.
I could feel my ears burning.
Leo glanced up at me. “Perk up, bunny,” he said, as though I were the one at fault.
I didn’t want to look at Alice, but I could feel her watching me, and my eyes slid inevitably sideways before I wrenched my attention back to Leo, who was still ministering to me, unresponsive as I was. I’d noticed one thing at least: I might have been bright red, but Alice was not.
Leo gave a small, impatient sigh, and stuffed my limp flesh into his mouth. I choked on my protest, and my hands flew up of their own accord to hide my face. The sounds were loud and obscene in the room, as though Leo were making it clear how hard he was trying, with no luck.
“It’s no fun if I can’t see his face,” Cresswickham said.
A small hand wrapped around my wrist and tugged. “You’re embarrassing him,” Alice said. “Aren’t they, darling? They’re embarrassing you. No wonder you can’t…Come here.” She pulled me close to her and tucked my face into her neck. I could smell perfume wafting warm from her cleavage: powdery, expensive, European. With one hand she petted my hair, smoothing it back from my hot ears and sweaty brow; her other arm circled my shoulders. Leo was still busy in my lap.
“I’m so sorry,” I gritted out. My vision blurred with tears, and I was ashamed.
She tipped my face up to hers. “Don’t give it a moment’s thought,” she said lightly, as though I’d merely held her too close during a waltz. Leo’s tongue was probing at me, flicking into every nook and cranny he could find, but he might as well have been sucking at my elbow for all the good it was doing.
It was not until Alice very gently and deliberately brushed her nose against mine, her icicle eyes looming large before my watery ones, that anything changed below. I must have whimpered or made some noise; Leo released me with a loud accusatory pop of his lips, just in time to see Alice press her mouth to mine, her eyelashes tickling me as they fluttered closed.
It was a passionless kiss, but all the more erotic for it, like she was doing it just to save me, to help out a friend in need with his little problem. It was that idea that she didn’t need me, didn’t want me, that struck me the most, and my cock filled out under Leo’s hot breath.
Alice’s fingers wrapped again around my left wrist, and she gave a slight tug. I let her guide my hand, my lips still pressed in her chaste kiss, and Leo’s begrudging mouth on my prick once more, until I felt the slippery swell of her satin-clad breast under my palm. I moaned, and she breathed a laugh into my mouth.
An enormous crash made all three of us jump, and I was lucky Leo had enough control of himself not to do me an injury. Cresswickham, having kicked the footstool into the side of the bed, was stalking towards us, his fury fixed on me, and his hand drawing back to strike.
Leo sprang up fast enough to deflect the Englishman, catching him by the shoulders and stalling him. “Reggie, Reggie, you mustn’t—”
I hastily tucked myself away and lumbered off the bed. Cresswickham dodged sideways and swiped at me around Leo’s restraining arm. “You filthy gutter rat,” he spat. “You keep your goddamn hands to yourself, or I’ll have them cut off!”
I should have laughed in his face. It should have been just another melodramatic moment in the collection of moments I’d had with him, but somehow it wasn’t. His eyes were lit up with hatred and I suspected he’d sever my limbs himself if he had half a chance. I fled to the door, only remembering after I’d rattled at the doorknob that it was locked. Locked, and the key held by a crazed, threatening aristocrat.
Alice was still sitting on the bed, smoothing her skirt down. I almost thought I saw a smirk tugging at the corner of her pink mouth, but when I looked closer, she was as expressionless as the dolls attending the tea party in the corner.
In Leo’s arms, Cresswickham buckled. Leo took the opportunity to half-carry, half-manhandle the Englishman back to the chair, and I saw his fingers dipping in and out of pockets, searching. “Reggie, you’re not yourself, you’re unwell,” he murmured. “Sit here for a moment and then I’ll take you to your bed. You need to rest, my best beloved.” He turned towards me and tossed me the key in a gentle arc through the air.
I caught it clumsily, and looked at Alice again. I didn’t want to leave her here with her brother, not like this.
“Get out,” Leo said. “Go.”
I obeyed him, and assumed Alice would too. I unlocked the door as fast as my shaking hands could manage, but when I glanced up, Alice had staye
d put on the bed. She was staring with narrowed eyes at Leo.
“Get out,” Leo snapped at me; so I got.
When I woke the next morning it took a minute or two to figure out what I felt so dirty about. Then it all came back to me, and I stumbled to the bathroom to vomit and then scrub myself just about raw under the shower. I still felt squalid when I got out, but at least I looked clean. I wrapped myself in the first robe my hand fell on, and made my way to Leo’s room.
I didn’t bother knocking. If I could catch him out again, by God, I would. But he was sitting up in bed reading the paper and chewing at a jammy piece of toast from the tray over his lap. He barely glanced up.
The first thing out of me was an accusation. “You told him!”
He closed the paper and wiped off his fingers on the napkin. I thought he’d play dumb, but for once I got a straight answer, though that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. “I said nothing to Reggie about your asinine ideas of marrying Alice. But I did my best to make some enquiries about his plans, just like I thought you wanted me to do. I suppose he must have guessed.”
“You’re telling me last night was my fault?”
“I’m telling you that kicking at a hornet’s nest is a bad idea. Has it never occurred to you, dear heart, that my keeping you in the dark is a kindness?”
“You promised—”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Leo said, and I caught a twang in his accent I’d never heard before, the faintest hint of an Irish brogue. “I’m not lying to you, for the love of Christ. If you have to blame someone, blame Reggie.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin and threw it down on the tray.
The fight flooded out of me, and I came over to sit on the side of the bed. “We can’t let things go on like this.”
“What do you suggest? You didn’t like my solution, you’ll recall. Feel free to put in some of your own.”
“What happened after I left?”
Leo drew in a breath to say something, but then let it out and sipped at his coffee instead.
“Tell me.”
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” he murmured, and picked up the paper again. “They don’t seem to be making much headway on this Incubus, do they?” he said. “Neither the police nor the papers, despite all the fuss they’ve made over it. Seems like it’s all rumor and innuendo. I wonder how your Bella’s making out.”
I wasn’t going to be put off, not completely. I tried a different tack. “He knows. About us. That we—that you—”
“Yes,” Leo said, and reached out a hand to tangle absently with mine on the bedspread. “The problem with Reggie is, he sees love as a weakness, a vulnerability to pry into. Last night he cracked you open like a lobster claw and sucked down your fears.”
I glared at him. “He wasn’t the one sucking me down.”
He withdrew his hand from mine and took up his cup again. “For all the good it did,” he murmured, so soft I thought for a moment I’d misheard, and then misunderstood.
But I hadn’t. He was throwing my downstairs problem right in my face. “You can go to hell,” I told him, and left him sitting there with his lukewarm coffee.
Part VII
Shadow of a Doubt
Chapter 32
I didn’t expect to see Alice for some time after that incident in her room, but she turned up to dinner that night as blithe and lovely as ever, dressed in an arctic shade of blue that made her eyes stand out.
She smiled brightly at me. “Good evening, Cole.”
I choked out a good evening, and watched Cresswickham take her in to dinner on his arm. It was as if nothing at all had happened. The only clue I had that I wasn’t losing my mind was the way Leo avoided looking at me, and the fact that Cresswickham lost his temper almost right away.
“This is inedible,” he barked, after taking one mouthful of the soup. “Take it away at once.”
Gabriel, who was the only attendant that night, swept away the soup before the rest of us had even tasted it, and replaced it with the second course, sole in a cream sauce. This course didn’t please the Englishman any better. He took one sniff, declared the fish off, and told Leo to bring the car around to the front. “We’ll dine in town,” he said. “If we can find anywhere halfway decent. Alice, you should go to bed. You look quite unwell.”
If anything, she looked more sanguine than she should’ve, given the previous night, but she just bowed her head. “Yes, Reggie.”
“I’m not feeling well myself,” I said hurriedly. The last thing I fancied was an awkward dinner for three in some trumped-up restaurant that Cresswickham would criticize the whole evening.
The aristocrat looked as though he were about to demand I accompany them, when Leo spoke. “Well, it’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. Alice, Betts will take care of you, won’t he?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Betts always takes care of me.”
Cresswickham’s face relaxed. “Yes,” he said. “Betts is here.” And he left the room without another word. Leo followed him, and presently Alice and I heard the front door shut. Alice stood at once, and turned to leave the room.
I took my shot. “Alice, about last night—”
She walked on as though she hadn’t heard me, and never looked back. I considered my cooling sole, until Gabriel snatched it from under my fork. “If it’s off, sir, you shouldn’t eat it,” he said.
“There’s something smells fishy in this house, but it ain’t the food. Where’s your friend?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your sidekick. Jimmy Dean wannabe.”
“Michael is no longer part of the staff, sir.”
“What’s that you say?” I asked sharply.
“He was dismissed.”
“When?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. You’ll excuse me,” he finished over his shoulder as he disappeared through the servants’ door.
So I wasn’t getting fed that night. Out of habit I wandered into the drawing room, where I found Alice had not gone up to bed as instructed, but was looking closely at the decanters lined up on the bar against the wall.
“I can never tell which is which,” she said vaguely. I strolled over.
“Easy way to tell. Whichever one I have is the bourbon.” I put my words into action, and poured myself out a generous glass.
“I’ll have one, too,” Alice said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a whiskey? Or even a brandy—”
“Bourbon,” she said, as close to curt as I ever heard her. I poured it out and added soda without asking her.
“Alice, about last night. I—”
“It was rather fun, wasn’t it?” she said.
“Fun?” I set the decanter down clumsily. “Fun, you say?”
“The club. And then—and then of course Reggie did have rather a lot to drink, but we can’t blame him, can we? He really does have so much on his shoulders. He doesn’t mean any harm. Just a bit of fun.”
I could have cried for her.
“Oh, Alice,” I said softly, and I made to take her hand. She grabbed up her glass of bourbon before I could.
She took her first mouthful and made a face just as Betts came in. I half expected him to have words with me about it, but he laughed at her expression. “You lot are out early tonight.”
“It is early,” Alice said. “We didn’t even get past the fish.”
“Still fancy some supper, milady? Gabriel is in the kitchen. I could ask him to look out something from the pantry.”
She took another swallow of her drink and shuddered. “Perhaps something light. Hot buttered toast, and some sardines. Cole?”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “I’d like that.”
So Alice, Betts and I had a quiet supper and then sat around in the drawing room trying to occupy ourselves. I could have gone up to my bedroom, but I didn’t like leaving Alice as she was. She was too quiet, too thoughtful. The silence added frost to the chill of the e
vening air, and by and by, Betts turned on the gas fireplace.
The only disturbance was the telephone ringing in the hallway at ten o’clock, and Gabriel came in to announce to the room that, “His Lordship and Mr. Mancini will be returning late, and rang to enquire about Lady Alice. I informed Mr. Mancini that—”
“Yes, yes,” Alice said, not even bothering to look up from her magazine. “I’m quite sure you did whatever you should have done. Thank you, Gabriel. You may run along to bed now.”
He withdrew, looking stung.
There was no radio and no television to distract us. The door to the screening room was locked, as always, and besides, I doubted Alice was in any mood for a film. She leafed through the latest Vogue, but methodically, as though she didn’t see the pages as they turned, and Betts was playing Solitaire. I tried to make headway in the book I’d picked up to read, but it was dull stuff.
“I’ve an awful yen for cards,” Betts said mournfully, just after the clock struck half ten. “Can’t we play three-hand bridge?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, slamming my book shut with relief. “Why don’t we try poker?”
“Oh, yes!” Alice cried, and tossed aside her magazine. “Yes, do let’s. I’ve always wanted to play. It seems so wicked, all that fakery. Reggie never liked the idea of it.”
That settled it. Betts knew the basics, and Alice was adept at any card game. She picked it up quick enough for me to lose heavily to her in the fourth hand, and smiled at my chagrin.
“You know what they say,” she told me as we each surveyed our next hand. “Best to keep a straight face when you’re playing poker. Your cards are written all over yours.”
“Sheer luck,” I spluttered, and Betts snorted.
“You might as well lay your hand down now,” he said. “It’s clear as day what you have there.”
I pulled my cards closer to my chest and wagged my finger at them. “Ah, I’m lulling you into a false sense of security. I’m in it for the long con. Just you wait and see.”