by Kathryn Moon
“I’ve got one who needs sex to live,” the woman on my other side said. She had skin almost as dark as the table, and it shone with a wonderful blush. “Just him because…well, I have to rest for days afterward.”
“Her room is next to mine,” Cassie confirmed with wide eyes. “Sounds a bit wild.”
I burst into laughter, and the other women around us joined in, boasting of their men, conversation filling with giggles.
Chapter Four
A Gentleman Arrives
Magdalena came to my room in the early evening the next day, a large box wrapped in vivid green tissue paper cradled in her arms.
“You’ve received a present, darling,” she said, grinning as I pulled her inside.
“Who’s it from? Auguste? Amon?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she said, laughing a little in a way that made me sure she did know. “There’s a card.”
We sat together on the bed, the box between us, and I found the small cream envelope tucked into a fold of the paper and plucked it out, tearing at the seal.
For your first evening as a manor lady. I’ll see you soon.
Jonathon Underwood
“Jonathon! I’d never heard his proper name before.” I touched the thick edges of the card. It wasn’t really a love note, not much of one. But I’d never been sent any kind of note from a bloke I’d tumbled, and it made my chest squeeze to see his handwriting curl across the white.
“Well… open the box,” Magdalena urged, her fingers already slipping into the corners.
I pulled it away from her before she could spoil the surprise for me, tearing off the paper and finding a glossy cream box inside. I lifted up the lid and my breath stopped.
Inside was a dress. The color was the richest shade of rouge, like the pigment shining in my former mistress’ maquillage pot. I drew my hands back before I mussed the fabric.
Magdalena went ahead and lifted the dress up out of the box, and I folded my lips between my teeth at the sight of it. It wasn’t really a decent kind of dress, but I supposed it didn’t need to be in a house like this. I could see the light run right through the airy fabric.
“I hope he has a good eye for size, we haven’t got time to call in my seamstress to fit you and it’s all a bit gauzy for me to work with,” she said. She leaned over my shoulder and I watched the way the fabric seemed to drip like liquid over her arm. “No undergarments? Of course not. Men. I suppose Auguste will hardly mind. Probably came up with the idea together.”
“They know each other?” I asked, looking up from the terrifyingly beautiful dress.
“Auguste introduced Dr. Underwood to me. I believe Mr. Tanner introduced Auguste to Dr. Underwood,” Magdalena said, holding up the dress again. The color seemed to glow in the room. “I take a great deal of care in putting my girls together with men. It’s important to make sure the personalities work. But I had a good feeling about you when Jonathon sent the letter.”
She sat down on the bed next to me again, lowering the gown back into the box with great care. “Some girls want…structure. Firm hands. But for that to work, the men can’t be jockeying for position with each other. Others want the control and need steadying personalities to ease them. Other girls require sweetness, lots of spoiling, and courting. And some girls,” she said, taking my face in her hands and looking straight into my eyes with that huge gaze of hers. “Some girls will offer whatever is asked of them and gladly take whatever is offered. So you have to make sure their gentlemen are every bit as good-hearted as them. And have decent variety amongst them.” She released me with a wink.
I looked down at my tangling hands, uncertain of what to say. Those words seemed too kind. I was a greedy, wicked creature. Deliciously wanton, according to Dr. Underwood. And Magdalena had painted me as something sweeter, when all I could think about while I was here was what sort of fellow I might meet and how he might make me feel between the sheets.
“Let’s try this on, shall we?” Magdalena said. “Sun is almost set, and Auguste won’t be long after that.”
“That? I can’t wear that!” I said, rearing back from the dress.
“Why ever not?” she asked, brow furrowing in sincere offense.
“I’ll ruin it! I’ll…I’ll tear it or stain it or something awful.”
Magdalena’s head fell back, and a laugh that was not nearly as elegant as I’d expected poured right out of her. “If you think…this house…hasn’t had its share of ruined gowns…” she said between bouts of cackles. “Oh goodness, Esther. What a funny thing to say! If anyone ruins this gown, it will be Auguste, and he’s more than capable of finding you a new one. Now, up with you. I might be able to adjust the fit in small ways if it’s needed.”
I stood and started to strip as Magdalena followed me up, her fingers at nearly invisible buttons on the back of the dress. Now that she’d mentioned Auguste seeing me in this, I was—well, not less afraid, but certainly more curious. And speaking of curious…
“Madame…Booker. Is he…. What is he?” I asked.
“He’s a golem, darling,” she said, as if it were perfectly obvious. Although I didn’t really know what a golem was. “One of my own creations. The usual sort is made of clay, but I thought marble might look more fitting with the manor.”
“So you’re like…his mother?” I asked, stepping out of my dress.
Magdalena snorted. “Oh dear, can you imagine? No, I…I made him, but he’s very much his own creature. I could unmake him, I suppose. But I certainly wouldn’t, not unless he were cruel or destructive. But I’ve never made a bad golem.” She sounded very proud. And seeing as how she had made a man out of marble of all things, I supposed she had a right to be proud.
“Do they…do your golems ever, um…” I chewed at my lip and raised my eyebrows, hoping she might guess for me. But she stared blankly back. “Do they ever spend time with the girls who live here?”
Magdalena grinned. “Oh, that. I suppose they do. Who my ladies sleep with is between them and their gentlemen. And what my golems do in their free time is entirely up to them.”
I swallowed and glanced at the door. So Booker was…free.
“As for Booker,” Magdalena continued, as if reading my mind. Maybe she was. She could make men. “He requested to be assigned to your service first and foremost.”
“He said that?” I asked, whipping my head to her just before she dropped the miles of brilliant, cool, silk over my head. It ran over my skin like wine and left me shivering my way through the sleeve straps.
“Well, no,” Magdalena said. “I asked him what part of the house he wanted to work in, and he said ‘Esther.’ But my answer was more elegant. Golems are not very effusive.”
I tried to hide my smile by looking down to smooth the skirt of my dress.
“There. Well done, Doctor,” Magdalena said, fixing the last button at the back of the dress. “Perfect fit.”
I’m not sure how I expected my introduction to Auguste Thibodeaux—which was more of a mouthful than I could comfortably say—to go. But I certainly hadn’t expected to be doing it in the kitchens.
It was almost eleven at night, and I’d spent the better part of the evening in my room, pacing, afraid of wrinkling my dress. There was no dinner because Magdalena said Auguste wanted to eat with me. I thought perhaps she meant Auguste wanted to eat me, because…well, vampire. But as I followed Magdalena down to the kitchens, I did smell food. Specifically, chocolate.
My mouth was watering to an embarrassing degree.
Chocolate and cake and ginger and lemon and…
It was the scent of sweets in the kitchens at the Pickerings during the holidays, flavors I had snuck into my mouth by the teaspoon and always wanted more of. And now they were lining the heavy wood table at the heart of the room, like a buffet of delights meant solely for me.
The kitchen lamps were dim, and the room was homely and cluttered. I hadn’t seen any staff but Magdalena’s golems, and I wondered if they worke
d in here too. As Magdalena and I stood in the doorway at the top of the steps, there was only one person at work. A man stood at the counter with his back to us. I’d been dressed up in an impossible gown for the evening, while he stood there in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and gray trousers covered with a brown apron. It seemed supremely unfair.
“Auguste.”
He spun at Magdalena’s greeting and some of the nervous excitement making my palms sweat and my heart pound receded. He had flour streaked all over the apron and across his pale cheek. And oh but he was handsome. Not like Amon’s exquisite beauty, but in a way that would have stopped me on the street to giggle and grin as he passed. He had dark hair swooped back from his face and skin as pale as the finest lady’s, but his features were strong and wide and there was black stubble across his jaw.
His eyes, an ice blue, almost white but for the edges, landed on me at once. There was no stopping the feminine pride I felt as his face went slack, staring at me.
I liked Dr. Underwood’s taste in dresses too. The deep red-pink of the color brought a blush out on my cheeks, and the cut of the neckline was scandalously low. It would be ridiculous to be walking into a humble kitchen, if not for the fact that there was no one else here and Auguste Thibodeaux looked…hungry to see me.
“I’ll leave you two to your introductions,” Magdalena said, and I could hear her grin, but I was too happy to stare back at the man across from me.
He blinked, glanced for half a breath at her, and said, “Thanks, Mags.”
My eyebrows lifted at that. Mags? I’d have been a little jealous if he hadn’t had such a difficult time tearing his eyes off me.
“I—" He stopped again, blinking and shaking his head. “I am…coated in flour.” He grinned, and all the sharp angles of his face were tucked away with two perfect dimples as he reached down for his too-dirty-to-be-useful apron and tried to wipe his hands.
I stepped down the small set of stairs, feeling the cool fabric of the dress lick against my skin as I moved. “You made all this?” I asked, having to swallow to keep from drooling all over myself as I glanced down at tray upon tray of fruit and pastry and dark chocolate.
“I was a patissier,” he said, taking uneven steps around the long table to reach me. The accent was hidden there, although I could hear it in that little twist of the fancy word. “Pastry chef,” he said, for my benefit.
There was no blush on his cheeks, maybe vampires didn’t blush—wouldn’t that be unfair when I couldn’t help myself—but there was a distinctly sheepish twist to his lips that left me relaxing just a bit more.
“And it’s for me?” I asked, feeling my own cheeks swell.
He looked down the length at the table, glancing back at me briefly, just long enough for his eyes to skim right down my collar between my breasts. “I wanted to feed you,” he said.
I snorted and then covered my mouth, but Auguste didn’t look disgusted by the undignified sound. He grinned, flashing those dimples again, and his eyes traced over me. “I overprepared,” he said.
“And after? I feed you?” I asked.
I didn’t expect the response. He had seemed so calm and bashful and entirely human. But with that suggestion, his face sharpened again and almost all the blue of his eyes dilated to black and he took three, long strides until I was pressed to the table and our chests were touching. I held my breath, waiting for the bite or the kiss or whatever happened next when you teased a vampire. And his head did lower. The tip of his nose traced over my shoulder, and then he pulled back, stepping away and releasing me.
“We can decide that later,” he said, tone a little hoarse.
I released my breath, a shaky sound, and discovered that rather than relieved, I was faintly disappointed.
“Sit with me,” he said, pulling a bench out from under the table loaded with sweets.
I ran my eyes over the food again, glancing at Auguste and wondering if it would be worth it to tease him more, fray a little of that control. Instead, my eyes snagged, not on pastry or handsome vampire, but a round, waxy-looking fruit.
“What’s this?” I asked, picking one up out of the bowl it sat in. “It matches my dress.”
“Pomegranate,” Auguste said, lifting it out of my hands. His fingers were cool to the touch, and I sat down next to him on the bench, our legs pointed in opposite directions so we could face each other. I watched as his fingers dug into the flesh of the fruit, brilliant rich juice seeping out as he tore it open, revealing caverns full of deep reddish-purple seeds.
He plucked one seed up and lifted it to my mouth. I ducked down, plucking it out of his fingers with my lips and letting my teeth graze his fingertips. I hummed as the seed broke against my tongue, filling my mouth with a juice so bright and sweet and tart, it seemed a shame for it to come in such a small dose. When I looked up, his eyes were going black again, his lips pursed tightly together as if he was hiding those fangs I wanted to see so badly.
“In Greece, they call it the fruit of the dead. They say that it grew from drops of Apollo’s blood.”
“Was he a vampire too?” I asked.
Some of the hungry haze cleared from Auguste’s face as he laughed. “No. A god. Do you know any of those old stories?”
“To be honest,” I said, leaning onto the table. “I barely know the Christian ones, and my aunt took me to church every Sunday growing up. I was too busy making up naughty stories in my head to pay attention. But if you want to tell me one now, I promise to behave myself.”
“Hmm,” Auguste said, eyes narrowing. He lifted more seeds up to my lips, and I took them greedily, enjoying the briefly stupefied reaction on his face as I licked his skin with a flick of my tongue. He had a dry kind of flavor, none of the salt of skin you usually tasted on someone, and I thought of a dozen little things I wanted to discover next about him. “I’m not sure I believe you,” he said, smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“Promise,” I said again, scooting closer so that my hips rested against his. There was no body heat.
“Here,” Auguste said, picking up a small plate of round chocolates. “Try these with the fruit, and I will tell you about Persephone and Hades.”
I took one of the chocolates from the plate, and my breath hitched in my chest as I slipped it between my lips. I moaned, fingers covering my mouth as my eyes widened. It was bitter in contrast to the pomegranate seeds, but it melted like silk on my tongue and grew sweeter with every passing second. Auguste smiled and fed me a few more seeds before setting the plate down.
“Persephone was the goddess of spring, daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and she was…young and beautiful,” he said, his eyes tracing over me in such a tangible way, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to shy away or spread myself bare for his perusal. “Full of life and energy. She had her admirers. One of whom was Hades, the God of the Underworld. She would go to the river beds and Hades would look up from the Underworld, up through the river, and long for her,” Auguste said. He fed me another pinch of pomegranate seeds, and this time, he let his fingertips trace over my bottom lip, cold juice spreading and staining my skin with the touch.
“One day, he stole her from the riverbed and took her down to the Underworld with him to keep her as his bride. Demeter was heartbroken, and she went directly to Zeus, who was the…the leader of the gods, I suppose you’d say. At first, he refused to intervene, but Demeter, in her sorrow, let crops wither and die, the sun retreating and the world going cold.”
There was a scratch to his voice that I liked almost as much as the story, and when he reached up to feed me another bite of pomegranate seeds, I was too busy listening to tease him.
“So Zeus demanded that Hades, his brother, release Persephone. Now, no one can eat or drink in the Underworld and leave again. Persephone knew this, so she never took any of the food Hades offered her. It wasn’t until she was able to leave that Hades offered her a pomegranate. She ate three seeds and sealed her fate. Now she has to s
pend half the year in the Underworld and half the year with her mother.” Auguste wiped his hand, dripping the red juice of the pomegranate, on the apron. “He tricked her.”
I scoffed. “No, he didn’t.”
Auguste looked up at me, eyes widening. “She thought she was free to leave,” he explained. I scoffed, and Auguste blinked and shrugged, “It’s…it’s just a story.”
“No, it’s—I don’t think he tricked her. I think he gave her a choice,” I said.
His eyebrows raised at that. “How do you mean?”
“The story is missing a part in the middle. The part where Persephone was looking back at Hades through that riverbed,” I said, and Auguste’s eyebrows went up a little farther. I leaned into his space. “I think she ate those seeds knowing exactly what it would mean. He asked her to stay with those seeds, and once she knew that it was up to her, she chose him too.”
His surprise softened into a delighted smile.
“May I have another chocolate?” I asked.
Chapter Five
Fine Dining
Every flavor still lingered on my tongue, the familiar cinnamon and vanilla, the dense blanket of chocolate, and the new tastes of spice and heat and salt. Auguste had talked about the food a little, an introduction to each bite, but I’d been distracted by his full mouth and the way his arm crossed over my lap to pin me close as he fed me every piece. It’d taken far longer than an average meal, and I’d savored every second.
“Auguste?”
“Hmm?” He was scanning the table, looking for the next treat. I hoped someone had instructions to take everything that was left over to the dining hall for the other girls.
“Are you going to fuck me in the kitchen or are we going up to my bedroom?” I asked, folding my lips together to keep from laughing.
Auguste stiffened against me, eyes growing wide and black again. He turned his head slowly in my direction, and when those eyes landed on my face, it felt as if I were being drawn into the stare. He blinked, and the slow feel of falling broke.