City of Ash (31 page)

That pricking jealousy again. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her.”

He took a swig from the bottle and laughed. “If I had, would it trouble you?”

“Why should it?”

“I don’t know. You sound as if it does.”

We were at my hotel. It was time to say good night. His face was breathtakingly chiseled in the lamplight and the darkness, and I couldn’t keep from staring.
Say good night. Tell him you’ll see him tomorrow. Go inside
. But the whiskey had worked its magic; it had muted that energy I’d felt earlier, the excitement that a good night of acting left behind, and in its place put a loose, dreamlike sense that everything was safe, everything was good, everything was as it was meant to be.

Which was enough of a reason to send him on his way, and I knew it, because
this is dangerous, Bea. You’re playing with fire
. Still, I heard myself say, “Will you come up for a bit? I have—I can give you an apricot.”

“An apricot?” He seemed amused.

“It’s candied. And French.”

“Ah then. How could I refuse?”

“You can’t.”

“Then lead on,” he said.

I was relieved; I felt this little joy, and I tried not to think of what I wanted from him, why the hell I’d asked him to come up, or how late it was, or the fact that I was a little drunk, or anything else. I was just glad he was here, and I was afraid to ask myself why that was, so I didn’t. He followed me inside and up the flights of stairs. While I fumbled for the key, he motioned to the patterns made by the moonlight on the floor.

“Beautiful.”

I glanced at them. Funny how I’d never noticed them before, but he was right.

I opened the door and gestured for him to go inside. The room was dark, and hot, but I’d left the window open, not that it helped. I took off the cloak and closed the door behind us and lit the oil lamp, and then I took another sip of whiskey and handed him the bottle. There was something about him that took up space, that just lodged there in my chest, and in an effort to escape it, I went to the bed and sat down, bending to unlace my boots. “So, what were you working on tonight? More revisions for
Penelope
?”

He shook his head and leaned against the bureau. “I was tired of ghosts tonight.”

“Real or imagined?”

He took a sip of whiskey. “Both. I was working on something new.”

“The play Nathan commissioned?”

He nodded.

I eased off one boot and let it fall to the floor, wiggling my toes in relief. “Well, with any luck I’ll actually get to play it. Unless his wife decides she wants that part too.”

“She won’t want it.”

I sent the other boot to join its partner. “Why not?”

“Because the main character will be worse than Penelope. I mean for her to be an out-and-out villain.”

I stared at him in surprise. “A villain? But I thought you were supposed to write it for me.”

“I am.”

I made a face. “I thought you
liked
me.”

“I do like you. Most of the time. But you seem well suited to villainy.”

I laughed. It was the whiskey. “So you keep saying. Well, villains are more interesting, aren’t they?”

He took another swig from the bottle. “Sometimes.”

I was sweating. Without thinking, I pulled up my skirt and undid my garter, rolling my stocking down my leg and then letting it fall to the floor, and I’ll admit that once I realized what I was doing, I did it a little to bait him too. A little punishment for what he’d said about my villainy. I felt him watching me. “If I’m such a villain, aren’t you afraid to be alone with me?”

“Should I be?”

“I don’t know. You can never tell with villains. Perhaps I might stab you through the heart.”

“Already done.”

I dropped the other stocking to the floor and glanced up at him. His hand was clenched hard around the bottle; I felt his desire clear into my toes, and I liked it, and that and the whiskey made me want more of it, made me want to torment him just a little. I could stop it whenever I wanted, after all. I got up, a bit unbalanced, and went barefoot to where he stood, taking the bottle from him, drinking—I was feeling the whiskey very well now. I gave it back. “Mr. DeWitt—”

“Call me Sebastian.”

I laughed. “Sebastian DeWitt. That cannot possibly be your real name.”

“Why not?”

“Too improbable. Sebastian—he was a saint of some kind, wasn’t he?”

He looked surprised. “You’re Catholic?”

“Oh no. We did a play once. ‘Slay me not with words but with your arrows—’ ”

“ ‘And to my true heaven my soul will fly.’ I know it.”

“And then, of course, there’s the DeWitt. What a name for a writer. Are you witty, Mr. DeWitt?”

“I like to think so.”

“So you see: improbable.”

“Perhaps. But my mother tells me it’s mine.”

“Did she mean for you to be a writer, then?”

He laughed shortly. “I think she would have preferred a safer occupation. A grocer, perhaps.”

“Then she should have been more careful about the name she chose for you.”

He said nothing, and we lapsed into silence, and I was suddenly nervous. I felt his desire as if he’d cloaked me in it. Uncomfortably, I said to break the silence, “I promised you an apricot, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

I nudged him aside, clumsy now from the drink, grabbing one of the candy boxes from the bureau, taking off the lid. “There’re figs and cherries too, but the apricots are the best.” I picked one up and held it out to him.

But he didn’t take it as I expected. Instead he wrapped his hand about my wrist to keep me there, and then he leaned down and ate the apricot from my fingers, one bite, and then another, the whole thing, and I was startled to stillness. His gaze caught mine; I could not look away as he slowly and quite deliberately licked the syrup from my fingers. His mouth was warm and wet, and I felt as if something had dropped right through me. Damn, I was much drunker than I’d thought.

He released me and straightened, and I saw the movement of his tongue as he chewed. “Delicious.”

I could hardly find my voice. “I’m not going to fuck you, Mr. DeWitt.”

I meant to offend him, to back him off, but he seemed completely unmoved. He swallowed the apricot and took a sip of whiskey. Then he handed the bottle to me, saying mildly, “Is that so? Why is that, Mrs. Wilkes?”

“L—look at you. Have you even a penny to your name?”

“One hundred dollars. Thanks to our Mr. Langley.”

“One hundred? He paid you that much?”

“Fifty for the play he commissioned for you. The other fifty for
Penelope Justis.
”

“It must be more than you’ve made in years.”

“It’s been a good month.”

I gulped the whiskey. It went down hard. “Well, you can’t expect to do better, can you?”

He took the bottle. “I’m like everyone else, Mrs. Wilkes. I hope to make a living.”

“You don’t look as if you’ve done very well. That coat—”

“You don’t like it? It was the latest style once.”

“You know what I mean. I can’t … I mean, I won’t … I mean.…” I was flustered; it was hard to think. He had not taken his gaze from me even a moment. I curled the fingers he’d licked into my palm. “I don’t want to be poor,” I burst out.

He set the bottle on the bureau and stepped closer. “I don’t recall asking you to be poor with me.”

“No, but …”

His hand came to my waist. I was very drunk; that was the only reason that came to me as to why I didn’t step away, why I didn’t dodge his kiss. I didn’t mean to kiss him back. But the way he grazed his lips against mine, and then the way he kissed me, slow and easy, as if he had all the time in the world to do it … well, it seemed strange and rather fine and so different from the way I’d been kissed before, and I was dizzy from the whiskey too, and that must have been why I didn’t notice how he got me to the bed. I didn’t notice until I was there, and he was still kissing me and bringing me down upon it, and I felt his hand drawing up my skirt, the smooth heat of his hand against my skin, running up my bare leg—because it
was
bare, and I was the one who had bared it, and
you are a stupid fool, Beatrice Wilkes
. God, yes, I was. I meant to say no. What was I doing here with him? And then, when he drew away, I was going to say it. I truly was.

Except that what he did then startled me into silence. Except that before I knew what he was about, he was undoing the tie of my drawers and sliding them down, and I raised up to help him, though I hardly meant to. Then he knelt between my legs, and I had this moment where I knew he was going to fuck me and I wasn’t going to stop it, but that wasn’t what he did. He lowered his head, and lifted my knees over his shoulders and it was … he was … I felt the soft brush of his hair against my inner thigh, and then his tongue.… I heard a sound, a rush of breath, a moan, and I didn’t realize it was me, not until I was
lifting my hips to bring his mouth closer and I tangled my hands in his hair to keep him there. I was sweating and jerking and making these little sounds I could not keep myself from making, and there was something building in me until I thought I would go mad with it.

In the end I let him fuck me after all. I even begged him to.

I
t was the sound of a wagon overturning that woke me. I heard the clatter of the wheels, the driver’s curse, the thudding, splintering crash, and an avalanche of bouncing thuds scattering over the road. I rolled over, thinking to scoot out of bed and go to the window to see when I realized two things: first, my head was pounding in a sick way, and second, Sebastian DeWitt was in bed beside me.

How stupid could one person be?

The chaos from the street below was loud, a horse’s whinny, the driver still cursing better than I’d heard in some time, but DeWitt slept on. I wondered if I could creep out without waking him, and then wondered where the hell I would go, and it was my room besides, and I knew I was a coward and hated myself for it, but I did not want to see his face this morning and know what I’d done with him last night—nearly all through the night, I amended with a silent groan. I mean, he’d been half in love with me before we’d started, and I did not want to hurt him and knew that now there was no way I wouldn’t. Because I had not struggled for thirteen years only to hitch my wagon to a spavined horse, and how the hell could I say to him that talent wasn’t enough? That I liked being his muse and I wanted him to admire me and write plays for me, but he couldn’t expect me to give up anything I’d gained, which meant Nathan Langley. What had happened last night was exactly what I’d meant to guard against.

I glanced at his back again, and then away, quickly, because even just that—his back, for God’s sake—brought a quick stab of desire. And I found myself wondering if it was so bad to want just a little more before I let him go. Maybe just one more time …

Stupid, Bea
. I pushed back the sheet very carefully and made to get out of bed without rousing him. There was a restaurant
around the corner. I would go there and wait until he was gone. I wasn’t going to the theater this morning, now that Lucius had taken me off
Penelope
, and so it would be hours before DeWitt would know where to find me. By then I would have thought of what to say to him. By then I would have a hold on whatever it was that made me want him.

I snaked a leg out, sliding to the edge—

“Not so fast.” He pulled me back onto his chest. His hand tangled in my hair, holding me in place as he kissed me. All my good intentions got tangled up in that kiss, and suddenly I was straddling him, and his hands were hard on my hips, and we were both panting and straining and every sore muscle I had was screaming, but my desire was as strong as his, and I couldn’t banish it. When we finally collapsed, and he kissed me lingeringly and well, I wouldn’t have said no to doing it again. Which was so strange I couldn’t fathom it. I’d never wanted to do it again. I’d hardly ever wanted to do it the first time.

Sebastian DeWitt was like those damned apricots. I never ate one that I didn’t want another. Which was why, when he tried to bring me down so he could kiss me again, I skirted away from him and said, “It must be late. You’d better go. You’ve got rehearsal. Lucius will demand a forfeit if you’re not on time.”

He gave me a lazy look. “I’m not under contract to him. He can’t fine me.”

“They’ll be waiting for you.”

“I imagine they can get along without me for a day.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to make Lucius angry.”

He traced from my shoulder to my elbow. “I don’t give a damn about that.”

“Sebastian, please,” I said desperately, pushing at him. He was solid as stone. “Lucius took me off the play. If you’re not there, what do you suppose they’ll think?”

“That I’m protesting. I am.”

“No. They’ve seen the way you look at me. It’s too much coincidence that we’re gone at the same time. They’ll think you’re with me.”

A pause. “Ah. Langley.”

I swallowed and nodded, preparing myself for his anger, for
all that stupid male possessiveness. “I don’t want him to know. It could ruin everything.”

But all he did was sigh and sit up, pushing the threadbare sheets aside. “Very well.”

Very well?
“You don’t … you don’t mind?”

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Would it matter if I did?”

“No.”

“Then what else am I to do?”

I was disconcerted. How well he was taking this. “I expected you to be … jealous.”

He rose, going to where his trousers lay abandoned on the floor, picking up the underwear tossed beside them. “Langley’s not only your patron, he’s mine. Unless I care to give him up, which I don’t, or you, which I won’t, I imagine we’re better off keeping this secret.”

It was just what I wanted, wasn’t it? Yes, of course it was, but you know, this little disappointment lodged in me and wouldn’t quite get loose, which was the most stupid thing about this whole business.

I watched him pull on his underwear, and then his trousers. “You know … we shouldn’t … this can’t happen again. If Nathan were to find out—”