Ours Is Just a Little Sorrow (9 page)

"Not that little number again. Gideon, you have the fashion sense of a …well, of a man." She grabbed my wrist. "Come with me, Miss Prim."

Despite my protest, and Gideon's, she dragged me to the stairs, up a flight, and into a small room. Material of every color hung from any available piece
of furniture or knob. A huge vanity alit with bulbs of aether was covered in pots of color and brushes of varied size.

She rummaged through a rack of clothes until she found what she was looking for and then sent me behind the privacy screen.

I looked at the garment she'd thrust in my hand and began a very emotional protest. "I simply cannot wear this."

"You must. That color of red will be amazing with your skin tone."

"It's a corset. It should go under a dress, not become my dress."

"Violet, do you want to stand out? Because if I were you, and I were visiting a place where I hoped no one recognizes me, I would want to blend in. If you
want to blend in, you must not look like a lady sneaking into ribaldery. Own thyself, love. "

She had a point. And the color was perfection. I'd never seen anything that shimmered quite as much.

After I came out, she gave me an approving huff and sat me in the chair at her vanity. Before I could manage a word, she'd undone my hair. It held the
waves from drying in coils, so she pulled it to one side and adorned the other with a comb decorated with peacock feathers.

"Close your eyes," she demanded.

"Why?"

"So I don't blind you." She began dusting my eyelids.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I have poured blood, sweat, and tears into building the reputation of this ribaldery up. I won't have people thinking we no longer enforce a fabulous
code."

"A fabulous code?"

More dusting, this time on my cheeks. "Yes, only fabulous people with wicked sensibilities are allowed. You have the spirit, but not the wardrobe."

"I have the spirit?"

"Gideon wouldn't bring a useless moppet with him. He's as much to lose from his reputation here as you do in your world if you were found out." She did
something to my lips with a special quill. "Now, are you going to tell me why you came without him tonight? And why he looks at you with such concern?"

I was still absorbing the idea that she thought I had a fabulous, wicked spirit, so it took me a moment to formulate an answer. "I needed a distraction. To
not think."

"Why?" She surveyed my face and picked up another pot of color.

"A friend…a friend of mine is missing. They believe her to be murdered."

She raised a brow. "The maid from Havendish? You're not a lady then." She took in the new information with the kind of concentration John used for numbers.
"Interesting."

"She wasn't a maid. She was a companion. And her name was Shelby." It was important that they get it right. "Why did you think I was a lady?"

Minerva shrugged. "You're so cool and collected, even when he's trying to ruffle you. I figured maybe you were married to some old lout and Gid was
tempting you to the dark side or something."

"I wouldn't have been the first married lover he's seduced, would I?"

"Well, he doesn't tumble with unmarried girls, if that's what you're asking. He's not a despoiler of the virtuous, as a rule." She paused, realizing I
wasn't married. "He hasn't…"

"No!" I answered, perhaps a little too emphatically. "We haven't…that is to say…we aren't…he doesn't like me that way."

"Right."

"Like you said, I'm an unmarried girl. Not his preference at all."

"I'm certain that isn't true," she said as she spun my chair around to face the mirror.

My breath hitched. "You're a magician."

While I was not used to color on my face, it didn't look harsh. The kohl around my eyes sought to define them, but not obstruct them. My hair looked as if
she'd spent hours on it, not seconds. And the corset…

I'd never thought much of my chest. It was there, it did its job with the pushing and pulling of air into my lungs. My breasts would never nourish a child,
so I really never thought much about them, other than the fact that they ran on the smaller side.

The corset pushed my breasts up, of course, making them suddenly much more ample than they used to be. The color of the fabric did indeed look nice with my
coloring. I thought of the woman dancing on stage and a strange, alien sensation stole over me.

I wanted Gideon to see me like this.

"You're not going to fight me on this, are you, Violet?"

I didn't even want to blink, lest I shutter myself from my reflection. "No, Min." I swallowed. "Thank you."

I'd surprised her. She watched me watching myself for a moment. "You need gloves."

She went in search of a specific pair that had somehow gone into hiding in a drawer. Once found, she unrolled the black lace onto my hands, pulling them
all the way to just inside my elbow. "You're going to out-fabulous everyone else out there." She paused. "I'm sorry about your friend, Violet. Shelby was
lucky to have you to remember her." There was more to say, but she shrugged away the serious tone. "Gideon will probably faint when he sees you. I hope you
carry smelling salts because I sure as hell don't have any around here."

Chapter 7

G
IDEON WAS standing at the bar when I descended the stairs. He brought his drink toward his lips, but stopped midway and stared. I hoped he was staring
because I looked pretty and not because I was an oddity one might find at the Cirque de Freaque that came around once a year.

I'd never felt pretty before. It was certainly not something I strived for. Pretty was for other girls, girls less concerned with survival. I had always
desired to be practical. Practical and well fed.

The man Gideon had been speaking to wondered where his attention had gone and followed Gideon's gaze, his eyes widening with appreciation as Gideon's
narrowed with…something else. I resisted the urge to tug the corset up. Minerva warned me that she'd slap my hand if she saw me do it.

It was suddenly very hard to breathe.

A different man, dressed in six or seven shades of green approached as I got to the bottom. He bowed, making a great show of it, and picked up my
lace-covered hand, kissing the back of it. "If I may be so bold as to ask for a dance?"

"Not unless you want to die in the most painful, merciless way I can come up with. And believe me, at this moment, my imagination is fairly robust." Gideon
took my other hand, leading me away. "Come, sprite, I've given the band all my liquor money for the week if they promise to play only waltzes for the rest
of the evening."

The other gentleman grimaced but put up no argument. I had a feeling no one liked to tangle with Gideon, though I didn't find him all that imposing myself.
He led me through the crowd, his hand firmly squeezing mine as if I might bolt.

Once we reached the dance floor, he locked me in a tight embrace and we took flight, the colors and sounds whirring past me as Gideon deftly twirled me
through the other dancers. I wasn't as self-conscious this time, as my outfit made me fit in much better, just as Minerva had said it would.

Gideon hadn't said anything to me yet, so I tried to break the ice and loosen the mask of irritation he wore. "I want to apologize again, for the
whyrlygig. I don't know what came over me to think I should just take it. I wasn't feeling quite myself, I suppose."

His face softened and he pulled me closer. "If you must know, I was never really angry. Mostly just intrigued. You continue to surprise me. I expected that
I'd have to devise a fiendish scheme to get you back here, and you trot off and come on your own."

"I shouldn't have."

"It wasn't safe. I'd prefer that you allow me to escort you on your nightly rambles." He shushed me as I tried to argue. "I'm not trying to inhibit you. I
can stay out of the way, if you like. I just don't want you to be hurt. Until they find whomever…I'm sorry. I don't want to ruin your outing with
that kind of talk."

A coldness leeched into my bones. "You're right. It was foolish of me to go alone. Until they catch the killer, I'll only go out if you accompany me."

It didn't escape either of us that I hadn't suggested that I not go out.

"Thank you for the books, though I'm not sure why you chose the ones you did."

"Really?" he asked, spinning me in an impromptu break of the waltz pattern. It was so like him to spin me out of control during something I knew by heart,
and yet, it was fun to give up what I expected and see where he would take me.

"Well, if you must know, I prefer scandalous novels to history."

"I'll keep that in mind. Most women would prefer flowers and fripperies, but I knew better. I'd get nowhere appealing to your vanity, so I aimed for your
intelligence. Books for
my
Violet. Give the reading a try, though, sprite. I think you'll like it. They're from my personal collection."

They were books he'd read. That he'd shared them with me felt more personal than if he'd given me a lacey undergarment. I'd go over them more carefully
now, searching for clues about what made Gideon's clock tick. How many people even suspected that he read, much less what he read about?

"It's like I can see the cogs and wheels of your brain spinning. What has you so rapt all of the sudden, Vi?"

"I'm wondering if those books are an answer to a riddle."

"What kind of riddle?"

"One that explains you, sir."

Another spin. "I'm not really that complicated."

"Oh, but you are."

"I think you are the more interesting of the two of us. For instance, you pretend that you believe what society tells me about you, and yet nothing could
be further from the truth."

"What exactly does society tell you about me, Gideon?"

He waltzed me out a side door into a dank, musty corridor. We stopped moving when he pushed my back to the wall and left not an inch between our bodies.
"Society tells me that you are meek and malleable. That your sex needs to be quiet and biddable and that your station in life must keep you invisible. That
I am somehow a better person than you because I can open jars and was born rich."

He pressed against me harder and my senses heightened unbearably. His body so firm against my wielding softness. Every place we touched set off sparks,
kindling a dangerous fire. His gaze traveled to my displayed cleavage and back to my lips, where it lingered, before meeting my own again.

"But we both know none of that is true. You're worth one hundred of me on my best day." He ground the words out in a voice so deep, I felt the baritone of
it in my fluttering stomach. "You pretend to go along with a society that tells me you're somehow less because you were born female, but deep down, you
know it's not true. Why is it that you think it's better to go along with them when they seek to control and subdue you?"

I couldn't think of anything but the way he could control and subdue me using his voice and the press of his body. He stared at my lips again, groaned when
I couldn't stop myself from licking them. I arched my back to get more contact. "What are you doing to me, Gideon? I can't think. I don't even want to."

His hands moved up my sides, cupping my bosom, squeezing gently. "You're the sweetest temptation. Every day I have to talk myself out of taking you, making
you mine. I try to rationalize that if I just get it done, I'll be able to move on, get over this constant longing. Is that what you want? Do you want me
to take you? Here? Now? Against this wall?"

Yes. Yes, of course that's what I wanted. Everything in me screamed for him to find his pleasure in me. But I'd crossed too many lines already. I had very
little of worth in this world, I needed to protect my virtue.

He noticed when the sanity returned to my eyes. I read the disappointment in his, but something else, something that caused him to say, "Good girl," when
he banked the fire of lust in his eyes.

He was proud of me.

The next day, I struggled to stay awake during Phillip's history lesson. Gideon had the luxury of sleeping the day away after a night of rabble rousing,
but this governess did not. John took pity on me after a rather unladylike yawn and whisked Phillip to the lab for an impromptu science lesson.