Inamorata (15 page)

I felt as if his gaze held the answer to a mystery I’d only just glimpsed, one that, before that instant, I’d hardly known was there. It was the most unsettling feeling I’d ever had.

Giles said, “You aren’t writing, Nick,” and Hannigan blinked; the moment was gone so suddenly I wondered if I’d truly seen it. He picked up his sketchbook and began to draw, and the spell was broken.

“I haven’t got any paper,” I said. “Nor a pencil.”

“You won’t win your kiss then,” Giles said.

“Take this.” Duveneck tore a sheet from his book, and handed it across to me, along with a charcoal pencil. I took them, and the moment I did, a thought came to me, vague and unformed, that made me forget what I’d just seen in Hannigan’s eyes. It was an idea more than words, an image of the light that was Sophie Hannigan twisting in the mist—and then it was gone. Still, it surprised me. I told myself I’d imagined it. My words had been stolen from me long ago, wrested by a gray-eyed demon who had swallowed me whole and spit me out again, and I had no hope of finding them again.

I did end up scribbling something, but only because the more I watched her in the sun and the water, the more I wanted that kiss, even knowing I shouldn’t. Ah, but it was only a kiss. What could it hurt?

Miss Hannigan’s face was flushed when she finally returned, cheekbones pinked. Her eyes were sparkling. “I hope that was long enough,” she said, sinking down between her brother and me, careless of the sand clinging to her wet skirt.

“Dear God, that was enchanting,” said Giles, too fervent as always.

Frank Duveneck said with a smile, “You were inspiring, Miss Hannigan.”

“Well, I hope to be,” she said. “Now you must all let me judge.”

Giles handed her his sketchbook. It was, in his usual way, mediocre. He had not quite got her limbs right, though Venice behind her was beautifully rendered—his style finding the fanciful in it, of course. “Very pretty,” said Hannigan, looking over her shoulder. “Have you tried allegory, Martin?”

“He does allegory well,” I offered. “I’ve told him so a dozen times.”

Duveneck was next. I had little liking for his style; it was too German, too much an impression, but Hannigan looked it over with obvious admiration. “Look how he’s captured the motion, Soph,” he said, and I saw Duveneck’s pride in the compliment.

She handed the sketchbook back to Duveneck and took her brother’s. That he had done her better than the others was no surprise. He’d drawn her not in the gown she wore but in a shift, the sleeves of which had slipped to reveal her rounded shoulders, and petticoats that she’d bunched in her hands, so festoons of ruffles and lace fell over her fingers. The light played all over her, a masterpiece of chiaroscuro—how he’d managed it with only charcoal at his command I did not know, but she looked not quite real, like the naiad I’d imagined her to be, and he’d seen the ghosts too—their fingers reached from the mist about her feet, clinging to her as if they loved her. It was her story brought to shimmering, breathless life.

“Christ, that’s lovely.” Giles’s voice was hushed.

“It is indeed,” said Duveneck.

“Oh! You all did wonderfully, but I’m afraid Joseph has won.” Sophie Hannigan looked at her brother as if she saw no one else. She lurched into his arms so hard he fell back onto the sand, laughing as he grasped her, and she kissed him lingeringly and too long for a brother and sister.

The thought I’d only half-formed sprang fully realized, unwelcome and disturbing—that the twinned charisma I’d seen in them might be something else altogether. Something not so magical but . . . unwholesome. The display was strange and titillating at the same time. The others, too, were staring. She was laughing when she drew away and looked at us—I think she saw nothing the least bit wrong.

Hannigan sat up and reached for his sketchbook, seemingly as oblivious as she. Duveneck glanced away as if he were embarrassed; Giles fumbled to retrieve his pencil, which had fallen into the sand. Sophie Hannigan turned to me. “What about you, Mr. Dane? Do you have a poem to show me? Do you wish to collect your prize?”

She smiled; I saw a challenge in her eyes. I tried to forget what I’d seen. I handed her the piece of paper I’d scrawled upon. “I warn you, it’s not very good.”

Her smile grew. “You shouldn’t be so modest.” She glanced down at the words, mouthing them as she read.
There once was a girl on the Lido . . .
Her mouthing stopped halfway through, as the limerick turned. I saw the flush move into her cheeks, and then, at the end, she laughed—a short, sweet explosion of sound.

She was still laughing when she looked up. “Why, Mr. Dane, this is a very bad poem.”

I smiled back at her. “You didn’t say it had to be good. Only that there had to be one.”

Hannigan reached for it. “Let me see.”

She snatched it away from him, crumpling it in her fist. “It’s for my eyes only.”

“Why, is it indecent?” Giles asked.

“Horribly so.” She looked at me, chastising. “I don’t think you truly entered into the spirit of things.”

“They drew what they saw,” I told her. “I only did the same.”

“You’re very clever, Mr. Dane.”

“My mother always said so.”

“I’m not certain I should reward you.”

I met her gaze. In a low voice, I said, “A pity. And I’d so looked forward to it.”

She did not look away. “I suppose I did promise.”

“Yes, you did.”

She leaned forward. She pressed her lips to mine, a quick, hard brush of her mouth. I’d no sooner started to reach for her than she pulled away again. The kiss she’d favored me with lasted less than a quarter as long as the one she’d given her brother. Even so, it was disconcerting how completely that nothing kiss aroused.

Hannigan closed his sketchbook. “So where’s this Jewish cemetery? I’d like to see it.”

The rest of the day was spent exploring the moss-covered ancient tombs of the abandoned, brick-walled Jewish cemetery, half buried as they were in sand and tangled about with weeds, sparsely shaded with stunted trees. Four men with Sophie Hannigan darting among us like an elusive, sensual nymph. I was tense with longing, and exhausted with the effort of ignoring it.

It was almost a relief when the day was over. I wanted only to get back to my darkened room and drown my desire and confusion in a bottle of wine. But halfway there, while we were all staring silently at the enchantment of the setting sun—the point of the Dogana and the cupolas of the Salute and the majesty of Giorgio Maggiore only shadows against the vibrancy of aquamarine and lavender and violet skies above a horizon striated with gold and topaz and ruby, and all of it mirrored on the still waters of the lagoon—Duveneck said with a sigh, “It’s a pity the day has to end.”

“It doesn’t,” Giles said with alacrity. “Let’s all go to Nick’s and my rooms. We’ve plenty of wine.”

“Our rooms are scarcely big enough for us,” I protested.

“We’ll go to the roof. You can see the whole city from the garden.”

And so it was decided; once the omnibus landed us at the Piazzetta, we set off for our rooms, and wine. We went into the little courtyard, up the stairs, and when the others started to the roof, Sophie Hannigan held back, saying to me, “Shall I lend you a hand with the wine, Mr. Dane?”

Though I didn’t trust myself with her alone, it seemed churlish to refuse her. I said, “Yes, of course,” and she followed me inside and stood there, looking uncertainly about. I lit an oil lamp, which barely illuminated the litter of painting paraphernalia—Giles’s easel, still with the unfinished painting from the gardens, paintbrushes soaking in jars of turpentine, jugs of linseed oil and crumpled metal tubes of paint—and beyond all that the furniture, none of it ours, and my books scattered about and not much more.

“It’s . . . quite nice,” she said.

“No, it’s not. But it will do. It’s only Giles and me, so no need for luxury. Come, the kitchen’s back here.”

I took up the lamp and she followed me to the small kitchen, used more for keeping wine than for any actual cooking. There was a bowl of shrunken figs on the counter—I could not remember where they’d come from or how long they’d been there—and a few dirty glasses with rings of dried red wine at their bottoms. She came inside and touched the figs, smiling. “You’re just letting them go to waste.”

I heard myself say, as if in a spell, “You were beautiful today.”

She smiled. “Ah, but that’s not how you described me.”

“I said you were beautiful in a different way.”

“It was obscene,” she said, but she was still smiling. “I thought it interesting, though.”

“But not enough so to kiss me properly.”

“Oh, Mr. Dane, but that
was
a proper kiss. I think it’s an improper one that you want.” I felt something in me give way as her voice softened to nearly a whisper. “Am I right?”

She didn’t give me a chance to answer. Before I knew it, her mouth was on mine and every resolution I’d made fell to dust. She was right; an improper kiss was exactly what I’d wanted. I put my hand to the back of her neck. Her lips parted beneath mine so I could taste the sweetness of her, and she was as heady as I’d imagined, kissing me back with an experienced little flick of her tongue, pressing to me as if she knew exactly what she was doing. When she finally pulled away, I was breathless and out of control. I would have thrown her onto that table, but she put her hand against my chest, smiled at me and said, “They’re waiting for us.”

Which was true, I knew, though I was bewitched. I would have done anything she asked of me in that moment, and so I followed her as she took the wine, directing me like a child—
the glasses, Mr. Dane, the figs
—and the two of us went up to the rooftop garden, where the other three were laughing and talking, and she went to her brother and handed him a bottle of wine to open, and he put his arm around her shoulders—possessively, I thought in irritation, staking a claim—but only for a moment. He kissed the top of her head, and she moved away again, pouring wine and handing out glasses, giving me mine with a “Here you are, Mr. Dane,” as if we were still strangers, when that kiss had been as erotic as any I’d known. Then she favored me with a knowing, seductive smile. I could not take my eyes from her the rest of the night. I thought of her brother’s sketch of her on the bed, the way he’d drawn her in petticoats and chemise splashing about the waves, the way she’d been pressed against me and the play of her tongue with mine, and I was hopelessly lost in a single realization:
Dear God, I have felt this way before.

O
DILÉ

H
e was a peasant, unlearned and coarse. A child of the streets, with a voice good enough to win him a night’s lodging and a meal, if not fame and glory. I waited for him impatiently after meeting Nicholas in the Rialto, and when he arrived, I was troubled and distracted enough that I wasn’t careful. Though we spent only an hour together, I left the singer weak and groggy. I had drawn too much from him and yet it was not enough. I let him go, and he returned the next day, still weak, his desire mastering him. I should have shown him to the door, but at the sight of him, my appetite overwhelmed me. I felt a stab of pity for him, and fatigue too. I wished I did not need this so—I was tired of all of it. The sweating and the coupling, the endearments they all required, the pretense of affection or love or desire. It was all a lie, when what I wanted from them was not sex but their very essence. When all I wanted to do was to feed. And yet feeding required this contact, this tangle of limbs and the lock of mouths and caresses that meant nothing. There were times when I hated it, but to give it up, to admit I was exhausted of all of it, that there was no possibility of ever having what I wanted—that I could not yet do. While all those I had inspired had ultimately failed me, my hope remained that some day one would come who would give me what I longed for. One day, I would find him, and the name of Odilé León would be lauded forever.

But not yet, and for now, I was too out of control to look for him, and so I let the singer in and let him fall upon me. I took him to bed and worked my will upon him until I heard his heart pounding with effort, until his breath became ragged. His talent was too little to truly sate, and it was all I could do to hold back, to not take everything.

But I was too ravenous. The monster in me was too demanding. As I bucked and rocked upon the singer, I heard his gasping and was heedless. I drank and drank and leeched and drew, and the last bit of him roared within me, not enough, not enough, never enough, and then I heard him cry out—a scream, a gasp, and then a
snap
. . . and it was gone, so suddenly. Too suddenly.

The pain assailed me, my hunger grabbing, flailing, scrabbling in vain, because there was nothing there. Where he had been, there was nothing, and when I came to myself I saw him lifeless beneath me, staring up at the ceiling as I rocked upon him.

The horror of it stilled me. This was not what I wanted. Although I felt sorrow and regret, I felt terror most of all. The monster was gaining sway. It was growing too strong. I was falling into the trap Nicholas had laid for me. The writer’s suicide, the organist’s drowning—I knew he had pushed them to it. It was his fault I’d been brought to this. There were only a few weeks left, and I was beyond starving. I blamed Nicholas for all of it.

By the time I’d met Nicholas Dane, I’d known already the way a life could twist and turn with the most casual of choices. I knew it better than most, in fact. And like all casual choices, there was nothing in our meeting to tell me how significant he would be. Even if I had known it, I wonder what I could have done differently, or if I could have avoided it at all, if fate had set a certain scene it meant for me to play out. Or, as I’d once told him, not fate, but balance. The world craved symmetry.

It was early in the cycle when I’d met him. I had time to play, and so, though I was looking for the one, I was not looking very hard. I had been walking in the soft Paris night, on my way home from a cafe, when Nicholas stumbled into me. He’d been paying no attention, too busy writing as he walked.

I could have accepted his apology and gone on my way. The hunger was still containable. I should have walked away. But there was no sign, nothing to be wary of. How could I know?

I smiled and told him, “Perhaps you should not write and walk at the same time.”

He looked abashed. He was also very handsome. Pale skinned, light eyed. His hair, a little too long, curling, gleamed golden in the lamplight. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course you’re right. But I had a thought I wanted to write down.”

“A thought,” I teased. “Do you have them so seldom that you must take note of them?”

He stared at me blankly. Then, when he realized I was teasing, he laughed. He had a good mouth, well shaped, full. “Unfortunately yes, at least lately. I’ve been trying to capture the beauty of Paris, but my mind’s a sieve. I could probably hold rocks in it, but little else.”

A sense of humor too, which I always enjoyed. “You’ve been trying to capture the beauty of Paris with words? Ah, I sympathize. Are you a writer then?”

“A poet. Or at least, an aspiring one.”

A poet. Handsome. Young. Aspiring.

My whole body went tight. I took him out. I took him home. But as strong and vital as he was, I knew within weeks that he was not the one I was searching for. I stayed with him a bit too long even so. I enjoyed him; he was clever and handsome and he made me laugh. And so I played until I’d reduced him to everything I hated—pathetic weakness and gasping obsession.

My unwillingness to leave him turned out to be a bigger mistake than I could have imagined.

I never expected to see him again. But in a world where nothing ever surprised, he surprised me. And almost destroyed me. For me, those beautiful, sun-drenched courtyards of Barcelona were shadowed in a darkness I could not see through or past, and Nicholas Dane at the center of it, wearing an expression I had never forgotten. Terror and satisfaction together
.

After Barcelona, I’d been forced to go into hiding. For months I’d skulked in cellars and sewers, waiting for the vitality of those I’d drained to work its magic upon me, to bring me back. I had rarely tested my limits, but now and again I had misjudged and brought myself to this. But this time was the worst. It seemed to take an eternity to return to my human form. I slithered through dank and darkness and stink and waited, the part of me that was Odilé held in thrall to the demon I’d become. I was terrified that I would be a prisoner forever, a
monster
forever. Madeleine’s warnings wound an endless litany in my head.

It was a nightmare I had feared I would never wake from. And what was worse was the knowledge that no one could help me. No one could save me. I was alone in the world. It was a truth I had known but never fully realized, and now it was one I could not forget. Now, my singularity was a curse, wearying and desolate, an endless, unassailable loneliness.

Nicholas had taught me that. How could I ever forgive him?