The Heiresses (31 page)

“Not quite yet. But it’s freezing in here.” Thalia took a large, unladylike gulp of her champagne.

“No, it’s not. And you’re sweating.” Ro peered closer now. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

“No, no. I’m fine.” Thalia waved her concerns away. “Do stop fussing.”

Clio had turned in her seat now to see what all the chatter was about. It was as Thalia took another mouthful of champagne and her sleeve dropped back slightly, that she gasped. “Thalia! What happened to you?” Not asking permission, Clio reached over and took the glass from her hand, pushing back Thalia’s sleeve. “Did that woman attack you as well? The one who attacked Ro the other night?”

“It’s nothing.” Thalia snatched her arm away. “Just a little bruise! I’m terribly clumsy, you know. Always have been.”

But it wasn’t just a little bruise. It was quite a large one that ran up the length of her arm.

“Who did this to you?” Clio stared at her in horror.

Thalia sniffed, pulled her coat tighter around her, and then shivered again, in a seemingly involuntary movement. “Who do you think, darling? It’s just like I said—myself. So very clumsy. It’s a curse, really.” She moved her attention to the stage, where two women had begun singing a duet. “How tedious! As are all the clubs these days. What
is
this rubbish?” She shook her head, drawing her coat around her further still.

“Thalia, you’re not well,” Ro told her. “You should go home. Now that I think about it, you haven’t looked at all well lately. In fact, you’ve looked rather drawn for weeks now. And you’ve lost weight.”

“I said I’m perfectly fine,” Thalia snapped at her sister, then reached for her beaded emerald purse, fumbling around in it for a moment or two. Not being able to immediately find what she was looking for, she began to place items upon the table—lipstick, a handkerchief, a small tin. “Aha, here it is!” she said, finally locating her cigarette case. She flicked it open. “Ugh, empty.”

“What a dear little tin,” Clio said, inspecting the small box Thalia had placed upon the table, which was decorated with two sweet little lovebirds. “What’s inside?”

Thalia raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?” She slipped the tin over toward Clio, who hesitated for a moment at the unexpected invitation, before taking it and opening it.

Ro watched as Clio’s face visibly blanched. She quickly shut the tin and pushed it away from her. “What is it?” Ro asked. “Clio? What’s in there?”

But Clio only turned her back toward the pair to face the stage, where the two women continued to sing. Ro did not wait for her invitation, but reached over and grabbed the offending item. While Thalia continued to make short work of her champagne, she inspected the contents. She had to admit, she was almost as shocked as Clio had looked when she read the words on the small glass bottle within. Quickly, she shut the tin once more, hiding the glass bottle and syringe. “Thalia,” she hissed under her breath, “morphine is illegal.”

Thalia didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. “So’s alcohol in America, but everyone here seems to be behaving perfectly respectably. Don’t be such a bore, darling. After all, you enjoyed your little experience with cocaine at the castle very much, didn’t you? And it’s only on special occasions.”

“Yes, but every night seems to be a special occasion where you’re concerned. Now, put it away, before we’re all arrested.”

“Oh, all right.” Thalia slipped the tin back into her purse, on her lap. “I must run to the loo, though. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Perhaps you should leave your purse here.” Ro held her hand out to take it.

Thalia hesitated for just a second. “Unbelievable!” she said, slapping it into Ro’s palm before stalking off.

It was only when Thalia was out of sight that Ro thought about this exchange a little harder. Picking up the purse from the table once more, she twisted open the clasp.

The little tin was nowhere to be seen.

*   *   *

On the early-morning taxi ride back to Belgrave Square, both Ro and Clio had settled into their seats and been rather quiet for two girls who were eighteen today. It wasn’t until the motorcar swung into Grosvenor Crescent and they were almost home that Clio turned her head of black curls, resting upon the seat back, to look at Ro. “Do you think we should tell Hestia? About Thalia, I mean?”

Ro had, of course, been wondering the same thing at various points throughout the evening. “I don’t know,” she said, turning her own head. “Maybe not just yet.” She sighed. How like Thalia to make their birthday all about her. She hadn’t even stayed at the club that long—just enough to drink almost a full bottle of champagne and to dance with several gentlemen who asked. Ro herself had been asked twice, but Clio had been asked many times—something that Thalia seemed to take almost as a personal insult.

Watching her sisters on the dance floor, Ro had wondered what it was about herself that put men off. Was it what she talked about? It must be, at least partly, because she did always receive a lot of “What?” comments from men, whenever she deigned to open her mouth in the hope of talking about something that didn’t involve the weather. That was what she loved most about Vincent. That she could, simply,
talk
to him. As an equal. It was altogether thrilling. Also, she knew that whatever she said, he wouldn’t reply with something ridiculous, like “You do have a lot of opinions, don’t you?” or “What on earth are they teaching girls these days?” But there was something else, too. Ro knew it had to be something in her demeanor, because she had been approached so few times this evening compared to Thalia and Clio. Thalia, of course, even with her beauty, worked hard to attract men, but Clio had to do nothing at all. She was beautiful, with her huge dark eyes and glossy black curls, but Ro knew it wasn’t just that. Everyone saw something in her, and Ro couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. It was something about how Clio held herself and how she moved—gently, serenely and with no fuss or bother whatsoever. You could see she was kind and content and easy to love just by looking at her. Ro doubted Vincent had ever seen any of these qualities in herself at all. Grasping, rash, and determined, maybe. Kind, content, and easy to love, no.

“Here we are,” Clio said, as the taxi pulled to a halt outside the town house.

Ro paid the driver and stepped out to see Clio still in the middle of the pavement, not having yet started up the front stairs. “What is it?” she asked.

“I think there’s someone here to see you,” Clio told her.

Ro peered past her, expecting to see a welcoming Haggis McTavish bounding toward her.

But it wasn’t Haggis McTavish at all.

Instead, there, sitting on the front steps, looking rather disheveled, was Vincent.

*   *   *

“I must go inside,” Clio said as she hurried off to leave the pair in peace. “Good evening! Or, good morning, I should say…”

Ro barely registered a word her sister uttered. If Clio had been mesmerized by the lights of the Curlicue Club before, so Ro was now by Vincent’s very presence. As he rose from the steps, Ro took in what he was wearing. “White tie
and
tails. Goodness, where have you been?” She didn’t admit to it—she was still slightly cross that she had been overlooked for several weeks—but Vincent looked devastatingly handsome in his formal attire.

“To the opera,” he replied, with a yawn, walking over to join her. “I really should say it was marvelous, but it was awfully long and dull, as was the company. I found myself wishing you were there many times over.”

Ro couldn’t help but laugh, despite the fact she was dying to ask if Genevieve had been present. And dull. “That doesn’t sound all that amusing. How long have you been waiting?”

“Quite some time. But I was determined to sit it out. To give you this,” he said as he pulled a small box from inside his jacket and passed it to Ro. “Happy birthday.”

Ro tried very hard not to grin from ear to ear. “You remembered! How thoughtful!” She did not rush to unwrap the package immediately, happy to simply feel the warmth that emanated from it, having been kept close to Vincent’s chest for several hours.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Vincent smiled at Ro as she continued to stroke the present.

“Oh, yes,” Ro replied, dreamily. “Sorry.” She ripped open the brown paper wrapping and found a small, black velvet-trimmed box inside. She snapped it open to reveal the most darling little rhinestone owl brooch inside. He was an angular little thing, glittering cool and clear in the moonlight and with the most spectacular turquoise-colored rhinestone eyes.

“I thought of you when I spotted it. First, the spectacular eyes and then, well, they’re terribly wise, owls…”

Ro looked up from the little box now. “Oh, Vincent, I love it!” She smiled. “Really!”

“If you’ll permit me,” Vincent said as he took a step closer toward Ro and plucked the brooch from the box. Expertly, he undid the clasp and attached it to her lapel, his gaze only leaving hers for the shortest time.

When Vincent was done, Ro looked down, touching the brooch with one hand. “Thank you so much. It was sweet of you to remember. I didn’t think that…” She looked up again to see Vincent’s face near hers and her words trailed off as his mouth fell upon her lips. She kissed him greedily as if to make up for the time that had passed between meetings, not caring who saw them upon the street.

“I have missed you,” Vincent said as he finally pulled back for air.

Ro smiled up at him. “You needn’t have. I’ve been here the whole time.” As she drank him in, for some reason she remembered Thalia’s comment about Vincent being like ivy, and forcefully pushed the barbed words from her mind. Why did Thalia have to spoil everything? Anyway, it wasn’t only Thalia who could have a good time. Vincent was here, now, to see her. In this moment in time, he wanted
her
and that was all she needed to know. She didn’t want to quarrel about the past few weeks, but to make the most of the time they had together. “You must be tired. Why don’t you come inside?” Ro said after hesitating, sounding far braver than she actually felt. “Upstairs, I mean. To my room.”

*   *   *

Across town, Thalia opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly from what she found was, rather unexpectedly, the cool enamel surface of a bathtub. Inspecting the room more closely, she came to recognize it was neither the bathtub in her own bathroom nor was it Venetia’s. Where was she? She couldn’t remember. She tried to think backward, but her head felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton wool and after only a few seconds of questioning her current situation, she was forced to close her eyes once more. No, there seemed to be little hope of remembering how she had come to be wherever she was. In a bathtub, of all places. She might have nodded off for a while after all this effort, because the next thing she knew, she was hearing the door open across the room and a man was peering inside. “There you are,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you. So many promises, so little delivery. What about all the fun you said we were going to have? Hey!” He ducked his head outside, calling out down the hall. “She’s in here!”

Thalia frowned, confused, trying harder to concentrate this time. The man at the door was an American. She vaguely remembered some Americans from the club she had been at with Ro and Clio. They had spoken about some “petting party” they were off to, and had bundled her into a taxi with them, sharing some of the medicinal items on their persons with her, which was really most kind of them. The problem was, it had been a long afternoon and evening and Thalia started to realize during the taxi ride that she had, perhaps, indulged a little more than might have been a good idea over the span of those few hours. To be honest, she didn’t remember much after that. Only maybe some music, waking up to find herself lying on a rug in a drawing room she had never seen before, and, now, the bathtub. And, as much as she wanted to keep her eyes open, for some reason she found she couldn’t and had to close them again, as before.

The last thing she recalled hearing was the sound of several sets of feet crossing the bathroom floor.

*   *   *

“You look happy.” Ro woke from her daydream upon Clio’s words to find her sister staring at her across the dining table. “You’ve also been buttering that same piece of toast for at least five minutes now.”

“Oh!” Ro pushed it away, untouched. “I didn’t realize.” She took half of it now and fed it to Haggis McTavish, who accepted her gift both greedily and happily.

“I take it you patched things up with Vincent last night?” Clio asked, taking a sip of her tea.

“He gave me the most beautiful brooch for my birthday,” was Ro’s only explanation, though she was sure her scarlet cheeks gave everything away—Thalia would have guessed in a moment if she were here. Thankfully, however, unlike Thalia’s evening caller, Vincent had slipped away this morning unnoticed. Their tryst had gone quite undetected.

After Vincent had left in the early morning light, Ro had not been able to go back to sleep and had lain in bed, in turn fretting and swooning. She had, of course, immediately on his departure, used every single device and unguent that Hestia had offered, not wanting to take any chances. Though, Vincent had carefully mentioned that she needn’t worry—if anything ever were to “happen,” he “knew” a doctor—so there was always that to fall back on if she had to.

To be honest, the experience hadn’t been everything she’d dreamed of and hoped for, initially. Vincent had been very gentle with her, and had kept asking her if she was all right, but really it was all rather painful and she couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Afterward, Vincent had told her that, with time, she would enjoy it more. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that—should she take comfort in the fact that he was so much more experienced in such matters? Ro tried not to think about this too hard and instead concentrated on the fact that he had chosen her bed over the awful Genevieve’s. This had been her consolation until just before Vincent had left.

She had awakened Vincent at dawn, worried that Hestia, or one of her sisters, might for some reason rise early. But then Vincent had slipped his hand up her nightdress and begun to caress her, asking her over and over again, his breath hot on her cheek, if she was entirely sure she wanted him to leave. The answer quickly became “no” as Vincent stroked and teased her, leaving her breathless and asking for more in turn. In the end, she lost herself so completely that she had cried out with a ferocity that shocked her, not caring who came running into the room.