Fallen, page 27
“Then who?”
“Then….” And then, just like that, it was there. The anger. It rushed through her like molten metal, leaving her breathless and dizzy. “No one!” she shouted, “because I already killed him!”
Dane waited.
“That—that horrible man! He—he took something from me. He took something from me and I want it back. And I want to find who sent him, and I want to stab them. No, that wouldn’t hurt enough. I want to peel them like a grape. And I—I know killing is wrong but I swear to you, if I could, I’d resurrect that gap toothed, sour smelling man and shoot him again! No, wait. I’d peel him like a grape.
“And you know what?”
Her chest heaving from exertion, Ani bent down and picked up a rock. And then, with all her might, she hurled it at a nearby tree. It connected, in an explosion of splintering bark.
“Then, if I could, I’d do it again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Better
“Do you feel better?”
They were sitting together in the corner of a shabby café. The furniture all looked like it had been old when the queen’s grandmother was born but the aromas coming out of the kitchen were heavenly. Dane had brought her here after leaving the cemetery, announcing that whether she needed something to eat or not he did. Along with a cup of coffee, or three.
Ani considered the question. “Actually, yes.”
“Good.”
Their appetizers arrived: a crab cake for Ani, and escargot for Dane.
Ani tried her crab cake. It had been presented with some sort of mustard sauce, which was delicious. Almost as delicious as the crab cake itself. She wished she had ten instead of one, although the one was anything but dainty. It should, in and of itself, have served as lunch.
“I’d heard,” Dane said, “that this place had a wonderful menu.”
“Oh? From whom?”
“A man who works for me.”
“Not Mr. Chapman.”
Dane laughed. “No, not Mr. Chapman. Mr. Brown. He manages the dockside warehouses for our cotton mills. We’re actually,” Dane gestured with his fork, “quite near the water.”
“We are?”
Dane nodded. “Hence the fish.”
“This place is wonderful.”
“It sounded, from Brown’s description, like a place you’d like.”
“Not pretentious?”
“Not,” Dane agreed, “pretentious. But more than that, warm. Intimate. Honest.”
“And delicious.” Ani winked.
Dane’s gaze darkened.
Ani, the picture of innocence, returned to her crab cake.
The café was mostly empty; another couple sat in the opposite corner, and there was a man alone reading the paper. Everyone else was at work. Dane, undoubtedly, would’ve preferred to be at work. But he’d taken this time, for her. The thought brought mixed emotions: fondness, and guilt. Guilt that she didn’t feel more. Still, she’d told Dane the truth: she felt better than she had in a long time. She’d been screaming, before they’d left the cemetery. At and about everything she could think of. She hadn’t realized how much had built up in side, like steam in a boiler, and how dangerously close she’d been to exploding. Turning that valve, letting the pressure tick down….
The second course came: sole sautéed with lemon butter and capers for Ani and scallops served over a crispy risotto cake for Dane.
She found herself telling him about that man she’d met. The one who’d killed his brother in law. “I wonder, sometimes, what happened to him. After I left.”
“Undoubtedly, he went home.”
Ani hoped he’d made it home. “But, I mean, his family.”
“Show me someone who sympathizes with child molesters, and I’ll show you another child molester.”
“Maybe. But he did…that was still his wife’s brother.”
“Would you leave me, if I killed Grace?”
“No.”
“Ipso facto.”
Ani found herself contemplating her fish. She was surprised at how quickly her own answer had come to her. She’d spoken, before she’d really had a chance to think. But she’d told the truth, even so. Maybe that was the secret, with some forms of truth: they had to be uncovered by instinct.
“I hope,” she said slowly, “that his wife was thrilled.” She also wished he’d get a parade. And a medal.
“We can find out.”
“We can?”
“Identifying him shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“The only thing I didn’t understand was…why the eyes?”
“So he could no longer, symbolically at least, see his victims? Eyes have been the subject of ritual, and torture, for millennia. Most people,” Dane added, “have a particular fear when it comes to their own. Making their removal…an excellent choice, in criminal justice, for a deterrent.”
Ani shuddered.
Dane sipped his drink.
“I wish,” Ani said slowly, “that I had that kind of courage.”
“But you do.”
Ani’s smile was halfhearted.
“I’ve told you before, Antoinette. Each war is fought with different weapons.”
They ate in silence, after that, for awhile. It was a companionable silence, rather than an isolating one. Increasingly, Ani felt herself relaxing in Dane’s company. She still kept her clothes, and things, in what she continued to think of as her room as she couldn’t quite bring herself to move them. But she spent her nights with Dane. And more than making love to him, in that enormous bed, sometimes what she looked forward to the most was lying in his arms and just being.
She thought about his comment, that he didn’t want children. Because they might turn out like him. Not so long ago, she would’ve agreed that no one should be like Dane and that Dane, himself should probably be wiped from the earth. But now…. She’d grown to appreciate him. Due to finally, finally, having come to understand him. He wasn’t a perfect man, but nor was he the creature she’d believed him to be. The creature she knew that he, himself saw when he looked in the mirror.
And he was a good father, to Daniel. That was another uncomfortable reality, that Ani had had to accept: Dane was, and had been, more of a father to Daniel than his own father. Oh, William had had his moments. But he’d been hamstrung by the same weakness that had ultimately, one way or another, led to his death. He’d never been able to put Daniel, or Ani first, or even to put himself first, because he’d never been able to individuate from Grace.
Daniel didn’t always like hearing no. The word was, after all, somewhat new to his vocabulary. As much as Dane said no, though, he also stood up for Daniel in a way that no one else ever had. He didn’t decide one thing, and then decide something else later as Grace had changed his mind for him. Which made him reliable. Which made him trustworthy. Daniel had already idolized Dane, from that first afternoon…but now it was more.
Ani was as surprised as anyone else, to find her family formed for her. She’d thought she’d have more input into the matter. And really, now that she thought about it…was anyone else surprised?
“Antoinette,” Dane began, “I—”
She interrupted him. “Why Antoinette?”
“Because that’s your name. Meaning beyond praise, in the original Latin. Which suits you.”
“You’re the only one who calls me that.”
“I’m aware.”
“Everyone else calls me Ani.”
“Again, darling, your command of the obvious inspires me.”
Ani refused to be baited. Instead, she forged ahead. “So why don’t you?”
He considered. And then, “first, I like the name. And beyond praise truly couldn’t be a better description. Of every aspect, within and without. As well as the quality of the, ah. Pleasure you bring me.”
Ani felt herself redden.
“ Second, I do see you differently. Than your friends, your acquaintances.” He paused to take a drink, and she watched his lips on the cup. “So it’s only fitting that I call you something, not of their choosing but of mine. And third…. You are mine, Antoinette. Entirely and completely mine. And I don’t want you forgetting that.” His eyes trapped hers, and held them. “Even for a second.”
She didn’t think she would.
“I’m not certain when I made up my mind to marry you. But it might have been the first time we spoke.”
“Really?”
“The first time I saw you, I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. But all I knew, then, was that I’d be imagining your face on the next ten women I slept with. Which made me feel somewhat unfortunate, as you were only sixteen.”
“Not much younger than you were, at the time.”
Dane arched an eyebrow. “Only in years.”
“Hah.”
“I distinctly remember watching you, laughing with your friends, and coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that we were…different. In repeatedly trying, and failing, to scandalize my uncle I’d tried half the drugs available in the kingdom and invited more than one group of unfortunates into my bed. At the time of that party, I’d just graduated from university and I do mean only just. And not because of my grades, either. Which were excellent.”
“Naturally.”
“I was caught, with three other students, hosting an orgy at a brothel.”
Ani laughed out loud.
“The only thing that saved me was that one of the guests was a dean.”
Ani’s eyes widened.
“So you can see why, when confronted with you, I felt somewhat inadequate.”
Except she didn’t see, at all. “But…in comparison I was—am—so boring.”
“Not at all. You were—and are—dreams made flesh.”
“I….” She trailed off. No one had ever spoken to her like Dane did.
So from there,” he continued, “I began scheming up opportunities to speak with you. Without being too obvious about it, given your age. Because while many girls, I fully realize, make their entrée into society having already settled upon their intended, those boys—and they are boys—are about as threatening to the average father as a kitten trapped in a shoebox.”
“You make yourself sound like such a wonderful suitor.” Ani, in humor, was regaining a little of her composure.
“I thought you’d be…cowed by me. That I’d have to tread carefully. But instead you put me in my place as though I were some sort of—as though I were nobody. You weren’t afraid of me at all.”
“Oh,” Ani corrected him, “but I was. I just wasn’t going to let that stop me.”
Dane’s gaze softened. “And you think you aren’t courageous.”
“I honestly…I don’t know why I reacted how I did. It would’ve been more in character for me to slink off into a corner somewhere. But something about you….” Ani shook her head.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“You seemed to like it, when I tormented you.”
“Because no one else did.”
“They were all,” Ani said, “too busy wondering how to impress you.”
“Whereas I had to impress you.”
He was doing a good job, she thought, of impressing her right now.
“Now, though, I have a question.”
“Oh?”
“Why are you so averse to the idea of getting married? To me, or to anyone?”
“Well, I’m not that averse.” Clearly.
“Most women, though, at least from what I gather, regard it as a victory. Whereas, to you, it’s a defeat.”
“Most women….” Ani wondered how to explain. “Most women are brought up to see it as an end. Not as a beginning. You spend the first eighteen years of your life or so learning to be the kind of woman a man might want. Maths, anything intelligent…that all takes a backseat the so-called things that matter. Who cares if a girl can figure, if she can embroider? Maths might be useful, if they’re interesting to—and helpful to—your husband. But a woman, cultivating an interest like that on her own? I can’t tell you how many times I was told not to appear overly intelligent, as I might intimidate some man.”
“Because a weak-willed, insecure lummox was surely ideal husband material.”
“Of course! And then, even things like painting, well…that doesn’t offend anyone, so it’s acceptable as a hobby. A hobby, mind you. But you can’t be very good, and you can’t paint anything about which anyone might form an opinion, because that opinion might not be favorable.”
“So this is why the bored housewives who proposition me all paint bowls of fruit.”
“It really is, though! But then,” Ani continued, “once you have your debut, the race is on to somehow alchemize all of these manners classes and God knows what else into something that would actually appeal to a man. Because what you’ve been taught for your entire life thus far, that all men care passionately about whether a woman can arrange a proper menu, turns out to not be true.”
“I think,” Dane said, “that I might need another drink.”
“Moreover, you can’t take your time. That would be selfish. You have to hurry up and auction yourself off to the highest bidder before spring rolls around again and the next crop of girls, armed with their social registers and their date nut sandwiches, are released onto the city.”
“Who did your aunt and uncle want you to marry?”
“At first, I thought anyone with a pulse.”
“Excessively particular, then.”
“Yes!”
“What, from this perspective, is supposed to happen after the wedding then? Aside from the obvious?”
“Well, the obvious is never discussed. I’ve known more than one girl who’s reached her wedding night without knowing that the obvious existed.”
“So the stories I’ve heard at the club are true.”
“So what…what did they do?”
“There was a lot of explaining. And crying. On both sides. One man used an anatomical model.”
“Oh, God.”
“He was—is—a doctor.”
“Did it work?”
“Well, he eventually did father a son. So it must have.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Calling Cards
Around midmorning the next morning, Violet came to visit.
Ani was only a little less shocked than if her uncle had risen from the dead and rung the doorbell. She could only thank her lucky stars that she’d managed to swallow the first words that’d come to her mind: he let you out? Instead, she showed Violet into the sitting room. The light, spilling in through the windows, gave the lie of pleasant weather outside. In truth, it was bitterly cold.
Ani sat.
Violet sat.
Violet, as always, looked gorgeous. She was gorgeous. But her perfect face, her perfect hair, her perfect clothes…all of it drew attention to the obvious. She’d left her coat in the hall, and beneath it she’d worn a sort of suit: a floor length skirt paired with a high waisted jacket cut from the same material. The camel colored, what looked like wool suited her complexion perfectly. The collar on the jacket, which appeared to be fox fur, looked ticklish.
Ani wasn’t exactly wearing some discarded potato sack but she hadn’t been expecting company either. She’d been about, in point of fact, to disappear into her studio. She was excited about the painting she’d just started.
“Will I, ah, have the pleasure of meeting Grace?”
“No, she’s out.”
“Oh! That’s—I mean,” Violet said, forcing herself to frown, “how disappointing.”
Ani was saved from a response by Mrs. Buchannan appearing with refreshments.
She nodded, and then left.
“Would you like tea?”
Violet nodded. “Yes, please.”
Ani poured. “And…watercress.”
“Yes, our housekeeper likes watercress as well.”
The silence returned.
Violet sipped her tea. And then, “I’ve come to offer my congratulations.”
“I—oh! Thank you.”
Dane had had one of the clerks in his office call the paper, pretending to do so on behalf of Grace. Dane himself had written the statement. Wherein Grace assured the world that she was beyond thrilled to gain him as a son in law. Grace had also announced that the beloved child of her heart would be joining her life to his in the spring. Because, Dane had told her at dinner that night, long after any change could’ve been made, that she’d seemed to find the idea of a spring wedding romantic.
And he, he’d added darkly, was in no mood to wait longer.
“The announcement was lovely. Did you write it?”
Everyone, then, seemed to agree on the fact that Grace was incapable of pleasant speech. “No, Dane did.”
Violet laughed. “You’re good to trust him with such things.”
Ani refrained from pointing out that she’d had no choice.
Violet produced a calling card, and examined it. “You know, in case you weren’t home.”
“I must confess, I’ve never understood calling cards.”
“Me, either. Because really, if a complete stranger is lazing about my doorstep, do I really want to know?” She shrugged. “But at least they’re pretty. I have quite a collection. I have…quite a lot of collections, all of them equally stupid. Wine labels and…oh, I don’t know. I always tell myself that I’m going to decoupage them onto a box. But I never do I’m not…artistic.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“You are.”
“Maybe sometime you could visit me in my studio. We could work on that box. If, ah….” Ani trailed off, feeling suddenly awkward.
“If my husband lets me?”
Ani turned the color of a beet.
Violet, miraculously, laughed. “You’re new to our circle of friends, so you don’t know this. But when Louis and I got married, there was quite a scandal.”
“Really?”
And just like that, the tension was broken.
“Oh, yes.” Violet’s smile deepened, as she sipped her tea. She clearly relished that fact. “I was engaged, you see. To someone else.”
“Then….” And then, just like that, it was there. The anger. It rushed through her like molten metal, leaving her breathless and dizzy. “No one!” she shouted, “because I already killed him!”
Dane waited.
“That—that horrible man! He—he took something from me. He took something from me and I want it back. And I want to find who sent him, and I want to stab them. No, that wouldn’t hurt enough. I want to peel them like a grape. And I—I know killing is wrong but I swear to you, if I could, I’d resurrect that gap toothed, sour smelling man and shoot him again! No, wait. I’d peel him like a grape.
“And you know what?”
Her chest heaving from exertion, Ani bent down and picked up a rock. And then, with all her might, she hurled it at a nearby tree. It connected, in an explosion of splintering bark.
“Then, if I could, I’d do it again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Better
“Do you feel better?”
They were sitting together in the corner of a shabby café. The furniture all looked like it had been old when the queen’s grandmother was born but the aromas coming out of the kitchen were heavenly. Dane had brought her here after leaving the cemetery, announcing that whether she needed something to eat or not he did. Along with a cup of coffee, or three.
Ani considered the question. “Actually, yes.”
“Good.”
Their appetizers arrived: a crab cake for Ani, and escargot for Dane.
Ani tried her crab cake. It had been presented with some sort of mustard sauce, which was delicious. Almost as delicious as the crab cake itself. She wished she had ten instead of one, although the one was anything but dainty. It should, in and of itself, have served as lunch.
“I’d heard,” Dane said, “that this place had a wonderful menu.”
“Oh? From whom?”
“A man who works for me.”
“Not Mr. Chapman.”
Dane laughed. “No, not Mr. Chapman. Mr. Brown. He manages the dockside warehouses for our cotton mills. We’re actually,” Dane gestured with his fork, “quite near the water.”
“We are?”
Dane nodded. “Hence the fish.”
“This place is wonderful.”
“It sounded, from Brown’s description, like a place you’d like.”
“Not pretentious?”
“Not,” Dane agreed, “pretentious. But more than that, warm. Intimate. Honest.”
“And delicious.” Ani winked.
Dane’s gaze darkened.
Ani, the picture of innocence, returned to her crab cake.
The café was mostly empty; another couple sat in the opposite corner, and there was a man alone reading the paper. Everyone else was at work. Dane, undoubtedly, would’ve preferred to be at work. But he’d taken this time, for her. The thought brought mixed emotions: fondness, and guilt. Guilt that she didn’t feel more. Still, she’d told Dane the truth: she felt better than she had in a long time. She’d been screaming, before they’d left the cemetery. At and about everything she could think of. She hadn’t realized how much had built up in side, like steam in a boiler, and how dangerously close she’d been to exploding. Turning that valve, letting the pressure tick down….
The second course came: sole sautéed with lemon butter and capers for Ani and scallops served over a crispy risotto cake for Dane.
She found herself telling him about that man she’d met. The one who’d killed his brother in law. “I wonder, sometimes, what happened to him. After I left.”
“Undoubtedly, he went home.”
Ani hoped he’d made it home. “But, I mean, his family.”
“Show me someone who sympathizes with child molesters, and I’ll show you another child molester.”
“Maybe. But he did…that was still his wife’s brother.”
“Would you leave me, if I killed Grace?”
“No.”
“Ipso facto.”
Ani found herself contemplating her fish. She was surprised at how quickly her own answer had come to her. She’d spoken, before she’d really had a chance to think. But she’d told the truth, even so. Maybe that was the secret, with some forms of truth: they had to be uncovered by instinct.
“I hope,” she said slowly, “that his wife was thrilled.” She also wished he’d get a parade. And a medal.
“We can find out.”
“We can?”
“Identifying him shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“The only thing I didn’t understand was…why the eyes?”
“So he could no longer, symbolically at least, see his victims? Eyes have been the subject of ritual, and torture, for millennia. Most people,” Dane added, “have a particular fear when it comes to their own. Making their removal…an excellent choice, in criminal justice, for a deterrent.”
Ani shuddered.
Dane sipped his drink.
“I wish,” Ani said slowly, “that I had that kind of courage.”
“But you do.”
Ani’s smile was halfhearted.
“I’ve told you before, Antoinette. Each war is fought with different weapons.”
They ate in silence, after that, for awhile. It was a companionable silence, rather than an isolating one. Increasingly, Ani felt herself relaxing in Dane’s company. She still kept her clothes, and things, in what she continued to think of as her room as she couldn’t quite bring herself to move them. But she spent her nights with Dane. And more than making love to him, in that enormous bed, sometimes what she looked forward to the most was lying in his arms and just being.
She thought about his comment, that he didn’t want children. Because they might turn out like him. Not so long ago, she would’ve agreed that no one should be like Dane and that Dane, himself should probably be wiped from the earth. But now…. She’d grown to appreciate him. Due to finally, finally, having come to understand him. He wasn’t a perfect man, but nor was he the creature she’d believed him to be. The creature she knew that he, himself saw when he looked in the mirror.
And he was a good father, to Daniel. That was another uncomfortable reality, that Ani had had to accept: Dane was, and had been, more of a father to Daniel than his own father. Oh, William had had his moments. But he’d been hamstrung by the same weakness that had ultimately, one way or another, led to his death. He’d never been able to put Daniel, or Ani first, or even to put himself first, because he’d never been able to individuate from Grace.
Daniel didn’t always like hearing no. The word was, after all, somewhat new to his vocabulary. As much as Dane said no, though, he also stood up for Daniel in a way that no one else ever had. He didn’t decide one thing, and then decide something else later as Grace had changed his mind for him. Which made him reliable. Which made him trustworthy. Daniel had already idolized Dane, from that first afternoon…but now it was more.
Ani was as surprised as anyone else, to find her family formed for her. She’d thought she’d have more input into the matter. And really, now that she thought about it…was anyone else surprised?
“Antoinette,” Dane began, “I—”
She interrupted him. “Why Antoinette?”
“Because that’s your name. Meaning beyond praise, in the original Latin. Which suits you.”
“You’re the only one who calls me that.”
“I’m aware.”
“Everyone else calls me Ani.”
“Again, darling, your command of the obvious inspires me.”
Ani refused to be baited. Instead, she forged ahead. “So why don’t you?”
He considered. And then, “first, I like the name. And beyond praise truly couldn’t be a better description. Of every aspect, within and without. As well as the quality of the, ah. Pleasure you bring me.”
Ani felt herself redden.
“ Second, I do see you differently. Than your friends, your acquaintances.” He paused to take a drink, and she watched his lips on the cup. “So it’s only fitting that I call you something, not of their choosing but of mine. And third…. You are mine, Antoinette. Entirely and completely mine. And I don’t want you forgetting that.” His eyes trapped hers, and held them. “Even for a second.”
She didn’t think she would.
“I’m not certain when I made up my mind to marry you. But it might have been the first time we spoke.”
“Really?”
“The first time I saw you, I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. But all I knew, then, was that I’d be imagining your face on the next ten women I slept with. Which made me feel somewhat unfortunate, as you were only sixteen.”
“Not much younger than you were, at the time.”
Dane arched an eyebrow. “Only in years.”
“Hah.”
“I distinctly remember watching you, laughing with your friends, and coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that we were…different. In repeatedly trying, and failing, to scandalize my uncle I’d tried half the drugs available in the kingdom and invited more than one group of unfortunates into my bed. At the time of that party, I’d just graduated from university and I do mean only just. And not because of my grades, either. Which were excellent.”
“Naturally.”
“I was caught, with three other students, hosting an orgy at a brothel.”
Ani laughed out loud.
“The only thing that saved me was that one of the guests was a dean.”
Ani’s eyes widened.
“So you can see why, when confronted with you, I felt somewhat inadequate.”
Except she didn’t see, at all. “But…in comparison I was—am—so boring.”
“Not at all. You were—and are—dreams made flesh.”
“I….” She trailed off. No one had ever spoken to her like Dane did.
So from there,” he continued, “I began scheming up opportunities to speak with you. Without being too obvious about it, given your age. Because while many girls, I fully realize, make their entrée into society having already settled upon their intended, those boys—and they are boys—are about as threatening to the average father as a kitten trapped in a shoebox.”
“You make yourself sound like such a wonderful suitor.” Ani, in humor, was regaining a little of her composure.
“I thought you’d be…cowed by me. That I’d have to tread carefully. But instead you put me in my place as though I were some sort of—as though I were nobody. You weren’t afraid of me at all.”
“Oh,” Ani corrected him, “but I was. I just wasn’t going to let that stop me.”
Dane’s gaze softened. “And you think you aren’t courageous.”
“I honestly…I don’t know why I reacted how I did. It would’ve been more in character for me to slink off into a corner somewhere. But something about you….” Ani shook her head.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“You seemed to like it, when I tormented you.”
“Because no one else did.”
“They were all,” Ani said, “too busy wondering how to impress you.”
“Whereas I had to impress you.”
He was doing a good job, she thought, of impressing her right now.
“Now, though, I have a question.”
“Oh?”
“Why are you so averse to the idea of getting married? To me, or to anyone?”
“Well, I’m not that averse.” Clearly.
“Most women, though, at least from what I gather, regard it as a victory. Whereas, to you, it’s a defeat.”
“Most women….” Ani wondered how to explain. “Most women are brought up to see it as an end. Not as a beginning. You spend the first eighteen years of your life or so learning to be the kind of woman a man might want. Maths, anything intelligent…that all takes a backseat the so-called things that matter. Who cares if a girl can figure, if she can embroider? Maths might be useful, if they’re interesting to—and helpful to—your husband. But a woman, cultivating an interest like that on her own? I can’t tell you how many times I was told not to appear overly intelligent, as I might intimidate some man.”
“Because a weak-willed, insecure lummox was surely ideal husband material.”
“Of course! And then, even things like painting, well…that doesn’t offend anyone, so it’s acceptable as a hobby. A hobby, mind you. But you can’t be very good, and you can’t paint anything about which anyone might form an opinion, because that opinion might not be favorable.”
“So this is why the bored housewives who proposition me all paint bowls of fruit.”
“It really is, though! But then,” Ani continued, “once you have your debut, the race is on to somehow alchemize all of these manners classes and God knows what else into something that would actually appeal to a man. Because what you’ve been taught for your entire life thus far, that all men care passionately about whether a woman can arrange a proper menu, turns out to not be true.”
“I think,” Dane said, “that I might need another drink.”
“Moreover, you can’t take your time. That would be selfish. You have to hurry up and auction yourself off to the highest bidder before spring rolls around again and the next crop of girls, armed with their social registers and their date nut sandwiches, are released onto the city.”
“Who did your aunt and uncle want you to marry?”
“At first, I thought anyone with a pulse.”
“Excessively particular, then.”
“Yes!”
“What, from this perspective, is supposed to happen after the wedding then? Aside from the obvious?”
“Well, the obvious is never discussed. I’ve known more than one girl who’s reached her wedding night without knowing that the obvious existed.”
“So the stories I’ve heard at the club are true.”
“So what…what did they do?”
“There was a lot of explaining. And crying. On both sides. One man used an anatomical model.”
“Oh, God.”
“He was—is—a doctor.”
“Did it work?”
“Well, he eventually did father a son. So it must have.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Calling Cards
Around midmorning the next morning, Violet came to visit.
Ani was only a little less shocked than if her uncle had risen from the dead and rung the doorbell. She could only thank her lucky stars that she’d managed to swallow the first words that’d come to her mind: he let you out? Instead, she showed Violet into the sitting room. The light, spilling in through the windows, gave the lie of pleasant weather outside. In truth, it was bitterly cold.
Ani sat.
Violet sat.
Violet, as always, looked gorgeous. She was gorgeous. But her perfect face, her perfect hair, her perfect clothes…all of it drew attention to the obvious. She’d left her coat in the hall, and beneath it she’d worn a sort of suit: a floor length skirt paired with a high waisted jacket cut from the same material. The camel colored, what looked like wool suited her complexion perfectly. The collar on the jacket, which appeared to be fox fur, looked ticklish.
Ani wasn’t exactly wearing some discarded potato sack but she hadn’t been expecting company either. She’d been about, in point of fact, to disappear into her studio. She was excited about the painting she’d just started.
“Will I, ah, have the pleasure of meeting Grace?”
“No, she’s out.”
“Oh! That’s—I mean,” Violet said, forcing herself to frown, “how disappointing.”
Ani was saved from a response by Mrs. Buchannan appearing with refreshments.
She nodded, and then left.
“Would you like tea?”
Violet nodded. “Yes, please.”
Ani poured. “And…watercress.”
“Yes, our housekeeper likes watercress as well.”
The silence returned.
Violet sipped her tea. And then, “I’ve come to offer my congratulations.”
“I—oh! Thank you.”
Dane had had one of the clerks in his office call the paper, pretending to do so on behalf of Grace. Dane himself had written the statement. Wherein Grace assured the world that she was beyond thrilled to gain him as a son in law. Grace had also announced that the beloved child of her heart would be joining her life to his in the spring. Because, Dane had told her at dinner that night, long after any change could’ve been made, that she’d seemed to find the idea of a spring wedding romantic.
And he, he’d added darkly, was in no mood to wait longer.
“The announcement was lovely. Did you write it?”
Everyone, then, seemed to agree on the fact that Grace was incapable of pleasant speech. “No, Dane did.”
Violet laughed. “You’re good to trust him with such things.”
Ani refrained from pointing out that she’d had no choice.
Violet produced a calling card, and examined it. “You know, in case you weren’t home.”
“I must confess, I’ve never understood calling cards.”
“Me, either. Because really, if a complete stranger is lazing about my doorstep, do I really want to know?” She shrugged. “But at least they’re pretty. I have quite a collection. I have…quite a lot of collections, all of them equally stupid. Wine labels and…oh, I don’t know. I always tell myself that I’m going to decoupage them onto a box. But I never do I’m not…artistic.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“You are.”
“Maybe sometime you could visit me in my studio. We could work on that box. If, ah….” Ani trailed off, feeling suddenly awkward.
“If my husband lets me?”
Ani turned the color of a beet.
Violet, miraculously, laughed. “You’re new to our circle of friends, so you don’t know this. But when Louis and I got married, there was quite a scandal.”
“Really?”
And just like that, the tension was broken.
“Oh, yes.” Violet’s smile deepened, as she sipped her tea. She clearly relished that fact. “I was engaged, you see. To someone else.”
