Nine

The coffee and sandwiches were redirected to the music room. George sat with his legs stretched out, enjoying warm bread, beef, and tangy mustard. Penelope played and sang in a gentle soprano, her voice blending with the low roar of the fire and the rain beating on the window. Lilith turned the music pages, yet often George would lower his coffee after taking a sip to find her watching him and not the music. She would quickly avert her gaze, but not before sparking him with the magic in those mysterious eyes. The mountains of work that had piled up over the last days and the parties he was missing seemed miles away as he relaxed in the hazy lull of brandy, the music, and Lilith’s beauty.

Then Penelope told Lilith that it was her turn to sing.

“But my voice has been compared to a tone-deaf barn owl,” Lilith protested. “And I don’t think that is being fair to tone-deaf barn owls.”

“Come, it’s not as bad as that,” Penelope assured her.

“It could potentially be worse.”

“You are being modest,” Penelope said. “Sing.”

Unfortunately, Lilith wasn’t being modest. Tone-deaf barn owls, unoiled hinges, and amorous bullfrogs were more melodious. George struggled to contain his laughter. He could see that his sister labored under the same problem but gamely continued playing until Lilith smashed into a high C, and then warbled down to a B flat. Penelope’s eyes drifted to George and they broke down.

“This isn’t fair,” Lilith cried, hurt, but with a twinkle in her eyes. “You asked me to sing. I can only assume you wanted to hear.” She continued singing with great zest, exaggerating her horrific, wobbly voice.

“Lilith, Lilith, you are beautiful,” George said. “You speak the poetry of angels and you are the all-knowing goddess of etiquette, but dear God, you can’t sing.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Let us hear you, Lord Severe Critic. How nice to sit in a comfy chair, sipping coffee, eating sandwiches, and smugly judging others.”

“George has a fine voice,” Penelope said unhelpfully, “but he never lets anyone hear it.”

“Does he, now?” Lilith cast him a glance from under her long lashes. “George is a man of many hidden talents, and we must bring them all to light. Sing for us. It’s your turn.”

“I’m afraid I can’t be removed from this chair. Some viciously polite ladies plied me with too much brandy and trapped me in their musical lair.”

“No?” Lilith said. “Well then, Penelope, what is a song with many sharps and flats that will best suit my voice? I shall endeavor to torture it for many measures. After all, we promised Lord Marylewick an evening of domestic musical murder and you didn’t harm a thing with your beautiful voice.”

“You are always going to have your way, aren’t you, Lilith?” George rose from his chair.

“I especially adore having my way with you,” she retorted. Penelope dissolved into giggles.

“Scoot over, my wicked-minded ladies.” He slid onto the edge of the piano bench. “Pray, let me get my turn over with because I fear I won’t get any peace until I do.”

Penelope flipped through her hand-scribed book of songs. “Ah, ‘Caro Mio Ben’ would suit you. Have you heard it?”

“Once or twice or a thousand times these few years,” he dryly quipped.

He gamely sang along as Penelope played. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lilith watching with unguarded admiration on her face. Her approval split his emotions. Part of him wanted to spread his vocal feathers like a peacock, and another part figured if Lilith approved of something, it must be dangerously wrong.

To hell with it all. He closed Penelope’s music book.

“George!” his sister cried.

“Enough of this boring music. Don’t we have something more lively? Something even Lilith can sing.” She made a face. He winked at her. “What about ‘Nut-Brown Ale’ or ‘A Health to All Good Fellowes’?”

“Good heavens, drinking games and now tavern songs,” Lilith marveled. “What low place have you brought me to, Lord Marylewick?”

“It’s all part of the education of Miss Lilith Dahlgren,” he replied, bland-faced. “You missed the last item on my list: tavern songs. I believe in a well-rounded education.” He nudged his sister. “Come now, Penelope, spice it up.”

Penelope’s eyeballs rolled upward as she thought for a moment, then she broke into a raucous version of “Song of a Fallen Angel Over a Bowl of Rum-Punch.”

Lilith clapped. “I didn’t realize you had this in you.”

“Just sing,” Penelope ordered.

And they did. Lilith’s voice was so wretched it was comical, but what she lacked in musical talent she made up for in fearless gusto. Competition and perfection characterized George and his world. Aside from Penelope, all the other ladies of his acquaintance vied for the prize of being the most accomplished, the most beautiful, the most charming. For now, he enjoyed basking in the shockingly terrible. (However, he would ask Lilith not to sing to a potential suitor until after the marriage, when it was too late.) Penelope continued playing, never putting a break between songs, and Lilith kept glancing at him. Being around her lightened his mind and pushed back the heavy mantle of his daily concerns and worries.

But then Lilith took her magic away. She rose, interrupting Penelope as she played the beginning notes to a new song.

“I’m sorry,” Lilith said. “I’m rather tired. I should go to bed.”

George didn’t want to admit to himself the cold disappointment in his chest. What could he do to grow immune to this woman? Everything she did lit him up. He bit back the words but you stay up until the wee hours every night at those wild bohemian parties you attend. Instead he said, “That is wise, Miss Dahlgren. Sleep calms the excitable nature.”

“But I rather enjoy being exciting.” She rallied and then said to Penelope, “Thank you for cheering me up today. I’m so happy…” She paused, as if searching for correct words. “I’m so happy I’ve gotten to know you better.”

“And I’m so glad you are coming to the house party,” Penelope replied. “Dear cousin.” Some of the mysterious, unspoken female communication, the kind that always confused and terrified men, passed between the ladies. Then Lilith smiled and left.

He and Penelope were back to their own company. She tried to start playing again, but the spirit was gone.

“I wish she wasn’t tired.” Penelope’s features had returned to the usual distressed lines. “The evening was perfectly lovely.”

“You must be careful around Lilith,” he cautioned his sister, but the warning was for him, as well. “Behind that dazzling facade are sharp fangs.”

Penelope played a quiet G. The note reverberated and slowly died away. “I think there is only hurt behind the facade.” She stared where her finger remained on the key.

“Talk to me, Penelope. You know you can tell me anything.”

He tried to put his arm around her in a hug, but Penelope slid off the bench. “Good night, brother. I think the education of Lilith proceeded very well.”

He now sat in the empty room. He pondered Penelope’s words: I think there is only hurt behind the facade. He suspected as much, but whenever he tried to help Lilith, she lashed out. When he attempted to talk to Penelope about her life or marriage, she turned quiet. He wished he knew how to talk to them. Hell, he wished he knew how to talk to Parliament.

He glanced at the mantel clock: quarter past ten. It would be too late to attend the musical evening. To atone for his social sins he would make a stab at the mounds of work waiting on his desk. He headed to his study. His secretary had divided the documents that required the marquess’s attention into three towering piles: Parliament, business, and estate. He felt tired and disinterested gazing at the stacks.

Nonetheless, he sat, withdrew his penknife, and opened the first letter on the Parliament pile. Prime Minister Disraeli had written that he was regrettably unable to attend the house party, but penned a lengthy outline of political points to be subtly discussed at the party and a list of the men whose votes George needed to romance. Somewhere in the middle of the letter, George’s mind’s eye wandered off the page and to the memory of Lilith on the parlor sofa, nestled amid the blues, reds, and golds. The light of the glass lamp had showed the contours of her neck and the mounds of her breasts beneath the robe. He remembered their softness and the rise of the nipples underneath his body that night at her party. He released a low, long breath as he imagined what waited beneath the blue silk. More creamy skin and peaks the shade of a faded rose. How would they feel as he swept his fingers over their tips? How would they taste if he teased them with his tongue? If he slipped her robe down, lower and lower, would her thighs be as ivory and silken? Would her curls be a rich auburn? How would his cock feel sliding into her snug body? His mind continued to wander down this dangerous path, fantasizing about Lilith’s body in various love-making positions, until he glanced down to find he had idly doodled his fantasy of Lilith’s nude body on Disraeli’s letter.

What was he doing and thinking? He ran his hand down his face.

Of course he desired Lilith. How could any man of a healthy, lustful appetite not? She was a lush beauty, an ever-blooming garden. If he never touched Lilith in an intimate way again, delivering her tidy and well-trained to her future husband, at least he could reward himself by imagining her glorious breasts bathed in sunlight as she rode atop him, sliding up and down his shaft. His hand slid across his thigh to where his erection strained against his trousers and slowly began to pleasure himself as he imagined her. He could see the glow in her luminous eyes. Her hair would be loose and brushing his face like soft feathers as she moved above him, sinking him deeper into her—

The door creaked open and the object of his lustful fantasy slipped inside.

Bloody hell! He grabbed Disraeli’s letter and shoved it in a drawer.

“Good evening.” Her voice was breathy. He couldn’t politely stand with his cock jutting in a stone-hard erection. And that damned blue robe clinging to her curves and the way her hair tumbled loose as he had imagined it didn’t help matters.

She edged toward him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”

“Not at all,” he choked.

“I must admit that I lied.” She held up her hand. “I know, I know, you are about to say that you’re not surprised or you expected it from me. I just…just had to be alone with you.”

His penis almost popped his trouser buttons. “Lilith, I’m your guardian for all intents and purposes and it wouldn’t be right if we…we…”

“If we?” she said, prompting him to continue.

“You need to be virtuous for your future husband.”

Every visible inch of her skin turned crimson. “I didn’t mean that! I meant…” The shock gave way to laughter. “That’s rather funny.”

He didn’t know which was worse: mistakenly assuming Lilith desired him, or being laughed at for said mistake. In any case, the mortification destroyed his erection. “It’s the usual reason a lady in a state of dishabille wants to be alone with me,” he said for the sake of his wounded pride.

Lilith flashed a flustered smile. “I simply wanted to ask you something in private.”

“Of course.” He rose, now that he safely could, walked around the desk, and motioned to the sofa and chairs.

She settled onto the sofa. “It’s like my fifteen-minute appointment.”

“I’ll give you a few more minutes this evening,” he teased, taking the chair opposite her. “How can I be of assistance?”

She didn’t answer but studied his face, her eyes narrowed as if she were searching for something. His body heated under the scrutiny. Then she surprised him by sliding from the sofa and kneeling before him. She seized his fingers and gazed up at him.

“I saw your sketches of me today. They were wonderful. Truly. I couldn’t believe you sketched them. So I made Penelope reveal everything to me.”

His stomach tightened. “What do you mean? I merely wanted to give the modiste a guideline, as, pardon my saying, sedate and understated have never characterized your fashion sense.”

“No, not that.” She edged closer, her belly pressing against his knees. “How you were all supposed to be the perfect family. How your father disapproved of your art. How you were paddled if you drew or painted.” She squeezed his fingers to her chest. “I’m sorry. I wish I had seen. I was too wrapped up in my own anger. I could have helped.”

“I don’t recall needing help.” He tried to retract his hands. “Penelope has a tender heart, but I’m afraid her version is most incorrect.”

“Don’t you see? You’re an artist. You must draw again. You must make art. This is why you have been so…so…miserable all these years.”

“Miserable? I’m not miserable.” Yet with her so close, her eyes dilated with tender emotion, and wet lips glistening from the firelight, the last years felt painfully empty.

She placed her palm on his heart. “You’re an artist. It’s your calling.”

Her touch burned. Sweat beaded around his hairline. He came to his feet, yanking at his tie until the knot came loose.

“My calling?” he scoffed. The words came out more derisive than he intended, but he could barely catch his breath.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Don’t look away from me. Don’t dismiss me. Being an artist is noble. You should be proud of your talent.” She opened her arms with a bursting motion. “You must draw and paint and sculpt and get out all the beauty that’s inside of you. ‘Then let winged Fancy wander / Through the thought still spread beyond her: / Open wide the mind’s cage-door, / She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.’”

“More Keats?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He swallowed his desire to call her childish. He paced to his desk and pulled a letter from the estate pile—a bill from a stonemason regarding tenants’ homes. “I’m afraid that all my fancy darted forth and left years ago. I think a better simile would be to say that my fancy has been put away, along with my toy soldiers and hobby horse. I had to grow up and face my responsibilities. My father made a marquess from an irresponsible, lackadaisical boy who would rather, I don’t know, draw pictures of bird eggs than understand the intricacies of running an estate.” He rubbed his temples, suddenly tired. “I know you enjoy your little art and poetry, but it’s time you learned some responsibility, too. Let us discuss my expectations for you at the coming house party.”

She crossed to the other side of the desk and began neatening the political stack.

He placed his hand atop hers to stop her efforts. “My secretary has put these in a specific order.”

She glanced down to where their skin touched. “All those bird eggs you drew,” she said quietly. “Fragile promises of hope. Maybe some will hatch, some will not. The mechanics of nature are beautiful and heartless. But that tiny boy caring for those eggs, no doubt checking their nest every day, lovingly drawing them… What an irresponsible, lackadaisical little boy.”

He hated when she did that. As if she possessed some supernatural ability to look inside his memories. She held his gaze until he couldn’t bear being stripped naked by her deep eyes and looked away.

He cleared his throat. “As for the house party, there will be some influential—”

“What happened to the eggs?”

He paced to his window. “I haven’t the time for this inane conversation!” The bird had built the nest in the bushes leading to the labyrinth garden. The head gardener had it ripped out and the eggs smashed as George watched. He remembered the mother and father bird squawking and flying around the gardener’s head, trying to protect their babies. He had drawn the scene at night in his bedchamber. He didn’t know how to get the pain out of his young heart. The resulting painting was as ridiculous as the blotched painting at Lilith’s party on the night of their notorious kiss. Just slashes of red and black paint.

“You want to know my calling?” he asked. “I have to help run a country, as well as take care of ten estates, and nearly a hundred relatives and tenants who depend upon me for food and shelter. I’m the guardian of numerous children. Then there’s you. And you take up more of my time than most of those combined.”

She drew a little circle with her finger on the stonemason bill. “It’s always responsibility and duty, as if you are using them to keep you safe from something.”

“Safe from something?” he thundered. “Do you know what happens when I don’t see to my responsibilities? Families don’t have enough food. Workers don’t get paid. Governments don’t function. You seem to take for granted what I do. You enjoy mocking me.” He gazed out the window at the dark square below. The moon lit the night a deep velvety blue and turned the trees into black silhouettes.

He heard her approaching steps. Her citrus and vanilla scent filled his nose. Her fingers kneaded into the taut muscles of his shoulders. “But you must take care of yourself, of your soul. What can you be to anyone if you aren’t even your true self?” She let her arms slide down him until she embraced him. She pressed her cheek to his back. The rise of her breasts pushed against him. Her touch soothed as much as it electrified. “What would happen if you stopped taking care of everyone? Who would you be, George? Do you even know?”

That little compassion, or was it condescension, in her voice dropped like a lit match on oil. How dare she presume to know him? To think she knew better than he did? She who couldn’t walk down the street without falling into a scrape.

He ripped himself free from her hold and strode to the grate. The giant mirror hanging over the mantel showed her reflection. She held out her palms, her eyes still filled with empathy, despite his brusque behavior.

“Don’t be afraid, George.”

Good God! She was a child. As if her belief in paint and poetry justified her irresponsibility.

“How well can you take care of yourself, Lilith?” he shot back. “And by the by, where is your art? You speak of art’s nobility and calling, but I don’t see any of yours. And I don’t see your artist cousins and their gallery. I don’t see any of your artist friends beating down my door to help you now that you can’t give them money. The truth is you can’t do things for yourself and that is your problem. No, that is my problem.”

In the mirror, he watched her flinch. Anger burned away her tender expression. Why did he say those words? Why did he have to push her away?

“Very well.” She smoothed her robe. “It was such a lovely evening. I’m sorry it had to be ruined. I thought…I thought there was more to you. But I was mistaken.” She headed for the door. “Good night.”

“Lilith, stop.”

She spun around. The air was pregnant with frustrations he couldn’t voice. He knew with the right words the invisible wall that always separated them could shatter. But what were they? He didn’t have words like Colette’s creator. All he had were colors, textures, sensations, and that black fear inside of him. What could he tell her? How could he describe the way that the firelight warming her creamy skin filled him with peace and longing for something that he couldn’t name? He moved his hands about his face, grappling for the words that described all he saw in her cocoa eyes. How could he tell her that, yes, she was beautiful, but that loveliness stemmed from an inner quality that infused her whole body? Something ethereal that he couldn’t capture in words, or at least, his words. He wasn’t a Keats, so instead he said, “I expect you to continue your calisthenics and improvement regimen.”

She stared at him—her face screwed with disgust and disbelief. “Good night, George.” She walked away.

He wanted to chase after her, but what would he say? Nothing. There was nothing to be done.

He went back to the desk, opened the drawer, and gazed at the picture he had sketched. He ran his fingers along the lines. It wasn’t enough. He hadn’t captured her. He wasn’t a Keats, nor was he an artist. He slammed the drawer shut and hung his head in his hands.

* * *

What sadly misguided notion did you harbor? Lilith admonished herself in her chamber.

Why did she keep making stupid mistakes? She had thought her cousins were loyal. Quite wrong on that count. George drew a few sketches and suddenly she believed that under his starched exterior existed a soul-crushed little boy trying to break free. She humiliated herself in the process of learning how wrong that assumption was.

Her fingers were trembling. She needed to write. She had to direct this anger and frustration churning inside her somewhere or she feared that poof—she would spontaneously combust. All the coroner would find was the smoldering ashes of Lilith.

She dug out her portfolio and withdrew her last pages. She scanned over her previous work, all melodrama scrawled in a heated passion: Colette trapped in the sultan’s tent, her heart broken, railing against God, threatening suicide, etc.

“Muse, we need a vast improvement. Some ideas of murder or, at the very least, accidental death for the sultan.” She dipped her pen and began to scribe.

Colette could cry no more and buried her face in the pillows.

She let her mind wander back to her home and her father when he was well. Her heart ached for the love she had then, so abundant, like the groves of ripe olives.

At first, she thought it was a trick of her mind, remembering the songs her father sang to her as a young child, but the timbre wasn’t correct. He had a weak, reedy voice and what she heard was rich and resonant.

In the tent’s dim corner, she made out the hard lines of the sultan’s powerful body. He continued to sing, moving closer. His magnificent voice wove a musical spell around them. Caught in its magic, there was no anger and hurt from the past or fears of the future. Only this moment.

“Dear Muse.” Lilith rolled her eyes. “Must we be melodramatic?”

Colette smoothed a wayward strand from his savage brow and gazed into his black eyes, finding in their depths a frightened little boy.

“Frightened little boy? Muse, no! Did you not witness what happened? I thought we had cleared up the matter of the little boy. He doesn’t exist, just a hardened villain. He can garner no sympathy.”

“Who are you?” Colette whispered.

“I don’t know.” Sorrow imbued his voice. “I don’t know.” He clasped her hand and pressed it to his mouth. “You must help me, Colette.”

“What can I give you? What do you need?”

Lilith’s pen hovered over the page. “Well, Muse, why don’t you tell me,” she quipped. “How can Colette, who has almost died by this man’s hands on several occasions, help him?”

Colette lowered the blankets, revealing her nude body.

“What? The publisher will never allow that.”

“Touch me,” she whispered, taking his hand and resting it upon her breast. “Fill yourself with love. Take it from me until you hurt no more. Only healing love will vanquish the evil in your heart.”

The sultan flicked his thumb over her nipple. Colette gasped in pleasure.

“Rest upon me,” she cried. “Find solace inside my—”

“Enough, Muse! Enough! I’m rather upset tonight and you have not been the least helpful. I don’t know what journal you think will publish this lurid claptrap. He is the villain. Villains meet horrible yet deserved ends. That’s how the stories go. I’ll give you another chance.”

He opened his caftan. His dark chest was striped with hard muscle all the way to his—

“Good night, useless, filthy-minded Muse.” Lilith shoved her pages into her portfolio and locked it. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll remember what proper literature resembles.”