Chapter 10
Island: He drank out of the bottle till he saw the island: the island is the rising bottom of a wine bottle, which appears like an island in the center, before the bottle is quite empty.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Next Day
One word for the state of Mariana’s being this morning came to mind: crapulent. Hedonism had its drawbacks.
A woman was entitled to slumber the day away when she’d spent the previous night drinking and gambling in a bordello with a pair of strumpets and her estranged husband. She’d earned the right to sleep, and Hortense should have let her. But Hortense happened to be the sort of lady’s maid—and spy . . . they still hadn’t discussed that development properly—who believed in an invigorating and early start to the day.
The girl had taken one glance at her this morning and released a little cry of distress. “Mon dieu! Zee puffs beneath your eyes . . . I shall fetch you a mirror.”
Eyes closed to relentless morning light, Mariana had held up a hand. “Non, Hortense, no mirror. If my head looks anything on the outside like it feels on the inside . . . just non.” She needed more time to wallow in her crapulence. Last night’s flirtation with whiskey might have gotten the better of her. Yesterday hadn’t been the most auspicious start to her life as a spy.
She heaved a deep sigh of relief when Hortense’s footsteps receded from the bedroom. How on earth could she possibly call on Helene to collect the twins’ letters today? She would have to send the hotel’s errand boy. She couldn’t face Helene in this condition.
Efficient footsteps sounded outside the bedroom, and Mariana stifled a groan of annoyance. Hortense was returning. Through a forest of fuzzy eyelashes, she watched the girl pour a pitcher of cold water into a washbasin before taking a knife to a cucumber and slicing off two thin slivers.
At Hortense’s insistence, she left the comfort of her warm bed and washed her face in the cooling water before taking a seat on a firm chair, allowing Hortense to tilt her head back and place the slices over her eyes. The girl maintained that she not lie back down.
“Non, non, your head must be elevated. Zee bad puff must flow down, down, down.”
It was here Mariana remained for the next thirty or so minutes. She had to admit to feeling somewhat less crapulent sitting here with her head resting back on a firm, cushioned surface with vegetables covering her eyes. They felt nice.
Soon, the seduction begins. Through the fog of day-after crapulence, the words came to her, echoing through her head like a gong. Why had she spoken them? To him.
She knew why. She’d hoped those words would imbed themselves under his skin like little, sticky burrs.
Hortense began fluttering around the bed, straightening blankets and pillows. “Zee green fairy, non?”
Mariana peeked out from beneath a cucumber. “Pardon?”
“Zee absinthe, non?”
“Non.”
“You don’t know of zee absinthe?”
Mariana shook her head and immediately regretted it. “It was zee whiskey.” She sensed now might be her opportunity to discuss Hortense’s other duties. “Have you been in your other line of service very long?”
Hortense’s gaze met hers, and Mariana saw that the girl understood this turn in the conversation. “Since I was fourteen years of age.”
“How many years have you now?”
“Twenty.”
Shock traced through Mariana. At twenty, she’d been a married woman with a pair of twins to care for, a household to run, and a philandering husband to ignore. “Is Hortense your real name?”
“Zee answer to that question is . . . complex.”
“How did you become—?” Mariana hesitated.
“Your husband saved me from a bad family situation.”
“Nick casts a wide net, doesn’t he?” Mariana said, unable to hide her sarcasm.
“Your husband is a great man,” Hortense said, her dark eyes flashing. “You are lucky to call such a man yours.”
With a start of surprise, Mariana understood this girl knew nothing of her relationship with Nick. He’d certainly succeeded in keeping his two lives distinct.
As if realizing she’d overstepped the mark, Hortense blushed bright scarlet and busied herself fluffing pillows that had been fluffed minutes ago. She must say something to put the girl at ease. “Your loyalty to Nick does you credit.” Strangely, she meant it.
Hortense nodded once in acknowledgement, and the mood in the room lifted. Mariana snuggled deeper into her robe and again covered her eyes with the cucumbers.
What had gotten into her last night? What had gotten into Nick?
Whiskey.
But that wasn’t all there was to it. To blame the spirits was too easy of an absolution. The whiskey had simply made it easier to remember what she liked about her husband. Too easy. In the future, she would stay away from whiskey around Nick.
A soft, but insistent, tap-tap-tapping sounded on the exterior door to her rooms. Mariana’s ears strained toward the sound of Hortense turning the key in the deadbolt and opening the door on smooth hinges. Hortense had no time to ask for a calling card before a cacophony of voices filled the rooms. Mariana knew those tones, rhythms, and cadences nearly as well as any on earth. Family had arrived.
More irritated than alarmed, she flicked the cucumbers into a rubbish bin, cinched the belt at her waist, and strode through the doorway to her sitting room. She could ignore the mild, persistent throbbing at the base of her skull. “Uncle Bertie? Aunt Dot?” Their names emerged in the halting staccato of bemused disbelief. “How extraordinary to see you.” It was the politest way she could think to ask what they were doing here.
With her characteristic cloud of unruly white frizz puffed about her head, Aunt Dot rushed across the room and took both of Mariana’s hands in her own slightly damp ones. Aunt Dot ever had moist palms. “Oh, my dear. Oh, my dearest.” She rotated back and forth between Uncle Bertie and Mariana a few times. Mariana likened Aunt Dot to a spinning top once she got worked up. Today, she was in top form. “Oh, my dearest dear.”
“Has something happened?” Mariana asked, genuine alarm beginning to creep in.
“Has something happened? Has something happened? Oh, my dear.”
Mariana glanced up at Uncle Bertie, a ponderous man whose great jowls sagged lower than ever, and lifted her brows in query. “Uncle?” she asked in a weak voice, bracing herself for the worst.
“Oh, my dearest, your face—”
“My face?” To be sure, she wasn’t looking her best this morning, but she was quite certain that she hadn’t sprouted a wart on the tip of her nose overnight.
“Your face says it all. Oh, my dearest dear.”
Mariana reclaimed her hands from Aunt Dot and began to worry that she’d walked into a scene straight out of bedlam. She only questioned whether it was she or they who belonged in the padded room.
“Why don’t we all take a seat and perhaps ring for tea?” Uncle Bertie suggested in his usual proper and diplomatic manner as he settled his cumbersome body onto the sofa.
“Of course, Uncle,” Mariana replied, following his lead and perching on the edge of the opposite settee.
“And have you a dollop of French cream to accompany tea?” Aunt Dot asked, eyes wide and innocent.
Mariana nodded once toward Hortense and returned her attention to Uncle and Aunt, who watched her with twin expectant looks on their faces. It occurred to her that they may all need more than a dollop of brandy before this visit was through. “Have you recently arrived in Paris?” It seemed like a fitting question. Their disheveled appearance suggested they’d arrived this very moment.
“Have we recently arrived? Have we recently arrived? Oh, my dearest dear. On a wave from Noah’s flood, I daresay.”
“Is it raining?”
“Is it raining? Is it raining? Oh, dearest, is it raining. We have nothing like this in England. I can assure you of that, indeed. Oh, the French—” Hortense entered the room bearing tea service, and Aunt Dot lowered her voice. “How do they live the way they insist on living?”
“Aunt,” Mariana began, resisting a sigh, “the French can hardly control their weather.” Out of the corner of her eye, Mariana noticed Hortense stiffen as she commenced her task of arranging the tea tray for service.
In a loud whisper, Aunt Dot asked, “Does the chit know how to make tea?”
“Yes, Aunt,” Mariana replied, her patience beginning to run thin.
“Proper English tea?”
Impatient to redirect the conversation, Mariana turned toward Uncle Bertie. “Are you in Paris for long?”
“We do not yet know the duration of our stay.” His gaze locked onto hers and held. “And you, my dear, have you found what you must so desperately seek?”
Alarm bells sounded inside Mariana’s head. “I suppose—”
Her reply was cut short when Aunt Dot, who wouldn’t cease monitoring Hortense’s every movement, called out, “Girl—how do you say girl in French?”
“Une fille?” Mariana supplied the word and instantly regretted it. She was only feeding the beast. “Aunt, Hortense speaks perfectly serviceable English.”
Aunt Dot, however, had had enough. She rose in a huff and rushed around the sofa, her hand extended. “I’ll take that,” she commanded, referring to the tea strainer held by a stunned Hortense. She released the instrument and took a step backward, allowing Aunt Dot ample room.
“Now, fille,” Aunt Dot said as she began advising Hortense on the intricacies of making a proper English tea, enunciating every word loudly and clearly as if Hortense was both deaf and mentally slow, instead of simply French. These were one and the same for Aunt Dot.
Every so often, Aunt inserted an incorrect French word, and Hortense corrected her, saying, “Madame, I speak English fluently.” But Hortense’s protests were all for naught; staunch English ladies were neither swayed nor changed.
Meanwhile, Uncle Bertie leaned forward in a confidential manner. “I came as soon as I heard,” he intoned on a low note that wouldn’t carry beyond the few feet separating them.
A prickle of foreboding tingled down Mariana’s spine. “Heard what?”
“About Nick, dearest.”
Mariana glanced around, caught Hortense’s steady eye for a fraction of a second, and leaned in closer to Uncle. “I’ve seen Nick.”
“Alive?”
Mariana recoiled from Uncle’s narrow gaze. A sense that she’d said the wrong thing snaked through her. The glint in Uncle Bertie’s eye was keen, too keen.
He reached out and covered her hand with his. It took every ounce of her resolve to leave her hand where it lay, even as her instinct would have her snatch it away. By sheer force of will, she returned Uncle’s gaze and felt a moment of connection. A knowledge lay within his eyes . . . It was a knowledge that shouldn’t be there, unless—unless, he’d received a note, too.
Aunt Dot interrupted this disconcerting line of thought when she swept around the sofa in a peevish flurry of muslin skirts. “Oh, my dear, you simply must keep a sharp eye on that girl,” Aunt Dot proclaimed in a less than discreet voice.
“Aunt, she speaks English,” Mariana repeated, “and she can hear you perfectly well. I would ask that you lower your voice or, better yet, keep such thoughts to yourself,” she finished on a firm note. Years spent alongside the stern headmistress, Mrs. Bloomquist, hadn’t been lost on her.
Hortense brought the tray around and began pouring. A much-chastened Aunt Dot watched in silence, even as her unsparing gaze caught every nuance and stored away every perceived mistake for future conversation. A small prick of guilt jabbed Mariana’s conscience. “Was your journey in good order and comfortable?”
“Oh, my dearest dear, the roads.”
Mariana awaited further clarification, but that was all her aunt would say on the matter. The roads spoke volumes.
Not a sip of tea later, Uncle Bertie pushed off the settee to a stand. “Well, we must be off.”
Aunt Dot reached out and squeezed Mariana’s hand. “My dear, will you be well in our absence?”
“I shall manage,” Mariana replied as Aunt released her hand. She ushered the pair to the door. “Thank you for your visit and for your . . . concern.”
The instant the door clicked shut, Mariana called out, “Hortense, will you pour me a bath?” Partially obscured by a silk chinoiserie screen, stood a claw-foot tub, soft and inviting with mid-morning light.
Once again, she settled into the familiar chair and rested her head against its firm cushion, eyes closed, while the bath was readied.
Uncle Bertie knew something about the life Nick led on this side of the Channel, of that she was certain. Ever since she could remember, he’d been involved in vague governmental activities, like so many second sons of their class. In fact, it was Uncle Bertie who had paved the way for Nick, another second son, with the consulate.
She felt in her gut that her earlier suspicion was correct: Uncle Bertie had received a note, too. Why hadn’t he said so? She couldn’t slough off the feeling she’d mishandled the situation by telling him that Nick was alive. She kept getting it wrong at every turn when it came to this spy business.
She released a groan of frustration. Nothing was what it seemed. First Nick, then Hortense, now Uncle Bertie . . . Who wasn’t involved in this intrigue?
Of course, she shouldn’t feel all that surprised. Nick had always withheld the core of himself from her. In the early days, she’d felt it with a deep certainty in the way only a girl wholeheartedly in love for the first time could intuit every straight and curve of her lover’s heart. And, in the way of a young girl, she’d accepted it. He was five years older; of course, he would have a past. Wasn’t his mystery part of his allure?
Now that past was out of the shadows and in the light, but still between them. It was a whole new, strange world that unfurled before her. An image of Yvette and Lisette kissing sprang to mind. What sort of life did Nick lead?
Her finger ran along the space between her breasts where her gold locket should lie. A stab of regret for its loss pierced her. What had possessed her to gamble her locket away?
Not whiskey. Rather, it was a dangerous high-spiritedness that at times overtook her good sense and led her down paths wild and unknown, sometimes destructive. In all likelihood, and at this very moment, her locket was gracing the décolletage of a French strumpet named either Yvette or Lisette. She squeezed her eyes tight at the thought of what activity said French strumpet could be engaged in—
“Madame, your bath is ready,” came Hortense’s soft, husky voice.
Mariana stood and shrugged off her bathrobe as she closed the few steps between her and the blessed pleasure of a piping hot bath. No click of a ring sounded as her fingers closed around the tub’s edge, and she lowered herself into its steaming depths. She’d stopped wearing her wedding band years ago, the moment she’d learned about Nick’s affair, not from the gossip rags—they traded in lies, after all—but from his own lips.
But she’d never stopped wearing the locket with the cameo inside. Not for a single occasion. The cameo represented an ideal, one they’d achieved together for a single perfect moment in time. She sank further into the water’s sultry embrace, banishing the thought and the regret.
Eyes closed, her mind traveled to a different time and place, far away and long ago toward a memory long-suppressed. It was out of self-preservation, to be sure. But here, in the foreign environs of Paris, she could indulge in the luxury of such a memory—not just any memory, her favorite memory. The day she’d known Nick was hers forever.