Two

Lilith tore through the guests, murmuring her apologies to the people beckoning her to join them. Her body quaked. What had happened? How could that man, after disparaging her manners and her person, dare to kiss her?

More to the disturbing point, how could she have kissed him back? Why did his body feel so safe and snug atop hers? Something was very wrong with her. For God’s sake, he was the Sultan Murada in flesh and blood.

She had to get to the sanctuary of her bedchamber. Words, sentences, and phrases of vitriol burned in her mind. She had to commit them to paper before they incinerated her.

She closed the door to her garret bedchamber, shutting out the party raging below. She patted about until she found her matches and then lit her lamp. Light illuminated her walls adorned with copies of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and French Impressionists.

Her writing desk remained in the disheveled state in which she had left it. A drained pot of oolong tea and an empty box of toffee sat atop her beloved volumes of Keats, the Brontë sisters, and Christina Rossetti. Telltale signs of a fruitless morning and afternoon spent staring at the page as a deadline loomed, and her mind was incapable of none but the most uninspired and tepid of words. When her unreliable muse failed to make an appearance, Lilith had decided to dress like the one in the painting. It was supposed to have been a fun joke.

The joke didn’t seem so funny when only a thin layer of silk had separated her body from Marylewick’s muscled, aroused one.

Her fingers were shaking as she fished her portfolio and key from her desk drawer. She unlocked the portfolio’s tiny latch and slipped out her latest pages. Only her cousins, Frances and Edgar, knew she was the author of Colette and the Sultan. Heaven forbid that George would find out she wrote the sensational stories. Since she was too old to be hidden conveniently in another boarding or finishing school, he would tuck her away in an asylum. He was painfully old-fashioned in his views on women. And by old-fashioned, she meant Roman. In his mind, women should never venture from their homes, much less have their names venture into journals.

She grabbed her pen, jammed it into the inkwell, and under where she had written: Colette’s tale was abruptly ended when in her confused state (and much to the dismay of her publisher, a character heretofore unmentioned but always looming in the background) she accidentally stepped in front of a herd of angry camels and was trampled to death, she now penned:

Lord Marylewick’s powerful body trapped Colette beneath him. His caftan was of the finest silk and gold embroidery. Its delicate beauty was wasted on his hard, brutish face and body. Colette refused to give in to fear. She would not give him the pleasure of her terror.

As always, she would change Marylewick’s name to Sultan Murada before she gave the clean copy to her publisher. She would remove any incriminating vestiges of Marylewick’s annoying mannerisms and alter his handsome features to a better reflection of his true ugly personality. Marylewick’s pale gray eyes were changed to vacuous, cold black. The graceful arch in his brows flattened to severe slashes. His lips, which she now knew to be as lusciously soft as they looked, were reduced to a cruel line. However, the sultan sported Marylewick’s unyielding jaw.

For now, she didn’t need to think of the trifling details of appearance. She was a mere scribe to her fast-flowing muse.

He lifted her veil. The vivid sunlight burned her eyes.

“Your father is dead,” he growled. “But my spies know you carry his secret. The formula for Greek Fire. Give it to me, woman.”

“I would rather follow my father in death,” she answered in Persian.

He drew the sword from his sash and held it above her thundering heart. The blade penetrated the thin fabric of Colette’s peasant caftan, in which she had disguised herself in her attempt to flee the sultan and his army. She could feel the sharp point poised on her skin.

“Death is too merciful and does not achieve my aim,” Marylewick spat. “I will make you my slave. Your life is my possession.”

“Do what you will.” Her voice remained steady despite the rapture in her breast.

“Wait! What? Muse, did you say ‘rapture in her breast’?” Lilith asked. “No, no. For God’s sake, he’s making her his slave. She can’t feel anything but abhorrence for him.”

But her muse continued on this dangerous path.

“You’ve already taken my home, my books, my art, all I have known,” Colette cried. “But the contents of my mind cannot be possessed. You will never know the gardens of my heart.”

“I won’t?” His voice was creamy and low. “My fair Colette, it’s not your lush, flowering heart I desire but the sweet nectar from your wet lips.”

He dropped his sword.

A hot, heady wave coursed through Colette’s body as his mouth descended upon hers—

“What! No, no, Muse, you are wrong. Pick up the sword this instant and aim at her heart again.”

Lilith’s mule-headed muse refused to listen.

His rough fingers gently caressed her—

“Dammit, Muse! You stop that!” Lilith leaped back from the desk and stared at her words as if they had come alive—ugly Frankensteins shocked to life. “Muse, you had better have a devious plan in mind, because Colette is far too intelligent and possesses too much taste to find Marylewick the least bit alluring.”

“But, darling, Lord Marylewick is alluring,” a female voice said.

Lilith wheeled around. Her cousin-in-law, Frances, had opened the door and ambled in. A tipsy smile played on her unnaturally cherry-red lips. “Terribly alluring,” Frances said. “Why, when he walks into the room, the heavens open and angels sing.” She waved her hand, jangling her paste diamond bracelets. “But then he insists on speaking and—”

“Hell opens, choirs of demons sing, and Satan falls. Paradise lost.” Lilith began to quote from Milton’s masterpiece. “‘Me miserable! which way shall I fly / Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? / Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; / And, in—’”

“Darling, darling, you know I get a headache when you become dramatic.”

Frances’s blond curls were twisted around ostrich plumes. Pink fabric roses clustered at the bodice and down the bustle of her purple gown. She was vivid and vibrant, and Lilith worshipped her.

After years of the Maryle family sending her from one boarding school to the next, Lilith had finally managed to escape to her paternal cousins, Edgar and Frances Dahlgren. They took her in and kept her safe from George’s controlling clutches. Lilith savored their exciting world of artists, musicians, and writers. Just being amid the stunning art was as close to heaven as she could get on Earth. She had always wanted to dwell in a story or painting. As if she could step out of her anxious life and into the paper and canvas and exist in a better world.

She’d learned at a tender age that books and art offered a kind of escape from the loneliness and fear she suffered amid the strict, uniform living of boarding school life. At seven, she taught herself to read while hiding behind the curtains in the alcove of the school’s study. She remembered laughing aloud when reading Dickens’s Pickwick Papers. So this is laughter, she had thought, reflecting on the rise and release in her chest and the peace that flooded her body. What the outside world couldn’t provide her—a true home, loving parents, kindness, companionship, and laughter—she had found in books.

Later, after she grew older and bolder, having learned to make friends, conceal sweets in her mattress, smoke a cigar, and sneak out of the seventh floor dorm windows at night, she still craved to escape into art, this time into the darker reflections of Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, and her beloved Keats. She found kindred spirits in the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She spent hours studying their paintings of beauty seemingly locked away behind an invisible wall—perfection so close, but never attainable.

“I saw you fly away.” Frances clutched the bedpost. “Has odious Marylewick vexed you again? Did he say anything about your money?”

Lilith rested her pen on the tray. “Of course he did! The man can’t mutter three sentences without reminding me. ‘Hello. What fine weather we’ve been having. Did I mention that I control all your money and expect you to grovel for it?’”

“He isn’t stopping your allowance, is he?”

“Until next month, you can be sure.”

“Dear God! But we need—” Frances visibly checked herself and began again in a calmer voice. “What happened?”

Lilith’s face heated. She glanced at her pages, where Colette remained trapped beneath the sultan. “He, er…he was angry because of the exhibit opening, what I was wearing, and that I had lied to him—which I hadn’t.” Lilith couldn’t sit still and began tidying her empty toffee papers. “You see, when I begged for extra funds on Monday, I told him that we had outrun the grocer, which was true, and that I had outrun my gowns, which was also true, because I can hardly get into them anymore due to my little toffee problem. I couldn’t tell him that I needed money for the gallery. I didn’t have the fortitude to sit through the denigration of me, my lifestyle, and my bohemian friends, only to be told no. He detests you and Edgar and thinks you’re a terrible influence upon me.”

“We try our best, darling.”

“I meant to go to the shops directly after I spoke with him. Truly. Except that Monday was particularly gray and soggy, and you know how low I become after meeting with George. He makes me feel horrible about myself. I thought a tiny spot of tea and toffee in my favorite teashop would brighten my spirits. And what do you know, I smashed into Figgy.”

“You didn’t tell me about Figgy.”

Lilith sank into her chair.

“The poor man. He hasn’t written a poem since his wife died. He was a dreadful sight, disheveled and unshaven. My heart bled for him. How could I not help? So I gave him a few pounds.”

Frances groaned. “You are too generous, and it’s dreadful. Charity, luv, begins at home. This home.” She waved about her.

“But I gave the rest of the monies to you for the exhibit opening. Don’t tell me we need even more.”

Frances bowed her head. “Edgar hasn’t sold a painting, whether his or other artists’, in a month.”

Oh no! Their little household rolled along on tenuous finances. Lilith gave money for rent, coal, and groceries from her monthly allowance, but running a gallery and supporting a community of underappreciated artists stretched their meager funds.

“Frances, I simply can’t crawl back and beg George after he kissed—” She faltered, realizing what she had admitted aloud. She moved hastily to cover her mistake. “I can’t—”

“Wait, did you just say kissed?” Frances lit up.

“No.” Lilith gazed at Frances with wide, guileless eyes, a trick she had perfected in school.

Frances, keener than Lilith’s old schoolmistresses, would have none of it. “Yes, you did. You said ‘after he kissed.’”

Frances crossed to Lilith, her eyes aglitter, and knelt before her. “Did he kiss you? Truly? On the lips?”

Lilith removed her beloved volume of Keats from under the teapot and hugged it to her chest. The worn leather binding gave her comfort. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, no, my darling, you don’t say ‘he kissed’ and then leave me in suspense. Now tell me all that happened, starting from the beginning and then lingering about the kiss part. Leave nothing out.”

Lilith released a long breath. Frances was quite tenacious and wouldn’t let up until Lilith threw her a scrap. “It was the usual banter. You know I behave dreadfully around that man. I taunt, I tease. I say the most outrageous things to keep him at bay. I can’t let him near the real me, because he would only mock and hurt me in the deepest way. So it’s always veiled barbs and games, except this time the game took a turn out of my control. He kissed me, and his male part, it…it…never mind.”

Frances clapped her hands and gleefully laughed. “No, no, this is delicious. What did you do to that man’s instrument?”

“Nothing. It engorged of its own accord. I did nothing.” Well, maybe a few things she wouldn’t admit despite Frances’s demand for detail—the mocking play, teasing dance, pillow fight, and how for a moment, he appeared like an adorable boy when he laughed. Nor would she reveal that briefly, she had actually desired to know the feel of him deep inside her.

“Was his manly shaft very big?” Frances relentlessly interrogated.

“What! How can you think about such a thing as that?”

“I always think about such things. I make a practice of it. ”

Normally Lilith would have laughed, admiring Frances’s unabashedly naughty mind. But Lilith wasn’t accustomed to thinking of George in such intimate terms. It was disconcerting and made her painfully self-conscious. “I suppose so. I’m not personally acquainted with any real male parts.”

“George could remedy that.”

“What? Absolutely not!” Nonetheless, Lilith’s mind filled with images of her and George’s bodies entwined like in those vivid illustrations in Love’s Wondrous Positions that she had found when she was fifteen, hidden inside the schoolmistress’s copy of Hannah Moore’s lectures. Lilith had “borrowed” the guide and showed it to her friends over jellies and giggles late that night in their room. These were the mysteries that proper girls would only know once wedded. However, in Edgar and Frances’s liberal circles, marriage hardly signified. One needn’t be married to enjoy Love’s Wondrous Positions. And Lilith had received a handful of casual propositions since living with her cousins that she had readily turned down.

She wanted something more. She desired to give herself to a love that was worthy of Keats—unfettered and all-consuming love. She had been waiting years for such an attachment and was beginning to think it was too pure to exist. Perhaps her dream was merely the leftover yearnings of a lonely child who wanted to be loved completely.

“So after his ardent showing, what happened?” Frances refused to let the subject drop.

“I leaped away. I felt…” Wild? Throbbing? Exhilarated? Terrified? Ashamed? “Repulsed, of course. Then he apologized.”

“He apologized!”

“Yes, profusely.” She didn’t describe the horror twisting his features. No doubt he was disgusted to have lowered himself to touch her. A stinky gutter rat would carry less taint than lowly Lilith.

“This is very, very good, darling. You have the upper hand now.” Frances began to pace in the small space between Lilith’s bed and her desk, her brows lowered in concentration. “You must play upon his guilt.”

Lilith was taken aback at her cousin’s scheming. “Pardon?”

“Don’t you see, George prides himself on always being proper and right. But, alas, he has tumbled from his self-righteous throne. Trust me, dearest, this is the perfect time to ask for more money.”

“The perfect time is never! But since we live in an imperfect world, I’ll just wait until my allotted fifteen-minute appointment next month. I won’t go back before then. ”

Frances’s features tightened to angry lines. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. She tilted her head. “Are you sure you didn’t enjoy that kiss and arousal?”

“What?”

She sashayed toward Lilith. “Maybe you’re ashamed of your own feelings for George?”

“No! Never!”

Frances ran a strand of Lilith’s hair between her thumb and index finger. “Were his lips soft, my dear? Does his body feel as exquisite as it looks?”

“I’m not playing your game.”

“But I wager you played for him, didn’t you? Look at you, all flushed.”

“What?” Lilith yanked away from Frances. She didn’t know why, but tears welled in her eyes. “Pray, do you realize how much pain George and his family have caused me? I came to my new papa with my young, tender heart open. I didn’t understand such things as title, wealth, and ancestry. I thought this new papa might be kind and love me. And we would be a true family. And…and my stepfather ordered my mother to send me away. But I was never good enough for the Maryles. And now George controls me like a puppet because of that bloody trust. He becomes irate when he tugs a string and I refuse to leap.” She covered her face. “And I kissed him. I kissed my very tormentor. I’m not humiliating myself before George by asking for any more money until my next allotment. I refuse.”

“The gallery, darling,” Frances whispered. “We are struggling. I don’t know how much longer we can continue.”

“I’ll write more!” Lilith cried. “I’m finally inspired tonight. See? Words.” She held up her page. “Good words…well, some of them. My elusive muse is rather obstinate.”

“Damn your muse!” Frances balled her fists. “We can’t live on three pounds a chapter, let alone support a gallery!” She pressed her hand to her mouth, catching herself. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.” Her lips trembled.

Lilith rushed to her cousin and embraced her. Frances and Edgar had taken her into their hearts and the company of fascinating artists. If she lost her home and Frances and Edgar, she had nowhere and no one to go to…but George. “Let me talk to the publisher,” she implored. “The story is very popular now. Maybe I can get more money, or write another story. Several stories.”

“What? Six pounds a chapter? It’s not near enough.” Frances studied Lilith with her shiny, wet eyes. “Sometimes we must let go of our childish, unattainable ideals. Sometimes we must kiss the fusty patron frog for our art’s sake, and pretend that he is a prince.”

Lilith pulled back. “George isn’t even a frog. He is much lower. He’s the sultan. He and his family have broken my heart again and again. L-let me ask the publisher tomorrow. If he won’t give me enough money, well, then I’ll go to George. Will that do?”

Frances kissed Lilith’s cheek. “Thank you, my love,” she whispered and left.

Lilith trudged to her desk, her shoulders slumping under the weight of worry. “You heard that, Muse, I need money. No more rapturous breasts or sweet nectar on lips.”

She dipped her pen and began to write.

When the sultan’s lips touched hers, she was surprised at their softness.

“Muse! I warned you. If you don’t behave…I’ll…I’ll…”

Hmm, how does one punish a muse?

“I’ll force us to eat eel pie and ale in a dirty tavern full of drunken dockworkers who think they belong on the Royal Opera House stage.”

Colette submitted to his kiss as her fingers patted about the ground until she found what she desired: the ivory handle of his sword.

“Oh, that’s brilliant, Muse!”

Her chamber, the party below, Marylewick’s stiff manhood, and her scary emotions all scattered from her mind. She became lost in the rushing current of her story, her hand flying as she scribed her muse’s words.

* * *

George was relieved to learn his sister had already retired for the evening when he returned to Grosvenor Square. He didn’t want to speak to anyone. He removed his tie and collar on the way to his study. A golden fire was burning in the grate and his decanter of brandy had been refilled. His secretary had piled a fresh crop of correspondence with a new letter from his mother concerning the Maryle annual house party on the top. He didn’t have the wherewithal to read her latest demands, so he poured a glass of brandy and sank into his leather wingchair by the fire. He studied the flames on the liquid surface. The lulling reddish-brown tones of the alcohol and black shadows of the dancing flames. He squinted his eyes until all the colors seemed to sparkle on the glass.

He couldn’t explain what happened on that sofa between him and Lilith. He had been weak. No matter how wild, alluring, and infuriating, she was his trustee and responsibility.

Maybe the months of the Stamp Duty Extension Bill going back and forth between the houses in conference and the pressure from Disraeli to make the bill pass had worn him down. George was a Tory from the egg, as his Maryle ancestors had been before him, and like any dutiful political warrior, he fought his party’s wars without question.

Maybe the upcoming house party frayed his nerves. A major yet subtle battle would be waged at it in the midst of waltzes and croquet. The party was a treacherous affair of political and romantic maneuvering as ambitious leaders tried to foist their ideas—or their daughters—upon George. He rolled his burning brandy on his tongue and thought of his young female guests.

Maybe it was finally time to get married. Perhaps the lack of consistent female attention lay at the root of his problem with Lilith. After all, he hadn’t had the best of luck with his last mistresses. They were all lovely ladies and the first weeks with each had been spectacular, but his restlessness soon returned after the initial lust had burned out. He kept craving more, wanting something they couldn’t provide and he couldn’t articulate. Maybe he should concede that this restlessness would always be a part of him, stop expecting a woman to sate it, and marry.

Maybe.

However, he knew one thing with certainty. He had to apologize to Lilith. He was a gentleman, and would not cower from his obligations, no matter how odious. Of course, she would lord it over him for months and use it as leverage to wheedle more money. But it couldn’t be helped. He had been in the wrong.

In the morning, he would send out his secretary for flowers that said “I’m sorry. I assure you that it won’t happen ever again. However, I still don’t approve of your wild ways.” Was that hyacinth and Venus flytraps? He would personally deliver them to Half Moon Street after his meeting with his man of business and be done with the bad business before Parliament.

But for now, he didn’t want to think anymore. He reached for an old issue of McAllister’s Magazine to let the story of Colette wash over his troubled mind. He opened to the very first chapter in the series. Colette learns of the encroachment of the sultan and his army on her Greek village. The sultan desires her ailing father’s discovery, the components of the fabled Greek Fire—a fire born of water and difficult to extinguish. The sultan has suppressed the surrounding regions through a regime of cruelty and terror. Colette knows that the secret of Greek Fire would make him unconquerable. She attempts to escape to the safety of Northern Greece with her dying father.

If only Colette existed in bodily form: loving, true, compassionate, and intelligent. She would be his wife.