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At which point Elizabeth had called him an imposing busybody and strode past, leaving Miss Blyth making apologies in her wake. Pointless. Men would never learn to behave if you apologised at them.
She felt a ludicrous pang of disappointment. Firstly, that she had squeaked. Secondly, that she hadn’t seized the opportunity to say Fuck. She’d never been game enough on any lesser occasion, and surely this was the most obscenity-deserving situation she would ever find herself in.
He eyed Maud with the familiar alarm of a man unsure if the girl in front of him was about to burst into tears. He decided to err on the side of assuming that Maud was too upset and too feminine to know what she needed, and directed the nearest steward to bring a cup of tea at once. Maud concentrated on keeping her expression neutral.
“Clarence, I know you can’t help being such a toad, but perhaps the next time the urge strikes you to open your mouth, you could shove some bread into it.”
The more colourful facts boiled down to this: Lord Hawthorn, in Edwin’s firm opinion, was an arrogant, insulting, self-absorbed bastard. Robin, who’d only met the man once, had agreed with this assessment. “Though at least,” he’d added, “he’s the kind of bastard who wears it on his sleeve.” The Blyth siblings had exchanged a look of perfect understanding. Honest unpleasantness was to be chosen, every time, over hypocrites and liars.
“No. What Edwin said was that you’d do your best to hurt me, to make me go away, and that your best would be very good indeed. But you’re what I have, my lord. I refuse to be killed before I can get this piece of the contract back. I will do this for my brother, who you didn’t care to save, and for Edwin, who did save him. And for Mrs. Navenby. And for all the magicians of Britain, because I care about what’s right, even if you don’t.”
Violet was waiting, with a sort of dreary fatalism, for Clarence to propose marriage to her. Or rather, to her money. The only question was on which day of the voyage Aunt Caroline’s unsubtle bullying of her only son would triumph over Clarence’s tendency to eye Violet as though she were a particularly unattractive vegetable that had uprooted itself from the garden and learned to talk. Given that Clarence bore more than a passing resemblance to a weedy parsnip himself, this was equal parts relieving and insulting. It wasn’t as though he was incapable of normal human lust, or of recognising an
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She didn’t say it. It was only a quarter of the truth; and besides, he’d never understand. He wasn’t born a girl, let alone one of five. He’d never grown out of childhood feeling himself get taller and taller as the life expected of him grew smaller and smaller, until he could barely breathe for the confines of it.
Maud poured more coffee for them both. In between stories Violet sampled all the jams on the table and had a brief, passionate affair with the ginger marmalade.
Did it contain love? Did it matter? People used one another. People made partnerships, romantic and otherwise, for every reason under the sun. Did it make a difference if he was being played, as long as they were both getting what they wanted out of it? At least she’d have to stay with him, to take advantage of what he could offer.
“Hold this for me, please, Mr. Ross,” said Maud. Ross’s hand obeyed, seemingly without recourse to his brain. Perhaps it was the dimples. They were practically a coercive charm all on their own.
“And the pornography?” said Hawthorn. “You’re a purveyor, aren’t you? Quite the multifaceted businessman.” Ross’s hand went to his chest, searching for the strap of his bag. Some fear crept in around the edges of his expression. There was still so much hostility there that it couldn’t get far. “Fuck you.” “The correct address would be: fuck you, my lord.” Very dry.
“Even without Violet’s magic, you have all the advantages of rank and wealth. Using it to trample all over human dignity, against a person’s will, is not what power is for.” “It’s the only thing power is for.” It was Ross who’d spoken. The young man climbed to his feet. “If you think otherwise, you’re a fool. Even without—sodding magic”—with a whirl of his index finger—“that’s the way the world works. Powerful people are out for more power. And they don’t care who they tread on, on the way.”
“Dinner!” came a loud, harsh voice from behind Violet. She jumped what felt like a foot, and nearly fell herself onto the green line. “Bloody hell,” she gasped. “Bloody hell.” “Oh, Dorian,” said Maud. “You still have fruit in your cage, you silly bird, I can see it from here. And I refilled your water bowl.” “Dinner. Hello, shut up. Cheat! Go away.” “Charming vocabulary,” said Violet.
“My parents did have a happy marriage. Their personalities and principles were in harmony.” Maud paused. “It’s just a pity those personalities and principles were so bloody awful.”
Maud had never quite picked up the knack of conversation with Edwin Courcey. She loved him for how happy he made her brother, but he had a way of looking at you as though he saw all your worst qualities and was waiting to have them turned onto himself like knives.
Robin didn’t lie to Maud, but he did on occasion let truths slide by unmentioned if he was trying to protect her; or to protect Edwin. And Edwin’s bitterness towards Lord Hawthorn, along with the edge to Robin’s manner whenever the man was mentioned, spoke volumes.
“As I held her fast, there emerged from the nearby wood an imposing figure. He had the head of a bull and the body of a man, and his erect member was of such girth as to make the nymph in my arms gasp in lusty anticipation and fear.” The room turned, as one, to the Baron Hawthorn. Hawthorn raised a single eyebrow. A breathless silence hung over them. “You can all go and fuck yourselves,” he said.
Maud’s back was on solid wood. They were in shadow. The deck was empty and the stars were kind, and glittering, and very far away. “Maud?” said Violet softly. “What are you doing?” “Looking,” said Maud, above the din of her heart, “for a more practical education.”
Violet pulled back, out of Maud’s grasp. “I’m sorry, Maud. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Why? screamed Maud’s body—every nerve in every limb. She wanted to argue. She was good at arguing. But she had just enough sense left to realise that to ask for the answer would be to demand a bed of knives and then fling herself upon it.
Mrs. Moretti was holding court nearby. The self-proclaimed medium was somehow wearing more furs every time Violet saw her. Perhaps the things were mating.
Maud didn’t laugh. Guilt flooded her extraordinary windowpane of a face and made a vulnerable confection out of her mouth. Violet did not want to kiss it. Oh, she did. She wanted to bite.
For a few seconds Maud, too, forgot how one formed entire English words. Then she blurted, “So it’s not that you don’t think I’m—I mean, that you find me—” Not much better. Violet lifted a restless hand and rubbed at the back of her own neck, as if something there had bothered her. The weight of her gaze on Maud’s skin was like stepping into sunlight from shadow. “You’re completely lovely and someone should have taught you it’s rude to fish for compliments,” said Violet, flat. “They did,” said Maud. “I ignored them. Do you . . .”
She fumbled her own tongue, again. So much for her promising first attempt at flirtation; how did half the ship believe her to be a loose woman, honestly? Her brain kept mechanically repeating words like oil and skin, or else trying to throw up more images from those erotic pamphlets.
There was a high, firm wall beneath the constant performance that was Violet Debenham. She was the opposite to Edwin; his walls were all up front, the warmth there beneath them if you had the patience to wait to be granted entry. Violet’s warmth was on the outside. Sweets spread temptingly out on a blanket. Pause and let yourself accept the entertainment, the offering, and you might not notice the wall at all.
“Quoits,” said Hawthorn flatly, when he appeared. Maud passed him one of the stiff rope rings. “Nice healthy exercise in the fresh air.” The Pipes and Drums were giving a performance the next day. The faint wails and rattles of their distant rehearsal could be heard like a battle taking place on the other side of a mountain. But the air was, inarguably, fresh. “A ride on a horse or a good session of singlestick would be exercise.” “When I locate the Lyric’s stables, Lord Hawthorn, I shall let you know.”
Hawthorn smiled at her. It was a smile searching for bruises with the intent of pressing down.
“What, then?” Hawthorn dripped aristocratic disdain. “There’s nothing I want from you, Miss Debenham. And if I did, I wouldn’t need magic to get it.” “Oh, fuck you,” snarled Violet. “No, thank you.”
She’d thought it was bad when Maud let the robe slip from her shoulders in the baths. Now she could see Maud’s knees, and it felt practically obscene.
If Violet had taught herself anything, clung to any principle when it came to partners and pleasure, it was that no single act was an agreement to any others. A kiss was a kiss alone, until the next kiss was bestowed. Asking a man for his mouth on you didn’t mean you’d agreed to have his cock inside you next, no matter what some might think.
“No,” Maud said again. She lifted a hand and flattened Violet’s where it lay, over silk—over skin—over the uppermost part of Maud’s beating heart. Now Violet couldn’t tell whose pulse was whose. “Because when you’re in a room I don’t want to look anywhere else.”
The final kiss was one that Maud had been deliberately allowed to see. Robin, laughing at something Edwin said, then crossing the room to bend down and lower the top edge of Edwin’s book—and to kiss him while smiling, with the ease that said he’d done it a hundred times before, and the confidence that said he wasn’t ashamed. There had been more emotion in the brief press of Edwin’s fingertips to Robin’s jaw, his sharp blue eyes falling closed, than in an operatic aria.
“Now then, Miss Blyth,” said Violet, sparkling grandly. “Full marks for participation, so far. But for the next lesson, I only require you to lie still.” “What was it you said? Lie back, think of England, and don’t whimper too much?” Violet grinned. “Whimpering is encouraged.”
Lord Hawthorn stood inside the stateroom’s doorway; he was holding a cane tipped with silver, and the door was wide open behind him.
You were there, Lord Hawthorn,” she appealed to him. “Wasn’t it funny?” A pause, in which the table warily weighed the question of whether Lord Hawthorn was familiar with the concept of humour.
Hawthorn removed her hand from his face. His eyes were overbright. Violet’s own mouth was dry with horrible sympathy. She should fetch him a drink of water, and not push. She was going to push.
“I suppose I really should sleep in the same room as you.” Maud went to Violet and experimented with the upturning of her eyes. “For safety.” “For safety.” Violet lowered her face: a tease, not quite a kiss. Warmth sang in Maud’s body. “I want to show you something.” “Good. Yes.” Maud was so fond of the tantalising dip where Violet’s waist became the top of Violet’s buttocks. Her hand fitted there exactly. “You should show me whatever you wish.”
She drew Violet down to kiss her again. Violet’s leg slid firm between her own and Violet’s hair smelled like sweat and flowers, and her mouth was soft and clever, and Maud could also see why some ingenious person had come up with a device that would allow for the phallus to be separated from, well. The rest of a man.
“Oh—oh, that’s—nonsense.” Maud climbed right off the bed, as if there wasn’t space on it for the both of them and her annoyance. “That’s complete nonsense, Violet.”
We’ve known each other three days, Violet had said. It was true. And they’d only just begun to learn where they kept the ugly corners of their personalities. Violet wanted Maud to stay at a safe distance. Maud should be worldly and carefree about it all. But everyone Maud had loved, she’d loved at once, on instinct. Greedily.
“How wrong you are, Clarence,” Violet said brightly. “I’ll spend it all on scandalous parties, where I invite only the most dissolute and radical guests, and we all walk around in the nude. Though perhaps I shall have a pile of gold in the corner for me to lie on. What a helpful suggestion.”
“I’m not naturally good,” said Maud. “I’m selfish too. And I know how to unravel someone with gossip. How to pick at anyone’s faults. But I decided that there were enough people like that in our house already. I wanted to be different.”
“Mrs. Sinclair says you look at the world and decide you can live with it or decide you can’t. And if you can’t, you decide what you’re prepared to do about it.”
“Did you get that down, Mr. Ross,” said Hawthorn, “or would you like her to repeat it?” Ross stood at Maud’s shoulder. “Moral philosophy doesn’t go down well in the society papers.”
“Well, woe the fucking day.” Ross flipped a showy page in his notebook. “How will I live without the nightly orgies in his lordship’s suite?” “Violet, that illusion you did, changing your hair, and . . .” Maud gestured to her face. “Could you do one on someone else?” “Yes?” “We’ll make you a disguise,” Maud said to Ross. His eyebrows went up. “A magical one?” “Partly. We’ll get it to you before tonight, so you can attend all the orgies you want.” She raised her sunny smile to him. “What’s your cabin number?”
“The search for the Last Contract is all about greed for power,” said Maud. “We’ve always known that.” “And not just more power,” said Mrs. Navenby. “Power you’re not entitled to. That you haven’t earned.” “Most power’s unearned.”
It was easier to let go with an ocean between us. Easier to wear my sunflowers, and to think of her surrounded by her wonderful gardens, and be content that she existed at all.
Maud chewed her lip and tried to think. Nothing swirled in her mind except thoughts of Flora Sutton, and Beth Navenby, and Violet. An ache had lodged itself in her heart: a shrapnel piece of all the histories of women who’d been important to one another, stretching back through time.
Violet opened her mouth to dryly say, Of course. But—it would be easy, wouldn’t it, to perform the cool and experienced Violet Debenham? The girl who would strive to be as scandalous as possible, even for an audience of one? Violet had let several people take that version of herself to bed. If she ran her fingers through those memories, it might take her some time to untangle how much of it she’d actually, truly wanted.
Maud said, “Undress, please?” Violet smiled. “Shall I make a show of it?” “No,” said Maud. “No. I don’t want you to perform at all.”
