Written on Your Skin

by Meredith Duran

  Her hand lingered on his jaw a bit longer than necessary. She was tempted to touch the cleft in his chin. His lashes lay against his cheeks, unusually long, all the more striking given that his face was so starkly masculine. Her attraction to him, at least, was not feigned. But she liked him better with his eyes open. They stayed on hers when she spoke, which was a novelty.

  She rose and stepped back. That her concern felt genuine made her a little anxious. More and more, she was confusing her hopes for him. He did not snap at servants, and he had saved her once from a very unpleasant interlude with Bonham, but that might mean nothing; she hadn’t been able to tell whether his well-timed entrance was by accident or design. And in the past week, he’d seemed increasingly aloof, distant and curt with her.

  She should not allow herself to care. It was asking for trouble.

  “My goodness!” A hand crept around her elbow. Jane’s face was pale beneath her crown of chestnut ringlets. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  She sighed. Collins had hired Jane for Mina’s sixteenth birthday. A young lady needs a traveling companion, he’d said. The friendship that had grown between them in these last four years was her most treasured possession, and also, occasionally, her greatest inconvenience. Jane never failed to see through her like a window, and she had cautioned Mina, more than once, against Monroe’s charms. You don’t know the man. Don’t be indiscreet. “He fell onto my nose,” Mina said. “It hurts.”

  Jane’s hazel eyes narrowed. “Let me see.” She took Mina by the chin, turning her face. People were crushing in around them now; elbows knocked into Mina’s side, passing feet pulled at her skirts. It was rather novel, to be pushed past without a second glance. She let herself be rocked by the crowd; keeping her balance was like a game. “It looks intact,” Jane decided. “A bit pink. What ails him? Is he dead?”

  Mina shook her head. She had felt his breath, hot against her neck, as she clutched him. It had sent a lovely sensation down her spine—perhaps that was why she hadn’t reacted immediately. He kissed splendidly, even better than she’d hoped. But his vocabulary was filthy. Why had he talked to her that way? What had she done to alter his attitude? It irritated her that he had the power to make her worry over it. He was only a friend of her stepfather’s.

  Dr. Sullivan’s son shoved past them, jostling them into each other. They turned to follow his progress. He crouched beside Monroe, his fingers reaching for the man’s pulse.

  “I should go find Mr. Collins,” Jane murmured.

  “Try the card room.” After he’d terrorized Mina’s mother into retiring, he’d ensconced himself at the poker table, where admirers queued to greet him like peons before a king. Every time she passed the card room’s open doors, he winked at her and blew a smoke ring, as if inviting her to congratulate him for his popularity. The effort to laugh for him was scraping her throat raw.

  “All right. I’ll just be a moment.” Jane looped her skirts over one wrist and glided away. Mina now found herself the lone spot of color in a sea of broad, dark backs. The gentlemen had closed ranks around Monroe, and the hubbub was taking on a strident tone, each man deploying his loudest, most authoritative, most positively manly voice.

  “Move back—”

  “Loosen his tie—”

  “Is he breathing?”

  “Collins’s guest, ain’t he?”

  “Hot to the touch—”

  Mr. Bonham shouldered through the crowd. When he saw her, he gave her one of his peculiar smiles. She had never seen him smile at anyone else that way. Did he think it attractive? It looked as if he were trying to suck his lips down his throat. She could not smile back. If Mr. Monroe was seriously ill, everything would be ruined.

  Dr. Sullivan’s son rose, his bright red hair catching her attention. “Breathing,” he announced, and the gathering sighed.

  She went up on tiptoe for a better view. Ten years of her life for two more inches: this was the trade she’d offered God at thirteen, but he had ignored her completely.

  Through the forest of shoulders, she saw Mr. Bonham kneel. He lifted Monroe’s head by his dark brown hair and took a sniff. “Too much to drink,” he drawled. “Or perhaps…” He looked up, finding her. His leering grew so tedious. “Perhaps he was simply overwhelmed by Miss Masters’s beauty.”

  A laugh swept the crowd. Eyes turned toward her from all directions. Several gentlemen who’d been crowding her now found their discourtesy made conspicuous; they took quick steps away and a circle of space opened around her, the better for the crowd’s examination. Inspected like a prize pig on fair day. She felt the urge to cross her eyes and screw up her face.

  But at the center of so much attention, she had no choice but to smile. Mr. Bonham took this as a good sign for himself; his own smile widened, baring teeth. He was ambitious and moneyed, a self-made man; in the colonies, this was not a mark against him, and society beauties were expected to flutter in his presence. Had Mina known nothing more of him, she might have done so authentically. He was slim and elegant, with the long white fingers of an artist and hair of deepest black. A banker’s talents, and the face of a poet; his sea-green eyes set the ladies to whispering such nonsense when he passed.

  But she had cause to know other things about his nature. His hands ranged more freely than an octopus’s arms. His lips tasted like gutter water. He had a soft heart for the street dogs that gathered outside his gates every evening, but he slapped his servants with the same smile he wore when he fed the strays. He had partnered with her stepfather in a coca plantation in Ceylon, and now he wanted to marry her to boot. She had no opinion on the former, but the latter made her light-headed with panic.

  She did not allow herself to dwell on it. She was not Mama; she would not sit around weeping and wringing her hands. Action was the answer, and the man currently napping on the ground was meant to help. Mr. Monroe also wanted to do business with Collins. He was American by birth and wholly Irish by blood, an advantage that Bonham—born to an English father in Singapore—could not rival. Moreover, if he won Collins’s favor, or was caught kissing Mina in dark hallways, she rather thought Bonham would lose interest in her. His pride would demand it.

  She took advantage of all the eyes on her. “It might be typhoid. Or cholera? What do you think?”

  At the mere suggestion of contagion, the gathering began to disperse. Bonham did not move, but his regard narrowed on her. Like Collins, he had a talent for recognizing the subtler forms of insubordination.

  A hand closed over her arm. Collins pulled her around with the same carelessness he would use to turn a puppy by its scruff. “What happened?” he asked as his bloodshot eyes slid to the spot where Monroe’s long body lay.

  She thought it was rather evident what had happened, but Collins often asked questions merely for the pleasure of being answered. “He collapsed, sir,” she said.

  “Collapsed? Without warning?”

  It was rare to hear the brogue in his voice; he must have been drinking quite heavily in the card room. Usually he sounded more American than she, whose diction had been addled by a childhood spent traveling the world and a parade of English governesses handpicked by her mother.

  She spoke very carefully. “He did look a bit flushed.” Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Jane approaching, two burly servants in tow. “If you like, I’ll see that he’s settled into his room.”

  Bonham rose. “Perhaps it would be wiser to take him to the infirmary in Aberdeen. Miss Masters is right, after all; he may be infectious.”

  Mina traded a glance with Jane, who shook her head the barest fraction. Not difficult to guess what would happen to Monroe in the hospital. Bonham did not like competition for her stepfather’s favors; he would make sure one of the nurses confused her medicines.

  With a light touch to Collins’s arm, she said, “I would be glad to attend to him, Father.”

  He generally liked it when
she called him that, but tonight, in the wake of his fight with her mother, he could not be pleased. He shook off her hand. “Can’t understand what happened to him,” he growled. “Seemed fine earlier, eh?”

  “Take him to his quarters,” Jane said to the servants.

  “Hold,” said Bonham, and gave Jane a sharp look. “With such a sudden attack, the hospital will be better for him. If he’s contagious—”

  Mina pitched her voice louder. “Why, Mr. Bonham, I am shocked! Mr. Monroe is our guest. Surely you’ll agree that it’s our Christian duty to care for him.”

  Her strategy worked brilliantly: Collins swelled up like an affronted rooster. He swept the gathering with a fierce glare, daring anyone to challenge his hospitality. “Mina is right,” he said. “My household doesn’t turn away a guest in need. Bonham, if you want to be of use, fetch Dr. Sullivan.”

  “Of course,” Bonham murmured, and sketched a shallow bow.

  “He’s down in Little Hong Kong,” Dr. Sullivan’s son said. “Called to Mrs. Harlock’s childbed.”

  “Well, send a boy, then. And someone strike up the music.” Collins turned away, finished with the matter of Monroe. So long as there was liquor available, and cards to be played, he would postpone his sympathy.

  As the servants gathered up Monroe’s limp body, Jane took Mina’s elbow. “Mr. Bonham will not like this,” she murmured. “Are you certain you wish to risk offending him?”

  Mina nodded, although the question was misjudged. It was not a risk, not when there was no other choice.

  Chapter Two

  Only the faintest light shone from beneath her mother’s door, but Mina knew better than to knock. The handle moved soundlessly beneath her palm. Harriet Collins was curled up in the window seat, her legs tucked beneath her, her face turned toward the night sky. Her blond hair fell loose over one shoulder, exposing the slim line of her throat and the softness of her jaw. She looked very young, sitting there in her nightgown. She looked very nearly like the reflection Mina saw in the mirror every morning.

  She crossed her fingers in reflex. Never. She would never look so crushed, and all for the sake of pleasing a man. Such love interested her not at all.

  Some small noise must have betrayed her entrance, for Mama spoke. “Have the guests gone, then?”

  The question made her frown. It was not even midnight. She glanced at the mantel, and found a bare space where the clock had been. A quick search discovered it facedown by the wardrobe, shattered glass all around.

  She looked quickly back to Mama’s face, but it appeared unmarked. “No, not yet.” She pulled the door closed. The latch was well oiled and made no sound. Everything in this house was well tended, expensive, and ornate, the better to illustrate Collins’s standing. In that regard, she and Mama were no different from the silk rug that cushioned her feet. “Not for a few hours yet.”

  “What?” Mama turned. Her eyes were reddened from crying. “Then what are you doing here? Go back into company. You play the hostess in my absence. And, my goodness, your hair! Have Jane fix that, if you please!”

  Startled, she reached up to touch her coiffure. A bejeweled pin dropped loose into her hand. She cast it onto the carpet, a reward for whoever swept up the glass. “No, I’ve retired for the night. Mr. Monroe took ill, and Mr. Collins asked me to care for him.”

  Mama frowned. Clearly, she disapproved of the order, but she would not dare to contravene it. “All right, then.” She reached up to fiddle with the locket at her throat. Her voice was thin from crying; she sounded resigned. “What’s wrong with him? Have you sent for the doctor?”

  “Yes, but it may take him some time to come. Apparently, Mrs. Harlock’s baby doesn’t want to be born.” As her mother tightened her wrapper, preparing to stand, she added hastily, “Jane is with him right now—there’s no need for you to attend.” Mama tended to frailty; if Monroe really was contagious, there was no call to expose her.

  Mama settled back, relief on her face. “Good. I should have hated to risk running into a stray guest.” She hesitated, then held out an arm. “Come tell me about it, then. Quickly, before you go.”

  This show of interest was heartening. More and more of late, Mama seemed to move in a daze, as though her mind had detached from her flesh. Mina sat down on the chintz cushion and gave her a smile. “Well, I was speaking to Mr. Monroe—”

  “No, start at the beginning. Were you the most beautiful girl at the ball?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Must that always be the first question you ask?”

  “I like to begin with good news, darling.”

  “Well…” Mina considered the question, for in Mama’s view, it was never only a matter of looks. Her gown was costlier than any other she’d seen. The pearls at her throat would have paid for five copies of Miss Morgan’s. And the gentlemen had flocked to her; she’d been hard-pressed to sit out a dance. “Yes, I believe so.”

  Mama nodded. “Miss Kinnersley is not in attendance, then?”

  Mina pulled a shocked face. The Kinnersleys had recently transferred from Rangoon, where the daughter had been the reigning beauty. “Why do you ask? Surely you don’t think her prettier than me?” She leaned forward, squinting into her mother’s face with mock concern. The lines at the corners of Mama’s eyes seemed to have deepened recently. All her creams and potions would be for naught, so long as Collins drove her to cry so regularly. “So young to require spectacles!”

  Mama laughed. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m a very silly girl.”

  “Is she here tonight?”

  “Yes, she’s here.”

  “And what is she wearing? With whom has she danced?”

  Mina shrugged. “Why does it matter? Are we in competition?”

  “It is always a competition.” Mama’s hand on Mina’s chin drew her face around. “A woman has only three assets to trade on. Her beauty, her breeding, and, if she is lucky—”

  “—her fortune, yes, I know.” Mina pulled free. Her eyes fell on the abandoned clock. The glass glittered in the dim lamplight, pretty as diamonds. No wonder people were often fooled by paste. “You’ve only told me a thousand times.”

  “Well.” Mama shrugged. “In the third department, you’re outmatched, and you mustn’t forget it. That’s all I mean.”

  If she had a penny for every time Mama had reminded her, she’d be wealthy by now and free to do as she liked, rather than primping herself like a prize at auction. “A pity Mr. Bonham doesn’t see it that way.”

  Mama sighed. “I know you’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, but he’s a very likely gentleman, Mina. And he takes a very strong interest in you.”

  Not in me, she wanted to say. In her face and figure? Of course. But she knew better than to say it. Mama would not have acknowledged a difference. Mama thought American girls terribly forward. A young lady is not meant to trade on her opinions. She could not understand the license New York society permitted its daughters. In England, a girl does not consort with gentlemen unchaperoned. It seemed that mothers made all the decisions in England, and what decisions they made were designed to crush the fun from life. If you had grown up in England, you would be drinking lemonade, not champagne. England sounded terribly tedious, and the girls there must be as boring as Sunday sermons.

  The brief silence had allowed Mama to recall her troubles. She pressed her lips together and fumbled in her lap for her handkerchief.

  “Did he throw the clock at you?” Mina asked softly.

  Mama pressed the hankie to her eyes, then drew a hitching breath. “Of course not.”

  “But he threw it, didn’t he?”

  No response. Well, what did the specifics matter? If he’d thrown things away from her tonight, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t adjust his aim tomorrow.

  Mama’s shoulders trembled. The handkerchief muffled her sob.

  Take her in your arms. But Mina’s muscles wouldn’t permit it. They balked and contracted like hardenin
g clay. “I fear for you,” she said.

  “Oh—” Mama cast down the handkerchief and came into her arms. She held still, feeling tears slip down her chest, under her bodice. Mama’s body shook with a grief that seemed too powerful for her frame. The cotton batiste of her nightgown disguised nothing; every bump and knob in her spine translated clearly to Mina’s fingertips. They were of a height and could wear each other’s dresses, but Mina always felt so much larger, so much more solid in comparison. It worried her, how fragile Mama felt.

  She tightened her hold. The angle was terribly awkward, the two of them sitting side by side on the bench with their knees knocking. The tears soaking her bodice made her feel clammy, claustrophobic in her clothes. Mama could weep more copiously than the marble angels in the Rockefellers’ garden, the ones with the fountains hidden inside.

  Her own impatience shamed her. She shifted a little, trying to make herself comfortable. But as she drew a breath to start the routine—reassurances (he did not mean it), denials (he will not leave you), promises (he will never leave you), for God’s sake all the manufactured optimism, the lies—she could not muster much feeling beyond exhaustion. You are not meant to cry in my arms, she thought. You are my mother. I am meant to cry in yours.

  She tested herself. “It’s all right,” she murmured, and marveled at how kind her voice sounded. Yes, she could do it again, after all. “Shh. It’s all right.” She set her chin atop Mama’s head and stared out the window. White petals floated down from the camellia trees, eddying like snow in the moonlight. Down the mountain, along the path taken by the warm wind, the harbor lights were dying as Hong Kong settled to sleep. The sails in the bay rocked gently, like clusters of strange white flowers caught in the breeze.