She pushed her bleak thoughts away and turned her mind to Damien instead. Which reminded her of something that needed seeing to. Brice reached into her cosmetic bag and brought out her birth-control pills. She was glad that she was still taking them. She had tried giving them up twice after Mark’s death, but had been reduced to a nervous wreck who cried at the slightest provocation. The choice had been to take the pill again or turn to antidepressants and tranquilizers. After her thoughts turned once to suicide, hormones had seemed safer. And now…useful?
She swallowed the pill, chasing it with a mouthful of tap water, then turned to the rest of her travel arsenal.
Brice was vain enough—and attracted enough, in spite of last night’s odd show—to dress carefully for Damien. She just hoped that she wasn’t too obvious in her selection of clothes. She didn’t want to appear as desperate for attention as an S.O.S. from a sinking ship. She also wasn’t looking to get eye-fucked by any other person who happened to be passing by. Eye-fondled maybe, but nothing more than that.
Brice heard herself giggle. The sound was startling in its giddy youthfulness. It made her sound as if she had suddenly dropped thirty critical I.Q. points. She couldn’t help it, though. Imagine using such a crude expression in front of Damien! She could see his eyebrows darting upward and his lips compressing in disapproval. The thought was hilarious.
Still, she was a grown woman now. She didn’t giggle like a teenager, even at amusing things. Especially not when it made her sound stupid.
Not that she had reached the point where she was chasing after the fountain of youth with collagen injections and Botox, or throwing pennies in wishing wells and saying prayers to the evening star that age be gentle with her face and body. However, sometimes she did wear makeup—especially when she wasn’t well rested and needed a lift. Which she most definitely did need this morning. The previous night had been anything but restful.
Shaking her head, she broke the seal on a new tube of mascara. She leaned toward the mirror, opened her mouth slightly and did her best not to blink while the mascara wand was near her eye. The only thing worse than botched mascara was crooked eyeliner. No one looked good with asymmetrical eyes. She stroked carefully, making small humming noises. Finally, satisfied with the effect on her right lashes, she moved to her left eye.
Of course, most men didn’t understand what a compliment it was for a woman to wear heels and mascara for them. They didn’t appreciate that a woman who wore them was really saying, very well! I don’t expect you to do the impossible and want me just for my mind. I will give you something for the eyes since you like that part of me more. And, sure enough, though she always hoped for more, they usually didn’t look beyond the packaging if it pleased them sufficiently. They figured that beautiful women were like beautiful weather, or the Detroit Lions finally winning a game, or a cold beer with baby-back ribs: things to be enjoyed and not questioned.
Certainly her last few blind dates had been with men who seemed barely bright enough to know which end of the spoon to eat with. They’d been sufficiently handsome and reasonably good-natured, but not the sort of choice a woman would make if she liked her men complicated. The last one—Luke? Duke?—had been as easy to read as a nametag, and about as interesting. He’d smiled a lot because he liked her legs, liked her breasts, and generally liked that she was a woman. He was okay company for dinner, too, if you didn’t switch topics too quickly. You couldn’t change conversational gears on a guy whose brain had a bad transmission—not if you wanted him to keep up. Yeah, Luke, Duke, or whatever his name was had been extremely simple.
They almost all were. Even the less pleasant ones who picked on waiters and cabbies. The picky, whiny ones who usually looked great, but who could be offered a place at the right hand of God and still find fault with the seating arrangements. There was plenty of nastiness there underneath those expensively toned bodies and fake tans, but even then there was no depth.
But Damien Ruthven was not most men. He might notice her efforts and understand. Would that be good? Bad? Did she want a man who could actually read her thoughts and guess her intentions?
Maybe. For a while.
Brice blinked at her grinning reflection, again distracted from her unpleasant thoughts by Damien’s shadow, which hovered constantly at the back of her mind.
Should she wear perfume? Did he like it? Perhaps just a tiny spritz, misted into the air while she walked through it.
Her heart began somersaulting the moment she walked into the library. Her tread was more measured than her thoughts, but even so, because of her heels, there was a definite swish in her walk. Until she saw Damien. After that, her knees got a little shaky and she had to brace herself.
She supposed the feeling of being unbalanced could only be expected when her stomach was doing back-flips and her emotions were standing on their heads, but she didn’t care for the way the cardiac palpitations made her sweater jitter over her heart. She had seen Damien doing a gargoyle impersonation last night, hadn’t she? And she’d been alarmed? Thought it abnormal?
It seemed hard to credit the memory this morning. He was dressed as a professor might be, in a tweed coat with the obligatory suede patches at the elbows. Yet somehow, in spite of the sober clothing, he failed to look like a scholar.
It was the eyes, she decided. He looked like Don Juan misdressed by an amateur costumer who did not know what play he was supplying.
Actually, with his hair drawn back and tied with a velvet band, Damien looked exactly like portraits she’d seen of Lord Byron, except for a comma that fell over his brow.
Brice almost groaned. Not again. She had gone over this all last night. She had Byron on the brain. It had to be pheromones. Or hormones. Maybe she should just sleep with Damien—let him seduce her before she lost all reason. She had a feeling that resisting him would be an impossible test of willpower, a test she was bound to fail soon if the mascara and heels were any indication, and probably without a great deal of regret. Why not embrace the fall and get her brain back right away?
Brice felt her lips part, but her voice failed when Damien looked up and smiled. That small bend of his lips didn’t help her heart at all. Her sweater fluttered more violently.
“Come in. There is someone I want you to meet.” He held out a hand to her. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you,” she lied, looking around the room and seeing no one. She didn’t take Damien’s hand, since her own was trembling, but she didn’t pull away when he laid it on the small of her back and urged her around the desk.
“I’m afraid he’s shy. The poor chap persists in hiding under the desk when strangers are here.”
“Oh.” Understanding at last, Brice smiled and knelt down, pretty sure that she knew what awaited under the writing table.
“His name is Mace. He’s mostly Karen’s dog since I travel so much, but she has allowed me to be the godfather.”
“Mace? Strange name.” Brice offered her hand, being careful to move slowly toward the small, dark ball in the shadows. “Hello, sweetie. Will you come out to say hi?”
Reassured by the soft voice and slow movement, the tiny beast crept out into the light. Her first sight of him made Brice gasp softly. The poor creature was a mass of scar tissue with odd clumps of hair growing in uneven patches on his head and body.
“Well, he is rather repellent-looking, don’t you think? Poor chap got caught in a fire. His family died. He’s mostly blind now, so nobody else wanted him. No one else thought he’d live.” Damien’s voice was brisk, demanding she not comment on any sentiment she suspected might lurk in his bosom for this maimed animal.
Brice also wondered if she had just been tested. If so, had she passed?
“You poor angel,” she whispered, caressing the terrier’s stubbed ears and earning a small lick in reward. “What a brave doggie you are. How sweet and good.”
“We have some excellent brioche and coffee,” Damien said after she and Mace shared a couple more
caresses. “Mace likes his with lots of cream and sugar.”
“You have brioche and coffee every morning?” She smiled up at Damian. He looked good even from that angle.
“Not every morning.” Damien helped her to her feet. His hands were warm and gentle. “Sometimes we have croissants and tea.”
“With milk and sugar, though,” Brice guessed, feeling her smile widening. Somehow, the dog’s presence had—probably ridiculously—reassured her about Damien’s character. So what if he had the semi-suicidal habit of sitting on the parapets of a high-rise? He couldn’t be all bad if he loved this wretched scrap of a canine.
“Of course. Mace is now an English dog. He takes his tea in the proper manner.”
“I see. And Karen doesn’t mind you teaching him bad eating habits.”
“I know the Heart Association would not approve, but we figured that Mace faced down an almost fatal fire, loss of his family, and a long, painful recovery that amazed his vet. Cholesterol doesn’t scare him.”
“And I face literary critics at breakfast. Cholesterol doesn’t scare me either. I hope you’ve saved some for me,” Brice teased, taking the saucer of milky coffee and torn brioche from Damien’s hand and bending down to offer it to Mace.
The dog sniffed, then woofed appreciatively. The sound was barely a wheeze, and Brice realized that his vocal cords must have been damaged too.
She watched for a moment, enjoying the exaggerated care with which Mace plucked out the pastry. Each bite was followed with what sounded like a sigh of pleasure. She half expected him to somehow pick up his saucer and slurp his tea, but though he was probably clever enough to manage it, he was too well-mannered for such boorishness. He lapped quietly.
“I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am to have you facing me at breakfast. You are so much more attractive than my stack of manuscripts,” Damien murmured, pouring out another cup and offering it to her as she stood. Before she could think what to say, he changed the subject by adding: “Now, there is absolutely no rush, but I have moved a desk in here for you and selected a few tomes that I think might amuse you.”
Brice sipped her coffee, eyes rolling up in her head as she sighed with pleasure.
“Jamaican Blue Mountain,” she said. “You hedonist, you! I have to special-order it—and then only on my birthday since it costs about the same as God’s wisdom tooth.”
“And how much are the Lord’s teeth going for these days?” Damien asked, amused.
“Forty-eight dollars a pound. Plus shipping.”
“Well, Mace insists on the best.”
“And I adore him. He has exquisite taste.” She let her eyes remain closed as she savored the scent and taste of the coffee. Brice couldn’t be sure, but she was fairly certain that Damien took the moment to study her.
“I’m sure it’s mutual.” Slight amusement crept into his voice and made her eyes pop open. “I thought it was a man’s heart that one reached through the stomach. For women it’s supposed to be…what? Diamonds, that make her heart go pitter-pat?”
“I’ve never doubted that cliché,” Brice answered, making her voice brisk. “In most cases, dogs are man’s best friend, diamonds a girl’s. But I don’t see that a liking for one should preclude the other. Diamonds are, after all, merely an economic consideration left over from the days when women didn’t work outside the home. In any event, it isn’t my heart that the coffee has reached.”
It was something a bit lower.
No, that’s Damien, not the coffee.
Oh, shut up, will you? Brice pleaded with her chatty subconscious.
“You are suddenly looking quite thoughtful,” Damien said. “Surely it is not all the contemplation of canines and gems that is making you frown.”
“No, it isn’t.” Brice forced herself to smile and did some subject-changing of her own. “Look, don’t simply be polite. Will it bother you if I work in here?” She hoped he would say no, but needed to ask. She was fussy about where she wrote and imagined Damien might well be too. She didn’t turn to look at the books he’d brought. If they were wonderful, perhaps even Byron’s memoirs, she would forget everything else, including her polite question about whether he really wanted her in his library. And Damien and his coffee deserved better.
She shivered. The books were beginning to whisper to her.
“Not at all,” Damien assured her, his voice sincere. “That’s why I moved the desk in. I look forward to spending the day with you. I have a manuscript that I need to start reading, but I’m entirely at your disposal otherwise.”
Polite society pretended shock as polite society must, but it was only a thin veneer of morality that cloaked their own unwholesome deeds.
Brice looked up from her book sometime later, and seeing Damien’s dark eyes on her she said: “You know, I feel as though I have lived with Byron for so long that we’re married.”
“So you are frustrated, affectionate and overly familiar with his irritating habits?” Damien’s eyes twinkled.
Brice laughed. “Exactly.”
“And how do you think Byron feels about you after this long association?” As always, Damien’s odd questions seemed somehow important.
“I don’t know,” she answered, playing the let’s pretend game fairly seriously. “If he is somehow aware of what I am doing, I hope he is pleased that I am putting much of the record straight. He’s also maybe annoyed at the bits I’ve gotten wrong.”
“Do you know, I think you are right. About him being pleased. So much of his life as known today is a collection of malicious tall tales.”
“Still, it must irritate his shade that this matter has been left to me when he so clearly intended that his own words be published.” Brice frowned. “It adds pressure. And there is the eternal frustration of making the thing on the page match the thing in my mind. And that presupposes that the version of truth I have in my head is one that he would recognize. Perhaps I’ve reordered the facts of his life to suit my own desires and expectations. I am, after all, female and a child of the late twentieth century. This has to have influenced my perceptions of his words and deeds.”
Damien nodded, his expression oddly sympathetic. His next words were also revealing. “That is the plight of writers everywhere. If one is fortunate, the outlines of truth do eventually appear, and something inside tells us we finally have it right. Where many go wrong is in backing down from the truth too soon—taking the first easy answer that presents itself and not waiting for that inner confirmation. I suppose it’s understandable. It is always frightening to look history in the face, because if you stare long enough, history looks back and the gaze is not always kind. Some of our ancestors were evil people.”
So, there was something there—a hidden side to her host.
Carefully Brice asked: “Do you write? I mean prose? Or poetry?”
“Every once in a while,” Damien admitted, but didn’t specify which. He also didn’t offer to share any of his writing with her.
Brice didn’t ask again, but she was betting he wrote poetry. It was so intensely personal an undertaking that most poets never talked about their work. Certainly not with strangers.
The thought was intriguing. She added it to the list of possible explanations for the mysteries that she sensed made up the very complicated Damien Ruthven.
It was Damien who next interrupted the office quiet. He looked up from the manuscript he was reading and sighed heavily.
“Sometimes I fear for the English language,” he said to Brice. “I suspect that many of these would-be writers use their dictionaries—supposing they actually possess them—as doorstops. Or maybe as stepstools to reach the stash of marijuana hidden in their bedroom closet, which they smoke in preference to attending classes or reading books.”
“That bad, huh?” she asked understandingly, looking up from her notes. They were annotated photocopies of old journals, badly faded and written with very creative French spelling. “I don’t think French is in any better shape—a
nd it never was. The spelling in these old journals is absolutely villainous. I consider it an ancient conspiracy to keep me from understanding them.”
“No, the French are probably not in any better shape. No one in the Western world is. And yet…” Damien shook his head and dropped the manuscript on the table. “I cannot believe that all this purposeless literary evil was brought about through nothing but educational laziness. Perhaps the freedom from grammatical tyranny will lead to the free expression of great ideas. I admit it hasn’t happened yet, but perhaps some day.”
“Perhaps.”
“I always hated it when someone told me I must think a certain way because great men before me had thought in a particular mode, or used some accepted literary device. I refuse to approach my writing that way. I’d be bored to tears.”
It took an effort to find something nice to say, because Brice was not in the habit of having charitable thoughts toward those who arrogantly presumed to tell the world what was literature and what was not, but she found that she could be approving when she thought about Damien’s job from the viewpoint of a beleaguered reader in a superstore trying to decide what to buy rather than as a writer being flayed in print.
“There are readers who refuse to approach reading that way, too. That’s why they look to you for guidance when sorting the wheat from the chaff,” she pointed out, surprised and then ashamed that she had never considered that he might take pride in his work as a critic. But, of course, that was writing too, if of a different nature. “You would not be as popular as you are if you were just one more among the many, a voice no different from all the others. I don’t want you to think I’m flattering you, but there are moments when you almost sound like Byron—supposing he was alive and writing literary criticism.”
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