The Trials of Guinevere DeGrance (Legendary Rock Star #5)

by L. B. Dunbar

  The table arrangement seemed to be similar to the night before at Ingrid’s. Everyone sat as a couple or family. With the addition of Mure Linn, seated next to Ingrid, I felt once again like a complete outsider to the group. I was through pondering why I was present. I was ready to dissolve my speculation in alcohol, so I wouldn’t wonder any longer. I was so over the day, and at that moment, I only wanted the evening done as hastily as possible.

  At some point, I looked up to see Ana’s hand resting on the back of Arturo’s neck. His eyes met mine across the table and I quickly looked away. This forced my eye to meet Lila’s instead. Lansing Lotte sat with his arm around the back of her chair. The position of her body showed she leaned toward him. They were a striking couple. She made him very happy, and I saw him absentmindedly twirl a piece of her hair around his finger. Her own eyes shifted to the end of the table where Ana and Arturo sat, then drifted back to me. She pinched her eyebrows together in question, but I had no answer.

  I wasn’t friends with Lila. If anything we were civil, but not friendly. She didn’t understand the decisions Lansing and I made, although she seemed to have forgiven him. I tried to explain myself to her once, but even then my words seemed weak. Loneliness was not an excuse, but it was all I had. Anyone that had suffered the sense of being alone, truly without another soul who understood them, that person understood me. If there was a person who has never felt loneliness, never felt there was another human being who didn’t care about her, understand her grief, or comprehend her pain, then that was a fortunate woman, and one who could not forgive me. Loneliness can lead to desperation. I felt myself reaching that point again.

  Lila might have actually forgiven me, but she wouldn’t forget, even though it didn’t directly affect her at the time. She didn’t seem leery of me, but she watched the interaction, or lack of, between Lansing and I. She tolerated my attention toward Fleur, and I was conscientious of not touching Fleur, only smiling as I spoke to her. At times, I wanted to grab the child and hold her close to me. I wanted to know what it felt like, as I was convinced that the child I lost had been a girl.

  On that note, I excused myself from the table. I had drunk too much I realized, as I stood and stumbled into the table, jiggling glasses. I watched my water glass, untouched; slosh from side to side near my plate. I muttered a brief excuse and exited the room. I walked on shaking legs down the same hall that Arturo had taken me that afternoon. My hand lazily brushed the textured wall as I passed to enter the bathroom.

  I didn’t think I had been gone that long, but I sensed a search and rescue had been sent when I found Lansing waiting for me at the end of the hallway, leading into the main foyer. He was pacing back and forth. His floppy black hair hung forward as his head bent in concentration of his footwork. I had the oddest sensation of walking down a long path surrounded in darkness. The light at the end of the tunnel was sporadically blocked by the movement of Lansing: back and forth, back and forth.

  I was shakier than I thought, and I clutched at the wall on my return to the main entrance of the home. It was as if I needed the wall for support, as I knew I was walking to the gallows. The end was near. Life was over. I closed my eyes and swayed, bumping into the support around me. When I opened them, Lansing stood directly in front of me.

  “Guinie? Guinie, are you okay?”

  I could only nod, muttering, “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.” His hand came up, and I thought he intended to push a hair behind my ear as I’d seen him do to Lila. Then his hand dropped and he slid both hands into his jeans’ pockets.

  “Always my savior,” I mumbled, letting my head rest on the cool paper of the wall. It rolled back and forth, vaguely feeling the raised etching. Funny, I hadn’t noticed earlier; when I was pinned to the wall by Arturo, his fingers deep inside me.

  “Go back to Lila,” I said softly, closing my eyes as I imagined the feel of Arturo’s touch. He was rough, his kiss brutal, and yet I enjoyed every second. I cursed my body, as it gave into him so instantaneously; his smirk afterward, so confident of his skill. He was with Ana, I reminded myself. How could he touch me like that? I hate you, I thought, clenching my eyes tighter. My thought wasn’t actually true, though.

  “Lila’s the one who sent me,” Lansing said softly. “She said you didn’t look good.”

  “I’m good,” I slurred with the attempt at a false smile. His blue eyes beamed into mine. He finally did touch me, grabbing my arm to lead me the remainder of the way down the hall. As we exited the darkness, Arturo entered the bright foyer. Lansing supported me, by forcing me to sit on the third step of the grand staircase.

  “What’s going on?” Arturo growled, looking at Lansing’s hand on my arm, then stepping closer to his friend.

  “She’s drunk,” Lansing replied, but his voice sounded underwater. I thought he said, I’m dunk, and I started to giggle.

  I’m dunk. I’m dunk, sing-songed through my head.

  I’m drowning in the water, the cheer continued.

  What first sounded funny to my mind, switched instantly to sadness, and I let my head fall to my knees. I’m drowning. A tear welled in my eye. I could not cry in front of them. I’m drowning.

  “Guinie?” Arturo’s voice spoke to the top of my head. My forehead rolled against the knobs of my kneecaps. Left. Right. Left. Right. Lansing. Arturo. Lansing. Arturo.

  “I’ll take her home. To Ingrid’s,” Lansing’s voice said. It was almost as if he spoke too loudly. I had surfaced from the depths of water and I gasped for air. My head shot up. My eyes half-mast.

  “Home,” I mumbled staring at Arturo, or what I thought was Arturo. There were definitely two of him.

  “She can’t get in a car,” Arturo’s voice gurgled. “She’ll pass out. Or worse, be sick everywhere.”

  “Come on, Guinie Girl. I’m taking you upstairs.” I felt an arm slip around my back and another slide under my legs. Where there should have been a hand to hold me close to him, there wasn’t. I wanted to protest, but no words made it past my thick tongue.

  “I’ve got you, My Once,” he muttered, jostling me for a moment. I mistook what he said, my mind too clouded. I had to have misinterpreted his words. I felt myself being lifted with the gentle movement of rising upward. The dam broke and I began to sob against him.

  By the time I reached her old room, the weight of her told me she had passed out. She didn’t help me in the ascension up the staircase by wrapping her arms around me. Instead, she lay limp, her arms dangling from her sides. I was awkward at best, and I clumsily dropped her on the bed. She rolled away from me and spread a hand over the familiar coverlet.

  “Arturo,” she muttered. I sat on the edge of the mattress and pushed her hair back from her face. She was beautiful.

  “What, sweetheart?” I questioned. Her hand continued to skim over the softness of her comforter. I was familiar with the feel of it as well, as it had covered us both on many nights last summer: pushed off in the heat of passion, pulled up as we wrapped around each other to sleep.

  “No one can ever know,” she mumbled.

  “No one can ever know what, sweetheart?” I asked, brushing her hair behind her ear, repeatedly stroking it and letting the silkiness of it caress my fingers.

  “No one can ever know,” she muttered again, her hand stopping in its motion. Closing into a fist, she gripped a piece of the fabric and tugged it tight. I had no idea what she was referencing.

  “Promise me,” she said firmly, the conviction in her voice was clear compared to the garbling sound she made as she attempted to speak moments ago. Her eyes were still closed, but her brows pinched in her emphasis.

  “I promise, no one will know,” I said, completely confused as to what I just agreed to. I assumed in her drunken state, she wouldn’t remember anyway.

  “Just you and me,” she breathed on a sigh. My hand froze on her head. It was the way she said it. We often exchanged the loving terms of “My Once, My Future” in that tone. Brea
thless. Wanton. Passionate. The voice that spoke those words: just you and me, sounded similar in cadence to those passed between lovers.

  I had a difficult time sleeping. She was only outside my door, mere feet away from me, but still those distant miles. Her words haunted me, and I tossed to one side. I stared at the dark wooden door that separated our rooms. Her room was golden, bright yellows, while mine was rich in dark wood tones. The home was modern enough, but built to appear antiquated with the separate husband and wife sleeping rooms. As I’d never had a wife, or any woman for that fact entertain the other room, I never gave it a thought until I placed Guinevere there last summer.

  As my houseguest, I had plenty of other rooms, but there was something about Guinie that struck me from the first time we formally met. She’d always been around as Leo’s daughter. I had a vague sense of her before, but on that particular morning in Leo’s study, when he forced me to take a walk with her; I immediately found her refreshing and understanding. She was the first to see that a name was important, and I had one helluva name to live up to. She also understood that I was trying to make a name for myself, separate from my father and his reputation. She was quite honestly, the first woman I encountered to comprehend my thoughts before she tackled my body.

  I tossed in my large bed to face away from the door. On the thought of her body, I remembered that she hadn’t actually attacked me in the past. Rather, I captured her. A Night takes the queen. She’d been so innocent, hesitant, and sweet. That first night when she asked me to make love to her. That first time our mouths explored one another. That first kiss on the boat.

  My eyes flicked open. The boat. She’d promised me tomorrow on the boat, just she and I. I had to hope that’s what she meant. Just you and me. We had to start at the beginning again. I rolled to my back and stared up at the ceiling.

  She wasn’t so innocent earlier that day, though. We surprised ourselves when we kissed that amazing kiss in the hall. I know what came over me, but I didn’t mean to act on it. Her response was so quick. If I thought I would have gotten away with it, I’d have laid her down right there and finished the job for myself; found the same satisfaction with another part of me inside her. But with her words: That should never have happened, I lost all thought. Despite her body’s reaction, she was still repulsed by me. I tried to express to her how I felt. Telling everyone my story hadn’t been how I wanted her to learn of it, but the weight, the pressure, released once it had been said to all of them. It just seemed simpler to tell them all at once.

  She could still hardly look at me. I’d felt her eyes on me at dinner, but each time I tried to connect with her, she’d look away. Actually, I noticed it earlier when were all gathered under the canopy around the firepit. She looked away, almost immediately, each time I tried to hold her eyes. She was ashamed of what happened in the hall; that much I knew was true, but I was starting to think she was ashamed of me.

  My hand. She hadn’t answered my question, if the lack of my hand repulsed her. She avoided it, throwing Ana in my face instead. Ana was certainly making herself comfortable. I didn’t miss the questioning stare of my bandmates as Ana jumped on my back in the pool, or the way she acted rather familiar with me at dinner. Ana did seem a bit upset that Guinie was staying the night, and even more upset when I said she’d been returned to the yellow room. Ana had no right to be distraught. We were home now. We had an agreement.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d woken in that room with a hangover. The last time it happened with the same severity, I had been drinking heavily at Elaine Corbin’s house. Arturo and I hadn’t been involved at the time. It was all more of an experiment on his part. He was playing with me, but I’d always had a crush on him. Fangirling, they called it, but not quite so severe. I didn’t have posters of him covering my walls or watch countless hours of Internet videos about him. My father would have never approved of such things, regarding one of the bands he was building. I could give no hint to any innocent affection of bands housed at The Round Table.

  Yet, at some point, Arturo King became an exception. In hindsight, I knew why he was the rule breaker. My father wanted a company. I was the means to securing it. I’d given in, all too easily, when Arturo started paying attention to me. He had earned his reputation. He was a very kind, generous lover for someone inexperienced like me. The Chivalrous Lover had been his nickname. He deserved it.

  It didn’t feel right waking up in that room, though. As a matter of fact, I was surprised that it wasn’t Ana’s room, instead. I looked around the bright space and found a suitcase on the floor by the overlarge, light wood armoire. It was confirmation that I had taken her room for the night. I could only imagine her anger.

  I slowly sat up and noticed that the door to Arturo’s room was slightly ajar. For lack of a better explanation, my bed was east to west in position while Arturo’s was north to south. From where I sat, I had a direct line to see his bed through the opening. His typical side was empty, sheets thrown back. I was relieved. I didn’t want to face him. I needed to make a graceful escape, after what I was certain was an ungraceful evening. I wasn’t clear how I could leave as I had ridden with Ingrid the day before, but I was determined I must go. My head throbbed. My eyes felt swollen. I had been crying.

  Damn it.

  I noticed a glass of water on the nightstand, and two tablets on a small dish. Reaching for them, I was reminded again of Arturo’s kindness, until I remembered that Lansing was the last person I spoke to in the hall. Had Lansing brought me up here? That bastard, if he meant to torture me. He couldn’t have been so cruel, could he? I swallowed the pills and was replacing the glass to the stand when the main door of my room opened.

  “Oh good, you’re awake.” Morte’s green eyes peered around the door. They glowered in a sinister way that was also quite beautiful. I shivered as he approached the bed.

  “Mother said you’re a drunk.”

  I snorted in response. What could I say? I wouldn’t go that far, but I had drunk too much.

  Morte leaned his slim frame against the side of the bed and stared at me. He had grown taller in over nine months. Nine months: the length of time it takes a baby to go from a speck of an atom to a twenty-inch baby. It amazed me how children could grow.

  “I’ve missed you,” he suddenly blurted. He was toying with something in his pocket.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said softly. I patted the bed and Morte climbed over me. He sat propped against the headboard as I did.

  “So tell me, where have you been?” I tried to sound light. “How was Paris?”

  I had been told that Ana had taken Morte to Paris. She wanted to return to her company’s headquarters there. She worked in cosmetics and perfumes. She also used the excuse that she wanted to remove Morte from all the news of Arturo. She didn’t believe the media’s repetition of the accident was beneficial for Morte. Ingrid apparently went with her.

  “We didn’t go to Paris,” Morte said distractedly. He had removed two objects that looked like black building blocks from his pockets. He was staring at them, twisting them in his hands as he inspected them.

  “What?” I choked.

  “We didn’t go to Paris.”

  “Where…where were you?” The stutter coming out of my mouth didn’t sound like my voice.

  “We were in a hotel near Arturo. Mother went to see him every day.”

  I blinked at him, my mind a blank.

  “And where were you?”

  “Oh, I went too, sometimes. Other times, Grandmother or Mure stayed with me. Sometimes a nanny came to stay.”

  “What about school?” I questioned.

  “A tutor followed us, or Mure taught me things.”

  “Mure? A teacher?” Each comment I made sounded like it struggled to come out of my mouth. I couldn’t process that Morte had simply been dragged wherever was convenient for Arturo’s recovery.

  Morte had begun to strike the two block items against each other, struggling in his concentrat
ion on them.

  “Morte, do you know why…”

  “There you are,” Ana spoke from the entrance to Arturo’s room. Her scantily clad body showed her alabaster skin in full bloom. White skin on long legs and lanky arms had not a touch of sun despite the previous day’s exposure. A thin cami top and short shorts where in a silk material of an iridescent dark color. Her long dark hair hung straight and shiny in contrast to her skin. She slid her hands up the doorjamb, resting them casually on the molding as she looked at Morte.

  Morte didn’t respond to his mother. His attention was fully engrossed in the knocking of the blocks together.

  “Morte was just telling me how you weren’t in Paris?” I met Ana’s sneer at me.

  “Not in Paris?” She purred. “No, we decided to stay in the States.” She gave no further information.

  “With Ingrid? And you didn’t tell me?” I bit out.

  “I wasn’t aware I needed to submit a travel itinerary to you,” Ana hissed.

  “Well, you called me to tell me…”

  “What’s going on here?” Arturo’s voice came from somewhere behind Ana. He slowed to stand behind her, wrapped in only a towel. It hung low on his hips and that strip of hair travelling below it, which I was all too familiar with, was fully displayed. Ana looked over her shoulder in a manner that could only be deemed as seductive. Arturo’s head was hung as he was brushing his hand through his wet waves. When he fully looked up, his eyes fell to me. Then he saw Morte and finally looked at Ana. His facial expression looked panicked for a second then passed.

  “Ana was just telling me how she wasn’t in Paris,” I explained eyeing him over her white shoulder. She still stood sentry in the doorway. I had enough of a picture. Ana in lingerie; Arturo in a towel. I had my answer where Ana had stayed the night before. I looked away after I made my statement.