by Lila Veen
Like a dropped marionette, I crumple to the ground.
*
Ash had wanted me to make an entrance, and he got what he wanted, no doubt. When I am revived and have gained control of my capacities, I am helped into the dining room by Ash and his brother, who is introduced to me as Theo.
Theo Lavanne, who made me faint upon first sight.
Theo has eyes as colorless as his twin sister Olivia’s. His hair is a white blonde like the sun beaming on fresh snow. His features are finer and more delicate than Ash’s, but in no way feminine. While Olivia favors to paint her lips the color of dried blood, Theo’s are a natural bright pink, almost as though freshly stained with the same blood. His cheekbones are of the same etched height as Ash’s. The beautiful facial bone structure of most of the Lavanne siblings appears to be entirely Lisette’s fault. He isn’t as tall as Ash, but he appears to be only a couple of inches shorter. I’m wondering if everything I’m feeling is entirely in my own mind, because he doesn’t appear to be as affected as I am when he takes my opposite arm from Ash and leads me to the dining room.
“My dear, are you alright?” Lisette asks me when I enter the room. Everyone has quieted down to stare in my direction and I’m more concerned about everyone hearing my heartbeat than I was about showing my crotch when I passed out.
“I-I’m fine,” I stammer. “Really, I’m so sorry. I guess I should learn not to skip lunch at work.”
Lisette smiles and indicates for me to take the empty seat next to her. Ash sits on the other side of me and Olivia sits across from me on Lisette’s other side. Theo takes the seat next to Olivia and she presents him with her perfectly pale cheek, which he obligingly kisses. I glance around the table and see a few familiar faces from the masquerade ball, including Erika’s brother, Zane, his arm draped lazily around a man that is undoubtedly a Lavanne, based on the large mouth and facial bone structure. The mystery Lavanne brother has his spiky flame red head tilted toward Zane and they look intimately familiar. “You’ll meet everyone all in good time,” Lisette says, watching me scan the group gathered at the table. “For now, let’s make sure you have something to eat and drink. Are you sure you’re alright?”
I nod, smiling. Lisette makes a motion to James, who is waiting at another entrance to the dining room from the one we came through, this time one with a door. He pushes the door inward and disappears, and a second later, six identically dressed footmen come out bearing trays of food. I spot coquilles St Jacques, pigeon pie, duck cassoulet, blanquette de veau, coq au vin and pot au feu. I start to drool on the spot, literally needing to wipe my mouth with the black napkin I’ve placed politely in my lap before anything is actually served to me. Lisette takes my hand in her own, startling me, and puts her fingers on my wrist, looking straight into my eyes. She glances at Theo and then back at me, then at Ash. “Are you sure,” she begins, leaning over to speak softly to me, out of Ash’s earshot, “that you’re truly alright?”
I snatch my hand back. I’m terrified to think of what Lisette is gaging from touching me. “Maman,” Ash interrupts. I slump back in my chair with a flush of relief as he steps in. “Don’t scare Leah so soon.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Lisette says coyly. She defies her age when she lowers her black lashes toward her youngest son. “I’m merely trying to have a conversation with this girl for whom you hold such a strong connection.”
“Be nice, Maman,” Ash warns, to which Lisette laughs. When she sees Ash has turned his head to speak to the young man next to him, possibly another brother, she leans in close.
“I’ve had four husbands,” she says. “Though I’m sure you’ve already heard that much.” I nod. “Every single one of them was my catalyst. Had I been open about it from the beginning, I’d have had much less heartache than from trying to keep each one of them from feeling special.” She glances from Ash and over to Theo. I notice Theo looking at me, and the flush spreads from my face and down past my breasts to my lower belly, stopping between my legs. “Hiding something from those you love is more painful to everyone than keeping it all in the open. I should know.” She leans back away from me and takes a sip of her wine. I watch her turn to Olivia and begin to converse with her in low tones. Olivia has draped herself in black with something that almost looks like an Indian sari, with gauzy pieces high at the throat and flowing loosely behind her. The bodice is tight and covered in small black beads in intricate swirling patterns. The black is definitely her color, though I will forever picture her in a feathered white swan costume. She wears her hair long and loose, and it falls in soft waves in a 1950’s Hollywood style, making her appear as though she is a black and white photograph.
I eat almost savagely, needing to tune out my surroundings and focus on my own hunger and dizziness for a few minutes. I don’t refuse anything that’s offered to me by the footmen but take only small portions, serving myself from each dish as they hold it to my side. My plate is clean in record time, and I note that no one at the table is doing much eating. Some are talking, like Lisette and Olivia. Zane and the electric red haired man are deeply involved with one another. I tap Ash and ask, “Who is that with Erika’s brother Zane?”
“My brother Kai,” Ash replies with a smirk. “Kai will sleep with anything that can verbally say ‘yes’, and I think he’s taking advantage of poor Zane.”
“So a parrot would count?” I joke. I can see what Ash is referring to. From a closer look, Zane looks completely enamored of Kai, and Kai looks like he’s just passing time with a dinner companion. I’m sure if I looked under the table I’d see something scandalous. Kai and Zane aren’t the only ones practically sucking face at dinner. A boy who doesn’t look to be older than eighteen has his hand down the front of the dress of a woman who is likely ten or fifteen years older than he.
“What about him?” I say, indicating the minor molesting the woman.
Ash rolls his eyes. “My nephew, Alex,” he replies. “My brother Lucien’s son.”
“Your nephew?” I repeat. “How old is he?”
“Nineteen. And she is the Countess Adela, staying at Normandy. She’s far too old for him.” I giggle and agree. They make the three year age gap between Ash and me appear trifle. The woman is very well endowed, though, so I can see the appeal from a nineteen year old male perspective.
“Is your brother Lucien at the table, then?” I want to know.
Ash shakes his head. “Lucien is in France. He has been there since his wife Eva died. She died when my nephews were very young and they have always been here at Normandy. My mother raised them.”
“I actually just realized you’re only six years older than that boy,” I say in disbelief. I turn to look at Ash, feeling like a cradle robber for a moment.
He laughs. “Seven years,” he corrects me. “That’s a long time for a boy to grow into a man. When I was nineteen I was probably sitting at this table doing what Alex is doing.”
“Feeling up a Countess?”
“Of course,” Ash says, taking a sip of his wine. I can’t tell whether he’s being facetious or not from the straight face he’s maintaining.
My eyes drift over across the table to Theo, whom I notice is looking right at me. “What about your brother Theo?” I ask. “Is he married?”
Ash shakes his head. “No, he’s never been married,” he tells me. “You ask a lot of questions.”
I look at him quickly and see he’s just teasing me. “Your family is perplexing,” I say. “Is there an almanac or something you guys hand out to first time guests at a Normandy dinner party?”
“No,” he says. “We drug the food, get the guests drunk and like things chaotic.”
“This is actually rather tame, compared to what you prepared me for,” I reply.
“Oh just wait,” he says, eyes twinkling. “Things will perk up once everyone has more to drink.”
“Does Theo have a catalyst?” I ask suddenly. I want to know. I need to know.
Ash looks at m
e for a long time. “Of course,” he says quietly. “Olivia and Theo are catalysts.”
Chapter 22
Living on a vineyard means the wine keeps flowing to the point where I wonder why they don’t just install water fountains that serve wine where people can help themselves. It would surely cut the wait staff in half at Normandy.
At dinner, apparently only the dress code is formal. Besides the food and quality of wine being something that would be served at a five star restaurant, the etiquette is more like what one would experience at a fraternity house. I’m not a prude, but I feel completely scandalized from seeing people engaged in anything short of full-on copulation at the table, on the stairs, on the sofa in the parlor and ballroom. I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I’d have seen everything, but my own modesty and embarrassment prevents me from inspecting too closely. Not everyone feels the same way. I see a nephew named Dillon watching his brother Alex and the Countess Adela perform some sort of twisted game of wet nurse and child. Dillon hardly looks old enough to drive, yet here he is watching a full on orgy erupt after dinner. The scene makes me wonder what Ash was exposed to during his own childhood, but I refrain from asking. Time enough to learn everything later. For now, I continue to drink glass after glass of wine and observe silently.
Annalise, whom I had met at the masquerade ball, is playing the piano. A man who is not her husband Rowan is sitting next to her and kissing her bare shoulder. Rowan, on the other hand, has two women on the couch removing his shirt, having removed his bow tie and cummerbund a few minutes back. I feel like I just walked into Dante’s Second Circle of Hell.
Ash doesn’t attempt to sway me into joining the debauchery, for which I am deeply relieved. I’m not sure I want the world to see me engaged in that level of intimacy with Ash, who reminds me how committed I felt to him before I fainted on the way to dinner. He rests his hands on my shoulders and traces my collarbone with his index fingers on either side. His touch still sends tremors of yearning through me. “Do you still love me?” he asks. I nod dumbly, wondering if everything I felt when I saw Theo is me being ridiculous and scared to commit myself to Ash. I can’t deny that the same feelings that swept over me when I first encountered Theo tonight are the same ones I felt when I crashed into Ash that day I first came back to Blackwater.
As I’m questioning myself, I see Lisette walk past me and cross the room. She is wearing silver tonight, which she seems to favor as much as the color favors her. Her words are a warning to me, I’m sure of it, but I’m not really sure what to do about it. “C’mon,” Ash says, pulling me away from my thoughts. “Let’s go sit with Theo and Olivia. They have cake.”
It doesn’t take much to sway me once the word “cake” is mentioned, even though I’m wary of everything related to Theo tonight. He’s hardly said two words to me yet I’m already afraid of him and what he makes me feel. Ash relays to me that of all of his brothers, he’s always felt closest to Theo. Olivia sits perched on a white sofa with a black wood frame, her legs curled up beneath her, feeding Theo bites of a decadently large piece of brown cake topped with fruit. Theo compliantly takes each bite, and his eyes light up when he sees us coming to sit down on the matching sofa across from them. The sofa is deceptively comfortable, which I never would have guessed from looking at the design. “Brother,” Ash greets Theo with a nod. “Olivia.”
“Brother,” Theo replies in that smooth voice of his. His hair is longer in back than Ash’s but just as long in front, though tucked behind his ears to stay out of his water colored eyes.
“Welcome home,” Ash remarks. He turns to me. “Theo was in France for almost six months. I’m sure Olivia missed him terribly.”
“Not too terribly,” Olivia says, flashing her own watery eyes at Ash in what looks like anger. “Maman kept me under lock and key and you know how much I love to be boarded up with no one to talk to.”
“Saying there’s no one in this house is like opening a full fridge and saying there’s nothing to eat,” I pipe up. “I do that all of the time, but what I really mean is that there’s nothing I actually want to eat.”
Theo and Ash laugh, and even Olivia’s black lips twist into a smile. Though I doubt any of them have needed to open a refrigerator to find something to eat in their lives. I relay this thought to them as well. “I guess the analogy to you guys would be when room service doesn’t bring what you want.” The three of them laugh even harder.
“So where have you been hiding out, Leah?” Theo asks me, leaning forward to put his glass of wine down on the table. Olivia hands the cake and fork across to Ash and he tries a bite. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in Blackwater before. I know your mother, of course.”
I nod. “I just came back to town last month. I grew up here and left to move to Chicago.”
Theo raises an eyebrow. “Why Chicago?”
“I was under the impression I would find my dad there.”
Theo looks at Ash and something passes between them. I look from one man to the other, but decide that the best thing to do would be to corner Ash and confront him about it when we’re alone. Ash puts a forkful of cake up to my lips and I bite. “Oh my god,” I say, screwing up my face from the taste. “What is in that cake?”
Olivia laughs. “It’s mead cake. Mead is like honey wine. Our brother Aspen keeps bees here.”
“Seriously?”
She nods. “Oh yes. And Aspen adds a few other things to it. My advice is not to eat too much for your first time.”
“Like pot brownies?” I ask, warily looking at the next small bite that Ash has poised in front of me.
“Something like that,” Theo says. “It cures what ails you.”
“You people are weird,” I say, accepting the bite. “Everything in this house is weird.”
“It also loosens your tongue and your inhibitions,” Ash adds, grinning and taking a bite of his own. “So whatever you have hidden is liable to come out.”
“Oh?” I ask, my heart thumping in response. I look to Theo, who is resting against the sofa now and letting Olivia gently push his hair away from his forehead with a delicate long finger. The gesture appears to be almost like something a wife would do for her husband, but I hold my tongue.
Ash moves to lie sideways on the sofa and pulls me between his legs so I am resting back against his chest. I feel his hands come up around my thighs and over my hips, up to my waist. They keep running up my body, making me arch against him and feel his hardness pressing against my bare back. In a room full of people, in the middle of the strangest party I’ve ever been to, he seduces me. I want to tell him to take me upstairs, to be alone with him, to take me away from all of this. At that moment I turn to look at Theo across from us on the other sofa. He stands up and comes to sit by my feet, bringing his glass of wine with him. Ash lifts me up under my arms so I am sitting up and Theo takes ahold of my chin and puts the glass against my lips. I have no choice but to drink from his cup, and he continues to hold it there until I finish. The wine he drinks is a pale gold color, but it tastes thick and syrupy in my mouth, unlike most white wines I’m accustomed to. When Ash puts his hands under the arch of gold coins draped over my breasts, I moan softly. As my lips part, Theo leans forward and catches the bottom between his own lips, pulling softly. I feel the twitch and pull of desire between my legs the moment he touches me. My hands come up to bury themselves in his hair. I feel Ash’s lips on the nape of my neck between my shoulders, sending chills down my spine. His hands push the straps of my dress down my shoulders, exposing my breasts.
I am reminded briefly of a night with three strangers who held me down and caused me so much pain that I stopped running from my past. The difference between that night and the scenario I’m in right now is that I want this. I can feel myself craving these men, wanting them to take me and touch me and pull this dress off of me. Had those three men never done what they did, and Michael never made them do it to me, I wouldn’t be here right now with Ash and Theo. I find that knowle
dge a complete paradox right now. I would be still in a miserable marriage with someone who deserves to be hated. Now I’m in Blackwater to where I swear I would never come back, giving myself to these two brothers in the middle of a room full of people. The people are present, but in my mind, they’re not really here. I glance over to Olivia, recalling that she is with us. She is sitting in the middle of the sofa across from me, and her eyes are focused directly onto mine. She sits with her legs folded and her hands on her knees, black material flowing softly away from her body. She looks flushed and breathless. I see her bite her dark lips together, and at the moment a tremble of pleasure courses through me, she throws her head back and cries out. I tear my eyes from her and see two pair of hands between my legs. I’m panting hard between the two brothers, my dress wrangled around my waist and my bare legs wrapped around Theo, while my arms wrap up and behind me around Ash. I lean my head back to kiss Ash on the lips, and feel Theo’s lips close around my nipple. Olivia gasps and I look to see her with her hand clutched over her breast beneath the billows of black fabric of her dress. It’s the same breast that Theo is kissing on me. She looks up and at her twin brother. “Taste her, Theo,” she whispers. Theo looks up at me and I nod, looking down and watching him back down the length of my body, stopping when he reaches my center. Ash’s hands press my breasts together and he leans forward to plunge his tongue between them, causing me to gasp and cry out. My cries are muffled as his chest presses against my face. I am completely naked on either side of the material of my dress wrapped and pushed up and down around my waist. When I feel Theo’s tongue on my clit I feel myself floating above it all, the rapture coursing through me like ocean waves covering my body and dragging me away from the shore. Olivia and I cry out at the same time, and I feel Ash’s lips press down on mine and his tongue tasting my mouth while Theo’s tongue takes a final taste of me between my legs.
