by Jess Faraday
Making her way into the front room, she took the blue silk bundle from her pocket. She cleared a spot in the fire and laid the magpie atop one of the logs. Flames leaped eagerly toward the cuffs of her robe. She snatched her hand away, watching as the flame turned its attention to the silk. She took a pinch of dried herbs from a jar on the mantel and sprinkled it on top.
“Joseph!” she called. She wanted to explain to him what she was doing. He’d shown interest in her mechanical work, but if she was going to pass some of her knowledge to him before she left, he would have to understand some of the spiritual underpinnings. Why hadn’t he joined her yet? Was he still fiddling around with that blasted umbrella? “Joseph!”
“Doctor!” he cried.
She whirled at the panic in his voice. She opened her mouth to shout, but her cry was drowned by the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass.
Chapter Eight
The elegant set of rooms Sophie kept on Rue St. Dominique hadn’t changed, though the benefactors that paid for them seemed to turn with the seasons. The thought of living at someone else’s sufferance curdled Corbeau’s stomach, but the life seemed to suit Sophie fine. Her quarters were superior in comfort, design, and water-tightness. She never lacked the basics, as Corbeau sometimes did. And it seemed to be a point of pride for Sophie’s benefactors that their ornament be well fed and dressed. A nice arrangement, if you could find it. And one with which Corbeau had never been able to compete.
The rain began to fall again, washing the even pavement clean. Beneath the steely skies, the granite facades of the shops seemed to gleam, set off by the black ironwork that marked the apartment windows above. Fashionable people hurried past as Corbeau stepped from the fiacre, slowing to watch Sophie light in the carriage doorway before accepting Corbeau’s hand onto the sidewalk. Jealousy sparked in Corbeau’s chest as she watched them undress Sophie with their eyes. She snuffed it immediately. Too much time had passed, too much water gone under the bridge for her to have any right to be jealous. Sophie led on, and Corbeau followed her through an unmarked doorway next to a jeweler’s shop and up two flights of stairs.
Only a month had passed since Corbeau’s last visit, yet Corbeau felt as if she were returning to a place she’d not seen in years. The dark-green door seemed smaller and more brittle. The brass numbers and knob looked the same, yet somehow unfamiliar. Sophie tickled the brass lock with her key, and the door slid open silently across polished wood—just as silently as when Corbeau had stolen away, nearly a month ago to the day, leaving Sophie sleeping safe in her overstuffed bed. The same bold paintings dotted the walls. Whatever dust had been allowed to settle on the crimson molding had been whisked away, probably that morning, by a well-paid hand.
Sophie sloughed off her coat and boots then crossed the room to stoke the coals. A large kettle hung from a hook in the fireplace. Corbeau watched as she checked the water level and resettled the vessel on a stand straddling the coals. Her movements were strong and efficient. She might carry herself like a delicate flower, but there had been a time when she’d been accustomed to hard work. She’d been an invaluable assistant, when Moreau the Alchemist had more work than she was physically capable of performing. Sophie had never had a head for compounding, but she could follow a recipe with precision. And where Corbeau even still risked offending entire rooms every time she opened her mouth, silver-tongued Sophie couldn’t turn a corner without turning up new clients as well.
Tension gradually began to drain from Corbeau’s neck and back. She hung her coat on the rack near the door and took off her boots. Sophie hadn’t been joking—she really was going to set up a bath, right in the middle of her main room. It had been so long since Corbeau had done more than run a moist cloth over her body. The thought of availing herself of a basin of hot water and Sophie’s collection of scented soaps made her almost giddy.
Sophie pulled a fine mesh screen halfway across the fireplace, taking care not to damage the hammered-metal dragonflies that adorned it. She laid a sheet across the tiles in front of the fireplace and set a large washing basin on top of it. The basin was strictly for bathing—Sophie sent her linens out. Often. While the kettle warmed over the coals, she poured cold water into the basin and laid out a selection of oils, ointments, and clean, dry cloths. She dripped fragrant oil into the basin, attending to her preparations as if they were sacraments.
What they were about to do was an offense to most Parisians’ religious sensibilities as well as to simple common sense—and not merely because they would surely end up behind the lacquered door of Sophie’s bedroom. Decent people, when forced to remove the layer of grime that many considered to have divine disease-repelling powers, dabbed themselves off quickly and changed their linen undergarments. Only the decadent ever immersed themselves, never mind with the indulgence of oils, hot water, and someone fetching to apply them.
“What a den of sin,” Corbeau said. Her voice broke the tension. “Vanity, sensuality, lust, and we’re both still fully dressed. Can’t wait for Vautrin to read my proof of confession for this one.”
“You forgot pleasure. It’s not technically a sin, even though people think it should be.”
“Since when do you believe in sin?”
“I’ve been making a study.”
Corbeau peeled off her wet socks and stuffed them into her boots. She squatted, resting her elbows on her knees. Of all the changes they’d gone through during their separation, she’d never expected Sophie would flirt with religion. And what a funny kind of religion—so blasé about the carnal transgressions that were about to transpire, yet so earnest about the existence of actual spiritual wrongdoing.
What would qualify as a sin in the Church of the Divine Spark? The King’s courting of the nobility at the expense of the poor would probably be high on the list. Unlike Madame Boucher’s group, the King didn’t have much interest in soothing the fevered brows of slum-dwellers. Corbeau had met a few people like Boucher when she had been a slum-child: women, mostly, who were bored with their riches, but who inexplicably found fulfillment ladling out thin porridge in the back rooms of churches or trying to teach feral, lice-bitten urchins to read the Bible. At least Corbeau had assumed it made them happy; otherwise why would they have bothered?
In retrospect, Corbeau figured the wealth and ease in which these women lived gave them the time to wonder about the meaning of their lives. Perhaps they recognized the fundamental emptiness of the endless rounds of parties and new dresses that their charges in the slums dreamed of. Perhaps they wished for their lives to amount to something more. What was the point, Corbeau wondered, at which money became more of a burden than it was worth? Perhaps one day she would know. But it wouldn’t be any time soon.
Corbeau looked around Sophie’s well-appointed rooms. They had both come from the same mean streets. Sophie had figured out early how to trade on her looks and companionship, and Corbeau, on her brains and bravado. Corbeau had found fulfillment in work. As for Sophie, the luxury in which she now lived was more than either of them could have imagined as children. Had she started to think about the meaning of it all? Was this why she was so enamored with Madame Boucher’s slum crusade?
“Soph?”
“Mmm?”
“Just how involved are you with the Church of the Divine Spark?”
Sophie added a final bowl of boiling water to the cold water in the basin and set the bowl on the floor next to the fireplace. “Elise,” she said, hand on hip, tone full of mock irritation, “do you ever stop talking about work?” She smiled devilishly. “Now take off that dress. It’s filthy.”
The deflection attempt was transparent, but Corbeau let it go. She had to remind herself that the blunt approach wasn’t always best with subtle creatures. Moreover, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing down at her bedraggled dress. The wool skirt was heavy with water, the hems black with the multitude of unsavory things she had walked through that morning. The nightshirt she had thrown it over was likewise soaked
through. The thought of laying any of it over one of Sophie’s silk-covered chairs, or hanging it on the coatrack next to Sophie’s expensive coat, mortified her. No doubt sensing her thoughts, Sophie laughed.
“Just leave it on the floor, Elise.” Corbeau returned her smile nervously. For more reasons than one, she couldn’t get the dress off fast enough. “I’ll have that nightshirt mended for you,” Sophie added, glancing at the garments pooled at Corbeau’s feet. “Poor thing. You’re as pathetic as an old bachelor. Come here.”
Corbeau stepped out of the pile of cold, damp clothing. There was no embarrassment in it; they’d known each other too long for that. She lowered her guard as the comfort of the familiar wrapped itself around her. Troubling questions faded in the subsequent flood of sensations: the numbness of her bruised and swollen face, her nipples tightening in anticipation of the hot water, the stiff cleanliness of the wool carpet beneath her feet. As she walked across it, she watched Sophie stir the water with a wooden spoon. She somehow managed to make even this event erotic. Smiling, Sophie gestured her toward the basin with a nod.
Corbeau stepped into the water, her toes splaying with the pleasure of it: hot and clean and untouched by another person. She moaned softly as Sophie began to dab at her lacerations. As Sophie moved the wet, steaming cloth over her skin, Corbeau luxuriated in the simple pleasure of touch. How long had it been since she had been touched like this—gently, kindly, without agenda? She had told herself so often that she didn’t need it, she had almost come to believe it. The wet cloth wiping her shoulders clean, tracing her breasts and hip gave the lie to it all. Corbeau whimpered as the cloth pressed insistently at a yellowing bruise, as if to wipe it away. Even if there was no future together outside of those rooms, even if in a few hours Corbeau would slip away again into the night, for the moment she wasn’t so absolutely alone. Could she ever be again? It was the same every time she found herself on Rue St. Dominique. That was the reason, she remembered—much too late now—that each time she swore it would be the last.
It still required a conscious effort to let someone take care of her. But at that moment, it was an effort she was willing to make. She sighed as Sophie anointed her head with steaming, clear water again and again, working it through her hair with practiced fingers. Expert fingertips loosened the muscles of her shoulders and back, and her burdens fell away until she feared that, without them, she might float up through the ceiling and away into the clouds.
Then another rush of water.
A stiff brush on her back.
“You said Madame Boucher’s group was meeting tonight,” Corbeau said, surfacing from her ruminations.
“Shh. Close your eyes.”
The water rose in the basin and grew hotter. A bowl brushed her ankle and poured hot, rose-scented water over her head once, twice, until her hair ran smooth and clean down her back.
“God, that’s good.”
Sophie remained silent, but Corbeau could feel satisfaction radiating from her as she lifted Corbeau’s arm and ran a moist cloth over the dark hair beneath it. Sophie had told her once about resorts where the wealthy could bathe as often as they liked in natural hot springs. Some or other paramour had promised to take her there once, but his infatuation had ended before he could make good on it. Corbeau didn’t share the Church’s belief in the sinfulness of bathing. It did seem as if it would be a good conduit for disease if too many people were involved. But she and Sophie were only two, and how could anything this good be wrong?
Another bowl of water cascaded down her back. A warm, clean cloth followed, over her shoulder, under her arm, over her flat buttocks. She sucked in her breath as another hand cupped one of her small breasts, thumb teasing the stiff brown nipple.
“There’s no sin in a mutual exchange of pleasure,” Sophie purred. Corbeau reached for her, but, giggling softly, Sophie moved out of reach. Her hands continued their exploration of Corbeau’s lean, muscular limbs, fingers deftly applying healing unguents to old scars and new bruises, flirting with the edges of her most intimate crevices.
“I don’t care if there is,” Corbeau breathed.
Sophie’s attentions suddenly stopped. “You should care, Elise. You should care as if your soul depends on it.”
Corbeau blinked. As her eyes adjusted to being open again, the soft light of the paraffin lamps seemed suddenly harsh. “I don’t understand you, sometimes,” Corbeau said.
Sophie’s careful mask slipped, and Corbeau caught a glimpse of something cunning before it retreated and Sophie’s pleasant expression returned.
“Enough talk. Come to bed, now.”
As Corbeau stepped out of the basin, Sophie wrapped a clean sheet around her shoulders. A mixture of scents rose with the steam: rose oil, eucalyptus from one of the ointments, and a combination of flowers and olive oil from the expensive Italian soaps. The moment wasn’t completely broken, but Corbeau was back on her guard. The heat from the fire raised goose bumps on her legs. But despite her suspicion, if she was going to get anything useful out of this encounter, she’d have to avoid her natural inclination to push.
She pulled Sophie close, as if to reiterate her commitment to their silent agreement to suspend hostilities. Sophie melted into her arms, and their mouths found each other, their bodies fitting together as if they’d never been apart.
“But you will, at some point, tell me—” Corbeau said.
Instead of the flash of anger Corbeau expected, Sophie smiled and pressed a fingertip to her lips. “Yes, Elise. All that and more.”
*
The first thing Corbeau had noticed about Sophie was her skin.
She was then, as now, fastidiously, eccentrically clean. A libertine, a hedonist, from the glass of wine in her upraised hand to the pointed tips of her newly polished boots. Even before Corbeau had shut the wine-bar door behind herself that night so long ago, she had known that the young woman at the bar, who had stared at her as if there were nothing and no one else in the world, would be as soft as velvet and would smell and taste of soap.
Corbeau remembered how pale her skin had looked even in the windowless, candlelit dim, the air thick with smoke, spilled wine, and perfumes. They were both nineteen, and Sophie had been laughing at something someone had said. Until her eyes and Corbeau’s had locked.
“Stop thinking,” Sophie whispered. She took Corbeau’s chin in her hand and turned it away from the window, drawn curtains transforming early afternoon to night. They were standing in the doorway of the bedroom, Corbeau still half-wrapped in the sheet, and Sophie finally shedding her layers of clothes.
“Would you believe me if I said I was thinking about you?”
Lips to skin, the soft skin right behind Sophie’s ear. She still tasted of soap, only now it was the expensive, flower-scented kind—the kind one gives as a gift to a lover—rather than the everyday, coarse blend of animal fat and lye. Who was giving her soap like that? Corbeau wondered.
Not that it was any of her business.
“I’m right here,” Sophie said.
“I’m sorry.”
A shoulder, sinewy and hard; a reminder of the rough streets from whence they both had come. A small, perfectly formed breast, pink nipple rising to the familiar brush of Corbeau’s fingertips—never familiar enough to foster contempt—not this time. It had been a mistake to expect a flower to grow in a dank basement rank with the fumes of distillation and furious work—a mistake Corbeau would not make again. When Sophie had left all those years ago, in a storm of frustration and broken glass, Corbeau had secretly thought her departure well deserved.
“Would you rather just—oh.”
She was already wet, and Corbeau slid inside easily. Corbeau laid her back, across the mattress, across the heavy feather bed, and lay down beside her, left leg over left leg, circling her thumb around the spot that always made Sophie sigh. Sophie began to say something else, but Corbeau sealed her mouth with a kiss. For a while she let Sophie ride her fingers, moving slowly in the tigh
t, familiar heat, until she felt Sophie’s hips rise and heard her breath catch.
“Not yet,” Corbeau whispered.
“Elise!”
Ignoring her protests, Corbeau withdrew her hand and pulled Sophie’s leg tighter between her own. She brought her fingers to her lips. “Civet and rose. A woman’s choice.”
“Beast. Are you jealous?”
“Maybe.”
Sophie seemed pleased by the idea and wriggled closer. Corbeau’s sex pulsed in response. Right there, right then, she could have forgotten that it always started this way: the ever-present spark of desire fanned into a small but manageable fire, the heat between them comfortable but passionate. Right there and then she might even have forgotten the reason she’d come back to Rue St. Dominique in the first place, or the inevitable explosion that would follow when they’d again reached their age-old impasse.
Corbeau cleared her throat. Her fingers combed Sophie’s hair into a flame-colored fan. “You said Madame Boucher’s group was meeting tonight. Care to elaborate?”
For a moment Sophie looked as if she were going to bite, but she sighed and pulled herself back up against a stack of pillows. She ran a hand over her face, irritated but resigned. “At her house on the right bank. It’s a horrible place. One of those new houses the bourgeoisie put up to pretend they’re noble.”
“But Madame Boucher is noble,” Corbeau said.
Rolling her eyes, Sophie turned onto her side and propped herself up on an elbow.
“Some ancestor managed to buy a title a ways back, it’s true. They even had a family emblem drawn up at some point. But they were, and remain, penniless. Her late husband, Henri, was the one with the money. Common as they come, though. The oldest story in the world. Anyway, the house is a monstrosity, surrounded by other monstrosities, all dressed up to look like something less monstrous. She even had them carve that emblem in stone and place it above the door.”
