by L. J. Greene
“Ah, Leo,” Cresswickham said. “At last. Please, join us.”
“My book,” I wheezed. The combination of Betts’ constricting arm and my shouting had rendered me breathless, but Leo, glancing around the room, took my meaning at once. I saw him change, like a magic trick, or like an actor cloaking himself in a different persona. He gave an easy smile at Cresswickham.
“My goodness, Reggie,” he said. “What on earth are you doing? I haven’t even had a chance to read it. Surely it’s not that bad.”
Cresswickham obstinately crumpled another few pages and threw them on the fire, which was burning away merrily now.
“Come now, my best beloved, you must give me a chance to—”
“Must? Must? What must I do for you now, Leo?”
Mancini realized instantly that he’d chosen the wrong tack, and I saw him adjust. I loved him in that moment—loved the man for exactly who he was. The schemer who could weasel his way out of anything, lay out a banquet of lies and make you eat them up. If there was anyone alive who might save my novel…
This time when he spoke it was as if he were calming a sticky-fisted, bawling toddler. “Why, you should do whatever you want, of course, Reggie. Whatever you like in the whole wide world, you can do it. You’re such a generous and giving man and you deserve to have all the best and most wonderful things. You exhaust yourself making sure everyone else is seen to, so won’t you come downstairs and have a drink and let me see to you instead?”
Another fistful of papers fed the fire. “A drink, you say? So you can dope me and tuck me into bed like a child? No, thank you.”
For the first time, Leo seemed uncertain.
Alice was listening intently. Even Betts seemed to be poised and waiting, wondering. The humid air gusting my neck stopped as he held his breath.
“I don’t quite know what you mean,” Leo said at last. Wrong play. I slumped in Betts’ arms.
“I mean I’d rather not be served up my customary whiskey and soda and opiate by you tonight.” A few more pages floated onto the inferno. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The sight of those pages, curling and incandescent, seared itself into my eyes.
“Don’t do this, Reggie,” Leo said softly. “No good will come of it.”
The man wouldn’t listen. We all watched him until he got down to the final chapter of the manuscript. He looked up at Leo, a cruel light in his face. “I wonder,” he said, “just how much you value this asinine fiction.”
“Whatever you want, Reggie, I will do for you,” Leo murmured submissively, and I tried not to feel some hope. The latest chapter I’d written was the best chapter, and I’d been building up rapidly to the climax. I could recreate the first parts if I had to, if something could be salvaged. All I wanted was a scrap, a crumb of what had been, meager proof that I had maybe some talent in me.
“That’s the shirt you bought in Paris, isn’t it?” Cresswickham said, and Leo looked down at himself with a frown. “Or rather—the shirt that I bought you in Paris.”
“Yes.”
It was a beautiful silk shirt, fine as cobweb, cream in color and soft as down.
“Take it off.”
“I beg your—”
“You heard me.”
Leo unbuttoned it and slipped it off his shoulders. He was bare-skinned underneath. Alice, I noticed, did not look away. Leo held the shirt out, but the aristocrat ignored the gesture.
“Burn it,” Cresswickham said, and Leo, with no expression at all, balled it up and stepped forward to the fireplace. He dropped the shirt neatly on the flames, and it went up as easily as the pages of my novel. Cresswickham used the poker to stuff the skeleton seams into the coals of the fire. “Those trousers,” he continued. Leo brushed a hand over his thigh, gentle as a lover, as though soothing himself. “I bought them for you in Milan, didn’t I? Hand-dyed, hand-spun wool, and the tailor charged an exorbitant amount.”
“Yes,” Leo said. “It was very thoughtful of you to buy them for me.”
“Take them off.”
Leo’s fingers played with the button before he seemed to make up his mind. He stripped the pants off with great care. Sagging against Betts, I wondered why he bothered. We all knew what was coming, after all. He shook them out and even folded them carefully over his arm to preserve the crease.
“Burn them.”
He was slower this time than he had been with the shirt, but he did it. The room filled with the stink of toasting wool, and thick dark smoke billowed up the chimney. Leo stood there staring, in his underpants and socks, beside Cresswickham in front of the fire. After a moment, Leo moved away to scavenge in the cigarette box on my desk. The box was empty; I hadn’t bothered to restock it with Gauloises that morning as a feeble gesture of revenge.
Now I felt I’d failed him.
“Next, Reggie?” Leo asked. “My underclothes? You’ll have to excuse Alice in that case.”
“It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before,” Cresswickham said congenially. He stoked the fire, then left the poker with the tip buried in the heart. With his other hand, he held up the remnants of my manuscript. “So, you really do care about this tripe.”
“It seems to me,” Leo replied, “that you were getting your money’s worth as a patron. At the very least.”
“Oh, at the very least,” Cresswickham agreed. “Yes. Go to the door and lock it.”
While Leo did as he was asked, Cresswickham pulled over the chair from my desk, a straight-backed spindly antique of a thing that murdered my spine when I sat in it too long, and set it in front of the fireplace. He sat on it, crossing his legs and looking for all the world as though he were only enjoying the fireside warmth. My papers were still crumpled in his hand.
He smiled at Leo, who was watching him warily from near the door. I saw he’d left the key in the door this time. “Now get on your knees and crawl over here.”
Leo sank to his knees, and I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Don’t,” I said.
“It’s alright. Reggie just wants me to know my place. Don’t you, Reggie?”
“Don’t!” I repeated. “For God’s sake, Leo.”
“Perhaps we should find a muzzle,” Cresswickham said.
“There’s no need,” Leo said. “He’ll stay quiet.” He gave me one of his pleading glances, and I gave up. He crawled to Cresswickham like a dog and sat back on his sock-covered heels, his head bowed.
Whatever else happened, I vowed to myself, I was leaving this house tonight. I could forgive Betts for holding me, but I’d never be able to forget it. Cresswickham, though, was another story. I’d be damned if I’d spend another night beholden to him. Maybe he’d send the Walker Boys after me, and maybe they’d get the better of me, but I preferred the idea of an honest fight, even five on one, than this kind of abasement.
“What are you waiting for?” Cresswickham asked. “You’re acting as though you’ve never been in this position before, Leo.”
I wanted to look away, but I was transfixed. Leo bent forward as though he were paying obeisance to an idol, lower and lower until his lips pressed against Cresswickham’s left shoe. He rose to sit back on his heels with a perfectly straight back.
Cresswickham uncrossed his legs, and planted the sole of his shoe in Leo’s chest. He straightened his knee, and Leo sprawled backwards from the kick, ungainly and awkward.
“It’s really not worth burning your dirty underclothes,” Cresswickham said. “But—here. You can throw this on.” He tossed the remnant of my novel with a flick of his wrist, and the papers scurried across the floor. “Every page,” he said. “Every single page.”
Leo said: “No.”
Alice gave a little exhalation, not quite a word. She looked surprised.
“Burn them,” Cresswickham insisted.
Leo righted himself, pulling every limb into place even as he stayed kneeling on the carpet. “I’ll bring out every piece of clothing you’ve ever bought me, Reggie, and we can have a bonfire if you like. But I
will not burn those pages.” He looked Cresswickham straight in the eye as he said it, and I heard Betts mutter an incredulous and admiring curse. I couldn’t stop a sob escaping.
Cresswickham scoffed at the sound of it, and stood. “Gather up those pages and burn them,” he said. “Because if you don’t, Leo, it won’t be your clothes I go after next. It will be something even closer to your heart.”
There was real fear in Leo’s face at the threat, and I didn’t want him making any more foolish stands for my sake. Cresswickham pulled the poker out of the fire at that moment. The tip of it glowed red.
“Burn the damn thing,” I hacked out. “For Christ’s sake. Burn it.”
The aristocrat laughed, and returned the poker to the embers of the fire.
“No,” Leo said, and then fatefully, “You wouldn’t, Reggie.”
Cresswickham raised his eyebrows and laughed. “A challenge?”
“No. No, it’s not a challenge.”
“I think it was, you know. Are you going to burn those pages?”
Leo’s eyes flashed. “No.”
Cresswickham took up the poker again, and looked across at me. It was the alarm in Leo’s eye that made me realize the Englishman’s intention. I quailed in Betts’ arms. I felt his grip falter, but then he hissed, “He won’t,” and I believed him. I stayed docile, although I shrank away when Cresswickham stalked over, poker in hand, and roughly unbuttoned my shirt.
“Last chance, Leo. Will you put that rubbish on the fire where it belongs?”
Leo tiredly rose to his feet. “No, Reggie. Now put that poker down.”
I remember the burst of pain that radiated from the center of my chest to the rest of my body, as though my heart had exploded inside me. It only lasted a moment or two, the agony, but the shock of it kept me hollering much longer.
Yes, the pain is what I remember happening first, but my most vivid memory is the stench of it, a smell so horribly close to roasting meat that I might’ve salivated. I believe it must have struck everyone in the room as uncannily as it did me, because Betts let me go at once with an oath, and Alice dashed to my bathroom, gagging.
Cresswickham was prostrate on the floor, his nose bleeding and his hair falling forward over his high forehead. He looked unbearably young and upset, like a child chastised by his mother. He stared up at Leo, his mouth not quite working to make a word from the sounds in his throat.
The noises everyone else made stuck with me, too, Are you alright are you alright—the sound of Alice vomiting and a panicked Betts— I never thought his Lordship would ever—water running in my bathroom—Are you alright—and Alice, again, calm and soothing, her hands on me, Run and get some ice, Betts—quickly now—
Leo was stuck like a scratched record, Are you alright, Are you alright, Are you alright, until I roared at him, “Get your goddamn hands off of me!” and pushed him away. I saw Cresswickham clambering to his feet, his face astonished and upset, ice-gray eyes wide and watering like the wrong had been done to him instead.
“Leo!” he gasped, and Mancini turned on him, grabbing him by the throat.
“God damn you to hell!” he shouted, full in the Englishman’s face. Cresswickham went puce, his tongue bulging and his hands plucking at Mancini’s on his neck, and it struck me that I was witnessing a murder with my own two eyes.
Chapter 41
I thought the Englishman was a goner. He was lucky he had a sister with a cool head.
“Leo,” Alice said briskly. “Stop that at once and help me with Cole.” It took but a moment before Leo released the man, who fell back to the floor, coughing and spluttering.
Mancini stood over him, breathing hard. “Gabriel yesterday, Cole today—no more, Reggie, do you understand me? No more.”
Cresswickham gaped at him. “What do you—”
“Listen to me,” Leo spat. “I’ll kill you myself before I let you touch anyone else again. Do you hear me?”
He heard, and what’s more, I could tell he believed. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen Cresswickham afraid. But then he looked at me, and the fear transfigured into a depth of hatred I’d never seen before. Alice turned to pick up a cloth, and I took my opportunity to run.
I stumbled out of the room, pelted along the corridor and half-fell down the grand staircase. But for Leo running right along with me and catching me back, I would’ve tumbled all the way down.
“Careful,” he said, as sharp as he’d pulled my elbow, but I wrenched myself out of his grip. I clung to the bannister the rest of the way down and he matched me step for step, but cautious, like he knew I’d go boom if he touched me again.
The front door was locked and latched, and I banged on it like there might be someone on the other side of it with a key. “Let me out of this house,” I demanded. “You’re crazy, the whole lot of you, and you can all stay here and eat each other up like piranhas if you want, but I’m out of here. I’ll take a train tonight and get as far away from the lot of you as I can.”
“Cole, please,” Mancini said, his voice shaking. “You’re hurt. I can’t let you go running through Bel-Air in this state. Let Alice patch you up and then—”
“I won’t stay here another damned second! That man means to kill me, so get the key and open the door or I’ll—”
“I’ve got the key,” said Betts. He was standing above us on the staircase landing. He held it up to show me: the master key, with which he locked up the house each night. “I’ve got it and I’m not opening that door or any other door until you let her Ladyship sort you out, proper-like. So go into the drawing room and wait for her.” He seemed dead calm again, with just a few drops of sweat gleaming on his brow to give him away.
“No,” I said stubbornly, but it was Leo who stuck the knife in.
“Come and have a drink,” he said, and the Serpent himself couldn’t have made me a better offer just then.
The bourbon needed restocking in that room, so he gave me whiskey instead, no soda and no ice. My teeth chattered on the glass. The first sip tasted awful and it reminded me of Cresswickham. I spat it back in the glass.
“Where is he?” I asked, suddenly tensed for flight again. I set my glass down hard on the side table. The drink sloshed over my hand.
“Shh, it’s alright,” Leo said, flapping around me like a mother hen, but it was less irritating now that fear had overruled my anger. “He’s asleep, or will be any moment; Alice is giving him something to knock him out. He’s not here, sweetheart. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Of all the lies you’ve told, that one’s the biggest,” I said to him, and I let that sink in while I wiped my wet hand off on my pants. “It’s what he’s devoted his whole life to, hurting people. Me. Alice. And you…” I thought about him crawling back across the floor to Cresswickham’s feet and kissing them like a slave, and I bit my lip. “Why’d you do it?” I asked, my voice cracking. “You shoulda just burned the silly thing, it’s not worth a damn anyway, not worth your clothes or your pride or my flesh.”
“No, oh no,” he cooed in my ear, and his arms went around me gingerly. “No, my darling, my dearest, it was worth far more than my cheap hide, that’s for sure, and it’s me he should’ve—he should’ve—”
“Branded,” I supplied into his neck. “He branded me like property and now I’ll always have his mark on me, always and forever—”
“Don’t say that, don’t say that,” he begged. “Why look, here’s Alice, she’ll make it all better. She’ll make it all go away. Now drink up—” Here he pressed the glass into my hand. “—and I’ll pour you another.”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” Alice said, snatching the glass from me. “Don’t you give him any more. He’s had a shock. He needs rest, not drink.”
I was feeling lightheaded anyway, so I didn’t protest.
Alice handed a dressing gown to Leo. It was one of the RC-embroidered robes from my own closet, and I had to hide my face again, like a child afraid of the monster under his bed. Alic
e pried me out of Leo’s arms long enough that he could dress himself, and then I found myself clinging to him again.
“Was it very awful, before I arrived?” Leo asked her quietly.
“Oh, the usual,” she sighed, and mimicked—poorly—Cresswickham’s resonant tones. “The responsibilities I have! My family’s lands! My family’s title! My family’s fortune!”
Leo joined in with her: “They rest on my shoulders alone!” and they exchanged a small, sad smile.
“Lie him down, would you?” she asked, and Leo laid me out on the couch. They hovered over me and I felt like a child waking from a nightmare to find both my parents standing guard over me. My father has always been just as concerned as Ma ever was, much to my embarrassment at that age. He’d never been a hard man, my father. Never fought for what was his.
“Soft,” I mumbled.
“I’m so sorry,” Alice said. “I’m being as gentle as I can.” She began by disinfecting the wound, and I did my best to hide my hiss at the sting of it.
“I should have been there,” Leo sighed. “From the start.”
“What good would that have done?” she asked.
“You’re right, I suppose, given how I lost my temper with him. He may never forgive me. But that’s it, isn’t it? I’m the one he wants to hurt. I’m the one who’s angered him.”
“Reggie’s eaten up with anger. You know that. Only he doesn’t realize why he hurts, so he hurts others. There’s nothing any of us can do about it now; only endure.”
She was so pragmatic about it and so right, that Leo fell silent under her gaze. He patted himself down, looking for his cigarette case out of habit, and slipped fingers into the breast pocket of his robe. I saw his brow furrow as he drew out the dull gold star I’d lifted from Cresswickham’s jewelry drawer.
“I found it—” I started, but he took up my hand, pressing it between his own two, before I could explain, and gave me a smile through teary eyes.
