Inamorata (27 page)

N
ICHOLAS

I
was asleep on the settee when the bell rang, my sleepless nights caught up with me at last. I blinked awake, disoriented and confused. Giles came out from his bedroom, knotting his tie. “Were you expecting someone?”

He went to the window and opened it, looking out and then saying in surprise, “Oh! I’ll be right down.” He turned to me and said, “It’s Miss Hannigan.”

“Just Sophie?” For a moment I was certain I was dreaming.

“I’ll bring her up.” Giles went out the door.

I sat up, wondering what the hell Sophie Hannigan was doing alone at my door, and whether I should be worried or dismissive or thankful.

I still hadn’t decided when Giles returned with her. He was smiling like an idiot. She was not.

“Look who’s here, Nick!” Giles announced as if I didn’t already know quite well.

She said, “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve come without an invitation.”

I saw the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her cloak as she took a deep breath. She glanced rather meaningfully at Giles, who frowned, obviously not understanding.

I said bluntly, “Go on to the Bronsons’, Giles. Give them my regrets.”

He said, “Oh,” in a discouraged way that I was sorry for. “Yes, of course. I’ll leave the two of you to yourselves.” He waited half a moment, as if she might call him back, and then he grabbed his coat from the hook beside the door and went out.

She hadn’t moved from where she stood.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head. I realized she was trembling with the force of some barely contained emotion. She reached for the buttons on her cloak. I watched as she undid them, as she slipped it from her shoulders, as she laid it over the chair.

I realized then why she was here, why she
must
be here, and I was paralyzed by the power of my yearning. And afraid too that I must be wrong.

She removed the pin from her hat and took it off, laying it aside. She came toward me, coming to a stop in lamplight that cast her in soft gold, highlighting her hair, her skin, the stripes of her bodice. “Why don’t you take me to your room?”

I was already hard. It was absurd how thoroughly she managed it. But still I tried to temper my desire, to be gentle when I’d never been so with her before. I led her into the bedroom, shut the door, and turned to her. I reached for the pins in her hair, bending to kiss her. No sooner was my mouth on hers than she was pawing fiercely at me, pulling my shirt from my trousers, undoing the fastenings as if she could not wait another moment. The fragile rein I had on my control snapped. I plunged my hand into her hair and jerked her to me, kissing her crudely, half swallowing her, and she answered me just as brutally. I drew away from her long enough for her to drag my shirt over my head and toss it to the floor. Her eyes burned like jewels, so deep and dark and hungry it hurt to look at them.

Her hands ran over my chest, scraping me with her nails. Then she made a little sound of frustration, grappling with the buttons of her bodice. When they were undone, she said, “Help me, please,” and a quick memory assailed me of Odilé doing the same thing, Odilé smiling, crooking her finger at me while I followed her like a puppet on a string.

I forced the memory away, blinking until I saw Sophie before me again. I grasped the silk of the bodice—so damn tightly fitting I had to peel it off, feeling her warmth against my knuckles as I revealed her smooth shoulders, lace-trimmed chemise, corset. I tossed the bodice aside. She turned her back to me so I could undo the fastening of the skirt, which I did quickly, pushing it down, impatient, over her hips until it fell to the floor. She stepped from it, her back still to me, and I saw Odilé stepping from a gown just that way, deep red pooling on the floor, but Odilé had not been so well underclothed. She’d worn pink satin, I remembered, decorated with lace so delicate and fine I could see the color of her skin beneath it.

I swallowed convulsively.
No
, I told myself.
Not Odilé. Sophie.
The two of them played hide and seek in my head.
Not Odilé
, I told myself desperately. Sophie.
Sophie
. I pushed her up against the wall. Her little gasp of pleasure mixed with Odilé in my head, laughing at me, mocking me, and I nearly cried with frustration as I trapped Sophie. I dragged up the fabric of her petticoats and chemise; she was wearing drawers, and I bit off a curse—too much, too slow. She fumbled with the ties as if she understood; the muslin fell to her ankles, and I felt the cold and relentless draw of that void in her, the need to fill it, to let it suck and swallow, and I was terrified. My arousal began to fade in fear; before it could, desperate to keep it, I undid my trousers, releasing myself, taking her from behind, shoving into her without finesse, sheathing myself deep within her, and again I heard her small cry.

I grabbed her hips, fabric and lace spilling over my hands—not satin, but muslin and lawn, not pink but white; I held those details firm. I said them over and over again in my head. Not pink. Not satin. I buried my face in her neck, her shoulder, breathing her in. Violets, not almonds. Sophie, not Odilé. Not Odilé. Not Odilé.

“Sophie,” I whispered. “Sophie. Sophie,” like some spell to cast over myself, an amulet against possession. But now it was no longer about pleasure, it was about not letting Odilé defeat me, and so I worked the woman pressing back into me until I gained sway over my own mind, until I came with a cry that did not sound like me, helpless and frustrated, joyless and unsatisfying. It was the worst I’d ever had, even worse than those days when everything was fading, when there had been no satiation even in the one I’d thought I loved, when desire had been only a torment.

I collapsed against her until the throbbing ceased, until I realized I still had her pinned against the wall, that my fingers gripped her hips so tightly they cramped, until I heard her breathing like little sobs. I was horrified and dismayed, hating myself, shamed at how I’d used her.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her. “I didn’t mean for this.”

Her breathing quieted. She said nothing.

I withdrew from her, loosening my hold on her hips, seeing the red marks I’d left behind, crossing over other marks, ones I hadn’t seen until that moment, too caught up in my own tortured desire. White marks crossing her buttocks, one wider at the end, narrowing to what looked like a scratch, the other above, near her hip and streaking in a single line across the dimples there. Scars. The sight of them distracted me from what had just happened between us.

I said, “What are these?”

“What?” she asked quietly. I don’t know what I expected. Tears, perhaps. Anger. I deserved both. But she seemed . . . accepting. Which was perhaps worse. It made me feel wretched.

I backed away from her, letting her chemise and petticoats fall to cover her again. “Sophie. Dear God, I cannot apologize enough. This is not who I am, you must believe me.” I wanted it to be true. I told myself it was true.

She frowned, turning fully to me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I was relieved. Then flabbergasted. I had never had such a violent encounter with a woman, at least, not with a woman who hadn’t wanted it. I could not believe she was dismissing it so lightly. “Sophie, I—”

“You’re sorry you invited me,” she stated calmly. She stepped away from the wall. “I should not have come, but I was . . . well”—she took a deep breath—“it doesn’t matter. You needn’t worry. I understand. I’ll go.”

“No!” The word erupted with such force I startled both of us. “I don’t want you to go.”

She looked at me in obvious confusion. “You don’t?”

“No. No, not at all, but I can’t believe you want to stay. Not after. . . .” I let my words trail off when I saw the way she was looking at me, as if she’d seen nothing wrong or unusual in what had happened.

“You don’t wish me to go?” she asked. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes. More than anything.”

She hesitated as if to test the truth of my words. Then she bent to take off her boots, to roll down her stockings. She reached up behind and pulled the laces of her corset, loosening it, and then she unhooked it and let it fall, kicking it away. She unfastened her petticoats and pushed down the sleeves of her chemise, past her breasts, which jiggled enticingly at the movement, to her waist and then lower, slithering out of layers of fabric like a snake discarding its skin, a slight wiggle of her hips. Then she stood gloriously naked in front of me, hair falling like a curtain down her back, over her shoulders.

She turned again to face the wall, pressing herself against it, looking over her shoulder and saying, as if she meant to reward me, as if this was what I deserved, “Is this what you like? Do you want me this way again?”

The memory of the Lido came racing back, unbidden, her surrender to her brother’s request, her acceptance that she was made to be whatever he desired. This was so reminiscent of it I found myself looking over my shoulder, half expecting to see Joseph there, sketchbook in hand. She gave herself to me now that same way, and it was so odd, so seductively innocent, and so unlike Odilé that it released the image of her at last. I managed to say, “No. I want you in bed. Please.”

She stepped past me, lying down, though she didn’t cover herself as most women would have, and I thought how comfortable she was with her nudity and wondered at that too. I took off my trousers quickly—the world felt balanced again when I was as naked as she was. She was so pale she looked like a swath of moonlight slanting over the coverlet. I sat down beside her on the mattress and urged her onto her stomach. I ran my finger down her back—she had a mole on her shoulder blade that affected me strongly. I couldn’t keep from touching it, and then I traced down her spine, to the worst of the scars. “Tell me first how you got these.”

“Ignore them,” she said, shaking her hair so it fell in a waterfall across her back. “Joseph does. He’s never even drawn them—except for the one time. I hardly remember they’re there.”

Her words raised so many questions I hardly knew where to begin. I started with what seemed easy. “What do you mean, he only drew them the one time?”

“He drew them when they were made,” she said matter-of-factly. “It was his punishment. She made him draw them bleeding, before he could salve or wrap them.”

I was horrified and confused. “
She
?”

“Our governess. Oh, don’t look so shocked. Were you never beaten with a birch rod?”

“Yes, of course I was beaten. But my father used a strap or his hand. And I think he never plied his full strength.”

“Oh. Well, Miss Coring was not so kind.”

“What in God’s name did you do to deserve this?”

She looked away quickly, and that small denial unsettled me even more, though I could not have said why. “It was a long time ago. I was fifteen. She was sorry after. She brought me cherry tarts to make up for it, and Joseph got iced cakes. Our favorites.”

“Cherry tarts are your favorite?” I stroked the scar delicately. “I’ll remember that.”

She shuddered. “Oh, please don’t. I can’t abide them now. I don’t know when that changed, exactly.”

“Perhaps the day she beat you with a birch rod.”

She smiled almost wistfully. “My brother and I were uncontrollable. Or so she said.”

“I see. Did she beat your brother this hard too?”

“She had other ways of punishing him.”

“Like making him watch you bleed?” I asked.

The look she gave me was darkly miserable and knowing, accepting and tormented. I had never encountered such an expression before. “Yes,” she said, but it wasn’t an answer. It was a whole, a wealth of truth, a mockery and a secret and an open door, and I realized that there were depths to Sophie Hannigan that I had not seen before, that I could not guess at.

I felt a consuming need to protect her. I leaned down, kissing the scars, running my tongue along them, along taut, smooth skin. I felt her shiver, and then she twisted beneath my mouth, turning onto her back, opening her arms and spreading her legs, saying almost desperately, as if she were afraid I would refuse, “Please.”

And there she was, the woman in her brother’s sketch, a yearning and desire and vulnerability in her eyes to make one weak, and I felt her burrow into me and stick, a thorn easing ever closer to my heart, and I made love to her as she asked, as I wanted, forgetting Odilé in the arms of the woman who most reminded me of her.

O
DILÉ

T
he t
wilight had gone dark and quiet beyond the balcony, the glow of other Venetian windows and lanterns flickering through the shifting fog, there and gone again, leaving us alone in the world, nothing existing beyond this room. My appetite quivered, anticipating satisfaction with barely reined impatience.

I poured wine, drawing things out now that I was certain of him, craving the pleasure-pain of consummation long denied, breathless with triumph. I tried to temper it—this was only the prelude, after all. What mattered was the bargain I meant to make with him. I would make of him something so grand, and what he could do for me—the thought of it gripped me hard, a pain so fierce I dug my nails into my palm to distract me from it.

He wandered about the
sala
, looking at the paintings upon the walls. He stopped before one, tilting his head as if he wanted to see it better in the candlelight, and I came over, handing him the wine.

“Do you know the artist?” I asked him.

“Canaletto, isn’t it?”

I smiled. “Yes indeed. You see how well he paints Venice? How wonderfully he paints the sky? He has the colors right, don’t you think?”

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“No one sees Venice quite as Canaletto did.”

“They say Venice was his muse.”

“Of course they do. But there was a woman too, you know.”

He took a sip of wine and turned to look at me. His eyes were very dark in the candlelight, nearly black. “Was there?”

“They say he met her on Ascension Day—do you know of it? It is a great festival here in Venice. The Doge would ride out into the lagoon on a ship, the
Bucintoro
, and throw a wedding ring into the water to symbolize the marriage of the city to the sea. Canaletto used to say it was his favorite work, because it was the day he met her.” I remembered the way he had come ashore, laughing, stumbling, a servant carrying his easel and box of paints behind.

“Who was she?”

“He refused to reveal her name. They say she was a great courtesan, but that is only supposition.”

“What happened to her?”

“She inspired him, and then she disappeared.” I took another sip of wine, closing my eyes, remembering.

The thought of it brought yearning, raising an answering ache, a demand.

“Are you in pain?” Joseph Hannigan asked quietly. “Shall I call someone?”

“A momentary weakness. It will pass.”

“Is there something I can do?”

“Not quite yet,” I told him, savoring the play, the way neither of us spoke of why he was here. I reached for the painting, twisting it on its golden cord, turning it to the wall so he could see the writing on the back. “She made him famous. This was his only acknowledgment.”

Joseph Hannigan read it aloud.
“
‘Without you, my love, I am nothing.
’
”

“But he left her nameless and faceless to the world.” I turned the painting back again. “Do you think she minded it?”

“I would mind it.”

“Ah, but you’re a man, and men are used to having their names shouted. Would it trouble your sister, do you think? Does she mind serving as your muse?”

He looked as if it were a question he had never considered. “She doesn’t seem to.”

“What reward does she have from you?” I stepped closer. “Or do you simply assume it is enough for her to know what she is to you?”

He stepped back, obviously uncomfortable, uncertain.

“I see you have never thought of it.” I reached out, pressing my finger to the buttons of his vest, each in turn, bottom to top. “Perhaps you should. Else one day you might wake up to find her gone to pursue her own desires. Disappeared, as Canaletto woke to find his own muse had fled.”

“Sophie wouldn’t leave me,” he said hoarsely.

“Are you so certain? I think you take too much for granted,
cheri.
Does she want only the life you give her? Have you ever wondered what she yearns for? What she would give anything to have?”

He looked troubled. I let my fingers climb to the silk about his throat.

I went on, “Few men ever wonder such things. They are the center of the world, after all. But women are not so different in what they want. They are used to hiding their desires and dissembling, that is all. No woman is ever quite as she appears.”

He grabbed my hand, stilling it. “I know that’s true. Women have many secrets. But I think I know yours.”

I wanted to laugh at his presumption. “Do you? What are they?”

“I see sadness. Regret. Yearning.”

My urge to laugh disappeared. His perception astounded me. I had no idea what to say.

“Am I right?” he whispered.

I could take him now. This moment. Oh, how I wanted him. All my senses heightened, his presence—the smell of him, the anticipated taste and feel—became more painful. But not quite enough. The dark monster in me stirred and whimpered but I wanted to see him sweat. I wanted to know I was inside this man, that he belonged to me entirely, that he would die to have me.

I slipped my hand from his hold, stepping away and sauntering to the balcony doors, looking out. “See how beautiful the night is, even in the fog.”

I heard him pause, and then the sound of paper rustling, and I looked over my shoulder to see him with the open sketchbook. “Stay just that way,” he said softly, and my entire body cramped—already now, I felt my gift working upon him. I let him draw for a time, listening to the scratch of charcoal on paper.

“The sunsets here in Venice are more intensely colored than they have ever been. Do you know why?”

“Why?” His voice was very quiet.

“Because of the smoke from the mirror and glass factories. There were only craftsmen before, not such manufacture. There was never such smoke. It’s strange, don’t you think, that something that so befouls the air can be so beautiful?”

“Beauty from ugliness,” he mused wistfully. “No. I don’t think it strange at all.”

I turned to look at him, compelled by that wistfulness, and saw the secrets that were suddenly in his eyes. He had paused, his hand poised and still. I went to him and said, “Let me see.”

“It’s only a sketch,” he said, but he gave it to me.

Certain things registered first: the beauty of his lines, his skill with chiaroscuro, his ease with the human body that one did not always see, even in the most sublime of artists. But it was his technique that set him apart—the uniqueness of his shading, his
way
of seeing, beauty heightened and enriched but still with edges, with danger, with darkness. I saw myself as no one else had ever portrayed me; not just beauty but terror and awe too, as if he had seen within me the monster and found it not just deadly but fascinating.

Beauty from ugliness.

So much talent. It was what I’d waited for. But I felt a little trickle of fear too. He had seen so much more than I expected. The world seemed to tilt; it was strange and discomfiting. I looked up at him in confusion, but the way he watched me so intently—paused, waiting—reassured me and banished my fear. I could not contain my hunger. The world shimmered before me, melting and blending, wavering like Venetian light.

“Odilé?” he asked me, bewildered. His voice was only a murmur through my pain, but it called me back. He stared at me as if he saw my rapaciousness and very nearly welcomed it. There was only curiosity and a strange acceptance, as if this were familiar to him, and that too unsettled me. But now it was time.

I let the sketchbook fall, and then I led him to my bedroom, to pillows and perfumed sheets. I pushed his coat from his shoulders. He shrugged out of it, heedless as it fell to the floor, as his vest followed, and his tie and shirt. Then he was barechested and hot against my hands. He reached for me, and I pushed him away, saying lightly, “Let me look at you,” and he went still. I let my gaze travel over him—lean, muscled chest and arms, broad shoulders, a sprinkling of dark hair over his sternum. His clothes hid no weakness. He was more beautiful without them.

I said, “Take off your boots.”

He bent to do as I asked, and when that was done I stepped close to him again, tsking when he tried to touch me. “Not yet,” I whispered, and then I undid his trousers, pushing them and his underwear over his lean hips, revealing him completely. He was ready for me, and oh, he was something to savor, but I was starving, everything in me saying
now, now
, an exquisitely brutal anguish.

I stepped back, unbuttoning my gown, dozens of little pearl buttons slipping through their loops. He watched me with his own hunger. I let the gown fall, and this time when he came to me, I let him touch. His voice was as reverent as his expression when he said, “I never knew they made things such as this.” He eased his finger beneath the silken strap of the camisole, bringing it over my shoulder, letting it fall to reveal my breast.

“Then you’ve spent no time with courtesans,” I teased him.

“Is that what you are?”

“Perhaps. In another life.”

He moved like one in a spell as he undressed me. When I stood naked before him, he skimmed his hands over my body, my breasts, my hips. His fingers slipped to the bracelets on my wrists, tangling through the many loops of fine chain as if he meant to remove them, and I said, “Leave them.”

He raised a brow, but he didn’t protest. His eyes darkened. He made a sound deep in his throat and jerked me against him, whispering in my ear, “How do you like it? Tell me what you like.”

The question was strange—shocking even. I could not remember ever being asked it before, and suddenly I was quivering. I wanted nothing but gluttony. It was all I could do to say, “Whatever you want.”

“Oh, but I want everything.”

“Do you?” I reached for him, stroking him with a featherlight touch. “What about this?”

“Yes,” he breathed.

“Or this?” I unsheathed my nails, biting into him. His breath was quick and hard, indrawn, but he did not flinch.

“Yes,” he gasped, a breath that seemed to rack him, but he didn’t move. It was as if he were waiting for instruction, but his desire was coiled so tightly I felt it, I knew it must spring. I wondered how far I could push him before it did. I teased him with it. “This?” I asked as I stroked him. I raked my nails down his chest, leaving marks, whispering, “This?”

His answers became harder wrought, assents in the licking of lips, in caught breaths. I waited for him to lose control, to toss me to the bed, to devour me with brutality, but he only closed his eyes and threw back his head and let me torment him. It became a game, one I’d played before, but never with a man who lasted so well. I saw the muscles in his throat work, the tense flexing of his shoulders. I put my mouth to his skin, tasting the salt of him, and his breath came harder and faster. I kissed him, his sternum, his navel, lower, and he only flexed his hands and swallowed.

Then, finally, my hunger became too much, something I could no longer resist. I pressed my body to his; I whispered against his mouth, “I would like you to take me now,” and it was as if I’d released a caught and panicked animal. We were on the bed before I knew it. I was a prisoner to my craving, which wrapped around us like tentacles, sinking its teeth into him, gorging so relentlessly that I knew he could not last long, and found myself regretting that already.

But he was like no other man I’d known. He was willing to do anything, to give anything. He surrendered himself to pleasure without holding back. He was as responsive to gentleness as pain. He had no boundaries; nothing made him recoil or hesitate.
Yes,
he said, and
yes
again, an endless and inexhaustible string of
yeses
that drove me to greater efforts. It was its own kind of aphrodisiac.

I took him until I’d absorbed all I could, until I was swollen and consumed. And even then, even in satiation, I was . . . fascinated, enthralled by him—how impossible this was! He lost himself so completely it was as if he were nothing but desire, an entity that lived for pleasure, bound only by the limits of his own body. I did not understand it, though I would have said I understood all there was to know about pleasure.

I gripped him tight; I heard him groan, and I said urgently, “Look at me,” not knowing what it was I wanted to see, what I thought might be there, only curious to know what made him what he was, what secrets I might discover in his gaze. He obeyed me. He opened his eyes and looked into mine, and I saw elation there, and freedom and relief.

But I did not see Joseph Hannigan. It was as if he became someone else,
something
else, and suddenly the image of his sister was in my head, her own surrender to his drawing, the acceptance that seemed almost a release, as if she were not herself but something else entirely.

The image was there, and then gone, gone just as he came with a hoarse, guttural cry, collapsing upon me, burying his face in the hollow of my shoulder, his heart hammering. And after a few moments, he raised his eyes to look at me, and he was there again, the Joseph Hannigan I recognized, with a door in his eyes that I realized suddenly had always been there, though I had not noticed until I’d seen its absence. Closed tight. A prison door, I thought, and felt suddenly uneasy and off-kilter again.