Sleeping Beauty (5 page)

His answer was to laugh as if they shared an inside joke.

She laughed too, her face warming—though the real joke was that she hadn’t the slightest idea why she was laughing.

Behind she heard him say, “
This
is the man?”

She looked around. “Um. Yes—”

“But tonight’s party is for him, Coco, my dear.”

“Is it?” She faintly remembered Mr. Stoker saying something about a party being in his honor. But this affair, well, it was more than a “party.”

“Indeed. And the Queen bestowed a knighthood on him last week. For bringing her all that gold over there.” Jay offered Mr. Stoker his hand. “Glad to see you again, Stoker.” His laughter was booming:
har har har
. “Sir James, that is. Good job, man.”

Mr. Stoker blushed; he beamed. While his earnest regard remained on Coco, as if he might suddenly blurt out a truth about himself that might beg a reciprocity.

“Yes,” she said quickly, “a regular Lancelot.”

The official intruded again. He said, “I’m sorry, but you must go.” He looked straight at Coco.

Jay turned on him. “You nincompoop, I’ll have you know that we are here by invitation of Bernard Fitzwilliam of the Royal Geographical Society. He—”

The official, a steward of some sort, insisted, “Nonetheless, I have strict instructions that the lady must leave.”

Coco stared.
She
was expected to leave? Why? She looked at her companion, frowning, offended, bewildered.

Mr. Stoker intervened again. “Now, see here, my good fellow. I am the guest of honor here tonight, Sir James Stoker, and I want her to stay, which, all things considered, I think should settle the matter.”

The steward glanced briefly, nervously toward the far end of the room, but was already shaking his head. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t, sir. I am expected to effect the immediate departure of Mrs. Nicole Wild.” To Coco, he said, “Madam, I am most sorry, but you must go voluntarily or I shall take you in hand and escort you to the door personally.”

Of all the insane things. She drew her wrap up around her. “Well, um—” She didn’t know what to say, where to look. “I—well, of course, I—” Of course she must leave. Though she was at a loss to understand why or how to do so gracefully.

Angrily, Mr. Stoker told her, “You don’t have to go anywhere.” To the steward, “Now look here—”

She put her hand on his arm. “No, no. I wish to leave. Jay,” she said, “you stay and don’t think
another thing of it. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” The American began to object, but she made a small, brisk shake of her head, pressing her lips together. “You have someone you must speak to. Go do it. I’m fine. I can perfectly well see myself home. I insist.”

She picked up a handful of her skirts, about to brave the long walk to the stairway that led up to the entry lobby. So public. She could not help but look around. Were there people who understood what was happening? A few curious looks, perhaps. It was hard to say.

A strong hand slipped around hers, stopping her. Mr. Stoker said to the steward, “I’m going to dance with her one time around the room. When we get to the stairs, we’ll leave.”

The fellow jabbered a few syllables of dispute.

To which Mr. Stoker responded, “If you interfere, I’m willing to hit you—”

Coco blinked, giggled. “Oh, no. Honestly, Mr. Stoker—”

“—champion pugilist, Queensberry Rules.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, no, no—”

He squeezed her hand as he braced his stance and drew himself up, a man with a calling: her salvation. Lancelot indeed; her hero again. She giggled once more, a laugh so unlike herself she barely recognized the sound as her own.

As she was drawn forward by the tips of her fingers, she let out a single burst of giddiness. Then the movement of the room came up around her. It embraced her as surely as the arm that took hold of her waist, and she was pulled into the swirl of cou
ples, out onto a crowded, spinning dance floor. Almost straightaway, she was chasing her own breath to keep up.

Absurd, absurd, she kept saying to herself. Yet despite everything, a joyfulness took hold. James Stoker guided her backward through a quick-turning waltz, both he and the music moving to a glorious swoop and turn of rhythm. Dancing with him was like riding high on a long-roped swing—natural, kinetic, exhilarating. It was both effortless yet too consuming of energy to allow speech. Which was all well enough, since Coco wouldn’t have known what to say anyway to a young man who indeed looked as if he were the champion of everything he attempted.

James Stoker was English public school handsome, with his fair hair and Anglo-Saxon good looks. Coco let herself acknowledge the fact: He was quite striking. The sort of young man who dressed in cream-colored trousers (with grass-stained knees) and played cricket endlessly; the team’s bowler, the president of the boat club, every young lady’s first choice for the first dance of the Season.

This amazing young man pivoted her around, while staring down at her with such unbroken interest she could only imagine what he must be thinking.

Yes, she
could
imagine, come to think of it, because his regard suddenly did not seem so straightforward or wholesome. Oh, my Lord. She laughed again—a laugh that in her own ears was coming to sound slightly hysterical—as she spun backward round and round in three-quarter time, feeling pos
itively vertiginous in the arms of a young swain she might have dreamed about when she was too young to have known any better.

“What?” Mr. Stoker asked.

She had to tilt her head back to look up at him. She came only to his chin—he was easily over six feet. “Pardon?” she asked. His hair was slicked back with some sort of pomade, darkened by it. Yet she could see it was quite fair—the color of sand made silvery gold in streaks by the sun. Gilded hair.

“You laughed.” He smiled down at her. A melting smile that undoubtedly had every eighteen-year-old girl here faint with yearning. “What are you laughing at?”

Coco shook her head, incapable of speaking for any number of reasons. She could not fathom how he spoke and danced and still concentrated on her the way he did. And the way he concentrated—it made her face hot. She stifled her own excessive laughter, waves of it that she swallowed till her throat was tight. Flattered laughter. She couldn’t help herself. She cast her eyes down. It was all she could do to focus on the dewy white stephanotis in his buttonhole. Her savior for the second time today. Who, darling that he was, had the priceless conceit to leap to the notion that his wanting her made the having possible.

The room revolved. She tried to give herself over into the spinning progress of the dance, the music. When she accidentally met her partner’s eyes again, though—which, the instant before, had been watching her mouth—she felt her skin flush, her face, her neck, her shoulders. She could barely credit it. She hardly ever blushed, yet for the past five minutes
she’d done little else. Meanwhile, her young man’s smile broke across his face till it creased his cheeks in dimples, indentations so deep they were inch-long lines. His teeth were even, white, and straight. The dentist had done an excellent job with the chipped tooth.

Their gazes held. His eyes were arresting. They were light in color—not a true hazel, but rather a very light shade of brown that could catch a greenish glint; golden. Amber, perhaps. He had the eyes of a timber wolf.

A handsome, innocent-faced man with dangerous eyes.

And not a tooth in his head aching. He seemed so gallingly perfect all at once—so vigorously healthy and optimistic that she could have smacked him for it. (Her tooth, in fact, had begun to bother her again.)

They danced the circumference of the room, to the wide entry stairs that led to the lobby above. There he stopped, lifted her hand through his arm, and as natural as you please, led her up the staircase and out of the ballroom.

Just into the overhead lobby, she paused to open her reticule. He waited while she dug through the small, silver-beaded bag—looking for her composure there as well. From a satin pocket she removed the tiny silver case. It was engraved, she only now noticed. She opened a snuff box with the initials
JPS
on it. She took two cloves, slipped them into her mouth, then closed the little box with a click. She sucked on the cloves a moment, wetting them, then put them with her tongue into the right spots. She felt herself relax a little as the sweet, slightly sting
ing taste spread through her mouth, the taste of imminent relief.

She smiled. Then knew immediately that she had smiled too much. She was encouraging Mr. Stoker’s nonsense. She turned away—and found herself looking down into a ballroom where she wasn’t allowed.

She shook her head. “I’m flabbergasted. I have never been thrown out of anywhere before.”

Behind her, Mr. Stoker murmured, “They had no right—”

“But they did. They had the right and ability, apparently. For here I am, up the stairs and out.”

“No—” he started to protest.

She glanced over her shoulder, lifting one eyebrow.

He laughed again, shrugging. “All right, yes. It looks as though they have. And me as well.” His laughter was deep, genuine. “So much for being the guest of honor.”

She turned fully to face him. “What a foolish thing,” she chided. She had to push him back to walk past him—poke the top of her folded fan into his chest to make him step back. She laughed at his persistence, saying, “I suspect that everyone who matters to you is in that room, and here you are with a woman they removed from their midst.”

“Which makes us comrades of sorts, since no one gave a rat’s tail if, by removing you, they removed me as well.”

She shook her head. He would try to pair them, but she would not allow it; she kept walking.

The lobby was large and relatively vacant. A man and woman sat on one of the far sofas; they were
deep in conversation. Two fellows smoked cigars by a potted palm. The coat-check, the doorman. Hardly anyone else. Most everyone was downstairs, awaiting the Prince of Wales. Up here the most pervasive presence was, oddly enough, the sound of rain. It spattered irregularly against a long run of window glass. A typical London spring night. Pouring. It occurred to Coco that it might take some time to rouse a cab.

All the more important that she leave Mr. Stoker here. “Thank you,” she said, nodding toward him. “I’m fine now. You go back in.” She walked in the direction of the doorman, trying to get his attention.

“I don’t want to.”

She glanced at him. “Don’t be naïve.”

“I’m not naïve.” He followed.

“You are.” She laughed again; she just couldn’t seem to keep from it.

Behind her he said, “God, I love the sound of that, the breathy, musical way you make everything seem funny.”

“Oh, do stop.” She turned on him, bringing him up short. “One of us had best be sensible. You’re wasting your effort.”

But he continued in his smooth Cambridge syllables. “They had no right. You did nothing to deserve—”

“You barely know me. You have no idea what I have done or not done.” They remained eye to eye for a moment, almost chest to chest. Until she let out an exasperated breath. “Just for the record, so you don’t waste a lot of time and possibly your very valuable reputation: I associate with men much
older than yourself. Much older than myself, come to think of it. Seasoned men.” World-weary men, she thought. Never a man like the one before her. “Go back in, Mr. Stoker. Go use all this charm to bowl over some sweet, nice—”

“It’s Dr. Stoker.”

It took a moment for her to realize he’d corrected her. Then another moment to realize he’d embarrassed himself.

He looked first sheepish, then annoyed. He made a quick shake of his head. “Sorry.” He frowned. “I never insist on the title. But I’m a little desperate, I suppose, for you to see me with all the stature and authority I possess. Truly, I’m hardly a child.” He made a crooked grin. “More than manly, in fact: I’m an African explorer, remember?”

She compressed her lips, but a smile came out anyway. “And hated every moment of it.”

“I should never have told you that.” He rolled his eyes.

And, God help her, they both laughed. Their gazes held. Till their smiles faded—and still they didn’t break eye contact.

She looked away finally, not sure whether to laugh or cry. Dear God. At least seven, perhaps more, years her junior. A proper knight and blessed hero of the realm, for goodnessakes. Who hadn’t an ounce of reason in his head…chasing after her, of all people.

Coco shook her head. If he wouldn’t consider his own best interests, she would.

“Mr. Stoker,” she said, “Or even ‘Dr. Stoker,’ I am most comfortable with men who have lived a
little. Mature, experienced men who have already accomplished a great deal.” Coco thought, Better Sir Knight here lose a few drops of pride now than march into the thick, thorny tangle of her life that could bleed him to death in the end. So she aligned herself with what most people thought of her anyway. “Not to mince words,” she told him, “I enjoy power in men. And money. And a cheerful, generous spirit when it comes to both. You couldn’t even begin with me. I am far too expensive for both your pocket and your soul.”

The word
expensive
made him blink. He lost his smile, opened his mouth, then couldn’t speak. He cleared his throat.

When he finally found words, he seemed disconcerted but also a little annoyed. He said, “Mrs. Wild. I brought back every bloody piece of gold down in that room, not to mention new maps, notes, diaries, and three thousand of the best geological bore samples anyone has ever taken out of the African continent. To bring these things back, I had to outlive not only dysentery: I survived warring tribes, overly friendly tribes, snakes bigger than you are, dampness till my skin molded, dryness till my throat was sand, not to mention lethal insects, and trees full of bats—”

He took a breath, narrowing his eyes. He had to compose himself for a moment.

But he continued. “I was lost, sick, starved, half-killed, tortured. The Wakua didn’t just give me all that gold because I was a pretty young man.” His crooked smile materialized again. “Though that was part of it perhaps.” Then there was more in his expression than smiling. Determination took over.
“Mostly, though, they made a present of the gold because I held my own, no matter what they threw at me. And they threw a lot.