City of Ash (44 page)

Sebastian slowed. He took my arm solicitously, a little possessively, and I didn’t pull away. I liked it more than I should—I was not used to men treating me as if I mattered to them. No one did more than hazard a quick glance at us as he led me through the tents, most of them wide open at each end to show gathered bedrolls and clothing hanging from tent poles and salvaged belongings.

“It’s this one,” he said. Four rows back, at the edge.

The flaps had been tied up; as we entered, he loosened the ties and let them fall. The canvas duck seemed to glow; it smelled of sun-warmed fabric, heated rubber. Inside it was spartan: a ground cover spread almost to the edges; a bedroll on one side; an oil lamp with a cracked chimney next to an ink bottle, scattered pen nibs, all set upon a crate that read
SINGERMANN & CO
; a battered pail black with soot on the outside; a ragged towel. Even at the very center, the tent was too low for us to stand. Sebastian let go of my arm and lifted the satchel from his shoulder, letting it fall near the bedroll as he went to loose the flaps on the other side. They fell closed, blocking us from the world’s view. I heard voices, the laughter of children, the hiss as someone put out a campfire, and here we were, alone, and it seemed too quiet.

I stood back, unsure, as he shrugged out of his frock coat. He hung it on a nail sticking out from the tent pole, and then he turned to look at me. “Home sweet home. Perhaps even a sight better than where I was before the fire.”

I glanced toward the crate, trying for nonchalance. “You’ve managed a desk.”

“I did a little looting of my own before the militia came.”

“It looks as if you’ve been writing.”

“Last night,” he said. “When I was in the mood for villainy.”

He came up to me, hunched, his head brushing against the low-slung canvas, sending the walls shivering. There was no room to back away; even had there been, I’m not sure I would have. He whispered, “I’ve thought of nothing but you. When I woke this morning, my lamp was still burning because I’d fallen asleep waiting for you like some lovesick fool.”

“You shouldn’t … talk that way,” I managed.

“Why not? Isn’t that what I am?” He reached for me, his fingers at my waist again, curling, pulling me closer, such an awkward position, both of us bent and cramped, him forward, me backward, arched against him like a cat. “Don’t torment me, Bea. At least tell me you’ve thought of me too.”

“Yes, of course,” I whispered back. “Of course—”

He was kissing me before I’d said the last word, and I twisted my hands in his hair until it must have hurt, anchoring him, breathing into him, going with him when he pulled me onto the bedroll. I heard the muffled voices outside, the sounds of daytime, while in the tent there was only our quiet moans, the harsh gasp of our breathing, the rustle of cloth as we undressed each other, and then he was naked beneath my hands. He groaned and I shivered, and when he rolled me beneath him, I arched to meet him, clasping him with splayed hands, and his mouth was on mine as my pleasure spiraled and grew, and I forgot Mrs. Langley and the plan and Nathan and everything else.

I
was drowsy, and the tent was very warm with the sun beating down upon it; there was a thin veil of sweat shimmering on my skin and on his where we both lay upon the bedroll. I thought idly that anyone could simply step inside or even peek as they walked by; the flaps were not tied shut, and there was a crack between them. Instead of making me shy that thought raised a little excitement.
How shameless you are
. But there it was, no doubt the reason I’d taken to acting to begin with.

Sebastian’s eyes were closed; his breathing was rhythmic and deep, his lovely thick hair falling back from his face, and I thought about tiptoeing my fingers down his body, bringing
him awake with my tongue and my hands, but I liked watching him too. I liked wondering what he dreamed of, imagining he dreamed of me.

Now who’s lovesick?
the little voice teased and jeered, and I smiled and stretched. My fingers brushed against his satchel, lying abandoned on the floor, and I paused, thinking of what was inside it, the play he was revising. I glanced at Sebastian again, and then I rolled onto my stomach, reaching for the bag, undoing the buckle that closed it, and if I felt guilty, well, it wasn’t too much. A host of pencils and pens threatened to roll out; I pushed them back, instead pulling out a sheaf of papers.
Much Ado About Nothing
was on top, the play Lucius wished him to alter. I thumbed through the pages until I found where it ended and another began.

Penelope Justis
. I pulled the papers toward me, rising on my elbows to read it better, shaking my hair back from my face. On top was the scene at the funeral, the one I already knew, and I shuffled through the pages, past the fireside scene with Marjory, the original and then the revision where Marjory’s idea became instead Penelope’s plan to pretend to be Florence’s ghost, to haunt Barnabus to madness. In spots they were nearly illegible, so many crossings-out and blottings, streaks where his hand had dragged the ink over the paper.

Sebastian stirred, making a sound in his sleep, and I glanced over quickly. He settled; outside someone laughed as they walked by, kicking a stone that skidded and thudded gently against the tent stake. I turned back to the manuscript. I was caught by new lines, a speech I hadn’t yet read that sent shivers down my spine.

What a role! For a moment I was so hungry for it I forgot all else. I found myself mouthing the words, rolling them on my tongue, finding Penelope in them—

“What are you doing?”

Sebastian’s voice was a whisper; still I jerked in surprise. I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Reading your new revisions. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No.” He rose on one elbow. “Where are you in it?”

“Only where Penny decides to drive Barnabus mad.”

“You’ve seen that already.”

“No, the soliloquy’s new. I adore it. I can hardly wait to speak it. I hope you’ve made her a villain of Richard the Third’s stripe. There’s a part to savor.”

“Oh, she will be. I mean it to be a tragedy. Like
King Lear.
”

“A tragedy?” I laughed. “The only version of
King Lear
we ever do is the one where Edgar marries Cordelia and they all end happily ever after.”

“Such a terrible corruption of genius.” He leaned to kiss my shoulder.

“This from the man who’s busy revising
Much Ado About Nothing.
”

“I’ll take a scalpel to it rather than a bone saw.” He nuzzled the hollow between my shoulder and my neck. “Speak the words for me. The way you were doing. I want to hear them in the voice I wrote them for.”

I smiled and looked back at the pages again and did as he asked, reveling in his listening, becoming for those bare moments the character I felt I’d been born to play. There was no stage here, and no audience but Sebastian, but I let myself fall into the part, submerging so completely that when I was done it took a moment to come back to myself.

“You’re the perfect actress to play her.” His voice was reverent enough to make me blush.

I disliked the embarrassment; it was easier to tease. “You think me so calculating?”

He smiled. “I only meant that you bring her alive. And now she’s yours again.”

I stiffened—that guilt again, and along with it jealousy and resentment. “The perfect actress? You don’t think Mrs. Langley was better?”

“Don’t be absurd. Why compare yourself to her?”

And in spite of the fact that I was naked beneath him, and his hands played upon my skin, and I knew better, I could not help myself. “Everyone thought she had talent.”

“So she did.”

“They all think I’m glad she’s dead.”

“Do they?”

“You heard Susan. The rest haven’t said it, but I know they do.”

His hot breath pulsed against my bare shoulder. “I think you’re imagining things. They think nothing of the kind. They adore you, Bea. They’re all on your side.”

“Now who’s being absurd? I was afraid she might be better in the role, I admit it.”

“There was no chance of that. She didn’t want to be anyway.”

“She didn’t?”

“It was never her intention to steal your part. She was unhappy and looking for something to do. And she was trying to help me.”

“How well you know her.” I could not keep the acid from my voice.

“She would have helped you too. Eventually.”

“You had that much influence with her?”

“She would have seen your talent for herself. Even without me.”

“Ah, the story of my life. Another missed opportunity.”

“You never know. Perhaps she’ll appear yet.”

I kept my voice as casual as I could. “Perhaps.” And then, because now that it was in my head as a possibility, I couldn’t let it go, “You know, I’m thinking of starting my own company.”

I heard his surprise in the silence before he said, “Your own company? How would you do that? Were you looting? Did you find a stash of money hidden somewhere?”

“No, of course not. I was just … I’ve been thinking about it lately.”

“You’d leave Greene and the others?”

“I want to be my own manager for a change. Lucius is the best of them, but I’m tired of kowtowing to someone else.”

“What about Metairie? Or Wheeler? Townshend especially won’t like to see you go.”

“I suppose they could come along, if they liked.”

“I think you’d miss them if they didn’t,” he said. “They’re your family, aren’t they?”

I snorted. “Would you call those fish that eat their young a family?”

I felt him smile against my skin. “Ah, Bea, do you never get tired of being so guarded?”

The question surprised me, not the least because it brought sudden tears to my eyes, and I didn’t know where they’d come from or why. I blinked them away. “Where would I be if I wasn’t?”

“Perhaps you’d be happier,” he whispered. “Because you aren’t so alone as you think.”

The words made me uncomfortable. But what was worse was the longing they raised in me, the urge to ask him if he would come with me if I left Lucius.
And you’d be a fool to ask it
. Of course I would, because what else did I want from him but a promise to stay, and that was stupidity, pure and simple. So instead, I said, “It’s better if I am, Sebastian. I can’t trust any of them really, and you know it.”

“I think you’re wrong,” he said quietly.

“I’ll remember that. But for now, I have to think practically, and that means Nathan—”

“Ssshhh.”
Sebastian shook his head slightly. “Don’t speak of him. Not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want him here with us.” He traced down my spine, a light, lingering touch that made me shiver.

I stared at him, feeling a disconcerting little joy. I looked away to disguise it, back to the manuscript, turning the pages without really seeing them, one after another.
No doubt about it, Bea, but you’re tangled in deep
. And I was, and I hated it.

“Do you never get tired of being so guarded?”

I forced the words away and made myself remember what I was doing here, and not think about the way his hand had crept to the indent of my waist, nor the feel of his body pressed to my back, his hair tangling with mine. I made myself focus on the words. I was here to find the means to play out the plan I’d devised with Mrs. Langley. Without that, there’d be no company. No money. No possibility. It was all that mattered. But to do it, I needed the
how
.

Finally I recognized the words scrawled upon the page. The rewritten scene at the fireside with the servant Marjory. I turned it over. Nothing on the back. Nothing else.

I frowned. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“That’s all there is,” Sebastian murmured against my skin. “It’s all I’ve rewritten.”

“But—” I twisted to face him, slipping from beneath his talented hands. “But what happens next? What does Penny do?”

He gave me a lazy look from beneath his lashes. “You’re so afire to hear the rest?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

He laughed and caught me about the waist, bearing me down, kissing my throat. “It will have to wait until I’m done with you.”

I grabbed his hair and pulled his face up so I could look into his eyes. “Tell me what Penelope does.”

“You’d rather I do that than this?” He shook my hands loose from his hair, bending to flick my nipple with his tongue.

“Don’t tease me, Bastian. Tell me.” But my voice broke when I meant for it to be strong, and he only looked up at me through lowered lids and gave me a wicked smile that threatened to steal my reason, and his hand slid between my legs, and once again I had to force myself to remember what it was I’d wanted. The key to getting rid of Nathan. The key to all that money, to my share of it, the share that would let me start my own company, that
would let me have what I’d dreamed of and keep this man and his plays and the way he touched me.

I clamped my legs shut tight. “Tell me.”

“How strong you are,” he whispered; I heard his laughter in it. “A veritable fortress.”

“No battering ram can get through. It’s futile to attempt it. You need the password.”

He kissed my stomach. “I think the password may be different than you think it is.”

In my silkiest voice, I said, “Do you remember the night we spent together?”

He stilled and raised his head to give me a wary look. “Of course.”

“Tell me what happens next, and I promise you: the things I’ll do to you now will make that night seem like a chaste dream.”

It worked as I knew it would. He swallowed convulsively, and then said quickly, as if he could not speak the words fast enough, “Penelope tells Barnabus that Florence’s spirit haunts her each night. She asks him to help her be rid of the ghost. He refuses, but he falls half in love with her.”