Amberlough(19)

“Hah.” Cyril let himself half-smile. “I suppose you could say that. You?”

“Actually…” Finn looked over his shoulder, as if he suspected eavesdroppers. “Yes. I’ve told them I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. Don’t let on. It’s just, it’s been raining for ages, and the sun’s finally out…” He cocked his head, watching Cyril from beneath strong brows like gulls’ wings. “I was thinking I might go down to the harbor for lunch, watch the boats come in. Say, you wouldn’t join me, would you?”

Cyril must not have kept the dubious expression from his face, because Finn blanched and stammered and said, “Only, if you’ve got somewhere else to be, or if you’re too tired, I understand—”

Finn seemed sweet, but Cyril didn’t do sweet. “Is this a pickup?” he asked, more sharply than he meant to. Exhaustion made him blunt.

Finn went from sick white to burning redhead blush in less than a space of a breath. “Oh! Oh, no, I—it’s just it’s nice out, and you seem so … well.” He checked himself. “I’m sorry. Please, don’t pay me any mind.”

The hectic color in Finn’s cheeks shamed Cyril, and suddenly he felt small and mean. The lift doors opened onto the ground floor. Before Finn could rush off in embarrassment, Cyril stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Where to?”

Finn started, then smiled. “Nowhere special. There’s a little place I like near the spillway. Cheap oysters, but they won’t kill you.”

*

It wasn’t quite a dive, but it wasn’t what Cyril was accustomed to, either. Finn advised against the establishment’s liquor, so Cyril had beer, which was surprisingly good.

Finn’s shabby suit and shiny elbows fit snugly into the ambiance, and when Cyril caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar, he admitted they probably wouldn’t have let him through the door at Sola’s. Bags under his eyes, patchy stubble, rumpled suit. No wonder Finn had worried about him on the lift.

“You’re fifth floor, right?” Finn spooned horseradish into another fan-shaped shell. These were big, earthy Amberlough Phrynes—cheap local oysters, not the sweet, small, dearly expensive west coasters.

Cyril nodded. “A paper pusher. Rather like you, I expect. A lot of budgets.”

“I thought fifth floor was supposed to be thrilling,” said Finn. “Espionage and cloak-and-dagger and things like that. Like in the novels.”

Cyril laughed into his beer, tried not to think about the packet of Landseer’s false papers locked in his desk. Exhaustion sank its claws into his back, pushed his shoulders forward. “I hate to disappoint you.”

“No glamour at all, then?”

“Well. I wouldn’t say that.” Cyril spread butter across a slice of brown bread, but saw white greasepaint shining on the angles of Aristide’s face, light through the rising effervescence of champagne. Damnation. What was he going to tell Aristide?

“Anything would be more exciting than the old adding machine,” said Finn. “Believe me, I’m good at what I do, but mercy! It’s unbelievably dull.”

“Even with all the Foxhole’s little secrets passing under your nose?”

“Secrets turn tiresome faster than you’d think.”

“Pithy,” said Cyril.

“I didn’t mean it as an epigram.” Finn tipped the last oyster down his throat, then wiped his fingers and face with a cheap brown paper napkin. He signaled the bartender, and Cyril reached for his billfold.

“Oh, my treat,” said Finn.

“No,” said Cyril, “really.”

Finn shook his head, once, decisively. “I said the oysters were cheap. I made the invitation, and I’m paying. You make an invitation, you can pay.”

Cyril raised the last of his beer. “Until the next time, then.”

Finn smiled, and tipped his empty pint glass in acknowledgment of the toast.





CHAPTER

FIVE

“Queen’s sake, Tory, not here!” Cordelia shoved Tory away, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one had seen him reach up her skirt.

“Why not?” He leaned against the bannister of the backstage stairway. “You’ve got ten minutes and an empty dressing room.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t got my cap with me, and I ain’t having your kids.”

“I’ve got a mouth and two hands, Delly.” He wiggled his fingers. “Quit makin’ excuses.”

“Tory, Malcolm ain’t stupid. I know he looks it, and Mother knows he acts it half the time, but he’s not gonna—Tory!” She slapped his hands away.

“Ach, he’ll be caught up flaying Thea alive. If that girl’s job lasts out the day, call me a trout and salt me.” He lowered his eyelashes and the pitch of his voice, walking his fingers up her thigh. “Come on. Let’s give old Sailer good reason to be jealous.”

She sighed. “Oh, damnation. All right. Come on.” She took his hand and pulled him down the hall, toward her dressing room. Backstage was quiet—it was still early in the day, and Malcolm had only called a rehearsal for the orchestra, with Thea and Cordelia, to work on their one iffy number. Cordelia had a ten-minute break while Liesl drilled Thea on her key changes. Tory was here because he wanted to be, and Malcolm wasn’t pinned about it.