Amberlough(21)

Backstage started to fill up with cast and stagehands. Cordelia stripped off her street clothes and hung them on the coat hooks behind the door. Goosebumps broke out on her bare skin—Malcolm must have axed the boiler for the season. Pinch-pocket miser.

She was gluing on her pasties over nipples stiff with cold when Tito returned holding a greasy paper bag.

“Barley fritters all right?” he asked. “Stuffed with eel.”

“Suits like a tailor,” she said. “Take one yourself.”

He reached a hand in the bag, took his due, and handed it over. She had to put down her second pasty to take it.

Tito didn’t look away, and she wouldn’t have minded, except he said, “Heard you had a scrap with Mr. Sailer.”

“And if I did, I did.” She held the bag of fritters in front of her chest. “Now get away and do what you’re paid to.”

When she had her pasties and merkin fixed tight, she scarfed the fritters and knotted herself into her dressing gown. Settled in her makeup chair, she tried to put Malcolm and Tory and Tito out of her mind. Men. Mother’s tits! She scowled in the mirror, then smoothed her expression and started layering on the powder.





CHAPTER

SIX

When Aristide came down the stairs into the long, low dining room of the Crabtree House, he saw Cyril waiting at the bar. Unaware of Aristide’s scrutiny, Cyril curled one hand around his signature rye and soda and made the other a fisted column for the bowed weight of his head. His crisp navy suit and the high shine of his brogues might have fooled a casual observer, but Aristide knew the curve of those shoulders intimately, and all the pride had been beaten from them.

He didn’t brighten up over dinner. By the time the server took away the cheese plate, Aristide had had enough.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said, stirring a lump of muscovado into his coffee. When Aristide had last seen Cyril, five days ago, he’d been hungover and peevish, gray with fatigue. Now, the flickering candle on the tabletop cast warm light onto the planes of his face, disguising the dark shadows under his eyes. He had shaved—no, been shaved—and the clean line of his newly starched collar made a bright stripe against his smooth skin.

“Am I?” Despite his fresh appearance, lingering exhaustion colored his speech and movements. He stared into a cordial glass, turning it on its base so the liqueur hung in veils on the crystal. “Sorry.”

“Hard d-d-day at the office, dear?” Aristide flirted over the rim of his cup, waiting for Cyril’s riposte. It didn’t come. Instead, Cyril snorted, and sipped his digestif.

The susurrus of other tables’ conversation, the quiet nip of silver against china, rose into the silence as their repartee faltered. Aristide sighed, loudly enough that Cyril looked up from his drink with weary eyes.

“Go on,” Cyril said. “I know you want to ask.”

“What is wrong with you?” Aristide set his spoon down harder than he meant to, spattering the tablecloth with coffee. “You haven’t said four words together all evening, and you look like a whipped spaniel.”

Cyril covered the coffee stains with his fingertips. “I have to leave Amberlough.”

“Trouble with the lower element?” asked Aristide, only half joking. “Who did you murder? I can p-p-probably smooth it out.”

“No, it’s just work. But thank you for the offer.” He was silent for a moment, then added, “I’ll be gone a while. A month or two.”

“So, Central’s finally realized you’re wasted on the d-d-demimonde.” Aristide slid his palm across the linen and took up Cyril’s resting hand. “Where are they sending you that required such a sublime manicure?” Cyril’s nails shone, freshly buffed, filed to white-tipped crescents. “I hear that fieldwork can be quite … strenuous. Won’t you only ruin it?” He didn’t have a clear picture of Cyril’s career, but that scar … it marred his skin with a memory of violence. Without thinking, Aristide tightened his grip.

“Not this time,” Cyril said, extricating himself. “At least, I hope not.”

“Are they sending you to woo foreign nobility?” asked Aristide. “Or imp-p-personate a concert pianist, perhaps?”

Cyril flexed his hands self-consciously, curling them into fists to hide his fingernails. “No,” he said, crisp with finality.

Aristide ignored Cyril’s irritation and kept up the banter. “True, I don’t suppose you know how to p-p-play. But you could learn. You’re clever. Culpepper wouldn’t p-p-put up with you, otherwise. And, let’s be honest: neither would I.”

“Ari—”

“So what is it? Or were you just suddenly struck by the shameful state of your cuticles”—here his diction turned sharp, accusatory—“and thought you’d have a shave and haircut at Padgett and Sons while somebody buffed your nails?”

Cyril’s face went slack in surprise, and he looked ten years older.

“Give me some credit,” purred Aristide, low and smooth with malice. “Not that you don’t keep in fine trim on your own, but even a common b-b-bootblack would notice the difference. And anyway, the scent of the pomade is unmistakable. You reek of sage and ambergris.” This last comment he kept light, tossed onto the table like a thoughtless tip.