Ways to Be Wicked (5 page)

Sylvie knew she was clearly being led into a trap of some sort, but apart from feigning deafness, which no dancer could convincingly do, she saw no other option but to respond. She thought she’d try politeness first.

“Forgive me, but does what hurt, Mademoiselle?”

“The rod up your arse. Does it ’urt very much?”

Another rustle of giggles. With a taut little anticipatory edge, now.

“Oh, not so much as jealousy,” Sylvie said mildly. “Or so I’m told.”

A shocked silence.

And then:
“Oooohhhh,”
one of the dancers breathed in either admiration or terror of what Molly might do, perhaps both.

Scarlet rushed over Molly’s smooth face. Sylvie saw the girl’s fingers curl a little more tightly around the handle of her hairbrush.

“
Does
jealousy ’urt?” the girl called Rose whispered, sounding genuinely curious. The girl next to her elbowed her hard.

“Why should I be jealous of a plucked chicken?” Molly turned, saw with fresh satisfaction her own incomparable reflection—slightly redder in the face than it had been moments ago, granted. Her shoulders relaxed, confidence restored. She dragged the brush once through her shining length of hair, a little self-caress of reassurance.

Sylvie had just opened her mouth to respond to the chicken remark when a small man—a
very
small man— burst into the room in a blur of brilliant tailoring, and everyone jumped.

“It’s five minutes past the hour,” he barked. “What the devil are you females—” He saw Sylvie, stopped abruptly, and glared up at her, thick brows knitting into one brow for a moment. “Who are
you
?”

Ah, the White Lily’s version of Monsieur Favre, no doubt. “Miss Sylvie Chapeau.” She curtsied.

The man didn’t bow or introduce himself. He continued frowning and staring as if her presence was so incongruous he could never hope to decipher her purpose here.

“Mr. Shaughnessy hired me,” she clarified finally.

“Ah,” the little man said. It seemed to Sylvie a more cynical syllable had never been uttered.

His eyes traveled over her shoulders, her torso, returned to her arms, lingered on her face. The scrutiny wasn’t entirely without appreciation, but it was more the sort one applied to a potential investment, to a carriage or heifer or silver salver, rather than to a woman. Sylvie was accustomed to being scrutinized dispassionately, as she was a vehicle for the dance in her own way, and a certain amount of dispassion was expected.

Still, this little man didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him, and she began to feel a little pique.

She gazed evenly back at him—or rather, down at him—and felt her spine go just a little straighter.

And then he reached some sort of conclusion; she saw it in his face, a peculiar sort of guarded thoughtfulness.

“I’ll...have a word with Mr. Shaughnessy.” He sounded ironic. “Until then, Miss Chapeau, please wait here. Girls, you know what to do. I will join you shortly.”

The girls stood and followed The General out of the room, gazes trailing past Sylvie on their way out of the door, sharp as fingernails.

Tom didn’t even jump when The General burst into his office, but his papers fluttered up. He patted them down just in time.

“She’s a dancer, Tom.”

“I know that, Gen. I hired her. Go tell her what to do.”

Tom was feeling a trifle impatient. His sleeves were rolled up, and the stack of correspondence—bills, invitations, accounting of expenditures and profits and bribes to Crumstead, the king’s man, for looking the other way with regards to the bawdier productions of the White Lily, letters from females pleading for an assignation—awaiting his attention seemed dauntingly tall this morning. Some day he would hire someone to do this—sorting, ordering, responding—for him. In fact, in just an hour or so he would attempt to enthrall a crowd of investors with the plans that might very well make this possible. And once the The Gentleman’s Emporium was thriving—

Tom looked up, surprised at The General’s assessment. And, quite frankly, at his tone. Warning and ire mixed with a sort of...well, he might have called it
yearning,
if he was of a poetic bent. He was not.

“Did she actually tell you she was a ballerina?”

“No,” The General said shortly. And said nothing more.

Tom studied his friend for a bemused moment. He didn’t doubt the truth of what The General said. They had been partners for years now, but much of The General’s own story remained untold, bits of it came out every now and again. Tom had learned to be patient and not to pry; he rather enjoyed the gradual unfolding of the tale.

“What makes a ballerina a ‘real’ dancer, Gen?” He said it somewhat irritably. “And there’s no money in it. Only the bloody king wants to watch it. And women.”

“She’ll be trouble, mark my words. It’s in that spine of hers,” The General said cryptically.

And then Tom couldn’t help it: He let a smile take over his face, little by little. “And in everything else of hers, too, I’d warrant.”

The General was speechless for a moment. “God, Tommy.” His voice cracked. “Tell me you didn’t . . .
smile
at this woman.” Tom’s smile invariably led to trouble.

“Smiling doesn’t work on her, Gen.” Tom heard the wistful note in his own voice. “Nothing seems to.”

The General squeezed his eyes closed, appeared to count to five, then opened them again. “So that’s why you
hired
her? To practice upon her until you find the thing that does work?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Tom leaned back in his chair. “Rest easy, Gen. She’s a pretty woman. She came looking for a job. I gave her one. And I do not, as you know . . . er...trouble the dancers. You know I have a very strict policy in that regard.”

“That’s not a pretty woman, Tom. That’s a
beautiful
woman. Even worse, possibly an
interesting
woman. Who clearly thinks quite highly of herself. And she hasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on her. What on earth will the audience
look
at? If she has breasts at all, I’d be—”

“She’ll be different, Gen,” Tom said mildly. “And our crowd likes a novelty.”

“She’ll be trouble,” The General said grimly. “She’s already trouble. I found the other dancers staring at her like a pack of hounds ready to descend upon a fox.”

Tom smiled faintly at this. “I wager she’ll hold her own.”

“Molly was scarlet, as a matter of fact.” The General sounded indignant.

“Was she?” Tom said with genuine interest, wondering what on earth the self-possessed Miss Chapeau might have said to cause Molly, a woman who was soft as a peach on the surface and hard as a cobblestone underneath, to turn colors.

Still, he realized that he had, very likely, quite selfishly and uncharacteristically and utterly on a whim, complicated The General’s life, having introduced a rogue element into their little cadre of dancers, thus requiring dances to be rethought, costumes resewn, alliances reshuffled. Usually everyone had plenty of warning before such an event took place, for these very reasons. A new show was planned, discussed, rehearsed. Just the right girl was located and hired after thought and consideration, as the sheer number of girls vying for jobs at the White Lily was boggling. Tom did feel a bit of chagrin.

In truth he’d deliberately installed Sylvie with the dancers, safely out of his own reach. She’d appeared, and buffeted by myriad conflicting and confusing sensations, he’d reacted reflexively, for all the world as though dodging a musket ball or a comet. He wasn’t proud of doing it, necessarily; but it was done, and as he was stubborn, he wasn’t about to undo it simply to please The General.

“I’m sure you’ll cope splendidly, as always, Gen.”

And at this, Tom watched with interest as his friend’s chest inflated with a deep inhale; then shrank again with an exhale of exaggerated patience that fluttered his cravat as well as the papers stacked on the corner of Tom’s desk, as he wasn’t very much taller than the desk. Tom patted a hand down over them just in time. He reminded himself to get a paperweight.

“I built a damned castle for you Tom, in a week. I didn’t complain. I made sure we had costumes for a bunch of bloody damsels. I didn’t complain. And now you’ve gone and—”

“And they loved it, didn’t they? Our audience? The damsels in distress? The song about lances?”

The silence was a concession.

“And you love the sound of coins jingling in your pocket, Gen, am I right?”

“No, I like quiet pockets, Tom.”

Tom grinned at this. Such a temper, The General had. Such a gift for sarcasm. But his tone had gone from irate to ironic, and would soon give way to resignation, he knew. So Tom said nothing, just waited for it. Tom could simply exhaust with charm if he so chose.

“You should have consulted me before you hired her, Tom. You usually do.”

“I should have,” Tom allowed gently. “And I apologize. But by now, I thought you might have learned to trust my instincts.”

“Your instincts as a man of business are impeccable, Tom. Your instincts as a
man
get you into duels. And will one day, no doubt, get you killed.”

The General stared at him with defiance, and when it was clear that Tom could think of nothing glib to say, the defiance metamorphosed into a sort of satisfaction that had nothing of triumph in it.

“It’s a quarter past the hour, Gen,” Tom said finally. Cruel, he knew, but it was his only remaining line of defense.

The General jumped and swore and all but bolted from the office.

Tom sighed, half-smiling, then reached back into his stack of mail.

He frowned when he touched one letter.

And then he slowly picked it up, stared down at it. Saw the address upon it, and went very still. Little Swathing, Kent.

He slit it open.

We should be pleased to receive you should you call again.

Cold, formal, polite. But it spoke of pride swallowed, or reservations breached at last, by his own insistent campaign.

He’d made the journey once a week for months now. But today he’d found the occupants of the little cottage in Kent not at home. And now this.

Tom held the letter, staring down at it, not unaware of this irony.

Now that he’d been granted the thing he’d sought out of sheer stubbornness for weeks, he wasn’t certain whether in truth he really wanted it.

Sylvie had been waiting alone in the dressing room a mere ten minutes or so when the girl called Rose appeared, and Sylvie almost smiled.
So Rose was the least thorny of the flowers in this particular theater,
and like the tactician he no doubt was, The General had decided not to leave Sylvie alone with someone significantly more...challenging, such as Molly, or her sort just yet.

Rose looked at Sylvie with no particular emotion other than a sort of bemused curiosity, which Sylvie suspected was Rose’s default expression. It was a pity, because Rose had the sort of beauty that could drop men’s jaws—hair and eyes glossy and dark as a crow’s wing, a soft natural flush in her ivory cheeks—but she lacked the sort of fire or self-awareness that would fascinate a man to the exclusion of all else. Someday, no doubt, she would be endlessly indulged by a wealthy elderly man seeking an undemanding mistress.

Rose wore her beauty as nonchalantly as her costume, as though she knew this, knew it was only temporary, only part of the show.

“Yer French, then?” Rose asked with barely an inflection to indicate she’d just asked a question, and flung open a large wooden wardrobe. “Truly?”

Yes. No. Maybe.
“Yes.” It was the simplest answer.

“Well, I suppose The General wants ye to be a fairy today, same as the rest of us, soooo...ye’ll need a wand...” When Rose rooted about in the wardrobe, a number of things came tumbling out; a wooden wand topped by a painted star clunked to the floor. Rose plucked it up, set it aside. “It was Kitty’s, ye know. Kitty was the girl before ye.”

If she stopped to think about it, it would dizzy her, the fact that she was about to dress as a fairy in order to earn her keep. Sylvie decided to ask questions instead.

“The girl before me?”

“The one who left, ye see. A few months ago. They say what Mr. Shaughnessy turned ’er off. Got ’erself in a right. . .
bind.
” Rose whispered the last word meaningfully and cupped her hands meaningfully below her belly.”

“So he. . . ‘turned ’er off’?” Sylvie repeated, aghast. She was fairly certain she knew what this particular English turn of phrase meant, given that the girl had gotten herself into a
bind:
He’d sent her away.

“Canna verra well put ’er onstage when she gets big like, can ’e?” Rose observed pragmatically, extending her arms out as though she was encircling an invisible pump-kin. “She was ’ere one day, cryin’ and the like, told Molly she’d gone to speak to Mr. Shaughnessy about ’er troubles. An’ she was gone the next day. ’Avena seen ’er since.”

Rose turned and studied Sylvie for a moment, apparently considering whether to tell Sylvie something that, judging from Rose’s expression, was clearly going to be interesting. “Molly says what Mr. Shaughnessy is the papa.”

A thrill of horror coiled in Sylvie’s stomach.

And Rose nodded once, gratified by the expression on Sylvie’s face. “But then, Molly says a
lot,
” Rose added in mild wonder. As though she could scarcely fathom why anyone would want to say more than was necessary.

“You do not believe it?”

Rose hesitated, then shrugged. “Mr. Shaughnessy. . . well, I dinna think ’e would touch a girl what works fer ’im.”

“How do you know this?” Sylvie found herself asking.

And whom does he touch instead?

“We’ve all ’ad a go at it, ye see.” Rose grinned at this. “Water off a duck’s back, to Mr. Shaughnessy. ’E brooks nooooo nonsense when it comes to the White Lily and those girls what work ’ere. ’E jus’ smiles until we give up.”

Interesting, given that the man seemed inclined to both frivolity and danger.

“So why would Molly say such a thing?”

“Because ’e willna touch
’er,
though she’s tried and tried, and
she
thinks it’s because of Kitty. She says Kitty was Mr. Shaughnessy’s favorite. We
all
thought Kitty was Mr. Shaughnessy’s favorite. ’E
did
seem to like ’er best. ’E. . . laughed wi’ ’er, ye see. An’ ’e ’asna ’ired a new girl until. . . today. It’s been months. An’ Molly wants ’im— Mr. Shaughnessy—fer ’erself. Well, and dinna we all?”