Chapter Ten #3
He left the room, heading downstairs. Arielle must have gone down already.
Arielle leant against the wall outside the bathroom. The door was closed shut, but she could hear the sound of retching. She knew who it was, she had followed him upstairs. He had held it together until Lycos had left the table. Then he had walked, like a zombie, white-faced, from the room.
The sound of retching ended and she heard water running. She backed away, down to the dimly lit end of the corridor, out of sight. He would not want his misery witnessed.
Only when she heard footsteps heading down did she move. On heavy tread she made her way downstairs to the entrance hall.
She saw Lycos waiting there.
His expression as she came up to him was warm.
But hers was like stone.
Lycos sat back in the taxi, Arielle beside him.
She was looking out of the window, drawn a little apart from him and very quiet.
He assumed she was tired. As for himself, he knew this state of mind too.
Mentally exhausted, half still fully focussed, half detached.
It took him a while to come down from the mental state he needed to be in to follow the play and fall of the cards.
He sat back musing absently, eyes unseeing, as the Paris traffic went past at this late hour.
The last time he’d played had been when he’d taken down Gerald Maitland.
Taken his money and his mas and then driven up the Rh?ne valley through the night.
It had proved a fateful journey. And a fateful win.
It brought Arielle into my life.
His head turned slightly, eyes half-open. She sat, face averted, in half profile. On impulse he reached for her hand, folding his around it. It felt cold to his touch. Inert.
Arielle waited until they were back in their room at the hotel. Her head was aching, a tight band around it. She made for the bathroom.
‘I need a shower,’ she said. She knew her voice sounded strained, but she also knew why. She barely looked at Lycos.
He nodded. ‘I’ll get on to room service. What would you like?’
‘Oh…whatever,’ she managed to say. She shut the bathroom door, wanting only privacy.
Her mind was in turmoil, yet blank at the same time. For a moment she stared at herself in the mirror over the vanity. She looked like a stranger. Alien.
But then so had Lycos, sitting at that card table.
In her head she heard his low, bitten out words when she’d tried to intervene in his demolition of that hapless boy.
‘Laisse moi!’
She inhaled a sharp breath, which stabbed her as if a knife.
Face contorting, with a sudden movement, she started to strip off her finery.
Dress hooked on the back of the door, necklace with its pendent diamond dropped into the toiletries’ basket.
She reached for her face cleanser and removed all of her make-up.
When she’d finished her face looked bare.
And bleak.
Discarding her undies, she stepped into the shower, turning the water on full. Drenching her body. Washing something away.
Something she needed to wash away.
Lycos opened the door to room service. He was barefoot and dressed in his bathrobe, feeling a lot more comfortable out of his tux.
Mentally he had pretty much come back down from his detached, elevated state.
He was hungry for food. And for Arielle.
He stood aside while the waiter set out the dishes and then left the room.
He heard the shower cut out and Arielle emerged.
Like him, she was dressed in a bathrobe.
Her face was clear of make-up and her hair had been brushed out.
His face lit up with a smile and he held her chair at the table for her.
‘I’ve gone Italian,’ he announced. ‘I hope that appeals?’
She nodded, taking her place. He looked at her. She seemed different but he wasn’t quite sure how.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, concerned.
She pressed her lips a moment. ‘Headache,’ she said.
‘You should eat something. This evening was not relaxing.’
‘No,’ she agreed. She didn’t meet his eyes.
Leaving the pasta carbonara to stay warm in its covered tureen, Lycos raised his glass. He’d ordered a robust Italian red wine to go with the pasta.
‘Well, here’s to it being over and to us relaxing. Santé!’ he toasted.
She did not answer him, but she picked up her wine glass and took a draught. As she set back the glass, so did he.
‘Tomorrow,’ he announced, ‘we’ll have the day entirely to ourselves. And the evening. No more socialising.’ He looked at her, his expression quizzical. ‘And no more gaming parties.’
She looked at him now, across the table. ‘Lycos, why do you still gamble? You don’t need the money any more.’
He met her eyes. They were troubled. Questioning.
‘No, I don’t,’ he agreed. ‘But as I’ve told you, I don’t want to lose my edge. It’s the one skill I have.’
‘But you don’t need it any more.’
He looked at her and chose his words carefully, so she would understand.
‘Tell me something. You trained as a musician. You studied it for three years. It’s your skill. If someone asked you why you still play the piano, even though you don’t make a living out of it, what would you tell them?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not the same.’
‘Why not?’
She didn’t answer. He let it be. He was hungry and served up the pasta, getting stuck in with gusto. Arielle ate too, but less hungrily. There was still that different air about her. She seemed withdrawn, troubled.
He didn’t want that feeling to be there.
Clearing his dish, he set down his fork. Looked across at her.
‘Arielle, I owe you an apology. And I give it to you freely. I’d hoped I’d given you fair warning that you must not interrupt or distract me during play.’ He paused, looking directly at her. She wasn’t meeting his eyes.
‘Is that why you’re upset with me?’ he said.
She still didn’t look at him, but she set down her fork.
‘No,’ she said. Her voice was low. ‘It was because of that boy. That boy I tried to stop you playing with!’
‘Boy?’ he said blankly.
Her eyes flashed. ‘Yes, boy! Because that’s all he was, Lycos! Barely of a legal age to gamble! You demolished him! You totally demolished him! How much did he lose in the end? You made him sign some kind of IOU on top of taking everything else he had! His hand shook when he signed it. I saw it!’
Lycos sat back. His face had shuttered.
‘He knew what he was getting into. There were other tables he could have joined, where the play was not so deep. And he would not have had to face playing me. He chose to do so, Arielle. And that is not my responsibility! I have a well-known reputation and those who take it into their heads to challenge me do so at their own risk! If some spoilt rich kid wants to boast that he played against the Wolf, and got wiped out instead, that’s his problem! ’
His voice rose slightly.
‘I’ve seen types like him all my life. Arrogant, conceited, flaunting their money, taking it for granted, wasting it on anything they want to waste it on, including their gaming losses.
So what makes that pampered kid tonight any different from your stepbrother?
Do you bleed over him being taken to the cleaners by the Wolf?
No, you don’t. So don’t bleed over some wet-behind-the-ears idiot who fancied himself playing against me and got taught a life-long lesson for his pains. Not that it will cost him anything!’
His voice twisted derisively.
‘He’ll just dip into his trust fund, that’s all. Or trot to his doting papa, the vicomte, to pay his debt for him! All that’s injured is his pride as he slinks off with his tail between his legs!’
‘Lycos, he looked sick and was white as a sheet. And I heard him throwing up afterwards, in the bathroom.’
He shrugged angrily. ‘So what? He was probably liquored up.’
‘He was sick with fear. He looked terrified as he left the room. And even before he joined your table I’d heard him on his phone—’
Lycos slapped his hand down on the table. Cutting her off. ‘Arielle. Enough. I am not going to repeat myself. He could have cut his losses at any time and folded. He didn’t. It was his choice, his responsibility, his problem.’
He took a scything breath.
‘I’m not discussing it any more. If I gamble again, I won’t take you with me since it obviously upsets you so much.’
He took another breath, less scything this time.
‘Now, let’s just relax, OK?’
He reached for the wine, topped up their glasses and drank from his own. He glanced across at Arielle again. She’d gone quiet, and he should be glad of it, but relaxed she was not. He wanted her relaxed.
‘So,’ he opened, deliberately moving on and away from what had so unnecessarily upset her. ‘What would you like to do tomorrow? Shall we even stay in Paris? If you’ve seen enough, we could head out to Normandy, Brittany, down to the Loire? What appeals? You choose,’ he said invitingly.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Or maybe we could head east, tour the Champagne vineyards if you prefer,’ he suggested.
‘I… I don’t know.’
‘Well, we can decide tomorrow. Right now, that tiramisu is calling!’ he said good-humouredly.
He cleared their plates, spooned out generous portions of the tiramisu and poured out the dessert wine to go with it.
He tucked into both heartily. Arielle less so.
As she pushed her plate aside, he reached across, drew the back of his fingers softly down her cheek.
Hunger was flaring in him again for Arielle.
She drew back. Looked across at him, but with that shuttered, half look again.
‘Lycos, I… I’m sorry. I’m going to have to take some aspirin. My head just isn’t clearing. I’m sorry,’ she said again.
Lycos breathed out, subduing his own feelings. ‘No need to apologise. Do you have any? Any aspirin, or anything else?’
She stood up. ‘Yes, in my toilet bag. I won’t be a moment.’ She disappeared into the bathroom. Lycos remained sitting at the table. This wasn’t about a headache. This was about the evening that had passed. This was about the Wolf.
But it’s who I am. And if she didn’t like it…?
Impatiently, he brushed the question away. It didn’t need to be answered.
It’s got nothing to do with what there is between us.
Nor would he let it be.