Chapter Twenty-Five #6
In a sea of dinner jackets and black ties, Fletch is in velvet midnight blue, the fathomless color of the night sky when you are on vacation somewhere wonderful.
His clothes skim close against his body, and his white shirt is open-necked.
He looks as if he’s just stepped off a yacht in the Mediterranean, suave and confident, and his only nod toward the masquerade element of the evening is a plain slender black strip across his eyes.
“Very Lone Ranger,” I say, gesturing at his eye mask. In truth, it makes me a tiny bit weak at the knees because he looks like a real, live actual superhero.
“Very sexy,” he says, looking me over from head to toe, then glances at the upstairs windows of the castle. “Want me to deflower you in the Princess Suite for old times’ sake?”
I bite my tongue to stop myself from telling him that he already did.
“I’d settle for a drink.”
He glances down when Lestat sits on his foot, then looks at me and half laughs, half sighs.
“I see the evil overlord has joined you.”
“He’s my date.”
Fletch bends to fuss Lestat’s ears, and then, as he straightens, he looks me in the eyes.
“I was kind of hoping that was my job.”
My stomach flips over slowly because the sun catches his eyes and makes me wonder if I’ll ever find treasure in those crystal green rock pools.
“He’s pretty territorial,” I say.
We both look at Lestat, who has assumed the dead dog pose on the steps to let the late evening sun warm his belly.
“He won’t kiss you like I do,” Fletch says.
No one does, I think. “Thank you for the lemon tree,” I say.
He shrugs. “Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or gin and tonic. I prefer the gin myself.”
I look at him and see a man who has been given a whole orchard full of lemons in his lifetime, and although it’s made him a little bitter and an acquired taste, he’s also pretty damn good at making sweet lemonade. Or sex. It’s a euphemism.
“I prefer the lemonade,” I say.
“We’ll always be very different people, Bittersweet,” he says, and I nod because it’s an inescapable truth.
“Someone recently called me just a normal girl with magic eyes,” I say. “I’m not that different from everyone else.”
I guess I’m trying to make myself sound like a regular Joe in the hope of being more appealing, but my heart gets heavier in my chest even as I say the words. I’ve spent my life trying to fit in, to dull down, to hide.
Fletch stares at me.
“Of all the horseshit things I’ve ever heard you say, that’s just about the biggest pile of crap yet. You’ll never be a normal girl. You wouldn’t be normal, even without the ghosts.”
“That wasn’t a compliment, was it?”
He looks genuinely perplexed. “I don’t even know. It wasn’t meant to be an insult.” He runs his hand lightly from my shoulder to my fingertips, catching casual hold of my hand. “Normal’s pretty overrated,” he murmurs. “But they were right about your magic screw-me-slowly eyes.”
And there he is. I may be the girl with magic eyes, but he’s the man with the magic words.
“Just because we live on different sides of the fence, it doesn’t mean we can’t be grown-ups and lay our weapons down every now and then,” he says quietly, because people are milling around us drinking champagne and chatting on the stone terrace.
“I’m all for a battlefield truce. I’m prepared to lay down my arms sometimes and hold you in them instead. ”
He trails his finger across my collarbone as he speaks, and I swear to God I feel like Black Widow being seduced by Bruce Banner.
It’s heady stuff. I understand his proposal for what it is, all the more clearly after reading his notebook.
He’s offering to be my summer fling, but not my winter coat.
My fair-weather lover. Can I do that? I worry my heart cannot withstand him, but then I also worry he will forever be my missed regret.
The man made me orgasm when he was ten miles away.
That isn’t a skill to be passed up lightly.
And then he tugs me by the hand and tucks me behind the stone portico, out of sight of the well-heeled party people.
“What are you doing?” I breathe. My heart is hammering.
His eyes are hot on mine and he brackets my body with his own. “Helping you decide to say yes.”
I can’t even remember what the question was. The band is playing in the ballroom, accompanied by the distant clink of champagne glasses, and the late evening sun bathes the whole scene rose gold.
And then, inevitably, Fletch kisses me. He kisses me as if I’m Cinderella and he’s a really dirty version of Prince Charming.
It’s not a polite “Can I have this dance” kiss.
It’s a “Don’t even think about dancing with anyone else because you’re my girl tonight” kiss, openmouthed and turned on.
For a couple of mesmerizing minutes, I can’t think about anything but him.
He holds me close, as if we’re dancing beneath the crystal chandeliers in the beautiful ballroom rather than hiding behind the porch, and I can almost hear Britannia’s laughter as she soars free and forever joyful over the castle rooftops.
“I don’t know what to do about you, Bittersweet,” he whispers, sliding his hand down my spine, molding me into him as he kisses my hair, my face, my mouth.
“I tell myself no, that we both know it’s the worst idea in the history of bad ideas, and then I see you and all I can think is yes.
” I laugh against his mouth, and then he slides his hand over my breast and I stop laughing and sigh instead. “And wonder how to get you naked.”
“Well, that’s definitely not happening tonight,” I say. “It took me about an hour to get into this dress.”
He rests his forehead against mine and groans. “You’re killing me,” he says, then steps back. “Let’s go and get that drink.”
I nod. “I’ll find Lestat and be right behind you.”
In truth, I just need a minute alone to get over him.
Lestat is moseying around down by the cars again and I call him to me.
Taking a few seconds to breathe slowly in and out, I look up at the facade of the castle and reflect on our time here.
Somehow, with a fair dose of luck, magic, and instinct on our side, we’ve tucked our second job successfully under our belts.
And you know what? I’m so bloody proud. We’ve done what we came to do here, but more than that, we set three tired, beleaguered souls free from their eternal love triangle.
In an abstract way, I see the romantic overlap between Britannia’s tangled love life and my own, and I thank my lucky stars I have my family and friends around me to keep me grounded.
They drive me nuts, but they are the best part of me and me of them.
I know whatever happens, they’ll always catch me when I fall.
And then there’s Fletcher Gunn. He isn’t a roses-and-chocolates man.
He’s a “lemon tree and lime-green pooper-scooper” kind of guy, and he makes me eat raw rhubarb and he’s just laid his cards on the table for me to pick up, or not pick up, as I see fit.
Perhaps I’ll ask my Magic 8 Ball in the morning.
Inside my dress my phone buzzes, and I fish it out of my bra in as dignified a way as I can muster.
Marina has taught me many valuable life lessons, including how to carry all of your vital possessions in your bra when your outfit doesn’t have any pockets.
For me tonight, that means my phone and my cherry lip gloss.
I click the screen and see I have a message from Marina, all in shouty capitals.
GET YOUR BACKSIDE IN HERE, PRONTO. CHEWBACCA IS WALTZING WITH PRINCESS LEIA AND GONG MAN IS TRYING TO GET HIS HANDS DOWN THE BACK OF MY DRESS. I MAY HAVE TO HEADBUTT HIM.
I laugh softly and call Lestat. It’s time to go inside.
There’s one last thing I need to do before I find the others. Stepping inside the castle I accept a glass of champagne from a circulating waiter and slide into the library rather than heading to the ballroom.
“Melody, dear. I wasn’t sure we’d see you again.” Lady Eleanor smiles in greeting and rises from her customary table by the window to meet me. “Isn’t it marvelous to see the castle come to life like this again? It reminds me of the good old days.”
I nod and taste my champagne. “This is my last night here,” I say. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
She bows her head for a second, and when she looks up, I see her mouth is quivering as if she’s finding it hard to hold herself together.
“Thank you for helping Britannia. I’ll miss her terribly, but it was for the best.”
“I hope so.” I smile sadly. “Can I ask you one last question?”
Her fingers flutter against the pearls around her neck as she glances nervously over her shoulder at her husband. Lord Alistair seems engrossed in a book, so she leans in to whisper.
“There was no sense in involving the police. It would have been a terrible scandal and for what end? We heard gunshots and came running and there they all were on the ballroom floor.” She pauses and heaves in a great, shuddering sigh at the terrible memory.
“Britannia’s name would have been dragged through the mud.
I couldn’t bear that. Far better for people to just think that the circus moved on to another town, that she was still out there somewhere performing. ”
I’d pieced most of this together lying in bed last night. “Are they buried in the gardens outside?”
Eleanor nods bravely. “Britannia is. I’m not ashamed of what we did, Melody. Alistair struggled with it for the rest of our lives, but it was the best thing to do. This way she stayed where she belonged. Where they both belonged.”
I smile sadly and nod. Eleanor’s right; there was no more fitting resting place for Britannia and her baby than at Maplemead with her family.
“What happened to the others?”
Eleanor looks pained. “The circus folk look after their own; they dealt with it. All we knew is that the bodies were taken away.” I can only imagine the horror scene that must have greeted the Shillings in the ballroom that night; the fact that they handled it and then managed to keep their secret for all of these years is nothing short of a miracle.
“I think I’d have done the exact same thing,” I say, and Lady Eleanor covers her mouth as if to cry at the validation. For all her brave words, I’ve no doubt her guilty secret has weighed heavy on her shoulders all these years. In the ballroom, the band strikes up a waltz.
“Eleanor?” Lord Alistair has crossed the room to stand beside us, and he’s holding his hand out to his wife. “Shall we?”
A shaky smile touches her lips as she slips her hand into his, and she nods farewell as he leads her into the middle of the parquet library floor.
I remember Britannia’s words about her aunt and uncle being the most loved-up couple she’d ever known.
As I pause at the door for a second and watch them dance, I think they might be the most loved-up couple I’ve ever known too.
I’ve learned many things about romance in my brief time at Maplemead.
I’ve learned love can arrive unexpectedly and all at once, like a swift blow from a sledgehammer.
I’ve learned fickle hearts can be steadfast for the right person, and that the right person is worth waiting for, even if it takes a hundred years.
I’ve seen the dark, twisted side of love; it can kill you, but it can save you too.
I’ve learned love makes lionhearts of us all, whether shy teenage boys or fiercely protective family.
And, most of all, I’ve learned love endures, that it finds its path wherever it chooses, like a river snaking its way around obstacles and blockades because it is the life force and can overcome anything.
I click the library door shut as my text alert trills again, this time a message from Glenda Jackson.
Well done on a case successfully resolved, Melody. Call just in from a disgruntled hotel owner over in Blackgate. Something about mass hysteria breaking out at breakfast this morning because of ghosts in the dining room. I said you’d call him on Monday morning.
Onward and upward, I murmur, and then I shake my foot because Lestat has reappeared and is tugging on the lace of my new sparkly Wonder Woman Converse. There was no accompanying note with them in the shoebox, but there didn’t really need to be, did there?
Come Monday, I’ll be back in my trusty jeans at my desk champing at the bit for the next case, but for one last night, I’m going to be a princess in my own fairy tale castle.