Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DAPHNE
T here’s a half-naked man and a sobbing girl in my parlor. This is not the Saturday I was looking forward to all week, having anticipated only one of these aspects. But when Araminta arrived unannounced at my apartment door this morning with puffy eyes, I couldn’t turn her away. Now she lies face down on my settee in seelie form and her usual mourning attire.
Monty, who only recently arrived, stands at my bureau in the same position I had him in during our sketching session. Like before, he grips the pillow in place of the heroine on my canvas. With a furrow of his brow, he flicks his gaze toward my settee. “Are you sure she’s all right?”
“This has been going on for two hours now,” I say, squeezing a dollop of cadmium red onto my palette. My canvas is propped on my easel, and the sight of it fills me with the medley of dread and excitement that always strikes when starting the painting stage. I’ve already finished the underpainting as well as some of the background. Now it’s time to paint the hero. “Pay her no mind.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She ended things with David.”
Araminta bolts upright on the settee in a swish of her voluminous black skirts. “ He ended things with me .”
I roll my eyes, blending the cadmium red with yellow ochre and white. “I thought you were growing tired of him anyway.”
She sniffles. “Yes, well, I wanted to be the one to end things with him .”
I angle my body toward the settee. “Does it matter?”
“Oh, it does,” Monty says, drawing my attention back to him. “This is quite common, actually. One person will tolerate a courtship with indifference, if not downright dislike, only to fall apart and question their entire self-worth when the other person breaks things off with them. It’s the internalized perception that someone they didn’t even like had the audacity to like them less.”
“That’s exactly what this is,” Araminta says with an exuberant nod. “How dare he break up with me? I’m a prize. I’m incredibly cute.” The last word ends on a wail, her face crumpling.
My chest squeezes. As ridiculous as I think she’s being, I do feel for her. I may not have been driven to such unending tears, but I’ve been struck with emotional agony before. With a resigned sigh, I set down my palette and head for the kitchen, retrieving the one thing that always cheers me up when I’m feeling down.
I bend down, extending a plate before her. “Want some bacon?”
With a sniffle, she lifts her tear-stained face from her hands, looking from the plate to me. “Bacon? Why would I want bacon? More importantly, why do you have an entire plate of bacon at the ready in your kitchen?”
I pull the plate back. “It’s my favorite snack.”
She arches a brow. “Don’t you have chocolate? Wine? Something more comforting than snack bacon?”
“If you don’t appreciate it, you don’t have to have any.” I turn my nose up at her and take a bite of bacon out of spite.
On my way back to the kitchen, Monty stops me with his words. “I’ll have some bacon.”
“Don’t you dare move,” I say, just as he’s about to remove his hands from the pillow.
He tilts his head in an annoyingly coy look. “Please, Daffy Dear. Unlike little Ari here, I appreciate a good snack bacon.”
How can I say no to that? Anyone who appreciates delectable meat as much as I do deserves to be rewarded. I release a grumble and bring the plate to the bureau. “Don’t move anything but your mouth.”
“If you insist.”
I lift a piece of bacon to his lips, watching as they part. His tongue draws the thick cut of meat into his mouth, making my breath hitch. I’m drawn back to the memory of me licking candy floss from his fingers. And—more recently—when he teased me about the feel of my tongue. He holds my eyes as he reaches the end of the bacon. I’m about to pull my hand away when he closes his lips around my fingertips. I freeze, a jolt tearing through me at the swipe of his tongue followed by the pressure of a brief suckle.
“There,” he says with a wink as he pulls his lips away. “Now we’re even.”
I blink at him a few times. He said we’re even, but was that an act of revenge? Or benevolence? Because I can’t say I hated it.
“If you’ve got a food kink to explore,” Araminta says, making me jump in place, “I can leave.”
“Stay,” I bite out and rush back to the kitchen as fast as my legs can carry me. I set down my plate and slap my cheeks, willing the heat in them to cool. Once I think I’ve gathered my composure, I return to my easel, pouring all my attention into my palette. My traitorous fingers still tingle with warmth from where Monty’s mouth?—
No. Art. My mind is only meant for art.
“I’m curious,” Monty says, and I’m relieved to find his attention is on Araminta. “Why did David end things with you? He seemed infatuated at the carnival.”
“He broke things off because I got a job.” Her eyes light up as if she’s been waiting for an opportunity to talk about it. “Can you believe it? He said I didn’t care about him if I was going to leave in the middle of a date for a random job offer.”
“When was this?” Monty asks.
“At the end of the carnival. First, I blame a certain traitorous friend of mine for abandoning me when our whole plan was created to provide me a little freedom from David’s full attention.”
I refuse to meet her condemning gaze and instead compare the peach-tan shade on my palette to Monty’s skin tone. I add a little more yellow ochre.
“After the two of you left and the rain let up,” Araminta says, “I was approached by a talent scout who offered me a paid job. It had to be done that afternoon, and I had to leave with him at once. So of course I accepted! Otherwise, I would have had to hear more about how smitten Conrad was with Daphne or David’s anecdotes about his school days. The All of All have mercy on my soul if I ever have to be subjected to that again.”
“What kind of job did you get?” I ask, now mixing hues for the highlights and shadows. I’m relieved that my voice comes out even. Not a hint of lingering agitation from the bacon incident.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Between your mysterious absence from Fletcher-Wilson all week and bouts of sobbing on my settee? No.”
She flips her lilac braid over her shoulder and bats her lashes. “I’m a model.”
I stare at her with disbelieving eyes. “You, a model? For what?”
She rises from my settee and moves to the narrow table in my entryway, where she rifles through the broadsheets upon it. “Aha!” With a skip in her step, she bounds over to me, pointing to a spread of advertisements in one of this week’s earlier issues. “There I am.”
I pause mixing my colors and squint at what she’s pointing to. It’s a black-and-white photograph of Araminta outfitted in a chemise and corset, bent over in a pose that is one part provocative, one part coy. She has her palm to her mouth, a look of playful surprise on her face as she glances back at her own rear. It looks more like something one would find in a pin-up magazine, not the Cedar Hills Gazette . I frown, studying the photograph closer. What kind of disreputable company can afford advanced Star Court technology like photography, yet needed Araminta as their last-minute model in such a pose? Then I notice the image of a vial that partially overlaps the photograph and the typography that goes along with it.
I give Araminta a withering look. “Harvey Blandwell’s Hemorrhoid Potion?”
Monty snorts a laugh.
Araminta’s pride isn’t at all dimmed by our reactions. “The model they’d originally scheduled canceled once she learned which product she was supposed to model for, but I don’t have such qualms. I’ll take money no matter what.”
“Do you even know what a hemorrhoid is?” I ask.
“Nope.” She skips over to the settee and settles onto the cushions with her paper. “Oh, obituaries! I love shopping.”
I exchange an amused look with Monty and return to mixing my paint.
I’m awarded a long stretch of peace and quiet, and ample progress on my painting. I lose myself to the flow of my art, my eyes darting between Monty and my canvas, the muscles of his arms and chest that I contour with the values of my paint. I pay extra attention to his fingers, the shadows between each digit, the highlights on each joint, the dimples they make in the heroine’s hips. His expression requires a little more imagination, for I can’t ask him to replicate that lustful expression while Araminta’s here. Not when it took me standing shirtless before him just to spark it for a moment.
A wave of heat barrels through me at the memory. I can’t even imagine what kind of impact seeing that expression would have on me now that I’m aware of my attraction to Monty. Or…maybe I can imagine it and rather shouldn’t . Despite my best efforts, the memory surges through me as I paint the creases next to Monty’s eyes, recalling the intensity of his stare when his hand fell on mine, just before I was about to bare myself to him. Then there was last weekend when his lashes fluttered at the feel of my fingers raking through his damp hair.
Another wave of heat sparks right between my legs, and I release a soft breath that almost sounds like a moan.
My eyes fly to Monty’s profile. For the love of the All of All, did he hear that? His expression shifts the slightest bit, and his eyes slide to mine. The corner of his mouth quirks. Not in a teasing way, but in a friendly smile. My muscles relax, and I return the grin. No, he hasn’t a clue about my naughty thoughts?—
A wailing sob shatters the moment. Araminta’s quavering voice follows. “Do you think David would have stayed with me if I’d put a finger in his butt?”
I whirl to my friend. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ah,” Monty says. “That must be Wednesday’s issue.”
I lean toward Araminta and glance at the page she’s crying over. It’s the Ask Gladys column. I briefly scan the words ass play and arch a brow at Gladys himself. “Really, Monty?”
His grin turns sheepish.
I give Araminta a scolding look as I return to my canvas. “Ari, stop fretting over David. You didn’t even like him.”
“That’s not true. I did like him…when I felt like being around him. It was his attention and constant presence I disliked, and he could tell. He said I acted indifferent toward him. What if it was my fault? What if I didn’t do enough to prove I wanted to maintain our relationship?”
“Is that something I have to worry about in courtship?” My lips curl into a grimace. “Do I have to proactively prove I’m interested to keep a lover’s attention?” I’ve never had to worry about this because I’ve never been attracted enough to another person to want something long-term. But what if securing a husband isn’t as simple as finding a compatible specimen with marriage in mind? When I was a debutante, it seemed like there was an abundance of men seeking wives, and it wasn’t a matter of love or interest, but an alignment of needs to be met. Sometimes it was family connections or an attractive dowry. Other times it was a need to procreate or establish a lady of one’s household. Not that I’d know this from personal experience; my debut season didn’t last long enough for me to meet suitors.
“Do not bear that responsibility in any relationship,” Monty says, tone firm. “Neither of you. Otherwise, you’ll be plagued with questions like: Why hasn’t he written or called upon me, even if he said he liked spending time with me and wanted to see me again? Does he not realize I like him? Did I need to encourage him more by proving my interest? ”
“That’s what’s going through my head right now,” Araminta says.
“What’s Lesson Four, Daph?” Monty asks.
I perk up at his attention, excited that I know the answer. “A man’s actions should align with his words and vice versa.”
“Exactly. If a man likes you, he won’t care if you like him back. He’ll pursue you to an annoying degree.”
I wrinkle my nose as I sweep my paintbrush over the canvas in delicate lines to form the hero’s hair. “I can attest to that. Conrad won’t stop sending love letters to my workplace. Thank the All of All he doesn’t know where I live.”
Araminta heaves another sob. “David pursued me like that. He liked me deeply and relentlessly. Did I ruin it? Was I wrong to act so cold to him? Why did I want space from such a good man?”
“Only you can answer that,” Monty says. “However, ask yourself if you wanted space out of fear of intimacy or from true discomfort and incompatibility. It’s normal to second-guess yourself when a relationship ends, but is it out of fear that you made a mistake or true regret? There’s a subtle difference, and only you can be the judge.”
Araminta chokes back her tears. After a hiccup, she says, “You sure are wise for someone who has no relationship to show for it.”
Monty chuckles. “I have plenty of relationships to show for it. Just none of my own.”
“Why not?” Araminta rises from the settee to assess Monty with a perplexed look. “Why don’t you just marry Daphne yourself to kill a bunch of birds with rocks, or whatever it is she says?”
My paintbrush slips out of my fingertips and falls to the floor with a clatter.
Araminta continues, oblivious to the daggers I’m shooting at her with my eyes. “Won’t that solve your case study and Daphne’s drinking problem? You’re already using a pseudonym, so why not write about yourself as one of your subjects? You can prove your lessons work by pretending Daphne expertly utilized them to win your heart. And she’ll have the husband she needs to break off her engagement.”
Fire floods my face and neck. How can she bring up such a forward subject, suggesting Monty and I…
I shake the thought from my head. My pulse races. Why did I have to go and tell Araminta about what happened last Lughnasadh and my arrangement with Monty? “Ari, that’s?—”
“I can’t marry anyone.” Monty’s voice is edged with something I can’t quite name. Is it remorse? Anger? Annoyance?
“Why not?” Araminta’s question brims with innocence, and as much as I want this conversation to end and save me from embarrassment, I find myself desperate to hear how he’ll answer.
His throat bobs, and for a moment, I doubt he’ll reply. Then he speaks, each word careful yet still infused with that same edge I sensed before. “I refuse to further my father’s legacy or give him any reason to bring me back into the family. He disinherited me because I vowed never to marry. To never be the son he wants me to be. If I so much as court someone publicly, I am duty-bound to return home and take my place as his heir. Which will make me and my potential partner miserable.”
That’s different from the reason he gave me for not taking lovers when we talked on my rooftop. He said he avoided romance so that he won’t hurt anyone again. But his eyes hold the same haunted look I glimpsed then, which tells me this might be another layer of truth.
“Why do you hate your father so much?” Yet another innocent question from Ari. Another one I crave an answer to.
His eyes remain distant for a few more beats of my racing heart. Then the look is gone, like it was never there to begin with. His lips curve in a crooked grin. “A rake like me can’t be tied down to the tedium of high society. I like it better where I am.”
He winks at Araminta, which seems to satisfy her curiosity enough to return her attention to her broadsheets, but I’m not at all convinced.
I pick up my paintbrush, clean it, and return to my art, more desperate than ever to know the parts of Monty he keeps hidden.