Chapter 9
THE CHAT
I sat at my vanity, all ready to head down to drinks, but even so, my mind was casting about for any viable excuse I could give for chickening out of drinks and dinner.
And it had to be an excuse they’d buy that wouldn’t scream I was chicken.
Sadly, I was not coming up with any ideas that would convince anyone I wasn’t a coward.
In the midst of me doing this, or more to the point, failing at it, I heard a knock on the bedroom door.
This was probably Prue, come to ask what was going on with me and her brother. Though, my thoughts, she should ask him.
I didn’t have a brother.
However, I understood her play because, even if I did, I’d probably talk to my friend about my brother announcing to the room he wanted to sleep with her and not confront my brother about it.
Especially if he could be scary, like Battle.
Because…yeah.
Talking to your brother about his sex life, I could see, was a serious no-go.
Doing that semi-adjacently?
Not great, but better.
I didn’t want to do this, and I blamed Battle for putting me in this position too.
But I had to do it, however, I had no idea how I’d manage it.
Alas, the time was upon me.
“In here!” I shouted to be heard through the dressing room, bathroom and bedroom.
I heard the door open while I swiped on one more coat of my ruby-red lipstick and tried to devise a plan.
But I saw in the mirror, when she arrived, it was not the she I expected her to be.
It was Temperance.
Temperance in a stunning red sheath gown, straight line across her neck, sleeveless, a pair of beautiful gold evening sandals with a huge flower on the toe adorning her slender feet.
She was carrying a sleek black cat with yellow eyes in her arms. A cat, unlike any other cat I’d ever seen, who looked content to be held there for the rest of its life.
“Oh yes,” she drawled, her cool gray eyes roaming over me. “Battie is definitely going to like your dress.”
Argh.
I had no choice. It was either sexy or sexy.
I picked sexy.
A black gown made of chiffon, the sheer top pleated at a slant across my midriff and chest, making a one-shouldered bodice that hinted at nude underneath.
The black skirt had a chiffon overlay with subtly scalloped sides that fluttered when I moved and added to the overt sexuality of the dress, giving it an ultra-feminine feel.
My hair was pulled softly back from a side part to another fluffy chignon at my nape that took forever to pull off.
My diamond studs and champagne sandals completed the ensemble.
The whole getup was another reason why it was regrettable I didn’t come up with a believable excuse to skip dinner.
Even I had to admit I looked hot.
“I went down to ask Patsy for a trash bag I could wear, but she just laughed at me,” I joked.
Temperance smiled her Cheshire cat smile.
I turned on my vanity stool to address her not in the mirror.
“Who’s that?” I tipped my head to the cat.
“Soot,” she answered, gliding gracefully down to sit on the round bench and letting Soot go.
The sleek cat, moving as slinky and gracefully as Temperance did, hopped off the bench and started to explore.
“Prue is rubbish at naming the animals,” she decreed. “There’s Baby Blue, Battie’s ragdoll. Floofy, Chassie’s white tiger. And Greystoke, Prue’s gray. You know Snowball and Gingerface.”
“Wait.” I was confused. “I thought they were all Prue’s cats.”
“They are, in a manner. She rescues them and adopts them. But animals have their own way of doing things. They lay their own claims. So Soot sleeps with me. Baby Blue with Battie. Floofy with Chassie. Greystoke with Prue. And, as we were all claimed, Snowball and Gingerface, the newest additions, hadn’t yet found their person. ”
She finished that gazing at me meaningfully.
And I had a feeling I understood her meaning, my heart beating hard with it, I just didn’t know what to do with it.
I mean, I’d only been there three days.
And I was leaving in less than two weeks.
“Prue even named Bartholomew,” she went on. “This is why that poor creature has such a ridiculous name. He is, of course, Battie’s dog. But Prue wanted to name him, and Battie is a soft touch, so he let her name him.”
I was stuck on an earlier part of what she said.
“A cat sleeps with Battle?”
She inclined her head. “Baby Blue doesn’t hold a great deal of love for Bartie. But she does for Battie. Once Bartie is down for the night, Baby Blue finds my brother’s bed. Even when he’s not here to be in it.”
I tried to visualize Battle sleeping with a ragdoll cat.
It was so easy to visualize, and such a good visual, I stopped trying to visualize it.
Though, I was so enthralled by this endeavor, I jumped when Temperance surged elegantly to her feet and walked to the side of the vanity so she could look out the window.
“Imagine,” she said in a soft tone that had me instantly bracing, “being a young child and growing up in a house with no love.”
Oh my God.
“And then,” she went on, even softer, “this adorable red-haired baby comes home to you. She giggles. And she’s loud.
And as she grows up, she’s excited by everything.
She consumes books like chocolate and draws on everything with a surface.
She’s utterly enchanting. She’s all that’s good and right, and since you never had that, you and your brother cling to her because she is. ”
Oh God.
“Tempie,” I whispered.
She didn’t even look down at me.
“And then she goes to school.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head.
I opened them and lifted my head when she spoke again.
“Day by day, all that joy, all that exuberance leaks out of her, little by little. She hides how much she reads. She draws in secret. She wears clothes she doesn’t like so she can fit in. But she never brings girls home for play dates or sleepovers. She’s never invited to parties.”
My eyes started stinging.
“And it just carries on,” Temperance continued. “Until she’s restricted her happiness and safety to this tiny bubble in the world where the people in it understand her.” She pulled in an unsteady breath. “But she’s so very alone.”
God.
Temperance looked down at me. “And then one day, she’s coming to breakfast with her laptop so she won’t delay in replying to an email she received from her friend.”
God.
“And some time later,” she kept at it, “she comes home wearing a crown of flowers, with sun on her cheeks and a spark in her eyes.”
“Tempie,” I whispered again.
She took in a delicate breath before saying, “In the powder room next to the parlor, there’s a drawer in the vanity. I secret my lipstick and a compact in there and nip to the loo if I need a touchup.”
And we were done with story time.
I was glad.
Though I was also honored.
“Thank you,” I said.
She inclined her head again and started to leave.
But that was when something else hit me.
“Chastity told Battle she didn’t want to go to Glastonbury.”
Temperance turned back to me. “No. She told me. I told Battle. And Battle, as he always does, handled it.”
This was why they were in their own world at dinner last night.
Whatever happened between big brother and baby sister, he had to continue to nurture it, or she wouldn’t have gone.
Therefore, this was why he had no mind to pay to me, or, as I hadn’t noticed at the time…anybody, but Chastity.
One of several reasons why Temperance was right there with me.
“You’re quite the multi-tasker,” I noted.
“I try,” she replied. “And in that regard, rest assured, Chelsea Renfrew is a sheep in wolf’s clothing, though she firmly believes it’s the other way around.”
Good to know.
I nodded.
“However,” Tempie went on, “Battie is a wolf in wolf’s clothing. If she steps over the line he’s drawn that she will more than likely not see, he will not countenance it. No, Vivienne. Be warned, he’ll not delay. And when the time comes, he’ll eviscerate her.”
“What you’re saying is, I have nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing at all.”
I struggled with what to say next, and decided on, “I’m not a big fan of being drawn into this.”
“Courtney is a friend of mine. I told her you were here. I told her you were lovely. I also told her it seemed my brother agreed. Unwisely, it seems she shared this with Chelsea and Chelsea wasted no time in setting up her next play. Then again, Courtney is one of the few in our set Chelsea hasn’t used up…
yet. Though, I think that happened this afternoon.
However, Courtney didn’t have any idea she’d been set up. Until she did.”
I harked back to an earlier part of what she said.
“Your brother agrees?”
Her brows drew down, she tipped her head to the side, and she drawled a highly sardonic, “Dear.”
Hang on.
Was Battle…genuinely into me?
I. Am. Not. Playing. Games.
Oh God.
Maybe he was into me.
God!
Now what did I do with that?
Not that I would have, but I still didn’t get the chance to ask Temperance.
She patted her leg, and again unlike any feline behavior I’d ever seen, Soot reappeared from wherever Soot was exploring, and he pranced at her side as she walked out.
This was when I saw she had a little train at the end of her gown, and her back was completely bare.
When I heard the door of the bedroom close, I whispered, “Damn, that woman is the shit.”
Then I grabbed my compact, my lip liner, my lippie and took one last look at my hair before I took another moment to pull my courage together.
And I got up to follow her.
* * *
I found the drawer in the vanity was littered with tubes of lipstick and mascara, lip liners, compacts, dress tape, tampons, panty liners and anything else a lady might need for touchups or emergencies.
Once I made my deposit, I hit the plum parlor.
The women were in the seating area, Prue and Chassie on one couch, Tempie and Courtney on another, Chelsea in a chair.
The men were huddled at the drinks cabinet, including Fitzgibbons.
Bartholomew lifted his head when I arrived. He was lying between the other two chairs.