Chapter Twenty-One #2
All around them, people were consuming potions; next to them, a woman tipped a packet of spell powder into her mouth, washing it down with champagne.
A moment later, she was a redhead with curly hair.
Another moment, and she was a pretty blonde.
Another few seconds, and she was a man with a neatly trimmed beard.
Her companions laughed uproariously at the rapid-fire transformations; Ashbridge’s brow furrowed at the sight, making him look suddenly like himself, despite not actually looking anything like himself.
Vesper watched the bartender pour a shimmering splash of syrup into a glass, preparing a potion that promised a fetching sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of the nose, before Ashbridge tugged on her arm. “You don’t need freckles,” he told her.
“But I would look adorable,” she said mournfully, before regretfully allowing him to lead her away from the bar.
Drinks in hand, they made for a table in the most secluded corner they could find—one that was, conveniently, partially obscured by a potted palm.
Useful things, potted palms; Vesper had once had a thoroughly enjoyable ten minutes behind one with one of Freddie’s actor friends, without anyone the wiser.
Just to be safe, however, as soon as they were seated, she inched closer to Ashbridge.
“In case anyone’s looking, it needs to seem as though you’re sort of…
leering at me,” she explained, plastering herself to his side.
He snaked his arm around her waist, drawing her even closer, and she glanced up at him through her lashes.
“Any sign of him?” she asked in an undertone, reaching for her champagne coupe.
An infinitesimal shake of his head. “Doesn’t mean he’s not here, though—he might be tucked away in a dark corner somewhere.”
“So what do we do for the next two and a half hours, until the club closes?”
“Look increasingly lusty and foxed?” he suggested.
“Hard to imagine you looking either way, even with a different face,” she said lightly, joking, but she felt his arm stiffen around her, and his hand’s grip on her hip grew a bit steely. Had she… offended him?
“You seem to have an awfully fixed impression of me,” he said in an undertone. The club was noisy, but they were pressed close together, here in their semiprivate alcove, and she could hear him easily, the noise of the music and crowd in the room fading in the background.
She met his eyes, and decided to answer him honestly. “You’re not very easy to read, you know. And you’ve never seemed very impressed by my general…” She gestured at herself helplessly.
He laughed, low and dark. “Vesper, I think anyone with a pulse is impressed by your general…” He mimicked her gesture. His gaze was warm on her.
“Well.” She lifted her chin. “You hide it well. From my perspective, at least.”
“Then let me tell you something from my perspective,” he said, leaning closer to her again, his voice dropping an octave. “There has not been a single evening in the past two weeks that your face hasn’t been the thing I’ve seen when I close my eyes at night.”
He reached out a hand and ran his fingers down her cheek. She closed her eyes at the feel of them, relishing the warmth that lingered in their wake. “If you’re acting right now, you’re very good at it,” she managed after a moment, allowing her eyes to flutter open. “Freddie would be impressed.”
“Please don’t mention your brother right now,” he said with a faint grimace, and Vesper laughed—and then, because she couldn’t help herself, she leaned up and kissed him.
His mouth tasted like whisky, and she cupped her hand around his neck, drawing him closer to her.
The hand at her hip slid lower, squeezing her arse, and she shifted in her seat, feeling her pulse pounding between her thighs.
She sank her hand into his hair, feeling the locks—usually ruthlessly cowed into order by pomade—curling around her fingers at the nape of his neck.
His free hand cupped her chin, angling her head just so, and she reveled in the wet heat of his mouth and the tangling of their tongues.
Drawing back after several moments, she gazed up into his face, unfamiliar in its current form. “I want to kiss you with your real face,” she said, hearing the breathless edge to her voice. “The last time—at Grenoble’s, I mean—didn’t count. We didn’t really mean it.”
“Then let’s make sure we’re not arrested tonight, and we’ll get the chance,” he said, his own voice sounding gratifyingly ragged, and Vesper laughed. “And Vesper? I meant it last time, too.”
And his smile, even on someone else’s face, felt like the warmth of the sun.
A couple of hours later, Max was beginning to think that this evening might actually kill him.
There was the literal concern for his life, given the possible consequences of them being caught trespassing in a private club after-hours.
But more imminently pressing was the fact that he had kissed Vesper Holloway—he had kissed her, and danced with her, and felt that frankly magnificent bum with his own hands.
He’d stared moodily into her eyes (feeling like a bit of an idiot all the while—soulful staring was not precisely his forte), and touched her cheek, and kept a proprietary hand on her hip, and it was all, of course, entirely professional in nature, but God help him, he felt like he was losing his mind.
They were in their alcove nook now, Vesper having just returned from a reconnaissance mission to visit the ladies’ toilets and fetch another round of drinks, all while plotting their next move; she was sitting next to him with her head slumped against his shoulder, taking—Max could not help but be impressed—incredibly small sips of champagne, so that it looked as though she were constantly imbibing, even if, in truth, he judged her to be slightly tipsy at worst.
“Is it time for us to commence our cunning plan?” he asked, trying to sound dryly amused, and not as though he was incredibly (incredibly) aware of the fact that her hand was resting on his upper thigh.
“I believe so.” She batted her eyelashes coquettishly at him; the gesture was incongruous on her current face, that of a rosy-cheeked girl from the countryside, and yet still somehow looked so quintessentially Vesper that he briefly worried about someone realizing who she was.
She knocked back the rest of her champagne, then stood and extended a hand to him.
Together, they stumbled a bit around the edge of the room; Max was careful not to overdo it.
This meant, in practice, that he clutched Vesper’s hand, leaned forward to murmur in her ear, and tried to look like he had every intention of finding a convenient coat closet to get up to no good in at the next possible moment.
He was so focused on this act that he only nearly avoided walking directly into someone.
“Apologies,” he said, and then looked up into the face of his father.
Max froze; Vesper’s grip on his hand tightened, and he held on just as tightly. There was no reason his father should recognize him wearing someone else’s face, but it was unnerving to look into those icy eyes all the same.
“Of course,” Grimme-Nox said smoothly, smiling the practiced smile that Max had seen him direct, often enough, at anyone he deemed important.
His glance flicked to Vesper—then slipped away again, disinterested: He didn’t recognize her.
“If you’re looking for a dark corner, the garden has some nice options.
” He jerked his chin in the direction of a set of French doors, smirking a bit.
“It’s chilly tonight, but I expect she’ll keep you warm,” he said, with another cursory glance at Vesper.
“Thank you ever so much,” Vesper said, her voice syrupy, and Grimme-Nox looked back at her briefly, startled, as if he hadn’t expected that she’d be able to speak.
Without another word, Max and Vesper were off, ducking through the doors in question, which led onto a terrace overlooking a small garden below; both the garden and the terrace itself were—just as his father had informed him—full of liaising couples, and they wove their way among them, murmuring apologies, before slipping in through a smaller door at the opposite end of the terrace that led to a narrow hallway.
Vesper’s manner immediately became more businesslike. “This way,” she murmured. Max was beginning to worry that he found competence attractive—and Vesper was significantly more competent than she wanted anyone to realize.
In a trice, they were down one corridor, through a door leading to a stairwell; it was narrow and a bit worn-looking, in contrast with the glossy sheen of everything else about the club—and then Vesper led him down a flight of stairs to a landing, where…
“Surely you’re not serious.”
She frowned. “Of course I am—it’s perfect. No one will look for us here.”
“It’s a cupboard.”
“Precisely!”
“A cupboard built for a child,” he clarified, looking at the door—which came up to somewhere around his abdomen—with great skepticism.
Vesper rolled her eyes, which was all very well for her, he thought sourly; she was easily six inches shorter than him. This would be considerably more comfortable for her.