Chapter 15 Gideon ‘Then’
Gideon
Then
Darling Gideon, it was wonderful to see you again without blood on your shirt collar. I’d be delighted to meet your friend. I’ve heard so many delicious rumours about that theatre of hers.
We’re having a little fete next Friday. Please bring her along, if you’re certain she’s not afraid of heights!
Your boss hasn’t been to the Comédie-Francaise lately. Has he tired of me? I swear I shall fling myself from the grand staircase if that is so!
Yours, Sarah.
LUCIEN DROPS A HEAVY PURSE into my hands. “My coffers are not bottomless, Gideon. You are trying my patience.”
“I apologise, Sir. Mademoiselle Macquart has expensive tastes. And as you did not wish me to hurt her, I must woo her if I’m to remove the collar from her neck.”
Wooing Arabella is proving a challenge. Night after night I return to La Petite Mort.
I bring Belgian chocolates and bottles of fine champagne and silk scarves from the Samaritaine.
She refuses the chocolates and the wine but she accepts anything silky or glittering.
It’s like trying to tame a crow, if that crow were also a fussy eater and kept trying to peck my eyes out.
And I am acting like a besotted dandy, lavishing gifts upon a courtesan who indulges his whims only because he opens his purse for her. It’s not even my purse.
But I cannot make myself stop.
Unlike the usual entanglement with a courtesan, I have not had so much as a kiss from Arabella Macquart in return.
There was that one night when I knelt for her, and I felt certain she was about to kiss me, but instead, she gave me that smile, and a flash of tooth, and it must have been a trick of the light because she looked as though she had the most glorious fangs…
I’m so enamoured with her that I’m hallucinating. But even if she did have fangs, I wouldn’t care. Fangs suit her. I hope one day she bites me.
I am sick.
Her reluctance only makes me want her more. Every moment in her presence is foreplay.
Each night as I walk to La Petite Mort, I tell myself that tonight will be the night. I will find a way to take that necklace from Arabella’s neck. I will complete the job and free myself and Jacob from Lucien’s debt.
But then I walk beneath that velvet curtain, and I see her dancing, and every rational thought flees my body.
“I’m not so concerned with you hurting her as I am with her hurting you, Little Prince.” Lucien glares as my fingers clasp over the purse. “But I am growing impatient. I have given you ample time and you have spent a king’s ransom at La Petite Mort and still not secured the collar.”
That damned collar. I’ve never once seen Arabella without those baubles around her neck. It’s the worst tease of all. I long to see her dark skin exposed without those glittering jewels.
She says the collar is her armour. She certainly looks invincible wearing it – an impenetrable fortress of desire.
I don’t believe in magic or curses, but I can almost see the way Arabella weaves the necklace’s good luck into her life, using the jewels to grow her business and to maintain her lifestyle of lavish clothing and expensive, disgusting red drinks.
The more time I spend with her, the less I want to do this job for Lucien. But I can’t refuse him. He’ll go out and find another soldier to do his dirty work, and that soldier may not take such an interest in Arabella’s welfare. After all, it’s easy enough to cut the jewels from a severed neck.
At least I can keep her safe.
But for how much longer?
Lucien is becoming suspicious. Soon his need for the necklace will outweigh the reasons for his caution, even though I understand neither.
I have to make a move.
Tonight.
“I have a plan.” I tuck the purse into the pocket of my coat and smooth my lapels. I’m dressed in my opera finery. Lucien frowns at my outfit. He knows how much I hate the opera. “Fear not, if this necklace is worth what you say, then you will still make a tidy profit from this job.”
Arabella descends the twisted staircase to greet me. She doesn’t smile, but the sweep of her eyes over my sharp suit tells me she approves. I live for these moments when I feel the heat of her esteem, like the sun peeking through the clouds after months of winter rain.
I drop coins into her hand. Payment for her time. I never ask for so much as a kiss, and she never offers. Kisses are cheap compared to what I want from her, but I would pay a king’s fortune for the rare glimpses of her true self, the woman she must hide to become the fantasy for her clients.
Unfortunately, my king’s fortune is running dry, as is my king’s patience.
Arabella wraps her strong fingers around my wrist, dark skin against light, and tugs me towards the confessional. I place my hand over hers. “Tonight I want to go out.”
“Outside?”
She spits the word as if it’s poison.
I incline my head in the direction of the street. “Oui. Outside these walls. I have a surprise for you.”
“I cannot leave. The place doesn’t run without me.”
“Everyone here is too afraid of you to mess up while you’re gone.” I tug her towards the velvet curtain. “You can leave for one night.”
Her mouth settles in a prim line. I’m certain that she’s going to say no, but then she flashes me one of her rare, dazzling smiles. She slips her arm beneath mine.
“Very well. Let’s get this over with.”
I practically sprint outside, dragging Arabella behind me before she can change her mind.
The night is clear, the sky a brilliant lapis blue, matching the jewels on her necklace.
Without the cloud of opium smoke and the acrid, aniseed scent of free-flowing absinthe, fresh smells assault me.
Warm bread and sweet pastries from street sellers, the cloying perfume of a gaggle of dandies heading into one of the other Montmartre cabarets, the crisp tang of dew-soaked flowers from crowded window boxes.
And sewage. Always sewage.
This is Paris, after all – a city of romance tinged with harsh reality.
We stroll along the Seine. Here, in the working-class immigrant heart of Paris, few people give a second glance to a white man strolling with a Black woman.
Arabella relaxes a little. She tells me about fishing with her father in the village where she grew up.
She doesn’t say where that village is located, but she describes fierce, warm sunlight and a river so wide and deep that it felt like an ocean.
“I was hopeless. I only ever caught one fish. It was about the size of my pinkie finger. My father fed it to a sweet ginger cat who used to hang around his market stall. The cat got violently sick the next day.” She laughs. “I miss that cat.”
The further we walk from La Petite Mort, the more she smiles. The moonlight kisses her ebony skin, making it shimmer. The jewels at her neck sparkle so brightly that heads turn on the street to bask in their brilliance, but to me, they are dull and pale when compared to the sparkle in her eyes.
“Why did you agree to come out with me tonight?” I ask, emboldened by the stars.
She looks out across the water to the glittering lights of the city. “Today is my… birthday.” There’s an odd hesitation in her voice.
“Bon anniversaire, ma chérie.”
“It’s not a happy day for me. Some years ago, a terrible thing happened to me on this day.
” Her voice is cold, emotionless. She doesn’t look away from the water.
“I cannot dance on my birthday. The music leaves me. I did not wish to sit in the dark and think of sad and evil things, so instead, I’m here with you. ”
She turns to me then, and the gold ring around her dark eyes is ablaze.
I tug her to me, pulling her against my body. My muscles burn with the desire to reach back through time and fix this.
“If I ever find out who hurt you,” I growl, my lips against her hair. “I will burn them.”
“I have nothing to fear from them anymore,” she says, but her shoulders shake all the same.
We stay like that, my lips pressed to her soft, curly hair, the scarab beetle at the centre of her collar thrumming against my throat. Our hearts beat together through our ribs – mine races ahead of hers, spurred on by my rage and impotency.
I wish I could be the villain she needs.
She pulls away, breaking the spell that holds us, and drags me along the riverbank.
Arabella stops to admire a painter as he works, hunched, shivering beneath a threadbare wool coat.
When she realises it’s Claude Monet painting scenes of people along the river, she plants a kiss on his cheek and orders me to buy him a loaf of bread and some cheese.
“Look.” Claude shows us his work – a river scene rendered in dabs of colour, like prisms of light trapped in the paint. “I’m doing as you suggested, Gideon. I’m creating the impressionist movement. But still, no one will buy my paintings.”
Looking at his work, I can kind of see why. Certainly, the colours are vivid and the composition dynamic, capturing a sense of fleeting movement…
But will people want to hang these childish daubs of light in their homes?
Arabella stands in front of the canvas for many moments, and I wish I could take every cent in Lucien’s purse and buy her all of Monet’s paintings. “You are a painter of enchantments, Monsieur,” she says, her voice choked with emotion. “Don’t ever hide your magic away.”
“I won’t, Mademoiselle Macquart.” He winks at me as he returns to his work. “You two enjoy your evening. It’s good to see you both out en plein air.”
It’s good to be out with her, to know that Arabella exists outside the walls of La Petite Mort, and she isn’t merely a dream conjured by my weary, desperate mind.
But dream creature or real woman, she has caught the eye of Lucien Vega.
I do not know whether Lucien believes the stories of the collar’s magic or whether he simply wants to possess the jewels, but the why doesn’t matter.
Lucien requires his prize, or else he’ll take it from her flesh, and he’ll make me watch as he carves her up like a poulet r?ti.
I can only hope that if I pull this off, Arabella won’t need to know I’m the one who stole her jewels.