Chapter Seven
Libba was half-pinned into a new costume when the ruckus started.
Though she was not actively playing any parts in the production, she had explained to Monica that as director, she would understudy for all the woman roles. All four of them. Bloody Shakespeare.
She was close enough in size to the players in each part that Monica was using her as a living dress form while she adjusted the initial designs from the house, which worked perfectly in Libba’s estimation, since she’d be needing all of them for her secondary endeavor as well.
Tonight’s garb was for Lady Capulet, a gauzy marriage of North African sensibilities, Arabic veiling, and South Asian textiles Monica already had on hand in carnation pink.
“If I had your hair,” Monica said wistfully as she pinned a scalloped, translucent pink veil over Libba’s tightly spiraled curls, “I’d never wear it up.”
“If you had my hair,” Libba retorted, “you’d spend half your life wishing to have your own back.”
It made Monica giggle, touching her own wispy, blonde tresses. “That’s probably true, isn’t it? Gingers want brown, brunettes want blonde, curlies want straight, and straight wants waves. No one is ever satisfied.”
“Satisfied people are smug,” Libba returned, smiling despite herself. “So it’s probably for the best.”
They both laughed at that as Monica wedged the pins into place, holding the top portion of the veil to Libba’s scalp while the lower bit could flutter prettily over the curls falling over her arms and ribs.
“I think we’ll do a piece of gold appliqué fabric over the breast like a sash,” Monica said, tilting her head. “Like an Indian sari. If we twist it a bit, it will create a lovely tapering shape.”
“Yes, all right,” Libba agreed, considering the mirror. “I would’ve never imagined Lady Capulet as a pink, by the by. She’s so … opaque.”
“Yes, well,” said Monica with a shrug, “warriors were often depicted in pink because the blood wouldn’t wash out.”
At that point, the crashing and shouting began from the entryway of the house and distracted them both from their task.
“What on earth?” Monica murmured, offering her hand to Libba to help her off the pedestal as they both moved toward the door.
Libba thought the more pertinent question was actually “What now?” but didn’t say so.
Her feet were bare and cold against the marble floor of the entry hall as she moved toward the voices emanating from the parlor.
“Shall I go get a steak?” Elias Selwyn was asking, the frown in his voice carrying down the hall. “Two steaks, I suppose.”
“Absolutely not,” Errol Cagney replied with open disgust. “Not only is that repulsive, it doesn’t work. A cold cloth is just as well. Ruby?”
“I’m not asking that beast in the kitchens for anything,” Ruby replied with a sniff. “You go. I can get the ingredients for salve from the greenhouse.”
Errol sighed. “Aloe,” he said. “Rice powder. There’s arnica drying on the shelf.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” she snapped. “I am the chemist, plant boy. Go get your cloths and water.”
Libba and Monica exchanged a glance as Errol emerged from the hall, nearly colliding with them, his sandy hair askew and his cheeks flushed with the force of his fluster.
“Ah,” he said, looking Libba’s costume up and down. “You might not want to go in there.”
“But what exactly happened?!” Elias was demanding.
“They won’t tell me!” Malcolm’s voice rang back, accompanied by chuckles from voices that could be no one else but Rhys and Jasper.
Libba’s eyes immediately narrowed.
Errol sighed and shook his head. “I warned you.”
She gathered up the long, multi-layered skirts and moved decisively, marching on her bare feet directly into the parlor, where she was confronted with a scene that was not at all surprising and yet still managed to completely infuriate her.
Rhys was straddling a stool as Elias dabbed at a cut over his eye, evidently trying to assess if it needed to be stitched or not, grinning like a damned idiot through every hiss at the sting.
Jasper was reclining like a damned fallen angel on the chaise, half his face purple and puffy, one eye closed, possibly not by intention.
“Oh, you two bloody idiots,” she breathed, fury flaming in her chest with a crackling series of sparks at the state of them. The absolute state of them. “What in the deepest bowels of hell?”
“Ship came in,” Jasper said lazily, flinging his arm out toward her, which made him wince immediately. “We saw her.”
“‘Her’?” Libba repeated, incensed more by the second as she took in the bruises and cuts on his reclining body, the damage of it all.
“The boat,” Malcolm explained, as though she were simple, resting his hand on her shoulder. “Boats are hers.”
She rounded on him, flashing dots of rage scattering along her skin, Jasper’s mangled face still imprinted on her retinas. “Did you let this happen to them, you untouched, pristine peacock?!”
“Well, wait just a damn minute,” Malcolm began.
“She just cares so very much,” Rhys cooed from his stool.
She glanced at Rhys, who grinned at her through the blood seeping out of a crack in his lip and felt the anger well up all over again. “My Mercutio looks like a pincushion!”
“And your Benvolio looks like a hero,” Jasper said, slurring just a little, like he was muzzy.
“You’re not in the play,” Monica said gently, like she thought he was being sincere, still hovering in the doorway with her hands clasped beneath her chin. “Are you seeing straight, Mr. Townsend? Can you count the people in the room?”
“He’s fine,” Libba snapped, though the smashing rage of her heart said otherwise.
He was not fine. Neither of them were. Rhys looked like he’d been slapped by a very sharp branch several times and Jasper looked like he’d met half a dozen fists by swinging his face at them.
Goddammit.
She’d never had two productions ruined at once before.
“He’ll heal in time for curtains up,” Elias said carefully, pulling back his kerchief to squint at the cut. “I don’t think it needs stitching. Head wounds just bleed like that. Oh, some got on your scarf.”
“Oh, blast,” said Rhys, looking down at the sage-green scarf knotted around his throat. “Monica, will this come out?”
“Let me see,” she said, floating forward with her hand out. “Angora? Rhys, where did you get angora wool?”
“He stole it,” Libba said through her teeth, glaring directly at Jasper.
“How dare you?” Rhys muttered distractedly. “What’s angora, then?”
“From a rabbit,” said Monica, petting the damned scarf. “A very fluffy rabbit.”
“Oh, well, now you have to save it,” Rhys said, pouting. “Can you save it?”
“Of course I can,” Monica told him so gently that Libba was surprised she didn’t also nestle him into her bosom and pat his head for good measure. “I will.”
“It’s my scarf!” Libba barked, making everyone turn and stare at her.
“No, it isn’t,” said Rhys, grinning at her. “Not anymore.”
“Oh?” she said, her fingers curling into claws as she took a step toward him. “Come again?”
“Not in the costume,” Monica said mildly, already turning and floating from the room, scarf in hand.
“‘Costume’?” Jasper said, turning and opening his good eye to regard her. “Egads! My Princess Xandine.”
“What do you mean it’s your scarf?” Malcolm repeated, frowning. “Why’d you make Jasper retrieve it, then?”
“Here’s the salve!” Ruby sang, floating back into the room like an angel of providence with Errol at her back holding a bucket and several clean cloths.
Libba spared one last glance at Jasper, who was gazing at her with that one good eye, wide and bleary and glistening.
And she huffed, turning on her heel and leaving it all behind her.
*
She took her time gathering her thoughts before descending back into the melee again.
Her costume came off slowly and with care, respecting all the effort that had gone into it, returned to its dress form with due reverence.
She took her time with her toilette and changed into a clean night rail and wrapped her hair in satin, protecting every perfect ringlet from the violence of her pillows and her restless habits of sleep.
She slid into her favorite dressing gown, which also happened to be pink. It had called to her after Monica’s comment about warriors and blood. It seemed appropriate tonight.
And she sat at her vanity table, drawing out the process of her serums and creams, because going back down there just now still awoke far too many impulses toward violence.
When she did emerge, she went first to Malcolm’s room, giving it a single rap with her knuckles and waiting with her arms crossed until he pulled the door open, his own pajamas an absurd, silk affair of dark blue and red stripes.
“You’ve tooth powder on your chin,” she lied, just to watch him fuss, pushing into the room past him as he made sounds of distress. “Do you want to tell me what happened tonight?”
“I don’t actually know what happened,” he said after a moment, looking into the mirror with enough of a furrow in his perfect brow to fill her with satisfied warmth.
“I went to find us a table and the next thing I knew, a brawl had broken out. I came back out to the bar, extracted them with some effort, and took them to the beach to cool off. Every time I asked what had caused it, they just giggled at me. Though I suppose they could’ve been addled from having their heads bounced around, I got the impression they simply did not want me to know. ”
She frowned at him. “You are usually more persuasive.”
“I know!” he snapped, frowning right back. “I assume it had to do with me and that is why they will not say. It was a scuffle with some dockyard lads. You know how they can be.”
She hesitated, gooseflesh rising on her arms.
She did know.
“You think that’s what it was?” she pressed, furrowing her brow. “Rhys isn’t usually … prone to fisticuffs.”
“Rhys is hardier than he looks,” Malcolm assured her dryly. “If you’d grown up in the boys’ wing, you’d know that perfectly well.”
“Did Jasper stay in the parlor again?” she asked, refusing to indulge in the half-dozen questions that had erupted in her mind at that lure. “Why does he never take a guest room?”
Mal shrugged. “Habit? But yes, he’s there. Errol managed to scrounge up some ice from the private store, and there’s not a chance in Hades that there’s any back at his flat in town. That alone was worth staying for.”
She nodded and left him to his own midnight rituals at that, passing Rhys and Lem in the hall, where the former was showing off his battle wounds to the latter.
“You impress me,” Lem said, nodding. “These will be fine scars.”
“Oh, do you really think so?” Rhys asked hopefully.
“Rhys,” Libba snapped, striding up to him with her dressing gown billowing. “If you do not tell me what happened, I will go to Miss Persephone’s tomorrow and spend twenty quid. In your name.”
His bruised jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I think you know that I would,” she returned, low and menacing.
He made a face. “Is this about the scarf?”
She pressed her lips together. “It can be.”
“I think it is time for me to slumber,” Lem decided, stretching his massive arms out over his head and feigning a yawn. “Good night.”
“Yes, go,” she said, without looking at him.
“Don’t,” Rhys muttered weakly, his brow glistening and shiny from the salve over the tiny cuts above it.
“I could spend fifty,” she said. “I’ve got the savings.”
“‘Fifty’!” he repeated, aghast. “To that charlatan?”
“She could expand,” Libba taunted. “Set out more of those illusion kits that sell so well. Some of those are the same tricks you perform for coin, aren’t they? Isn’t that funny?”
“How much will you give me if I tell you?” Rhys asked, something canny glinting in those green eyes of his. “Surely, a pound or two?”
“I’ll let you keep the scarf,” she said. “Bloodstain and all. Ask Monica what angora costs if you doubt the value of that.”
He frowned. “I was going to keep it, anyway.”
She flashed her incisors at him. “Were you?”
They stared at one another for a long moment. The candles in the hall flickered, seemingly changing them in the stutters of light between the two adults facing off against the faded wallpaper to the children they’d once been doing the very same thing.
And then he sighed in defeat. “It was Jasper’s fault, really. He lets people talk until there’s no choice but to punch.”
“Fine,” she said. “Jasper’s fault. Proceed.”
And like a good lad, he did.