A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,95
hand and I slapped it away. “Mind your manners. Pull the ends nice and tight, as snug as you can. This is where it gets tricky, so pay attention.” I shifted the short end into position and wrapped the long end firmly around it. “Pretend it’s a butterfly and hold the two wings together,” I instructed, pinching the two loops tightly in one hand. “Now, you see the hole back here? All you do is push this bit all the way through. Then drop your hands. The wings will fan back out and you just have to give them a little tweak. Nothing to it.” I turned my thigh this way and that for him to admire my handiwork.
He reached out again and I slapped his hand a second time. “Naughty, naughty.” I untied the bow and draped it over his shoulder. “Your turn.”
I spun him around to face the mirror and raised my hands under his arms to help him. It took him the better part of ten minutes to get it right and four more smacks to the hand, but he mastered it and stepped back, preening a little as he shot his cuffs over a sharp gold wristwatch I hadn’t seen before. The art business must have been improving, I decided.
“Quite dapper,” he said. “But I still say you’re a cold little tease to do that to a man and not lend him a helping hand.” He took my hand in his and laid it flat against his belly. He began to slide it lower down, his eyes never leaving mine.
Just as I touched the button on his trousers, I lifted my hand away. “But now you have something to think about during dinner.”
On the way out, I poked my head into the drawing room, but Dora was busy eating her heart out and sticking things into a scrapbook. She didn’t look up when Kit and I walked through, but I could feel her thinking about us.
“Good evening, Dora,” Kit said. There was a note of laughter, barely suppressed in his voice. Dora flushed deeply and murmured a greeting.
“Have fun with your glue pot,” I called as I slammed the front door. I fairly ran to the car and threw myself in. The night was warm and Kit drove fast, racing the moon as it rose high and full over the landscape. The house was ablaze with lights, and one of the native servants opened the door to us.
“Memsa will receive you in the bath,” he said, escorting us to Helen’s suite. I darted a glance at Kit, but he merely smiled. The servant tapped and opened the door without waiting. The famous pink quartz bathtub was filled nearly to the brim with rose-scented water. Helen was stretched out, her white breasts and knees rising over the foaming water, an aging Aphrodite.
“Darlings! I’m so glad you could come. Help yourselves to a drink.”
There was a drinks tray set up on her vanity and Kit poured us each a stiff gin. The Pembertons, newly back from the coast, were already there. Gervase was standing in the corner nursing his glass while Bianca sat on the closed toilet, fiddling with a silver syringe.
“Dear Bianca, always so clever with a needle,” Helen said with a malicious laugh. Bunny Stevenson perched on the edge of the bath, playfully flipping water at Helen’s nipples. She splashed water back on him, soaking his shirtfront until she subsided into gales of laughter. It seemed forced, that laughter—brittle and hectic—and I wondered if she had helped herself to Bianca’s drugs.
“Well, if I’d known we were dining in the bathroom, I wouldn’t have bothered to do my hair,” I said coolly. “The humidity will wreck it.”
Helen waved a soapy hand. “Never fear, darling. We’re finished up in here. Let’s have dinner, shall we?” She rose and the doctor handed her a towel. She didn’t bother to dry herself. She wrapped her wet body in a peignoir of pale pink silk dripping in marabou feathers. The damp patches turned the fabric transparent and clinging.
She put an arm through mine like a gossipy schoolgirl sharing confidences. “I am passionate about history. Did you know French queens and courtesans received their guests in the bath? And Regency belles used to dampen the chemises they wore under their dresses to show off their figures. I’m just paying homage to history,” she insisted before indulging in another fit of laughter.
I didn’t bother to answer her. I doubted she would notice. She