Page 11 of A Vocation of Violence
Before I could reply, she burst from the hallway to the top of the grand staircase, her arms lifted like the pope addressing Vatican Square from his balcony.
The room erupted in applause, which she accepted graciously as her due.
I hovered in the shadow of the hall until she’d descended a few stairs to meet the first push of people awaiting the grace of her attentions. Only when no one watched the crest of the stairs did I step into the open space.
The air was thick with the scent of roses, tobacco smoke, and desire, a heady mixture that clung to the insides of my lungs like a whispered confession. The Velvet Glove Midnight Bacchanalia unfurled before me in a riot of silk and sensual delight, as if I had stepped into one of Hieronymus Bosch’s fevered visions wrought into splendid reality. The ballroom was awash with the glow of a hundred candles, their flames casting shadows that danced lasciviously against walls draped with velvet so deep and red it might have been wrung from the heart of an unrepentant devil.
I felt a queer thrill at the decadence. I stood a voyeur ensnared by the spectacle of high society at its most debauched. Below me, ladies swathed in layers of lace and jewels twirled with men whose eyes betrayed more hunger than could ever be satisfied by a feast laid out on silver platters.
Despite the closeness of so many bodies, a shiver poured acid down my spine, a reminder that amid the splendor, danger often wore the most beguiling of masks.
I found Jorah holding court by a fireplace as tall as himself, resplendent enough for an audience with the queen. He lifted a hand to the nape of his neck before his eyes lifted from the gathered gentlemen to find mine.
He could sense when he was watched, as well.
We made dark, silent promises to each other as he gave me more compliments with his gaze than any kind word uttered about my gown.
Darcy broke from the crowd, looking rough-and-tumble despite the white-tie finery. He mounted the stairs to press champagne to Vivienne’s hand and conducted her down to the dance floor, beside which a chamber orchestra poised to play.
Her champagne disappeared in a few sips before they opened the revelry with their own dance.
Though there was an obvious affection between the two, they didn’t dance at all well together. Untrue to his Irish heritage, Darcy had never been a gifted dancer, but I didn’t remember him being such a clod-foot.
True to his word, however, he found me for the second dance, and by the time we took our places, the floor filled quickly with other couples.
He apologized through a twitching mustache for any injuries I was about to sustain, but he managed to only step on my toe twice. “It’s unfortunate that I can remember the complicated steps in the ring, but take me out of those confines and I might as well have turnips for toes.”
“You’re doing splendidly,” I lied, just happy to be in his presence for the moment.
Night Horse had been right—I needed a night like this.
I needed to learn how to live.
Once the waltz ended, Darcy and I drifted to where Vivienne shimmered like a dark blood sea under a moonlit sky, her laughter now dancing upon the heavy air.
I watched in grim fascination as her charm, once wielded with precision, now frayed at the edges, unraveling with every sip of amber-gold liquid. How she’d already become inebriated after we’d only left her for one dance was bewildering to me. Twice in her dressing room and once in the hall, I’d seen her sniff a secretive powder concealed within the folds of her delicate handkerchief, and I now realized the substance wasn’t at all benign.
“Darling!” Vivienne cooed at Darcy a touch too loudly as we approached. “Meet Baron Morton and his…daughter?” She gestured to an elderly gentleman whose monocle quivered where he’d trapped it over his eye. A petite, lovely, dark-haired woman draped in violet muslin stood at his elbow and stared mutely at Vivienne, though whether she was awe-stricken or upset, I couldn’t say. She was well into her third decade, or perhaps her fourth, but her striking beauty hadn’t faded in the least.
I sensed an undercurrent filled with past interactions I was not privy to.
And for that, I was glad.
“Mywife, the baroness, is an admirer of yours, Miss Bloomfield-Smythe,” the baron corrected her gently. “She was almost too shy to meet you, but I insisted we come over and at least congratulate you on your West End debut. We will surely attend in our usual box.”
His wife? The baron must have been very wealthy or very powerful to have won who must have been an incredibly sought-after debutante in her day. And yet there had to be a minimum of two decades between the baron and baroness, if not three.
Vivienne took no time to process anything he’d said past the first couple of words. “Oh! Do pardon my faux pas,” she insisted, laying her hand on the baron’s lapel. “I should have known just by looking at her, that gown is positively prehistoric! Did it come from the same time period as yourself?”
A hush fell over the nearby assembly, a collective intake of breath at the bite of her words. The baron’s face reddened beneath the white whiskers adorning his chin, but before he could muster a response, Vivienne had already moved to the next thought, leaving ripples of disquiet in her wake.
“Baron, I see you’ve plucked the short straw and are obliged to conduct Herr Drumft around for the season.” Vivienne motioned to the slightly rotund dignitary towering behind the baron, weighed down further by a sash cluttered with Prussian medals of some consequence and various other adornments.
“Your toy soldier seems ready to crumble,” Vivienne mocked, pointing a slender finger toward Drumft, who stood as pinch-faced and unyielding as a marble statue. “Or perhaps that’s merely the ground beneath him.”
As Vivienne trilled a giggle at her own japes, a few joined her. Some behind their fans. Others nervously. And still more out of a sense of polite obligation.
I felt none of these things, and so didn’t pretend to find her funny in the least.
