Page 52 of Fierce

A Wild Swan

I wondered when I’d last taken an entire weekend off. Well, not an entire one, because I did put in a few hours before I turned off my laptop and left the room for a workout in the hotel gym.

I didn’t do too badly at staying focused, either—at least until I was showering. Once I was in there, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if Hope had lit her candles and turned on the jets for her own bath, if she’d found the foaming bath oil I’d made sure would be laid out for her, because I’d had a feeling she’d love bubble baths.

The exhibit we’d seen in the museum today didn’t help. L’Intimite du Bain. The Intimacy of the Bath. Women undressing, their transparent white shifts falling down around their lush bodies. Women sitting on the edges of curving porcelain tubs, testing the water with a languid hand, or sitting down to brush out their long hair with a towel pooling around their hips. Women in all their glory, naked, glowing, and sensual, and Hope hadn’t turned away with a blush. She’d looked, and she’d enjoyed.

And then there had been the one that had made her stop and draw in her breath. A woman viewed from behind at her dressing table, the perfect hourglass of her back like the voluptuous body of a cello, gazing into the mirror while she lifted both graceful hands to her hair. The candlelight soft on her white skin and the rich mass of dark hair piled on top of her head, a secret smile on her face.

“Beautiful,” Hope had sighed.

“Yeh,” I’d said, my voice coming out a bit husky. “Makes you feel her lover’s standing behind her, in the doorway, maybe. She’s seen him, and she’s letting him look, because she knows he wants to. Every fella’s got a bit of the voyeur in him, eh.”

“Does he?”

“Oh, yeh. Every man wants to watch.”

Just like I was watching Hope that evening as she walked toward me from the lift, dressed in a metallic gray beaded evening sweater closed with a row of tiny jet buttons, a full black skirt, and the shoes I’d bought her. Her fair hair was soft and tousled, and I could all but see the pupils dilating in the eyes she’d made up tonight to look huge and smoky.

Her lips, though, she’d kept nude, exactly the way I loved them best. As I continued to watch her, they parted, and I could almost hear the uneven breath she’d be taking. She could’ve been in one of those paintings, just risen from tangled sheets, as if, in another moment, she’d be lifting those slim, softly curved arms to pull me down with her, to take me back with her again into the dark, sweet, secret places.

As she walked toward me, her eyes on mine, I knew we were both remembering that painting. That she knew I’d been imagining her in her bath, and that I’d wished I could’ve watched.

“Beautiful,” I told her when she arrived.

“Is it right?” The delicate color stained her cheeks. “I borrowed it from my roommate before she left. In...in case.”

“It’s perfect.” I reached to brush her hair away from her cheek, leaned down, and murmured in her ear, “Were you thinking about me when you chose the sweater that buttoned down the front?”

I did hear her intake of breath this time, and when she whispered, “Yes,” I felt the jolt run straight from her body into mine.

“But first,” I said, straightening up, “because we’re working with anticipation here, we’ll walk through Paris, and we’ll drink wine, and I’ll show you someplace beautiful. Someplace that’s one of my own favorites.”

She enjoyed the walk through the elegant shopping district of the narrow Rue St. Honore, loved window-shopping and talking about what we were seeing, and she loved the restaurant, too. I could tell, because Hope couldn’t disguise her feelings if she tried.

I’d brought her to Le 1728, the former home of the Marquis de Lafayette, with its individually decorated salons reflecting the opulence of the nineteenth century, the elegance of a bygone age. The maître d’ led us up the huge carved staircase to a small salon on the upper floor, where we were seated in lavender chairs in a corner, beside tall windows hung with extravagant lavender velvet draperies looking onto the golden lights of a Paris night.

Time slowed beside the fire crackling in the huge marble fireplace, the soft light of the chandeliers enhanced by the candlelight gleaming against the hardwood paneling and carved ceilings. I sat, ate perfectly prepared food presented with painstaking attention to detail, and watched Hope enjoying her own dinner, saw the sparkle in her eye and the curve of her lips that told me how much spirit she hid behind her innocent appearance.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, taking another forkful of red mullet and humming a little with pleasure at the taste. “That’s not good enough to say, but it’s the best I have. It’s like being a princess, you know? Like there really are such things as fairy tales, even though we both know it’s not true. Or at least that it’s all right to pretend, for one night.”

“Maybe there are some enchantments that work,” I suggested. “Could be we just need to find the right ones. No fairy tales that touch that spot for you? Nothing more…realistic, maybe, that you can believe in?”

“Maybe,” she said, looking at me under her lashes. “But we got in trouble the last time we talked about fairy tales.”

“Ah,” I said with satisfaction. “So there is one. Go on, then.”

“You don’t want to hear me tell you a fairy tale.”

“I’m Maori. We like stories.” I leaned back a bit in my chair and smiled at her. “Entertain me.”

“If I tell you mine,” she said, the sauciness peeping out again, “will you tell me yours?”

“Maybe.”

“Not good enough. But all right, Mr. One-Way Street. My favorite is The Wild Swans. I won’t tell you the whole story, but—”

“No,” I interrupted. “The whole story. Telling stories is what we do.”

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