Now, Odette reached out to pat Albert’s tissue-thin skin, tugging the blanket higher over him.They sat side by side on his favourite sofa in his sitting room.His mouth always hung half open these days, like he could not remember how to shut it.Odette, meanwhile, was turning the pages of the score one by one, commenting as she went.‘And in this song, I run from the evil Seigneur d’Artois, fearing for my virtue.’She chuckled, imagining the sound of his laughter joining in.Of course, when she paused for it, she found only its absence.He watched, however—a little sleepy, but still watching.‘I like the song.He is a good composer.’Odette hummed the tune, light and fast, following the notes on the page.‘Do you like it, old friend?Do you think it is good?’
Music had been able to reach him for so long.But today, Odette felt like she was shooting arrows off a headland into the sea, hoping to spear a kraken.
They had always shared a love of music.Both of them had lost families, albeit in different ways, and both of them had lived lives that demanded the keeping of secrets.He had not been her first friend, but Albert, trader and world traveller, had most certainly become her dearest.She hadn’t been entirely truthful with Cassius.The archduke hadn’t bought her Sobieski.She had purchased it herself so that she could live next door to her friend.After all, they both appreciated that a fenceline shared by mutual interests was a fenceline protected.
Part of the storywastrue—the archduke had been her first lover.Not on closing night, as most speculated, but some weeks later, when he’d been direct enough to ask and she’d been bold enough to say yes.She had been curious about bedroom antics, but also, disposing of her virginity seemed like an astute thing to do.And apart from some small discomfort at the very beginning, she’d enjoyed that first time.By morning, after having been guided to climax by a caring lover, she’dreallyenjoyed it.Most women were diminished by the loss of their virtue, but for women of the stage, the right rumours created mystique.They gave her power.Power to say yes or no, power to accept or refuse gifts.She’d paid a courtesan for lessons, both on giving and receiving pleasure, and took lovers only when it suitedher.She decided, even at twenty-one, that she would be mistress of what happened in the bedroom.
She did not beg for a touch.
She did not wait for permission.
She did not sing on command.
God damn Cassius.
Odette smoothed the sheet music, the dry paper anchoring her in the room.She had come to spend her Sunday with her friend to distract herself, not to let herself be carried away by thoughts of the conductor.Tomorrow, he would be immersed in rehearsals with the orchestra, on his podium, and she would be centre stage.By tomorrow she would have gathered herself, pushed him from her mind, and stopped her ridiculous fantasising about what the rest of him might feel like.What it would be like to have him beneath her, or to be naked in his bed as he showed her the tricks that made all his lovers so grateful.With her usual lovers, there was always some other exchange beneath the fun—notoriety for reputation, jewellery for the right to gloat.But the power balance of their pretend courtship felt wholly unfamiliar, and it threw her off-kilter.One simple command, and she had surrendered with a whimper.
‘Odette?Do you have a moment?’
‘Always for you, my darling.’Odette reached out to Iris, who was hovering in the interconnecting doorway between the small sitting room and her office.Iris shot a look at her father, and Odette nodded, already rising to her feet.Whatever Iris wanted to talk about, she clearly did not want to say it in front of Albert, even in his state.Placing her score on the table, Odette gave Albert a peck on the cheek, and crossed the room.
Iris pushed the door almost closed behind them, leaving a small gap through which they could still hear Albert’s heavy breath and occasional movement.She moved past Odette and made her way to the other side of her desk.For a moment, she seemed ready to sit, but then she threw a look over the papers and manilla folders stacked before her in neat piles, and hovered halfway between her seat and the corner of the desk instead.She looked at her fingers.Blinked away tears.‘I… I… umm…’
Odette crossed the room in three confident strides, held out her arms, and drew her neighbour against her chest.When Odette had moved to Honeysuckle Street, Iris had been a fifteen-year-old girl with an energy and spirit to match her brilliant red hair, full of smart retorts and a love for all the good things in her life.The years that separated them had compressed as Iris grew into a woman, but at times, Odette could not shake the memory of the wiry girl who climbed trees and threw conkers at her friend Hamish in the park.Even this room, which had once been a playroom with bears and lions painted on the walls, echoed with the memories of that girl and her life.
Iris folded against Odette’s chest, heaved a breath, and released a fractured sob.As her chest shook, Odette, a little shorter now than her friend, braced herself against the crying.She stroked the girl’s hair.Splayed her feet beneath her to hold firm and allowed the tears to flow until Iris was spent.
‘I’m sorry,’ Iris said at last.She stepped back and wiped her cheeks, leaving behind iridescent streaks.‘It’s just… so much.There’s so much.With the new tour offering… and then Hamish’s father wants to visit, and Hamish keeps trying to put him off, and I don’t know if that’s because he doesn’t want to see him or if he hasn’t even told him about the company… And I’m too scared to ask because the answer might be one more thing I’ll have to manage.On top of that, there’s the winding up of Abberton and Co.with Phineas, and then Papa, as he is…’ Iris collapsed against Odette once more, her chest heaving.‘I miss him so much.’
‘I’m here for you, my darling.’Odette tightened her hold on her friend as a flash of guilt tore through her.Memories of all the meetings she had missed or left early rose in her mind.She’d always been in a rush to get to the next rehearsal, to prepare for the next tour or show, and Iris had always seemed so competent.She was one of the most intelligent women Odette knew.She was more than capable of managing it all.But Odette, possibly like everyone else, hadn’t ever paused to think whether she should have to.
‘You do so much.’Odette pressed Iris’s cheeks between her palms and searched her face, chasing a need for comfort.And forgiveness, perhaps.‘Darling?What else is worrying you?’
Iris took a breath, and even the effort of that made her chest shake.‘There is something I wanted to talk to you about… about your wise woman.With the herbs and the sponges.The one you said I should see when I asked you about babies and not having them once Hamish and I married.When I told you I wasn’t ready to have children.’
‘I remember,’ Odette said.
‘Do you know someone who can help in the opposite way?’
Sadness shot through Odette.Hamish had been desperate for children when he and Iris had married, but Iris had asked for a little time.He’d agreed, but as time went on, his patience had frayed.
‘How long ago did you stop taking the herbs?Using the sponges?’Odette asked.
‘Months and months ago.Just after we found out what had happened to Abberton and Co.and bought it back.I didn’t tell Hamish.I thought it would be a… a nice surprise.But every month, nothing happens.And now I don’t know what to think.Rosanna has her baby, and even though I stopped with my precautions at about the same time that she and Phineas married, it hasn’t happened for me.I’ve read every book and medical treatise I can find, and now I am worried.Do you think I am being punished?For doing too much?Did I damage myself when I climbed all those trees, or with all that running?When I refused to wear my corset every day—or any of those other stupid things Hamish and I used to do?’
Odette could only pull Iris against her chest.She rocked her like Babcia had done at the end of a tiring day or after a bad audition.It was all she could do.
‘It can’t be,’ she answered.‘Rosanna ran and climbed and was just as wild.The doctors who say such things about women’s bodies can’t always be right.What about the women in the fields?Or the factories?They are not kept locked up in tight corsets and drawing rooms.Whatever the reason, I do not for one second believe it was because your father allowed you to be free.’
However many tears Odette thought a body could hold… she was clearly mistaken, because Iris collapsed against her again.And Odette continued to embrace her, because there was nothing left to say.
‘I have never needed such advice.But if you ask the wise woman who you saw before, I imagine she will help you.’
Odette held Iris close, partly to comfort her, but also for herself.One ear rang, piercingly high.If only her wise woman had some advice or concoction for her, but when she’d asked, the woman had only shaken her head.And after seven days of the Calomel pills, there was no sense of the trouble easing.Just a constant upset in her stomach.
Odette rang for Gena, who brought raspberry fizz and elderflower cordial along with some shortbread, and settled Iris on the sofa beside her father with a blanket wrapped tight around them both.Then she gathered up her music, sent them both one more encouraging smile, and slipped from the room to head downstairs and make her way home.
‘Thank heavens.Miss Delaney!’
