Page 16 of What Happens in Hedone

Not learn all her secrets, of course. She had set bounds on how far she meant to ruin herself. But she wanted him to desire her, yes.

“Zenobia.” The nervous gentleman was back, the one who hadn’t missed a night in the handful of weeks that Effie had been coming. He fidgeted in his chair, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Sheba. Tomyris.”

“He doesn’t know a single Persian queen, does he?” Iris murmured.

“My lady will know me,” Pandora said serenely.

“Atossa,” called Lady Lesbos. She wore an evening gown of charcoal silk with a cross-wrapped bodice and leg of mutton sleeves, the green belt at her waist set with an enormous bronze brooch. A pyramid of bows and feathers towered on her head. “Daughter of Cyrus the Great. Wife of kings and mother of Xerxes I.”

Lady Pandora smiled. “You see?”

The two women glowed at one another in delight and triumph. They shared this fantasy, Effie saw. Their bond as lovers was built on it.

Effie pushed away the different tingle that moved across her chest. She was not in search of a bond. She had a bond waiting for her. What she wanted was a brief escape. One last breath of air above water before she was dragged below the surface and drowned.

Cybele went next, striding about the room in her breastplate, carrying her dagger as if she meant to plunge it into the gut of an enemy. Effie trailed with her spear, part of her army. Ancient Persian women had been warriors and commanders, councilors and queens. They were businesswomen and merchants and landlords. Almost certainly they were allowed to study natural history if they wished.

What a difference between those licentious pagan empires, which spawned fierce and passionate women, and British rule, which prided itself upon female modesty and innocence. Or at least, the males who ran it did.

“Artemisia of Caria,” Lady Lesbos said confidently. Effie suspected she had sat on this knowledge long enough to let Cybele have her fun, to let all of them enjoy this brief fantasy of being warriors. Of being strong enough that no man could cow them, no rules hold them but what they felt just.

Of being a man’s equal, and not his servant.

Effie clicked Cybele’s bow with her spear, a salute, then slid her gaze to Jay. He sat forward in his chair, hands clasped beneath his chin, an attitude of careless attention. But his look sent a blaze of wildfire across her skin.

He would not look at Effie the way he looked at Erato. There was a separation Effie understood, though it had never been explained to her. A girl of her status acquired accomplishments so she could be interesting; she cultivated manners that pleased others. A gentleman’s daughter was held to the strictest moral decorum so she could set an example for the rest, and she was educated only so far as it made her lively and equipped to educate her children.

For passion and for the baser instincts to which a man was prey, he turned to women who traded in such things. A proper wife and mother ought not be soiled by passion, as it would take her mind away from other things. She would be led by the impulses of the flesh instead of her higher instincts.

Witness Effie, who had scarcely managed more than a few jotted observations on her cuttlefish before she caught herself in a fantasy. Jay’s palm sliding against hers, rough as the back of the starfish. Jay’s firm hand settling on her breast. Jay’s lips against hers as he swept his tongue into her mouth.

A slow warmth bloomed between her legs, like a jellyfish dancing through the water, pulsing in its slow grace. This, this was why young women were not to be awakened to passion. It led them to toss all decorum aside and set out to entice men who were not their future husbands.

Iris went next, emerging from behind the Paisley curtain holding bow and spear, but this time wearing the breastplate. She’d looped the skirts of her gown into her girdle, shortening her skirts to the knees, and she’d traded Cybele for the leather sandals that laced up the calf. Effie thought she heard the nervous gentleman groan.

Iris was magnificent, holding her chin proudly as the others marched in a line behind her. She wore a full mask over her face, one she’d brought along with her other Persian props. It was a silver face with blank eyes, the lips stern, the aspect forbidding. Silence held in the room as the women moved, paused, waited.

Finally, Pandora looked to her lover, lifting her brows expectantly.

“I only know Artemisia,” Lady Lesbos apologized.

Effie glanced at Jay. He was watching her. Her breath caught in her chest like a small creature in a net. Something about that look seemed possessive. Predatory. He sat in his innocuous position, the portrait of masculine grace, with that unholy gleam in his eyes.

Like her cuttlefish. He could blend into his surroundings, adept at concealment, appearing benign. But he was watching and listening, lying in wait, and he missed nothing.

Iris removed her mask. “Pantea Arteshbod,” she said to their audience. “General to Cyrus the Great and commander of the Persian Immortals, the king’s elite bodyguard, ten thousand strong. She wore a mask in battle so her beauty did not confuse the men, making it a fair fight.”

Jay smiled. Because he did not think, in a battle, he would be overset by female beauty?

Or because he knew that he would?

He was a man who knew himself, his strengths and his limits. And he was secure in this knowledge, not vaunting for attention, not posturing to put himself above others. He’d listened to Effie speak of her creatures in a way men rarely did.

It was enormously attractive. It made her bold. As if she could say whatever she wanted—show him what was in her mind—and he would not flinch.

It was Effie’s tableau last. She supposed no one would guess her character, but that let her hold the scene for longer. She wore the diadem and her purple cloak, the sunburst necklace heavy above the beat of her heart. The bare skin of her arms felt every stir of air in the still room. The incense made her head smoky and slow, as did the knowledge of Jay’s eyes upon her.

She sat with a wax tablet and stylus on the chaise, the center of their circle. Pandora sat on a folding stool beside her. Iris sat cross-legged on a cushion, and Cybele stretched out on the floor at her feet, leaning on one elbow like the queen’s own concubine. Effie thought of the sweet, endless days at Miss Gregoire’s when she had been woven so tightly into their web of industry and study, their hours of lessons punctuated by hours of pleasure, music and walks and art and chatter in the company of her friends.