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“I tend to be a bit domineering in the bedroom.”
“Shocking.”
She glared at him, then smiled as if she hadn’t heard the sarcasm. “It’s why it’s so hard to find someone to keep me company.” She sighed melodramatically. “I’m too demanding for most men. But something tells me you aren’t like most men.”
She leaned back against the terrace railing and crossed her booted legs at the ankles. Once again she checked her watch. “Thirty seconds.”
“What does your tattoo say?” Arthur asked. Her face showed her surprise. “You have a tattoo under your watch. Words. What does it say?”
It wasn’t under her watch so much as hidden by her watch, as if she were embarrassed by it. That’s the only reason he asked. A tattoo is a scar. A scar is a wound. She’d poked at his wounds. Time to poke hers.
She pursed her lips, obviously annoyed. “It’s an old tattoo. Got it ages ago.”
“What does it say?” He was going to keep asking until she told him or gave up.
“It’s a quote from the painter Evelyn de Morgan, from her journals when she was a teenager. It says, ‘Art is eternal, but life is short. I have not a moment to lose.’ There you go. My husband hated tattoos, so I’ve gotten in the habit of wearing my watch band over it. And now you have fifteen seconds.”
Was he actually considering this? He hadn’t said no yet, which meant he was thinking about it. He had said he would do anything for Charlie. Being tied to Sir Jack Ferry’s widow’s bed did qualify as “anything.”
“You know,” she said, “my great-grandmother was one of the whores here in Lord Malcolm’s day. He cut quite a swath through The Pearl’s girls. There’s something rather poetic about this, isn’t there? The great-grandson of The Pearl’s most infamous customer becoming a whore for the great-granddaughter of one of The Pearl’s best whores? How the mighty have fallen. And the meek do inherit. Not the Earth, maybe, but five-star hotels sometimes.”
She laughed softly, the least meek woman he’d ever met. He liked her laugh. He didn’t want to like her laugh, but it was low and throaty, and it caused his body to be very aware of itself.
“That painting has to be hanging on the walls of Wingthorn by the time my parents come home from the States for Christmas. If it’s not, Charlie’s life is in your hands.”
“Then we best stop wasting time. Art is eternal, remember, but life is short.”
“Fine. I’ll do whatever you want,” he said. “Let me take Charlie home first.”
He started for the terrace door, but she stopped him by putting her umbrella in front of him to block his way. She held it there. He waited and knew he was getting a glimpse of his future, a slave to her whims.
She smiled. “You agreed to that far too easily. You must be the sort of man who likes being tied to beds. Yes?”
He didn’t answer. He wouldn’t answer.
“Move your umbrella,” he said. She didn’t. “Please.”
Lifting her umbrella, she smiled and put it on her shoulder and twirled it again. It glinted against the London skyline like a black halo.
2
The Gilded Cage
Arthur called for a taxi. When he started to give the driver the address of their townhouse in Piccadilly, Charlie cut in with a different address in Vauxhall.
“We’re going home, Charlie,” Arthur said.
“I’m staying with friends,” Charlie said. “You can go home after you drop me off.”
Unbelievable. Arthur wanted to argue but knew Charlie would just hop out of the car at the next light and disappear again. Fine. He knew to pick his battles.
The entire trip, Arthur kept waiting for his brother to say something, explain himself, at least apologize. Charlie simply stared out the rain-splashed window at the dark city streets, sunk deep into the backseat, his face half-hidden by his coat collar.
They reached Vauxhall. Not a word had been spoken between them on the twenty-minute car ride.
Arthur asked the driver to wait for him, and escorted his brother to the front door of the building.
“Are you going to say anything?” Arthur asked, stopping to huddle with his brother under the awning.
