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Ian had a beautiful voice, deep with that posh accent, mesmerizing.
“So, David loved her too,” I noted.
“He was besotted with her, darling,” Ian said softly, the last word sliding over my skin like velvet. So, so, so much better than petal. “That isn’t about love. It’s about something else. Obviously, after he had her, he was an Alcott. It appears he quickly lost interest.”
I was beginning to get concerned about this self-deprecating bent he had toward his family line. I’d barely been there a day, but even so, it seemed to be deserved, though it wasn’t like he’d personally broken promises along the way.
Certainly hearts, but I sensed not that first promise.
“This is a less fun story than it seemed, when all I knew about it was a woman fell to her death,” I joked.
“It gets even less fun,” he warned.
“Sock it to me,” I invited.
His lips quirked, he took another drag from his cigarette and came my way, but only so he could refill his Champagne glass.
He leaned against the drinks cabinet, close to me, and I found it touching he made sure the cigarette smoke didn’t get near me.
“William never fell out of love with Virginia. And not because he hadn’t had her, and as such, he’d gotten bored. He was genuinely in love with her, and her him. Star-crossed lovers, living in the same house.”
No wonder her pictures showed a wounded vulnerability.
Good God.
What a nightmare.
Poor Virginia and William.
“Dorothy toyed,” he continued. “She was known for it. She was open sexually, very much. Things started expanding for a lot of people around that time in those ways, but not that much. However, she was fortunate. She had the studios to squelch any shady rumors, like the fact she was bisexual.”
Another surprising nugget.
“Whoa.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “As for the rest, it only enhanced her reputation as a screen siren and femme fatale. It amused her to sleep with David and William at the same time. David was reportedly wild with jealousy, for she’d tell him William was her favorite. William, it’s thought, did it simply to hurt David as he’d hurt Virginia for years.”
“So you think David killed her?”
“I think it was talked about openly, even written about, how callous, and even cruel Dorothy was to Virginia while she was in this house. She paraded her affair with both men under Virginia’s nose, and Virginia, a product of a gentler time, living a genteel life and being of her particular gender, could do nothing but keep her upper lip stiff.”
“So you think Virginia killed her.”
“I think it’s amusing how angry women are at the patriarchy, when so often they work so hard to tear each other down. Virginia and Dorothy were not natural enemies. They were both caught in their roles with limited power to break free. And yet Dorothy targeted Virginia as much as she did William and David, but at least the men got something out of it. I truly don’t know if, today, women bend their entire lives around food and exercise so they can impress men in their yoga pants, or if they do it to make their sisters feel inferior.”
He took another drag from his smoke and then kept talking.
“But I sense, for the most part, it’s about the very sad fact that society has drilled into their heads the only power they have is sweating and starving themselves in order to have a firm ass, and that being to make men think they’re attractive. In many senses, no offense, it’s through little fault of your own, but you lot haven’t come very far since Dorothy’s and Virginia’s time.”
“You won’t hear any argument from me on that.”
A quick glance at my bra, my outfit, then a lip quirk, before he bent slightly toward me and went on, “And that’s all you get for story time tonight, little girl.”
I pretended to pout.
Though him calling me “little girl” didn’t feel like velvet.
I had another reaction to that, and it was centered between my legs.
