Sleeping Beauty (7 page)

And vaguely disappointing. As James closed the front gate behind him, he admitted to himself that he had not traveled to the dentist’s and back across London this morning because he dreamed of Coco Wild’s being respectable, but rather on the titillating possibility that she was not. Alas, reality disputed fond hope, though, stone by stone, brick by brick.

A uniformed maid answered the door, but almost immediately another voice rang distinct. “
Chi é l´
?” asked the invisible Mrs. Wild from the dark recesses behind the maid.
Who is it
? she asked in
Italian that sounded both offhand and natural.

“James,” he said, “James Stoker,” as he tried to see around the servant to the woman who went with the voice.

Out of the dimness behind the maid’s shoulder, Coco Wild materialized, looking fresh and perfect. The morning sun caught the dark crown of her head; it gave her hair, tied up loosely, a high luster—thick, silky-looking hair as shiny as glass.

“Why, Mr. Stoker—” Surprise registered on her face, followed by a degree of reluctant delight. “And here you are again. Heedless of my advice.”

James smiled. “Yes. We neither one paid much attention to the other’s advice last night: I came to be sure that the hansom got you home safely.”

“As you can see, it did.”

He waited. When she offered nothing further, he said, “That’s wonderful. May I come in? You could tell me how the trip went.”

She laughed and shook her head. Which could have meant, No, he could not come in. Or she was perhaps shaking her head at the foolishness of his standing at her doorstep on so little pretext. She said finally, “You’re hopeless.”

He grinned. “Actually, I’m full of hope. May I come in?”

“I can’t think why I should entertain an uninvited visitor who—”

“Because you like me.”

Their eyes held till her smile admitted ruefully that she did. She said something more to the maid, who then stepped forward and took his hat. Coco pressed herself back to let the maid pass. (
Coco, Coco, Coco
. James took possession of the name,
turning it over and over in his mind like a dissolving sweet in his mouth.) “Come in then, Mr.—that is, Dr. Stoker.”

The sun shone briefly down the length of her—down beige-white satin that fit snugly from her neck to her wrists, down her ribs, to pull tight across her abdomen before it belled into skirts. He could see the faint rise and fall of her belly, her rib cage. Then she turned to lead the way, and the view became that of heavy satin tied up in back into loose bundles that shimmered beneath a lot of limp, tea-colored lace—less bustle than mounds of fabric, tucked and layered into drapes and tiers. He followed this blessed sight down the dim hallway.

Inside, his high spirits translated into a sharp though agreeable agitation, a kind of exuberant nervousness. It thrilled him simply to watch her. She was carrying something, he realized. A fat, pale pink rose, very different from the ones along her fence. Its long stem extended into her skirts.

The foyer opened up on one side into a gracious sitting room. She motioned him toward a tufted sofa, while she herself paused by a small half-table beneath a mirrored hat rack. There, she bent over a bouquet of more flowers exactly like the one she carried—hothouse roses—at least two dozen, all unnaturally large, the substance of their pale pink petals as thick and glistening as the satin of her dress.

She inserted the stem of her flower down into the vase as she said, “I hope the rest of your evening went better, once I was gone.”

“It was boring after you left.”

“Well, yes. My departure was anything but bor
ing.” She glanced over her shoulder, sending him a wry smile, the one from last night that was coming to make the hair on his arms stand on end. It was lovely; it was sad somehow, resigned. It did things to him, made him want to know her, protect her, swoop her up into his arms.

As she reached for another rose, James realized that the flowers came from a pile of tissue paper by the vase, in front of which sat a card, a note: they were from a man. James stared fixedly at this evidence of competition.

He sat frowning at her back, crossing, recrossing his legs. Finally he released some tension by extending his arms out along the top of the sofa back and asking, “Mr. Levanthal?” The question didn’t nearly sound as casual as he’d intended.

She merely glanced again over her shoulder.

He clarified, “Mr. Levanthal sent you the flowers?”

She poked the last stem, saberlike, down into the vaseful of water, then turned. Ignoring his question, she smiled more fully, a radiant look, and said, “Now. What can I do for you?”

The sheer beauty of her smile washed over him, counteracting to some extent his sense of being cut loose, being left adrift. James grappled with the strangely ambiguous sensation as he spoke his reason for coming, the one he’d been telling himself all morning: “I, ah—I came to say that I could help you, if you’d let me.” He cleared his throat. “I have, um, considerable influence of late. If you would allow me to advise you, I could see to it that you were better accepted into social circles such as—”

She made a wave of her hand as she came forward. “Oh, that.” She smiled again, a social smile that seemed this time more beautiful distraction than sincere pleasure. She sat into a chair that shared a corner tea table with James’s sofa. They sat knee to knee. “Well, there’s nothing to be done for it,” she said. “Mostly, I just keep thinking, How embarrassing for Jay—for Mr. Levanthal, that is. If I had realized….” She let the sentence trail off, too difficult to complete. If she had known she was some sort of pariah here, then what? She said, “Well, I would have spared him and the other people I was with from being associated with the incident. I wouldn’t have gone with them in the first place.”

James shifted back, nodded, trying to look worldly. Bloody hell, he
was
worldly. Why did she make him so nervous? “Nonetheless, I do have connections who—”

“I’m sure you have brilliant social connections, Dr. Stoker. Queen Victoria among them.” The maid arrived with tea. “Ah,” Coco said, “exactly what we need. Now, no more talk of this unfortunate incident.”

He blinked, left hanging again. At least she wasn’t throwing him out. Tea. All right, he’d have tea with her then.

To set the tea service on the table, the maid had to ease aside some knickknacks and papers, including a flat crystal box and a collection of envelopes, the morning’s post.

The crystal box was a cigar humidor, James realized. He stared at it, trying to figure out what a humidor full of cigars was doing in the house of a woman who lived alone.

“When was the last time you had a good cigar?”

He glanced up. Coco Wild was settled back into her chair, a gracious smile on her face. “I can’t remember,” he said. “Before Africa.”

She tilted her head sideways, the faintest movement, indicating the humidor. “Go ahead, if you wish.”

More for something to do than anything else, James leaned forward and opened the crystal box.

He took a cigar. It was fresh; it rolled smoothly without a crackle of sound. Then, as he closed the lid again, he felt the tobacco ease from his fingers.

Mrs. Wild took possession of his cigar. She clipped the end with a silver cigar snip, then offered back the roll of tobacco. Taking it, James frowned, then was further undone when she leaned forward to look at him through a two-inch flame that rose from a large silver lighter, a raven with its beak on fire. The lighter was heavy; it took both her hands.

Cigar in his teeth, James leaned forward. The blunt tip of the tobacco in the flame, he drew in short, strong puffs. It lit evenly, the luxurious smoke filling his nose and mouth. He closed his eyes as he let the smoke drift up his face, smelling it, feeling it, tasting it as he leaned back into an overstuffed sofa.

He drew smoke in again and blew out, narrowing one eye to watch this accommodating woman. The lovely Mrs. Wild relaxed back into her chair, leaning in a manner that was coming to be characteristic in James’s mind: slightly askew—canted sideways, one elbow raised, bent to rest atop the low chair back. She leaned thus, her head tilted to level her regard, relaxed, attentive.

James closed his lips round the cigar and drew smoke into his mouth as he stared. His heart skipped a beat, then thudded into a hard rhythm against the wall of his chest. She was. She really was one. She was telling him so. A
demi-mondaine
. A courtesan with a reputation beyond repair, beyond his social affiliations. A
grande cocotte
. Or whatever one called a woman who became wealthy and powerful off rich men’s sexual desires. It seemed so plausible all at once. Not in all the stereotypical ways he’d dreamed, yet in a real, earthly way it could be true, absolutely true.

He turned the whole story over in his mind a moment, that she
might
have been a bedfellow to ministers and diplomats, even the Bishop of Swansbridge. Incredible to contemplate. And a French prince as well as an English one. He was helpless against his own imagination: All at once, this tiny, well-dressed woman seemed the wickedest, naughtiest piece of femininity he had heretofore ever contemplated.

He wished he could say he was offended or repelled. In fact, he was so entranced he embarrassed himself.

Oh, to think. The lovely, laughing woman from last night, a woman of doubtful virtue. No, if rumor were right: of no virtue. Perfect. The exact amount of virtue in a woman he wanted.

As the idea settled into his brain, it became charming, somehow. No virtue whatsoever. Yet allowed, cultured, and entertaining. So perfectly polite and sociable. For one silly moment, he thought, why couldn’t all the ladies in London be like this. Without any virtue at all. Rather like the men. Only
softer and layered in ruffles and silk, with their feminine points of view. But without their feminine ignorance—schooled ignorance—or worse, schooled disgust. Everyone would dance and talk and laugh, then go off somewhere private afterward and copulate like rabbits, rather like the Wakua after a nice feast. And all would be very happy and unconcerned about propriety, because this would be propriety—

He didn’t know what to say, how to phrase what was in his mind: obviously she didn’t need money. She didn’t desire a social entrée. Then what was it she wanted? What was the price now of “the highest priced female seven years ago on the Paris market”? What did one
pay
for a sexual object par excellence? Or at least, for one of the more erotically straightforward and knowledgeable women in the civilized world?

For surely she was this. Oh, his fancies. How impossible. This little woman. This delicate, underfed French person. She couldn’t
possibly
be as wild and salacious as he imagined. But French…. Oh, even this stirred him up. Trite. Silly. So ridiculously predictable. As with the most sensational of pornography, her faintly Frenchified air titillated his poor English mind.

As demure as you please, she poured tea, moving things aside on the tea table to make room for his teacup. When she shoved her mail, a piece of paper came partway out of an opened envelope. A bank draft. He couldn’t see the amount, but he could see the signature: Julius J. Levanthal.

James felt his stomach roll over; his eyes grew hot. He couldn’t help himself. He glanced at the
roses again, then back at the check that peeked out, rebuking him. Only this time she caught him: when his eyes met hers again, she was laughing—that hair-raisingly quiet, unvoiced laughter of hers.

“Oh, Dr. Stoker.” She bowed her head, but her laughter increased. She took the bank draft and envelope from the table, folding them together, and put them into her pocket. “Jay wrote it to me, of course.” She was teasing him.

Though James resisted seeing any joke. He stared at her, utterly humorless.

More laughter. “Oh, the priceless look on your face,” she said, then sighed, as if reluctant to be humane. She explained, “You see, I invest with him. These are my dividends this quarter. He manages some of my money, as a kind of financial advisor. He’s very smart about such matters. There is nothing untoward.” She paused, then gave way to more laughter. “No matter how much you or anyone else might like to believe there is.”

“Levanthal, you should know, is tolerated here only for his financial connections. He is the worst possible sort of choice for you as a social companion, at least in London society.”

“I didn’t realize there
was
a bad choice for me.” She looked annoyed momentarily, then cast her eyes down. She added, “Until last night of course.” As if in explanation, she murmured, “People in Paris
like
me. I go wherever I wish. I’ve had the emperor’s cousin to dinner at my home, sat him down at my left with a duke at my right. I have entertained Russian princes and American senators. I married an English admiral who loved me. Yet last night, I was someone to despise. It never occurred to me
that”—her fine, intelligent eyes met his with genuine surprise—“London society would find me reprehensible.”

He shouldn’t have said it, but he wanted to see if it would shock her. He wanted to hear her deny it: “London society whispers of you as their future monarch’s sixteenth birthday present.” He laughed as if he found this droll.

Her lips pushed out, a quintessentially French moue of disdain, while her eyes came up to meet his, her scandalously beautiful eyes. She looked truly angry for a moment. Then she said, “Where the Prince of Wales puts his cock is no one’s business but his own, especially where he put it well over a decade ago.”

James felt his face run cold. His mouth went dry. He tried not to be too obvious as he attempted to draw breath. He put the cigar into his open mouth, puffed and blew smoke—a screen—into the air before his face. He hoped it hid his expression.

Apparently not. She said, “Oh, dear.” She bowed her head, smiling her fey, not entirely ingenuous smile. A smile that continued to make fun a little. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, when such things are said of me, I get…oh, I don’t know. Something ferocious in me rises up. I want to knock someone down.” She blushed slightly—and most attractively. “Or floor them figuratively.” She murmured, “I’m sorry.” Then, “I just feel especially misused when the gossip is based on ill-bred, unimaginative public speculation. As in Bertie’s case. As if anyone would conduct something as touchy as an assignation with a future monarch by letting
him and his friends sit with her in her balcony box at the opera.”