Page 38 of Bitter Burn
I lift a hand and cup his cheek. The barest hint of stubble, fine lines around his mouth and eyes. He’s in his mid-thirties, and I remember now that he does some kind of botany or ecology and spends his days looking into microscopes. An unrepentant brat, Mark had once told me about him. Perfect for the princeps of the feast.
“Stand up,” I tell him, and then for the benefit of the Saturnalians around me, I add, “my lord.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Christopher grins as he pops up. “In that case, you are my queen. And I demand a dance.”
He grabs my hand and would be yanking me enthusiastically toward the stairs if he were a taller man or I weren’t prepared. But I am prepared, and I can keep pace with him evenly, so I look as if I’m utterly unbothered by displaying myself in such a manner. As if it makes no difference to me whether I’m allowed to hide in a corner or if I dance in the middle of a room filled with gossiping club members who think I’m a cheating whore.
As we descend the stairs, the guests move aside, creating a sort of hole in the middle of the room. Stillness washes through the crowd like a tide. The music—a pastiche of lyres, lutes, horns, pipes, and drums—goes on, but the conversations, the rattle of jugs and goblets along the crescent-shaped tables, the stirrings on the low sofas and cushions, all stop.
I make the mistake of looking. Of seeing the faces, the sneers. The lewd grins and etched scowls.
And I stumble.
It’s just a catch of my sandal on the floor, a flapping of my hem, but it’s enough to summon my devil, I suppose, because when I steady myself, I see him standing at the nearest table to the dance floor. He has chosen to wear the garb of a Roman emperor, which, like everything else, looks absurdly good on him. A snow-white tunic, a toga of Tyrian purple trimmed in gold, and a laurel crown in his already gilded hair. Even his bare feet in laced-up sandals look magisterial.
He hasn’t stepped forward, hasn’t broken free of the crowd enough that it’ll attract attention, but when our eyes meet, I see that he’s poised to step in. To rescue me, even if rescue would come with the coldest blue eyes and the tightest jaw I’ve ever seen.
I will do everything I can to preserve your dignity here.
As a matter of principle? As part of some mysterious strategy that I can’t see yet?
It doesn’t matter. Nothing would diminish my dignity more than my estranged husband having to rescue me from a red-haired sprite who has a fondness for ice cubes. I remember our hand signals—the ones he taught me when we were first engaged and I was meant to pretend to be his submissive—and I press my thumb and forefinger of my free hand together.
Stop.
Mark dips his chin the smallest amount, letting me know he understands, but he doesn’t move away as Christopher sweeps me into the middle of the room and pulls me into an awful facsimile of a waltz.
I am beyond grateful for how I dressed tonight, in an indigo gown with the cut of a Roman stola, opaque and hanging to the floor. My hair is bound up in a braided circle, and my makeup is almost nothing except for some dark blue lipstick to match my dress. I am as serious as midnight, as solemn as the winter outside. If I have to be stared at right now, then this is what I want them to stare at, the opposite of whatever they’ve made me in their heads.
As a PR move, it’s rather conspicuous, but it’s a mistake to think conspicuous moves don’t work as well as inconspicuous ones. Sometimes they work even better.
With the drums guiding my feet and the pipes tickling my shoulder blades, I manage to corral us into something with rhythm at least, something with a pattern. Christopher’s amber eyes meet mine with surprise after we make our first turn around the space.
“You really know how to dance,” he says.
I don’t think he dragged me down here to embarrass me, not necessarily, but I do think he wouldn’t have minded my embarrassment. It would have been a game to him, just more chaos for the newly minted king of chaos. But there’s a faint gleam of admiration in his gaze when he glances around the space and sees that we’ve turned a potential farce into something else. What that something else is, I don’t know, but it’s enough to salvage my pride for the night.
Christopher spins me a final time with enough flourish that my gown twists around my feet and then lets me go with a deep bow.
I curtsy effortlessly and then rise.
Mark is gone, lost in the crowd, when I do.
The second night is the same, with a dress in a lighter shade of blue and without a waltz. Mark doesn’t sit in the nook with me, but Arjun and Evander are there and treat me with kindness, as does Dinah when she stops by.
Christopher finds me and makes me drink a toast with him.
I feel the place Tristan would normally stand behind me like the sucking, screaming vacuum of outer space, and I feel the tiredness from my fractured, nightmare-filled sleep last night hanging like cobwebs from my bones.
Below us in the hall is an excess of togas and stolas, for those who aren’t in costume, suits and lingerie, wine and flesh. Moans begin filling the hall, the whack of riding crops and paddles, shrieks of pain or delight or both.
I don’t see my husband anywhere.
The third night. The fourth night.
The same, the same.
The fifth night, I’m in pink, my hair half down, and I’m listening to Arjun tell a visiting English earl and his wife about the growth of the boutique hotel market when I see Mark waved onto the stage by a mischievous Christopher. A doe-eyed sub with her hands bound is led out by Dinah—a sacrifice being escorted to the feet of Saturn himself. I’ve seen her before but only in passing; she’s one of the club submissives. Which means this is probably a planned performance. It probably won’t go further than a light flogging…or maybe some clamping if Mark decides the crowd has earned a treat.
