Page 1 of Infamous

Chapter One

When the bell rang for supper up at the house, Eddie and Rose were practising kissing.

‘Your mouth is too slack,’ Eddie said, slightly muffled against Rose’s lips.

‘What?’ said Rose, pulling away, her face very flushed despite the fact that they were sitting in a rather half-hearted treehouse on the first chilly evening of a London September.

‘Your mouth. It’s just sitting there, a bit wet. Sort of akin to a mollusc. I don’t mean to dictate, but as you were the one who wanted to get in the practice, I thought you ought to know.’

‘Oh,’ said Rose. She had one hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and her fingers tightened on it as if she were reluctant to let go. ‘Sorry.’

‘Put your hand on the back of my neck again,’ Eddie instructed, pleased to be in charge of the operation, where she felt she belonged. ‘Yes, like that. It was nice before, when you were really digging your nails in.’

‘You are so odd,’ said Rose, but her mouth was already very close to Eddie’s, which softened her words somewhat. Her fingers were tentatively exploring the hair at the nape of Eddie’s neck, and it eased the transition from talking to kissing; Eddie leaned in first and felt Rose’s lips part at once. Whatever deficiencies Eddie may have noticed during their previous attempt had already been vastly improved upon, because she found herself relaxing into this kiss, with a warmth not unlike the burn of purloined whisky spreading slowly through her chest.

‘Well, that’s more like it. I think it’s working this time,’ Eddie said, muffled. ‘You should try with your tongue. Just to see if you’re any good at it.’

Her friend sighed as if she were going to protest, but after a few seconds Eddie felt Rose’s tongue ghost hesitantly against her bottom lip, her eyelashes fluttering against Eddie’s cheek like a moth’s wings against the glass of a lamp.

They had been sitting apart, leaning across the space between them, but it suddenly occurred to Eddie that it might make more sense, logistically speaking, to press her body closer to Rose’s – so she did.Thatcertainly improved matters even more. She could feel the swell of Rose’s chest pressing into hers now, smell the faint scent of lilac in her hair. It all seemed to be going swimmingly until Rose shifted against her and let slip a breathy, half-restrainedgaspinto her mouth.

Eddie broke away and stared at her. ‘What the hell was that?’

‘The .?.?. what? What was what? I don’t know,’ Rose said, flushed and red-lipped and looking mortally embarrassed.

‘Well, I suppose it’s a good job we’re practising. When it comes to the real thing, you might want to keep that sort of thing in check. Oh – hang on.’ Eddie cocked her head to listen as the bell rang out, interrupting the velveteen quiet. ‘That’s supper.’

The bell was ringing quite insistently already, with the sort of urgency that indicated an imminent fire or that the French might be coming. Eddie disentangled herself from Rose, got to her feet and held out a hand; Rose hesitated, looking dazed, and then took it and allowed herself to be hauled upright. There was the matter of the lantern to be dealt with, but Eddie had recently innovated a particularly ingenious method of scaling the ladder with it swinging festively from her mouth. Rose, who seemed very concerned with telling Eddie which materials were and were not flammable, did not approve.

Once they had alighted safely on the ground, it was just a quick sprint across the lawn to reach the house, skirts flying up behind them as they cast long, ungainly shadows in the lamplight. All four floors of the narrow house were lit up from within, the glow spilling out onto the patio as Eddie reached the back door and flung it open.

A few steps into the hallway, a small girl with her dark hair gathered up on top of her head so that she resembled a very angry pineapple was focusing too determinedly on her task to notice that they had entered.

‘You can stop ringing the bell now, Trix,’ Eddie said, ruffling her youngest sister’s alarming hair as she walked past her in the direction of the dining room.

‘Father said I’m doing adamn good job of it!’ Beatrice shouted, over the sound of the ongoing peals. She was seven, and enthusiastic to a fault about any task she was delegated.

‘Oh, youare,’ Eddie heard Rose say. ‘It’s just that .?.?. Well, we’re here now, aren’t we? I’ll follow your lead, of course, but .?.?. I’m quite hungry.’

‘All right,’ said Beatrice magnanimously, followed a second later by the loud metallic thud of something heavy hitting the floor. ‘You lookveryred in the face. Were you and Eddie having a fight?’

There was a short silence.

‘Yes,’ Rose said eventually, and then Eddie heard her hurrying to catch up.

The large dining room already seemed rather full. Mr and Mrs Miller sat at either end of the table, and between them in varying states of patience sat their three middle children. Simon, who was twelve and perpetually disappointed, was staring morosely down at the table as if he suspected supper might never come. Amelia, who had just recently celebrated her fourteenth birthday by campaigning for her own horse and crying for an impressive six days when she only received one made of wood, was humming under her breath. Lucy-Anne, who fancied herself the eldest and most mature of them all, even though she decidedly was not on either count, was glaring openly at Eddie from across the room.

‘You’re really very late,’ she said, as Caroline the housemaid appeared with the roast duck. ‘We shouldn’t have to ring a bell to fetch you in, like you’relivestock.’

Eddie ignored her and took a seat next to her father; Rose sat down next to Simon, who solemnly offered her his hand to shake.

‘They were wrestling in the treehouse,’ Beatrice said helpfully, scrambling into her own seat, which had been pre-cushioned to ensure maximum height and a greater sense of authority over proceedings.

‘Oh,Edith,’ said Mrs Miller, sounding tired but unsurprised. ‘You are a woman of two-and-twenty. Don’t you think you’re a little old for that sort of thing?’

‘I wish you’d told me you were going to wrestle,’ added Simon. ‘If I’m really not to have any brothers, you ought to think of me and extend an invitation to any horseplay, don’t you agree?Thinknext time, Ed.’

‘Did you get in any good right hooks?’ said Mr Miller, sounding interested. ‘Are you keeping your thumbs out, like I showed you?’