Page 63 of Misadventures with a Duke

I can’t risk being seen anywhere in the city. But I know I can’t stay in this room any longer, with this man and his world invading more and more of my thoughts. My senses. My emotions.

And dear God…my memories?

I rush across the room. When I’m at the door, I yank at the knob. When I’m on the other side, alone in the hallway, I still don’t feel any better. My thoughts are racing. My body fights my mental urges for calm. I’m thankful for D’s reassurance that nobody else is staying at the Greene. At least I don’t have to stress about faking nice to someone on their way back to their room.

A jolt of energy pulls me around as the pretend lightbulb flashes in my brain.

The other rooms…

They’re all unoccupied.

Five of them, if I remember correctly from Drue’s rundown yesterday—holy shit, was it only yesterday?—and all fully paid for another nine days. If I’m calculating correctly, two out of the five must be upstairs. That means I can try my luck at the other three.

The first two, located off the same narrow hallway as the room that Bastien and I were given, yield no joy. Secured snug and tight, without a chance of hairpinning the locks loose.

My determination pays off on the third door.

I walk right into the room, which is clearly a catch-all holding space for extras and crew. The disassembled bed parts are stored flat against one wall. Instead, two portable banquet tables are set up and surrounded by more chairs than they should really accommodate. A few used coffee cups and soda cans have been left behind, along with some jackets and aluminum water bottles.

But my eyes latch on to the best discard of all. In this moment, my ultimate treasure.

A cheap doodle pad and a cup of dull pencils.

It’s not the bells and whistles of my electronic design program, but maybe that’s a secret blessing too. Now is not for normal. The cosmos have made their point, loud and clear.

Maybe now is also a time for embracing that—but in the same stroke, forgetting it too.

From the moment I sit down, pushing back a page of hangman rounds to begin the image that takes life in my mind, I’m also celebrating it.

Chapter Thirteen

Bastien

It is agonizing to let her go, but I push through the pain and set her free. This time, due to no small miracle, I keep my impatience in check, as well.

Or perhaps there is no miracle at all. Maybe it is a simple lesson called understanding.

My poor Rayonnement. All the elements that struck her at once in here…would that I did not commiserate with every one of them, but I did. With cruel clarity. The sort a person can only have from recent experience. I know what it is like to be so stunned, only a dazed fugue is possible for relating to the world. Of forming sentences one painful word at a time. When even that fails, of withdrawing into safer places inside one’s spirit. But even then, not finding the familiar fallback—and deciding to run.

And being given the freedom for that flight.

She gave me that gift yesterday, so I compel myself to return the favor today. She has left behind her phone device, so I know she will not go far. Or perhaps that is a desperate wish, since I doubt my tracking abilities will be of use in a forest of concrete and glass. Or my talents for hunting, fighting, and falconry.

I do congratulate myself for determining that the little box labeled TV Remote has something to do with the shiny monstrosity crafted by the artist named Sony. This modern wonder serves to gobble up the next three hours of my existence, as I discover that foam packing pods are useful in city rooftop gardens, the Knicks shall be playing the Nets tonight and are favored to win, and someone on The View is making a great deal of other people upset and they have gathered on a net to express it together.

But out of all that, I am most fascinated with a selection that features dazzling minstrel performances called Big Apple Spectaculars. I am puzzled about the title, since no apples of any size are in the scenes, but the pageantry of the presentations has me overlooking the omission in favor of an awestruck stare—especially since several of the musical stories are said to be set in Paris.

But if the set pieces are to be believed, the city has grown into more than anything I dreamed. Paris, not Versailles, is now heralded as a global icon, with a soaring opera house, a grand golden tower, a mysterious phantom, and courtesans more elaborate than Louis’s palais beauties. Those courtesans do a dance called the cancan, and I wonder if my pupils separate from my eyes while watching it.

Thankfully, I recall Raegan’s lesson from yesterday, about the signal lights on the streets. Green for go led me to activate the Sony, and I am relieved when red for stop yields the same results before I am ogling those frilly derrieres like the full-blooded caveman I am beneath my gentleman’s breeches.

If I am going to indulge that side of myself, it will not be with Monsieur Sony and friends. As marvelous as it all is, nothing on that palette is real. Here and now, I need as much reality as possible.

As I step out into the hall, I only hope that reality is ready again for me.

Everything out here sounds exactly like it did before. Naught but the plunking rain and whistling wind fill my ears. There is no significant movement from the small vestibule at the other end of the corridor. The shadows are a little longer, since the day is shifting from afternoon to evening, but the storm eliminates all other modes of determining that.

Still, I am glad for the gloom. Raegan was not a joyous puddle stomper in the torrents yesterday, which gives me hope that she has avoided a repeat stomp today. All my instincts hail the validity of the thought before I notice the leak of golden light from a doorframe at the end of the hall.