Darcy slid his hand along the shined-to-perfection desk and leaned slightly forward. “You have nothing to say to my mother.” His jaw hardened, and the man beside me was crass enough to crack his knuckles. I wanted to roll my eyes, but Darcy was a touchy shit on a good night, and he’d have his mother’s goons toss me with less than a snap of his fingers. He’d probably sleep like he was in a bed on a cloud later, too. He was so fucking cold.
“I have to tell her something. It involves the cops.”
Darcy narrowed his eyes and his nostrils flared. “Fine.” He moved fast, like someone had just removed an invisible barrier that had been holding him in place, and I was rubbing a stitch in my side by the time we were halfway up the grand staircase. He led us along plush-carpeted hallways, and I quickly lost track of the way. I was thoroughly disoriented in the old mansion by the time we stopped in front of an arched red-and-gold wooden door that reminded me of a fairy tale.
Darcy stared into my eyes and it gave me the creeps. “These are my mother’s personal rooms. If you ever come here without a direct invitation, you will be dealt with,” he said, and he actually seemed delighted, for once, to impart that dire information. What a fucking gargoyle.
He knocked politely on the door and waited for the airy “enter” that carried out to us before he opened it. I followed him inside. The suite was so feminine it almost hurt. Blinding white couches with spindly legs surrounded a matching table that was so dainty it might collapse if someone set something as lowbrow as a beer bottle on it. There was a tree in a pot in the corner of the room with large purple flowers blooming that appeared tropical, and mirrors with frames that matched the petals were hung between all the windows. I felt like I was onstage. Next to the couch was a small table with those same inadequate legs that held a vase of lilies.
Madam Winters stood out starkly in a black dress. She held a book in her hands and her eyes flew down the page. She rested her bookmark between the pages with a soft smile and then rose from the couch. Annoyance flashed across her beautiful face as I strode in at Darcy’s heels.
“Mr. Midberry? Whatever are you doing here? I went to considerable trouble, dear, to get my boy out of a cell because of you.” She dropped the book on the table and folded her hands in front of her. “Considerabletrouble.”
“I’m here because….” I licked my lips.Why the fuck am I here?“I need to see him. Stormy. Is he okay?”
Madam Winters took a step back. The smile that spread across her face was actually kind. She brushed her long blonde hair off her shoulders in a flawless move that made her skirt sway. “Out of the question, even for mayors. He’s not your boyfriend, sugar. I know you’ve spent a lot of time—”
“I know that.” Anger jabbed at me along with some other twisted emotion that made it more difficult to breathe. “The cops are trying to squeeze me about this place. And about him. Vane’s going to murder me the next time he sees me. I just… wanted Stormy to be okay. And I want to see him if he’s out. Help him if he’s not. I….”
Her laugh tinkled through the room, and embarrassment wiggled in my guts and made my cheeks burn. “You’re too involved with him. It’s time to let Stormy go.” She shooed at me like I was a bad puppy and turned back toward her book.
“I’m not too involved!”
She sighed, and when she glanced back, she didn’t seem angry, but she definitely wasn’t pleased, either. “Don’t worry about us here at the Courtesan. Keep your lips zipped and we’ll all be fine. Stormy is fine. I wouldn’t allow anything less.”
“You mean Lane Kennedy,” I snapped. “They were asking me a lot of questions about him.”
She tilted her head. “That so? They told you his name? What a wonder….”
“Yeah, and like I said, I’m fucking worried!”
“You are speaking to a lady.” Her tone dropped cooler, and I winced.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
She gave me another real smile. “You men. You do lose your tempers so easily. All’s forgiven with an apology, love, especially since I can see that you mean it. I’m Southern. We do care about good manners.”
Darcy huffed nearby and didn’t look like he’d forgiven me at all. I’d almost forgotten about him, I was so intent on talking to Madam Winters. She walked over to the little table with the lilies resting on top and opened a drawer. “Would you like to know why I hired… Lane?” She gave me a coy smirk that had my heart clattering faster.
“Sure.” I hated to admit how eager I was to know more about Stormy, and she lowered her eyelids in my direction. Discomfort spread over me. I was only here because he’d helped me out a lot, made me feel really good. “I would worry about anyone who got arrested with me.That’sgood manners.”
She grinned and looked about fifteen years younger. I was shocked at how beautiful she was when she wore that type of amusement so easily on her features, and I didn’t even like women that way. “Laney had a table set up on a street corner downtown, near Bar Row. This skinny thing, barely legal, with this table outside of a lounge bar I used to like to go to with clients.”
“The Green Room?”
“Oh, you know it! They had great dancing and would get in real jazz musicians. You just don’t see that much anymore.” She sighed and pulled something out of the drawer. “It closed two years ago. A real shame. Anyway, the sign on his table said tarot readings in this beautiful handwriting. My grandmother made me learn calligraphy, and he had done it so well. Took me right back home, that did. All of it, directly to the boardwalk.”
“You miss the South?”
She shrugged a shoulder and walked to me with a large silver-backed card in her hand. “Sometimes. I don’t miss the mosquitoes, I’ll tell you that much.” She used the card to hide her curved red lips. The silver flashed in the light. “Lane was phenomenal. I was early. I don’t really do clients anymore, but occasionally I’ll go out with someone for old times’ sake. Only when I want to, mind you.”
I nodded because she seemed to want that.
“I watched Lane spin webs around his clients. Draw them in. Learn everything there was to know about them in less than a minute. Such a busy little spider. You have to do that when you’re a professional. I saw the talent in him.” She fluttered the card toward me, and it flashed like fish underwater, mesmerizing. “So, I went over, drawn to the flame like everyone else.” She smiled and then let out a wistful sigh. “Before I ever spoke, he clasped his heart”—she slapped her hand to her chest—“and pulled this card from his deck.”
She handed it to me, and I flipped it over. On the front was a man and a woman locked in an embrace. The Lovers was scrawled across the bottom. The longer I stared, I wasn’t quite sure the couple was a man and a woman. I turned the card to the right. It almost looked like a man with short hair and a man with longer hair. I turned it to the left and it seemed like two women. She giggled and tapped the card, apparently already familiar with what the trick of light did.
“He pulled that from the deck for me. Said he knew right away I was the world’s most amazing temptress.” She tittered and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “He had no idea who I was.”
