I’m conversing with one of Arwen’s friends, a human girl named Jolene Vaughn who works at the nearby modiste. Turns out, she’s a fan of my books.
“Can I ask you something?” Miss Vaughn says, scooting closer to me, a conspiratorial grin on her lips. She occupies the chair Daphne sat in before the pine marten climbed into the rafters, where she now naps. Miss Vaughn’s round cheeks are flushed pink, her lids slow and heavy, her golden hair falling loose around her shoulders. If she’d stuck to Cloud Dive like me instead of switching to wine, she wouldn’t be so inebriated.
I’m more sober than I’ve ever been, and my hair looks fantastic. I’ve already restyled it four times all without the aid of a mirror because I can tell, just by the weight of the pins securing my tresses to the left side of my head above my ear, thatI’ve just started a fashion trend. William keeps glancing at me from across the table where he chats with Arwen, so I know I’ve increased my allure.
“Can I? Please?” Miss Vaughn bounces eagerly in her seat, hands clasped in a pleading gesture.
Oh, right. She asked me a question.
“Of course you may, Miss Vaughn,” I say in my most benevolent tone. “Ask me anything about my books and I will answer.”
“First, call me Jolene, please. Second, your sex scenes are phenomenal.” She doesn’t lower her voice when she says the last part, and it strikes some small and reserved portion of my mind that she’s speaking a touch too loudly for the subject at hand. “They’re so inventive!”
“Aren’t they?” I say, taking a sip of Cloud Dive from glass number four. My gaze lifts to William. He’s leaning forward, laughing at something Arwen just said.
“I must know,” Jolene says. “Are your sex scenes based on personal experience?”
William’s face whips my way and I nearly choke on my drink. Coughing, I set my glass down. “Pardon?”
“Your sex scenes. Do you write them based on things you’ve done?”
Even though I’m looking fully at Jolene, I can see William watching from my periphery. So I give her the only answer I can. A lie. “Of course they are.”
She gasps. “Really?”
“Really. I have a…a very robust sex life.”
“And you’ve done everything you’ve written about.”
“I most certainly have.” I face William with a proud look, but he’s already back in conversation with Arwen. Perhaps I imagined his interest.
“So even that scene inThe Governess and the Baron, when he hoists her up the wall by her thighs, kneels before her and…tastes her,” she whispers the last part. “You’ve done that?”
“Of course I have.”
Of course I havenot. In fact, I haven’t done even a fraction of the interesting positions I’ve written about. But she doesn’t need to know that.
Jolene looks truly impressed. “That’s incredible. Here I thought sexuality was repressed in Bretton, and that female freedoms were few and far between.”
She’s right about that. Before I can get caught in my lie, I change the subject. “Which book of mine is your?—”
She waves her hands at me in a hushing gesture, her attention now across the table. “I have to hear this,” she says, voice trembling with excitement.
I follow her line of sight to find William standing before a small crowd. When the hell did he gather an audience? He speaks in a sonorous voice.
“The darkest abyss of ardor’s first kiss,
A transaction of masks and lies,
Her heart is traded for satin and silks,
While mine is purchased in sighs.”
His audience breaks into delighted applause, but I emit a snort of laughter. William angles his head toward me, and I realize the sound I made was louder than I intended. “Do you have something to say about my poetry, Weenie?”
Not that damn nickname again! He’s really earned my ire now. I rise to my feet. “Yes, I have something to say,Willy.”
“Please, delight us with your clever observations.”
