This man obviously fancied himself something of a trickster, and if he thought so, why shouldn’t she suspect the same?
“Fine,” she said. “The bumblebee of Almack’s.”
“The what?” he repeated, sounding skeptical, but she’d already gone into the kitchen to retrieve the iron, carrying it carefully back out by its beveled handle to rest in its stand.
She placed it in his eyeline, perhaps to punish him a bit, letting him watch the way the glowing red shed sparks while she started opening her jars and bottles.
“There was a beehive at Almack’s in its early days, when it was still aspiring to become London’s greatest dance hall,” she said briskly. “The bees there were fat and happy, with plenty to choose from every night, with luxurious balls always outfitted with lines of people arriving to try their sweet and nectar-like offerings of lemonades and punches, champagnes and sweetened teas, and so on.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his fingers going slack as she reached for the rag, taking over the pressure application as she brought forward her witch hazel bottle and the silver tincture. “Bees.”
“One bee had aspirations beyond just the gilded halls of Almack’s,” she said, lifting the rag in sections to disinfect with the witch hazel and dab the perimeter of the wound with the tincture. “He left to explore the rest of the city, certain that London had more to offer than just one marble ballroom, though his friends from the hive told him he’d never find such delicious nectars anywhere else.”
She dipped a clean rag in the hot water and wrung it out, gritting her teeth against the way it singed her hands. She pressed this one against the center of his gash, holding it steady as she applied a second layer of balm to the healthy skin outside of the wound. “This bee explored the pubs of the docks and tried their ale. He tried the rich, milky teas in the drawing rooms of Bloomsbury. He tried the sherry in the opera houses and the whiskey in the park. It was true that none of it was as sweet as the nectars of Almack’s, but he felt himself more worldly for his expanded experiences, and wanted to go home and tell the others.”
“Naturally,” said Roland through his teeth.
She flashed him a quick, perfunctory little smile and stood, putting his hand back on the rag as she turned to take the iron into her hand. “Unfortunately, he got lost trying to find his way back home. For two whole days he wandered the city, taking wrong turns and going in accidental circles, until finally, half parched to death, he made it back to Almack’s. By the time he got through the door, he didn’t even care about gloating to the others; he just wanted something to drink. Unfortunately,it seemed every bee in London had discovered the place in his absence!”
She walked back, returning her hand to the rag and finding the right angle for the iron, measuring it with her head tilted to one side and then the other.
“First he went for the champagne, for it had always been his favorite, but the line was so long it was hanging out the door,” she said, pushing hard downward to staunch what she could of the blood flow in this last moment. “And then he turned to the lemonade, but that one had a line almost just as long, twisting and turning for hours. In the end, he decided he must instead settle for punch. Do you know why, Mr. Reed?”
She looked up at his face, blinking, until he looked back, clearly surprised that she had stopped her process to ask him this.
“I don’t,” he said, his voice strained.
“Because,” she said, whipping the rag away. “There never was a punch line.”
And then she stuck the iron to his wound and sealed it shut with all the fury of molten hot iron.
She gritted her teeth and flung the iron away, letting it clatter onto the ground, and immediately slapped a cold rag to the site as he cried out in pain and shock. This time, she did not push. She draped one cool cloth, and then another, and then one more.
And finally, she let herself exhale.
She put her hand on his bare shoulder and squeezed it, releasing a hysterical little laugh. “It’s done,” she muttered. “It’s over. Do you want a drink? I’ll wrap it up in a moment, once it cools.”
He was staring at her, gone completely still in the wake of his initial outburst of pain, his expression completely impermeable. “A drink?” he repeated.
“What do you take?” she asked, turning. “Something awful, I bet. Whiskey?”
“Port,” he said, and grabbed her wrist before she could walk away. “Don’t.”
She looked back, surprised, not just that he’d stopped her but by the iron grip and the speed with which he’d reached out.
Evidently, injury did not slow or soften Roland Reed.
“Why not?” she asked, frowning.
He was watching her, an unsettling steadiness in his gaze. His chest was rising and falling in steady breaths, as though she hadn’t just seared a gunshot out of his flesh.
“Mae,” he said, soft and low. His grip on her wrist loosened, his fingers trailing down to her hand, caressing the hidden nook of her pulse, over the heel of her hand, and tracing through her palm.
His eyes did not leave hers.
She was not sure if her hand was still shaking, because in this moment, he was holding it still. Everything was still, just now.
Everything was suspended.
