Isabelle followed her grandmother’s gaze to a group of well-heeled gentiles before another form distracted her.
Aaron.
She cocked her head as he made a handkerchief disappear with one palm while helping steady an elderly gentleman’s drink with the other. A grateful flush spread over the other man’s cheeks, but Aaron only gave a slight nod.
Clever, preserving the man’s drink and dignity without the distracted crowd noticing, saving him quite a bit of embarrassment.
“Ahem.” The tut from her grandmother brought her back to their purposes. Her gaze now having followed Isabelle’s, the woman’s lips tightened, and her eyes narrowed, almost as if she was studying his grease-paint-covered face, working to place him.
Not good. She needed to divert her grandmother’s attention. Isabelle cleared her throat. “The main performances are going to begin again soon—will you check all is ready? I need to hurry. As you said, there are others you want me to meet before the evening is over. If I’m going to escape for a moment, it has to be now.” She wove around the back of the group so as not to attract too much attention as she exited.
However, instead of retreating to the area designated for ladies to freshen up, Isabelle trotted up the back staircase toward the library, where her father had kept a decent bottle of gin behind a bust of Julius Caesar. It was still there when last she checked—the prior day.
Inhaling the far less stifling air, she moved past the comfortable fire. Crossing to the far side, she rooted around for a glass inside a hollowed globe and poured herself a drink.
At the sound of scraping behind her, she whirled around. But it was only Aaron sliding into the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. A pleasant humming stirred beneath her skin at his presence.
Though, why shouldn’t she be happy to see him? His appearance undoubtedly meant that he had news and her plan was coming to fruition. Reaching back into the globe, she pulled out another empty glass and raised it to him. He shook his head, dimming her excitement a touch. Ah well, his loss. She replaced the empty glass and raised her own to him.
“It isn’t kosher, and I know people can become carried away with it, but . . .” She took a long sip, savoring the burn, leaning against the two-story-high bookcase. “Sometimes one needs something a bit more pungent than champagne.”
Aaron paced over the bright red-and-orange patterned rug, tracing a finger along a distant shelf. “You’re a terrible liar,” he called to her without turning around, his arms straining at his tight costuming.
Isabelle wrinkled her nose. What did he mean by that?
“Oh, I promise you, this gin is most certainly necessary and not something my family should have lying about. But no one ever said we got to where we are by asking permission—within the community and outside it.” She took another gulp before straightening herself and crossing the room so she could read his face better in the firelight. “And if you were referring to my earlier performances, I believe I was rather adept. Especially with Mr. Weiss.”
“Really?” He plucked a slim volume from the shelf and turned it over in his hand.
“And he handled his stumble well.” She glanced at the spine. The Grimm Brothers. Fitting, given his performance in the synagogue. Not a book she’d picked up in years. Perhaps she should reread it if she was going to make up more stories in the future. Though she’d skip all the ones where the happy endings were predicated on Jews coming to an untimely demise, of course. Hard to do, as—like with most literature written by gentiles—their belief in her kind’s superlative villainy was a popular trope, whether explicit or implied.
Her thoughts returned to the man before her. “I didn’t leave him much room to not look foolish, yet he managed to keep his head above water.” Weiss’s deflections replayed in her head. He was smooth under pressure; she’d give him that.
“So he passed your test? Or at least one of them?” Aaron had turned around fully. His eyes gleamed with intensity beneath the white grease paint, which only served to make his thick black brows more prominent. But he was more house cat than wolf. No matter how fierce he appeared or what role he played at.
“I suppose.” She stepped back to lean against the mahogany reading table—fine, not lean, but sit atop. Crossing her feet, she allowed them to swing a little. “He could’ve been honest and admitted his mistake. But the ability to adapt in social situations is an important skill, at least in our world.”
“In your world,” he corrected.
“In my world.” She pursed her lips. “And yours too. You’re my spy now, after all.”
“I don’t have any illusions. I’m a custodian playing at henchman, nothing more. Whether I obtain information that’s useful to you or not, tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up, splash some water on my face, and scrub the floor. Before dusting. And sweeping.” Aaron ran a finger over the ornamental bust of Virgil, stroking his laurel, his voice a tad thick. “You need to remember that before you make me into something I’m not.”
What did one say to that? Isabelle glanced down at her gloves. The thread she’d wound before had come undone and now threatened the button anew. Placing her drink on the wood, she started on her other glove so she could reclaim the dexterity of bare skin.
“And he certainly seems to like you.”
She near jumped as Aaron’s voice seemed to boom from his new position, a plush armchair at her side. He tugged at the collar of his harlequin costume, pulling it taut. It was rather flimsy, wasn’t it? Not that she was staring. She averted her eyes once more, returning to her task.
“I’m not sure about that,” she muttered. Fiddlesticks. Why were these buttons so small and plentiful? Or more, why were her fingers so clumsy?
“He was practically ravishing you in public.” Aaron leaned forward, frowning—at her incompetence or actions, it was rather hard to tell.
Ugh. If she’d wanted to be chided, she’d go be with her grandmother. Or Pena. She continued her slow, clumsy progress. “He was doing no such thing. He touched my hand.”
When she was finally free, she raised the appendage as if Aaron needed a demonstration. “Myglovedhand, and I didn’t tell him to stop. I didn’t take you for a prig regarding such things.” With a bit of flourish, she bent and tied off the loose thread on her other glove.
“I’m not.” Aaron rose and grabbed her glass, finishing it off.
