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rainbowfic2019-11-09 08:55 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2019-11-09 08:55 pm
Cloudy Grey #8, Snow White #6 [Divide and Rule]
Name: secrets of the sky
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Cloudy Grey #8 (lay); Snow White #6 (transformation)
Supplies and Styles: Reimaging + Pastels (also forhc_bingo square "touch-starved".)
Word Count: 3903
Rating:Teen
Warnings: Divorce & infidelity & 1930s attitudes to same.
Notes: 1938; Edward Iveson/Marie Werner. Magic AU version of Love, Lies & Self-fulfilling Prophecies, because it occurred to me that Edward meets Marie in the regular timeline via a job he can’t have had in the Magic AU (and for him not to have met Marie is unthinkable).
Summary: Edward's sent out on a minor assignment that takes an unexpected turn.
***
It was a grey afternoon and the sky was impenetrably blank, offering no possibility of change. London itself seemed entirely drained of colour in the drizzle. Edward was glad to step inside the Clarence Hotel’s lobby, blinking at suddenly finding himself, in contrast, inside a brightly lit temple of green and gold.
On enquiring for Richard Werner, he was directed to the topmost floor, to what he supposed must be the penthouse suite. Mr Carlisle hadn’t been joking when he’d told him Mr Werner was a millionaire. Curiosity at the habits of the truly wealthy stole a little of his annoyance at being sent on yet another trifling errand. No one at the Department of Magical Affairs had made any direct comment on his marital situation, but the moment he’d finally begun divorce proceedings with Caroline, he’d found himself relegated to backroom duties, paperwork and small projects – the sort of work he’d done when he’d first begun as a technical magician there, four years ago.
This was just another one in a whole run of small humiliations that ranged from the need for him to be at fault to obtain the divorce, to these petty tasks. Today he had the decree absolute in his coat pocket and he should have been relieved it was over, but instead he was only angry at the world.
Edward made his way along the top floor corridor, his footsteps muted by the carpet. He halted outside the suite and gave himself a mental shake. Time to stop feeling sorry for himself and apply his mind to the task in hand. After all, Mrs Werner might even be right about whatever magic it was she fancied she’d felt in the room. Stranger things had happened. He knocked on the door, and waited.
It was opened by Mrs Werner herself, who was not at all the middle-aged lady he’d been imagining. She couldn’t have been much older than Edward; dark-haired, and wearing a finely-cut navy suit with a pale lacy blouse and delicate pearls at her throat, though she was in her stockinged feet.
“You must be the magician they promised me,” she said, giving him a smile. “Well, don’t stand there, come on in.”
Edward followed her, his shoes sinking into even thicker carpet of a light green hue. The whole room was done out in green and cream colours, with dark velvet curtains at the windows, and on the old-fashioned four-poster bed. What was more, he realised, something causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise, she was right about the magic.
“I’m Marie Werner,” she said, holding out her hand to him, and then when he shook it but failed to reply, she inclined her head to one side, an amused gleam in her eyes. “How about you? Do you have a name?”
Edward released her hand, and gave a short laugh. “Yes. Sorry. I’m Edward Iveson from the Department of Magical Affairs.”
“I’m glad,” she said, moving further into the room. “I didn’t think anyone was taking me seriously. I know it might seem unlikely in a place like this, but something’s setting my teeth on edge and I know what that means. There’s some nasty little spell in here for sure.”
Edward nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. “There most certainly is. But you must be particularly sensitive to have picked up on it if no one else did.”
“Oh, thank God,” said Marie, crossing back to shut the door behind him. “Every other male I’ve tried to explain that to has told me I must be imagining things. At least Richard’s inclined to humour me even when he doesn’t believe me – and here you are.”
Edward gave another laugh, as he took off his coat. She took it from him, and he felt a faint heat in his cheeks at the contact, and then he wanted to laugh at himself again. This was the second time he’d been alone in a hotel room with a strange woman in the past two months, but neither encounter was romantic, no matter how many lies he’d told about the former occasion.
“If you can sense that, you’d have made a good technical magician. Someone ought to have trained you,” he said, putting his mind to the task, and tracking the source of the spell across the room, stopping on reaching the bed.
“I’d never have the patience.”
Edward crouched down, running his hand along the expensive wallpaper, before getting down on his hands and knees to look under the bed. “Well, you seem to have good instincts anyway. It’s somewhere round here, I think. Where does it feel strongest to you?”
“Under the bed,” she said. “Beyond that I can’t say. I couldn’t believe Richard hadn’t noticed when I came in this morning and felt it. And when all the hotel manager kept talking about was airing the place, I poked around myself a bit, but it didn’t feel like something I wanted to risk getting too close to. I did try having a look, but I couldn’t see anything down there.”
Edward pushed himself under the bed. “You wouldn’t,” he said, his voice short as he edged himself forward with an effort. “Not the sort of thing that would be visible to the naked eye.” He put his hands to the frame, feeling away along, until he got it, towards the head. It wasn’t visible, but if he closed his eyes, he could feel it so clearly it didn’t matter. He got a grip on it and it was worse than he had anticipated; the feeling of ill-intentioned and pulsating power in his hands making him nauseous.
He should, properly, get it out from under here, contain it in his case, and take it back to the lab at the DMA to be examined, but he felt abruptly certain he wasn’t going to manage that before he threw up, and he had no intention of doing that here, with Mrs Werner looking on. He drew in his breath, garnering power from every available source in the room – from the fibres of the carpet, the dust of many previous guests, the fabric hanging on and around the bed, the oak of the bedstead – and burned it away into a satisfactory nothing before brushing pale ash from his hands.
He knew as soon as he’d done it that it had been a mistake. He’d misjudged the strength of it before he touched it, and now he’d miscalculated the consequences of destroying it. As he emerged from beneath the bed, his left arm was growing stiff, and his palm was stinging, while the nausea had only subsided, not gone.
“Ow,” he muttered under his breath, as he half sat up, leaning on his elbows back against the carpet. “Damn.”
Mrs Werner surveyed him from above, raising an eyebrow. “Is that it? Or has it beaten you?”
“It’s gone,” Edward said, scrambling back to his feet in unwise haste. He caught at the nearest pole of the four poster bed. “It’s fine. I’m fine. At least –” He had to stop and save his breath, leaning against the pole, the oak cool against his forehead. He closed his eyes, waiting for the pain and dizziness to recede. If she said anything, he was too light-headed to hear.
When he opened his eyes again, she was standing beside him. “Honey,” she said, putting a hand to his arm, lightly, “sit down before you pass out on me.”
Edward gave a short, embarrassed laugh and did as she suggested, though the worst of it was already fading. “Sorry,” he said, as she disappeared out of his line of vision, busying herself about something on the other side of the room. “I didn’t quite judge things properly, but it is gone.”
“Here,” she said, returning, pressing a cut glass tumbler into his hand. He took a cautious sip, to find that it was scotch. “If you need me to make a call for you, just say.”
Edward felt his cheeks heat at this fresh humiliation, although he couldn’t blame this one on anyone but himself. He took another mouthful of the scotch. It helped.
“What was it?” asked Marie, after a moment or two watching him, presumably to check he wasn’t going to faint. She sat on the edge of the bed, a discreet distance from him.
Edward lowered the glass, glad of a question that enabled him to return to a more professional mode. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to analyse it properly, but I’m pretty sure it was what we’d call an arsenic bubble, although that’s not the technical term.”
“Yes, spare me the technical terms,” said Marie. “Give me the edited highlights, not the full essay.”
He laughed. “A nasty little poison spell. Probably not strong enough to kill, but certainly your husband would have had an uncomfortable stay.”
“So, you think someone has it in for Richard?”
Edward stared ahead at the wall, considering that. He wished again that he’d been more careful and could have examined the spell later to give her the answers she needed. “Well, that’s the question. You see, those sorts of spells tend to wane in strength – another week or two and you might not even have noticed – so either someone had a good attempt at killing someone here about a week ago, or it was aimed at distracting Mr Werner rather than killing him – maybe getting him to leave early.”
“Which do you think is more likely?”
Edward shrugged. “That depends what the hotel staff have to say about the last guest in this room. But I think your husband should be very careful, just in case.”
“I’ll make sure he is,” she said, with a nod. Then she smiled again. “Will you do me another favour?”
“What might that be?”
She laughed. “If you have to tell your Foreign Office about this, make sure you say it was serious. Exaggerate all you like. One of them was here earlier with Richard. Patronising –” She broke off, looking at him with a humorous glint in her eyes. “I’d better not say what I thought of him. Can’t have you fainting again.”
Edward looked down at the glass in his hand. He’d been laughed at too many times lately to appreciate her teasing.
“Hey,” she said more gently, leaning forward to take his arm. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just you people are all so polite. Doesn’t matter which department, you’re all the same. Although you haven’t called me madam yet, I’ll grant you that. And then one or the other of you take Richard away, leaving me all alone.”
Edward raised his head and tried to laugh. “Would it be better if we were all insulting? And I’m sure Mr Werner won’t be long – not with you here waiting.”
“He’ll be out as long as he needs to be,” said Marie after a pause. “We have our own arrangements, which suits both of us in the usual way. I think he forgets on trips like this that I don’t have friends over here.”
Edward took another sip of the scotch, unsure how to respond, or whether she meant anything by it. Probably not. People didn’t tend to flirt with him as a rule. “That’s a shame,” he said, and knew it was inane.
“Maybe,” said Marie, angling herself into a better position to look at him. “How about you? You got some charming Mrs Iveson waiting for you at home?”
“Oh, God, I sincerely hope not,” Edward said, unable to help himself. The idea of Caroline being back at the house today of all days was appalling.
Marie raised both eyebrows.
“I, yes,” said Edward, hastily, nearly spilling what was left of the scotch into his lap. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s only – I got the decree absolute today, you see.”
Marie leaned forward. “Oh, honey,” she said, and he thought she was going to put her hand to his arm again, but she didn’t. “I hear your poor toes screaming under my foot. But you’re glad to be out of it?”
“Yes,” said Edward. “I am, I think. It still seems disloyal to say it aloud. She’s very, well, very nice, you see.”
Marie gave his arm a light punch. “Chin up. And congratulations – it’s onwards and upwards from now. Take it from someone who’s been there. Yours can’t have been worse than mine.”
Edward turned his head to her, blinking.
“Unless she started threatening people with a shotgun as well, of course. I suppose it’s possible.”
The image of Caroline with a gun was too much for him, and he laughed helplessly, leaning his head against the nearest pole of the bed, his face screwed up in undignified amusement.
“Guess not, then,” said Marie, and smiled at him. “Good to know. Nobody’d want too many like John in the world.” She reached out, pulling his hand towards her. There was still a red mark on the palm from destroying the spell. “Does it hurt?” she said softly, stroking his fingers. “Do you need something to put on it?”
Edward swallowed, impatient with himself for making too much of every little contact between them; his heartbeat quickening. He didn’t remove his hand, though. “No, no, thank you. It’s much better already.”
“Well, thank you,” said Marie. “I’m grateful, if only for proving me right. Tell your department that. Exaggerate all you want, like I said.”
He nodded. “I had better go. I’ll make sure you and Mr Werner are informed of any developments – I’ll have a word with the hotel manager about it.”
“You won’t be coming back?” said Marie.
Edward stared harder at the dregs of his drink. The idea of giving in to temptation was more intoxicating than the spirits, and he didn’t trust himself to answer for a moment. Funny, because the other time it hadn’t been at all. Still, even aside from the wrongs and rights of it, he was probably only misreading the situation. Why the hell would someone like Marie want him? Some game of espionage, if so, he thought. These things did happen. He cleared his throat with a cough, and resolved to be professional, raising his head. “No, I doubt there’ll be any need.”
“I’m sure you’re right, honey,” said Marie. She kissed his cheek lightly and then pulled back. “No reason you should. Like I said, I appreciate what you did. You go on, before you get into trouble with anyone.”
Edward smiled, unsure whether he was grateful or disappointed, but he got up and made his way to the door.
“Although,” said Marie, rising to see him out, “like I said, I don’t know people here. If you wanted to go out for dinner later, I could help you celebrate your freedom, and you could keep me company – it’d be a pleasure.”
Edward shook his head with more energy than was complimentary. “Er, thank you, but I mustn’t.” After all, he had an appointment with the chair by his radio and a book he hadn’t yet finished, didn’t he? He backed away to the door.
“Hey,” said Marie, putting out a hand to him, and when he stared, said gently, with a nod to the glass in his hand, “you can’t run away with hotel property.”
Edward felt the heat flood his cheeks and he handed it back, making his escape albeit with enough regret that he couldn’t say much for his morals. He paused halfway down the corridor and closed his eyes, feeling a little sick with longing at the idea of seeing Marie again.
He took hold of himself with a shake, and headed back to the lift at a swift pace, before stopping there with a curse, and putting his hand to his head, as he realised what he’d done in his haste to get away. He’d left his coat behind.
When she opened the door, Marie had a wry smile on her face, but she merely handed him the coat. “I think those psycho-analyst people might have things to say about this.”
“They might have a point,” Edward said, feeling breathless again as he folded the coat over his arm. “If you don’t mind me having been so ungracious before, then I would be very happy to take you out tonight.”
Marie’s smile grew warmer. “I don’t mind at all. How does seven in the lobby downstairs suit you?”
“I’ll be there,” he promised.
She hadn’t stopped smiling, but there was a melancholy shadow in her eyes, and he realised with an uncomfortable feeling that she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t back out. “We’ll see,” she said.
By the time they’d reached dessert, Edward had come to the realisation that this wasn’t some elaborate joke on the part of his colleagues, nor was it an illusion or spell. Marie was, for reasons best known to herself, showing a genuine interest in him.
“And that’s when it all went wrong,” Edward said, almost at the end of the account of his short marriage, which Marie had been kind enough to invite him to tell. “Once Caroline saw Jack again she knew she’d made a mistake, and then it was all tears in the spare room and me left mystified outside.” He paused, feeling disloyal again. It had been surprisingly easy to relate the story to Marie. “I don’t mean to sound callous,” he added. “I’ve probably said more than enough already.”
Marie smiled at him from over her coffee. “For tonight, I don’t mind. It’s not as if I’ve anyone to tell, and tomorrow I might not have the patience. Take your chance now to say whatever you want. So, she ran off with this Jack and you divorced her?”
“She didn’t,” said Edward, leaning forward. “That was the difficult part. She went home to her mother, and then came back to me and tried again.” He put down his coffee spoon, feeling cold at the memory of her earnest trying. “Like some sort of early Christian martyr.”
Marie took a sip of her coffee, but she said, “Oh,” as if he’d said something enlightening.
“And she was positively Victorian about the mere idea of a divorce,” he went on, still feeling aggrieved about it, about what he’d had to do as a result. It was unfair of him; Caroline had probably suffered more than anyone, but his earlier anger hadn’t gone away, and she could have made it all so much easier.
Marie put down her cup, a small crease forming between her brows. “So, this isn’t your first illicit meeting? You know, honey, you had me fooled. Or did she cave in the end?”
Edward almost dropped his cup into the saucer. For well over two years he’d been without Caroline and living with the knowledge that anyone he tried to date might get dragged into the mire of a divorce. Caroline might not set private detectives on him, but he hadn’t been so sure about her parents or Jack. He wouldn’t have blamed them. But the idea of laying someone else open to the scandal repulsed him, and he’d simply retreated inside himself, waiting for the whole business to end.
“Not that it’s any of my business,” said Marie. “I’m just curious. Did you take to violence? Because I bar that kind of thing.”
Edward lifted his head sharply. “No, no, nothing like that. These things – they don’t mean anything. You book a hotel room and hire a professional co-respondent, and nobody cares what you actually do, so long as some hotel porter or inquiry agent catches you coming in and out together.” He shrugged. “And that was that. Thank God Caroline didn’t get cold feet again.”
Marie rested her chin on her hands and studied him with apparent interest. “So, humour me: what did you do?”
“Played cards mostly,” said Edward. It had felt like a sort of revenge at the time, making a mockery of the whole farcical situation, but now he wasn’t sure he’d made a fool of anyone except himself. He closed his eyes. “You must think me hopeless.”
Marie laughed. “Don’t fish for compliments. How are you at dancing?”
Edward blinked at her abrupt change of conversation, but she rose from the table, and he stood hastily. She held out her hand to him.
“You can dance?”
“Of course,” said Edward, and set out to prove it to her. It wasn’t difficult, Marie being perhaps the best partner he’d had in a very long while, light on her feet, and unafraid of more modern dances, unlike Caroline who had shied away from anything she thought too foolish or risqué.
He couldn’t ask her the questions he needed to out on the dance floor, and so he relaxed and lost himself in the pleasure of the moment, in the music and Marie all too close in her long satin dress of midnight blue.
Outside, afterwards, once he’d hailed them a taxi and ushered her into it, she looked at him.
“Want to go home?” she said. “I’ve had a nice time. On the other hand –” She held his gaze, and shrugged.
“Yes?”
Marie smiled in the gloom of the cab’s interior. “Well, honey, I don’t much care for card games.”
“Your husband,” said Edward, and felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “I don’t mean to sound Victorian myself, but I’d hardly want to cause trouble in anyone else’s marriage.”
Marie took his hand and squeezed it. “I never do anything that would upset Richard. As long as you can be discreet, we’ll be fine. There’s somewhere else we can go anyway – not the hotel.”
“Oh, good,” said Edward, inadequately.
Marie laughed. “I’m taking that as a yes, then.”
Once in the flat, Marie poured out a brandy for him, and when he raised an eyebrow at him said, “Don’t tell me you’re not going to need it.”
Edward laughed and took a drink, but put the rest down on the low table by the sofa as he sat down. He was damned if he’d be as Victorian as Caroline. What did he have to lose by committing the act he’d already admitted to in court?
Marie sat down close beside him, resting her hand on his knee.
“Why?” said Edward, suddenly. “Why me?”
Marie pulled back to look at him, then leaned over to kiss him; on the lips this time, the contact electric. He caught at her hand.
“Honey,” she said, in sudden seriousness, running her gaze over him, “there’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing at all.”
Edward bit back a short laugh, his face heating. “Thank you. I think. But I didn’t quite mean that. Why me, why anyone?”
“Never just anyone, thanks,” said Marie. “But I told you back in the hotel. Richard leaves me alone a lot and sometimes I don’t care much for that.”
Edward felt understanding dawn. “Because of your first husband?”
“John,” she said. “Yes. He’s dead, but some days he doesn’t seem to know that. Honey, don’t worry. This is only because I like you. I wouldn’t have made desperate attempts to lure in the bellboy if you hadn’t come along. It’s not like that.”
Edward abandoned any further questions and pulled her in closer, catching the pleased gleam in her eyes before she kissed him again.
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Cloudy Grey #8 (lay); Snow White #6 (transformation)
Supplies and Styles: Reimaging + Pastels (also for
hc_bingo square "touch-starved".)Word Count: 3903
Rating:Teen
Warnings: Divorce & infidelity & 1930s attitudes to same.
Notes: 1938; Edward Iveson/Marie Werner. Magic AU version of Love, Lies & Self-fulfilling Prophecies, because it occurred to me that Edward meets Marie in the regular timeline via a job he can’t have had in the Magic AU (and for him not to have met Marie is unthinkable).
Summary: Edward's sent out on a minor assignment that takes an unexpected turn.
***
It was a grey afternoon and the sky was impenetrably blank, offering no possibility of change. London itself seemed entirely drained of colour in the drizzle. Edward was glad to step inside the Clarence Hotel’s lobby, blinking at suddenly finding himself, in contrast, inside a brightly lit temple of green and gold.
On enquiring for Richard Werner, he was directed to the topmost floor, to what he supposed must be the penthouse suite. Mr Carlisle hadn’t been joking when he’d told him Mr Werner was a millionaire. Curiosity at the habits of the truly wealthy stole a little of his annoyance at being sent on yet another trifling errand. No one at the Department of Magical Affairs had made any direct comment on his marital situation, but the moment he’d finally begun divorce proceedings with Caroline, he’d found himself relegated to backroom duties, paperwork and small projects – the sort of work he’d done when he’d first begun as a technical magician there, four years ago.
This was just another one in a whole run of small humiliations that ranged from the need for him to be at fault to obtain the divorce, to these petty tasks. Today he had the decree absolute in his coat pocket and he should have been relieved it was over, but instead he was only angry at the world.
Edward made his way along the top floor corridor, his footsteps muted by the carpet. He halted outside the suite and gave himself a mental shake. Time to stop feeling sorry for himself and apply his mind to the task in hand. After all, Mrs Werner might even be right about whatever magic it was she fancied she’d felt in the room. Stranger things had happened. He knocked on the door, and waited.
It was opened by Mrs Werner herself, who was not at all the middle-aged lady he’d been imagining. She couldn’t have been much older than Edward; dark-haired, and wearing a finely-cut navy suit with a pale lacy blouse and delicate pearls at her throat, though she was in her stockinged feet.
“You must be the magician they promised me,” she said, giving him a smile. “Well, don’t stand there, come on in.”
Edward followed her, his shoes sinking into even thicker carpet of a light green hue. The whole room was done out in green and cream colours, with dark velvet curtains at the windows, and on the old-fashioned four-poster bed. What was more, he realised, something causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise, she was right about the magic.
“I’m Marie Werner,” she said, holding out her hand to him, and then when he shook it but failed to reply, she inclined her head to one side, an amused gleam in her eyes. “How about you? Do you have a name?”
Edward released her hand, and gave a short laugh. “Yes. Sorry. I’m Edward Iveson from the Department of Magical Affairs.”
“I’m glad,” she said, moving further into the room. “I didn’t think anyone was taking me seriously. I know it might seem unlikely in a place like this, but something’s setting my teeth on edge and I know what that means. There’s some nasty little spell in here for sure.”
Edward nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. “There most certainly is. But you must be particularly sensitive to have picked up on it if no one else did.”
“Oh, thank God,” said Marie, crossing back to shut the door behind him. “Every other male I’ve tried to explain that to has told me I must be imagining things. At least Richard’s inclined to humour me even when he doesn’t believe me – and here you are.”
Edward gave another laugh, as he took off his coat. She took it from him, and he felt a faint heat in his cheeks at the contact, and then he wanted to laugh at himself again. This was the second time he’d been alone in a hotel room with a strange woman in the past two months, but neither encounter was romantic, no matter how many lies he’d told about the former occasion.
“If you can sense that, you’d have made a good technical magician. Someone ought to have trained you,” he said, putting his mind to the task, and tracking the source of the spell across the room, stopping on reaching the bed.
“I’d never have the patience.”
Edward crouched down, running his hand along the expensive wallpaper, before getting down on his hands and knees to look under the bed. “Well, you seem to have good instincts anyway. It’s somewhere round here, I think. Where does it feel strongest to you?”
“Under the bed,” she said. “Beyond that I can’t say. I couldn’t believe Richard hadn’t noticed when I came in this morning and felt it. And when all the hotel manager kept talking about was airing the place, I poked around myself a bit, but it didn’t feel like something I wanted to risk getting too close to. I did try having a look, but I couldn’t see anything down there.”
Edward pushed himself under the bed. “You wouldn’t,” he said, his voice short as he edged himself forward with an effort. “Not the sort of thing that would be visible to the naked eye.” He put his hands to the frame, feeling away along, until he got it, towards the head. It wasn’t visible, but if he closed his eyes, he could feel it so clearly it didn’t matter. He got a grip on it and it was worse than he had anticipated; the feeling of ill-intentioned and pulsating power in his hands making him nauseous.
He should, properly, get it out from under here, contain it in his case, and take it back to the lab at the DMA to be examined, but he felt abruptly certain he wasn’t going to manage that before he threw up, and he had no intention of doing that here, with Mrs Werner looking on. He drew in his breath, garnering power from every available source in the room – from the fibres of the carpet, the dust of many previous guests, the fabric hanging on and around the bed, the oak of the bedstead – and burned it away into a satisfactory nothing before brushing pale ash from his hands.
He knew as soon as he’d done it that it had been a mistake. He’d misjudged the strength of it before he touched it, and now he’d miscalculated the consequences of destroying it. As he emerged from beneath the bed, his left arm was growing stiff, and his palm was stinging, while the nausea had only subsided, not gone.
“Ow,” he muttered under his breath, as he half sat up, leaning on his elbows back against the carpet. “Damn.”
Mrs Werner surveyed him from above, raising an eyebrow. “Is that it? Or has it beaten you?”
“It’s gone,” Edward said, scrambling back to his feet in unwise haste. He caught at the nearest pole of the four poster bed. “It’s fine. I’m fine. At least –” He had to stop and save his breath, leaning against the pole, the oak cool against his forehead. He closed his eyes, waiting for the pain and dizziness to recede. If she said anything, he was too light-headed to hear.
When he opened his eyes again, she was standing beside him. “Honey,” she said, putting a hand to his arm, lightly, “sit down before you pass out on me.”
Edward gave a short, embarrassed laugh and did as she suggested, though the worst of it was already fading. “Sorry,” he said, as she disappeared out of his line of vision, busying herself about something on the other side of the room. “I didn’t quite judge things properly, but it is gone.”
“Here,” she said, returning, pressing a cut glass tumbler into his hand. He took a cautious sip, to find that it was scotch. “If you need me to make a call for you, just say.”
Edward felt his cheeks heat at this fresh humiliation, although he couldn’t blame this one on anyone but himself. He took another mouthful of the scotch. It helped.
“What was it?” asked Marie, after a moment or two watching him, presumably to check he wasn’t going to faint. She sat on the edge of the bed, a discreet distance from him.
Edward lowered the glass, glad of a question that enabled him to return to a more professional mode. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to analyse it properly, but I’m pretty sure it was what we’d call an arsenic bubble, although that’s not the technical term.”
“Yes, spare me the technical terms,” said Marie. “Give me the edited highlights, not the full essay.”
He laughed. “A nasty little poison spell. Probably not strong enough to kill, but certainly your husband would have had an uncomfortable stay.”
“So, you think someone has it in for Richard?”
Edward stared ahead at the wall, considering that. He wished again that he’d been more careful and could have examined the spell later to give her the answers she needed. “Well, that’s the question. You see, those sorts of spells tend to wane in strength – another week or two and you might not even have noticed – so either someone had a good attempt at killing someone here about a week ago, or it was aimed at distracting Mr Werner rather than killing him – maybe getting him to leave early.”
“Which do you think is more likely?”
Edward shrugged. “That depends what the hotel staff have to say about the last guest in this room. But I think your husband should be very careful, just in case.”
“I’ll make sure he is,” she said, with a nod. Then she smiled again. “Will you do me another favour?”
“What might that be?”
She laughed. “If you have to tell your Foreign Office about this, make sure you say it was serious. Exaggerate all you like. One of them was here earlier with Richard. Patronising –” She broke off, looking at him with a humorous glint in her eyes. “I’d better not say what I thought of him. Can’t have you fainting again.”
Edward looked down at the glass in his hand. He’d been laughed at too many times lately to appreciate her teasing.
“Hey,” she said more gently, leaning forward to take his arm. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just you people are all so polite. Doesn’t matter which department, you’re all the same. Although you haven’t called me madam yet, I’ll grant you that. And then one or the other of you take Richard away, leaving me all alone.”
Edward raised his head and tried to laugh. “Would it be better if we were all insulting? And I’m sure Mr Werner won’t be long – not with you here waiting.”
“He’ll be out as long as he needs to be,” said Marie after a pause. “We have our own arrangements, which suits both of us in the usual way. I think he forgets on trips like this that I don’t have friends over here.”
Edward took another sip of the scotch, unsure how to respond, or whether she meant anything by it. Probably not. People didn’t tend to flirt with him as a rule. “That’s a shame,” he said, and knew it was inane.
“Maybe,” said Marie, angling herself into a better position to look at him. “How about you? You got some charming Mrs Iveson waiting for you at home?”
“Oh, God, I sincerely hope not,” Edward said, unable to help himself. The idea of Caroline being back at the house today of all days was appalling.
Marie raised both eyebrows.
“I, yes,” said Edward, hastily, nearly spilling what was left of the scotch into his lap. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s only – I got the decree absolute today, you see.”
Marie leaned forward. “Oh, honey,” she said, and he thought she was going to put her hand to his arm again, but she didn’t. “I hear your poor toes screaming under my foot. But you’re glad to be out of it?”
“Yes,” said Edward. “I am, I think. It still seems disloyal to say it aloud. She’s very, well, very nice, you see.”
Marie gave his arm a light punch. “Chin up. And congratulations – it’s onwards and upwards from now. Take it from someone who’s been there. Yours can’t have been worse than mine.”
Edward turned his head to her, blinking.
“Unless she started threatening people with a shotgun as well, of course. I suppose it’s possible.”
The image of Caroline with a gun was too much for him, and he laughed helplessly, leaning his head against the nearest pole of the bed, his face screwed up in undignified amusement.
“Guess not, then,” said Marie, and smiled at him. “Good to know. Nobody’d want too many like John in the world.” She reached out, pulling his hand towards her. There was still a red mark on the palm from destroying the spell. “Does it hurt?” she said softly, stroking his fingers. “Do you need something to put on it?”
Edward swallowed, impatient with himself for making too much of every little contact between them; his heartbeat quickening. He didn’t remove his hand, though. “No, no, thank you. It’s much better already.”
“Well, thank you,” said Marie. “I’m grateful, if only for proving me right. Tell your department that. Exaggerate all you want, like I said.”
He nodded. “I had better go. I’ll make sure you and Mr Werner are informed of any developments – I’ll have a word with the hotel manager about it.”
“You won’t be coming back?” said Marie.
Edward stared harder at the dregs of his drink. The idea of giving in to temptation was more intoxicating than the spirits, and he didn’t trust himself to answer for a moment. Funny, because the other time it hadn’t been at all. Still, even aside from the wrongs and rights of it, he was probably only misreading the situation. Why the hell would someone like Marie want him? Some game of espionage, if so, he thought. These things did happen. He cleared his throat with a cough, and resolved to be professional, raising his head. “No, I doubt there’ll be any need.”
“I’m sure you’re right, honey,” said Marie. She kissed his cheek lightly and then pulled back. “No reason you should. Like I said, I appreciate what you did. You go on, before you get into trouble with anyone.”
Edward smiled, unsure whether he was grateful or disappointed, but he got up and made his way to the door.
“Although,” said Marie, rising to see him out, “like I said, I don’t know people here. If you wanted to go out for dinner later, I could help you celebrate your freedom, and you could keep me company – it’d be a pleasure.”
Edward shook his head with more energy than was complimentary. “Er, thank you, but I mustn’t.” After all, he had an appointment with the chair by his radio and a book he hadn’t yet finished, didn’t he? He backed away to the door.
“Hey,” said Marie, putting out a hand to him, and when he stared, said gently, with a nod to the glass in his hand, “you can’t run away with hotel property.”
Edward felt the heat flood his cheeks and he handed it back, making his escape albeit with enough regret that he couldn’t say much for his morals. He paused halfway down the corridor and closed his eyes, feeling a little sick with longing at the idea of seeing Marie again.
He took hold of himself with a shake, and headed back to the lift at a swift pace, before stopping there with a curse, and putting his hand to his head, as he realised what he’d done in his haste to get away. He’d left his coat behind.
When she opened the door, Marie had a wry smile on her face, but she merely handed him the coat. “I think those psycho-analyst people might have things to say about this.”
“They might have a point,” Edward said, feeling breathless again as he folded the coat over his arm. “If you don’t mind me having been so ungracious before, then I would be very happy to take you out tonight.”
Marie’s smile grew warmer. “I don’t mind at all. How does seven in the lobby downstairs suit you?”
“I’ll be there,” he promised.
She hadn’t stopped smiling, but there was a melancholy shadow in her eyes, and he realised with an uncomfortable feeling that she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t back out. “We’ll see,” she said.
By the time they’d reached dessert, Edward had come to the realisation that this wasn’t some elaborate joke on the part of his colleagues, nor was it an illusion or spell. Marie was, for reasons best known to herself, showing a genuine interest in him.
“And that’s when it all went wrong,” Edward said, almost at the end of the account of his short marriage, which Marie had been kind enough to invite him to tell. “Once Caroline saw Jack again she knew she’d made a mistake, and then it was all tears in the spare room and me left mystified outside.” He paused, feeling disloyal again. It had been surprisingly easy to relate the story to Marie. “I don’t mean to sound callous,” he added. “I’ve probably said more than enough already.”
Marie smiled at him from over her coffee. “For tonight, I don’t mind. It’s not as if I’ve anyone to tell, and tomorrow I might not have the patience. Take your chance now to say whatever you want. So, she ran off with this Jack and you divorced her?”
“She didn’t,” said Edward, leaning forward. “That was the difficult part. She went home to her mother, and then came back to me and tried again.” He put down his coffee spoon, feeling cold at the memory of her earnest trying. “Like some sort of early Christian martyr.”
Marie took a sip of her coffee, but she said, “Oh,” as if he’d said something enlightening.
“And she was positively Victorian about the mere idea of a divorce,” he went on, still feeling aggrieved about it, about what he’d had to do as a result. It was unfair of him; Caroline had probably suffered more than anyone, but his earlier anger hadn’t gone away, and she could have made it all so much easier.
Marie put down her cup, a small crease forming between her brows. “So, this isn’t your first illicit meeting? You know, honey, you had me fooled. Or did she cave in the end?”
Edward almost dropped his cup into the saucer. For well over two years he’d been without Caroline and living with the knowledge that anyone he tried to date might get dragged into the mire of a divorce. Caroline might not set private detectives on him, but he hadn’t been so sure about her parents or Jack. He wouldn’t have blamed them. But the idea of laying someone else open to the scandal repulsed him, and he’d simply retreated inside himself, waiting for the whole business to end.
“Not that it’s any of my business,” said Marie. “I’m just curious. Did you take to violence? Because I bar that kind of thing.”
Edward lifted his head sharply. “No, no, nothing like that. These things – they don’t mean anything. You book a hotel room and hire a professional co-respondent, and nobody cares what you actually do, so long as some hotel porter or inquiry agent catches you coming in and out together.” He shrugged. “And that was that. Thank God Caroline didn’t get cold feet again.”
Marie rested her chin on her hands and studied him with apparent interest. “So, humour me: what did you do?”
“Played cards mostly,” said Edward. It had felt like a sort of revenge at the time, making a mockery of the whole farcical situation, but now he wasn’t sure he’d made a fool of anyone except himself. He closed his eyes. “You must think me hopeless.”
Marie laughed. “Don’t fish for compliments. How are you at dancing?”
Edward blinked at her abrupt change of conversation, but she rose from the table, and he stood hastily. She held out her hand to him.
“You can dance?”
“Of course,” said Edward, and set out to prove it to her. It wasn’t difficult, Marie being perhaps the best partner he’d had in a very long while, light on her feet, and unafraid of more modern dances, unlike Caroline who had shied away from anything she thought too foolish or risqué.
He couldn’t ask her the questions he needed to out on the dance floor, and so he relaxed and lost himself in the pleasure of the moment, in the music and Marie all too close in her long satin dress of midnight blue.
Outside, afterwards, once he’d hailed them a taxi and ushered her into it, she looked at him.
“Want to go home?” she said. “I’ve had a nice time. On the other hand –” She held his gaze, and shrugged.
“Yes?”
Marie smiled in the gloom of the cab’s interior. “Well, honey, I don’t much care for card games.”
“Your husband,” said Edward, and felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “I don’t mean to sound Victorian myself, but I’d hardly want to cause trouble in anyone else’s marriage.”
Marie took his hand and squeezed it. “I never do anything that would upset Richard. As long as you can be discreet, we’ll be fine. There’s somewhere else we can go anyway – not the hotel.”
“Oh, good,” said Edward, inadequately.
Marie laughed. “I’m taking that as a yes, then.”
Once in the flat, Marie poured out a brandy for him, and when he raised an eyebrow at him said, “Don’t tell me you’re not going to need it.”
Edward laughed and took a drink, but put the rest down on the low table by the sofa as he sat down. He was damned if he’d be as Victorian as Caroline. What did he have to lose by committing the act he’d already admitted to in court?
Marie sat down close beside him, resting her hand on his knee.
“Why?” said Edward, suddenly. “Why me?”
Marie pulled back to look at him, then leaned over to kiss him; on the lips this time, the contact electric. He caught at her hand.
“Honey,” she said, in sudden seriousness, running her gaze over him, “there’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing at all.”
Edward bit back a short laugh, his face heating. “Thank you. I think. But I didn’t quite mean that. Why me, why anyone?”
“Never just anyone, thanks,” said Marie. “But I told you back in the hotel. Richard leaves me alone a lot and sometimes I don’t care much for that.”
Edward felt understanding dawn. “Because of your first husband?”
“John,” she said. “Yes. He’s dead, but some days he doesn’t seem to know that. Honey, don’t worry. This is only because I like you. I wouldn’t have made desperate attempts to lure in the bellboy if you hadn’t come along. It’s not like that.”
Edward abandoned any further questions and pulled her in closer, catching the pleased gleam in her eyes before she kissed him again.
***
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