The Chemickal Marriage

For the first time, the Contessa smiled. ‘Afterwards, everything. But first you must at least
pretend
to be civilized …’
    The woman’s fingers pulled at the back of her dress, each touch pecking apart Miss Temple’s concentration. She had fought at the Customs House, and tried to strangle Vandaariff in his coach, but now it was all she could do to stand.
    The Contessa peeled the fabric from Miss Temple’s shoulders and then the sleeves over each hand, like a magician extracting two scarves from a hat. The Contessa yanked the dress to the floor. Miss Temple obediently stepped free of the pile.
    ‘What happened to your arm?’
    ‘It was cut by flying glass. At the Customs House.’
    ‘And were you
very
brave?’ The Contessa’s hand traced its way without hurry around the circuit of Miss Temple’s hips.
    ‘Why are you here?’ she whined.
    ‘Better to ask why
you
are here,’ replied the Contessa.
    ‘This is my room.’
    ‘I thought it belonged to sugar and slaves.’
    ‘Then who owns your suite at the Royale – pulchritude?’
    Miss Temple cried out as the caressing hand struck her buttock hard enough to leave a mark. The Contessa crossed to the wardrobe. Miss Temple plucked the Comte’s silk handkerchief from her corset, but she’d no time to unwrap the glass spur before the Contessa had returned. Her breath blew warm against Miss Temple’s nape.
    ‘You smell like a
pony
.’ The Contessa snatched up an amber bottle, Signora Melini’s
Mielissima
, and came back with a basin of water. ‘Arms
up
.’
    Miss Temple complied. The Contessa roughly swabbed Miss Temple’s armpits with a cloth, then her bosom and neck, and last, with smaller strokes,the planes of her face. Miss Temple held still, a kitten submitting to the ministrations of its mother’s tongue. The Contessa dropped the cloth into the basin. With pursed lips she applied the perfume far more liberally than Miss Temple ever had, under her arms, at her wrists, behind her ears, and then, like a drunken signature to end a night of gambling, dragged the moistened stopper across the nooks of her collarbone. She replaced the stopper and threw the bottle carelessly onto the bed. With a sudden flicker of suspicion, the Contessa thrust a hand down Miss Temple corset, probing for anything hidden, and then swept in either direction, searching beneath each breast. Finding nothing, she pulled her hand free and then bent forward for a last sniff.
    ‘At least no one will take you for an
unperfumed
pony.’
    The Contessa snatched up a dress, fluffed it wide and lifted it over Miss Temple’s head.
    ‘But that is a dress for mourning –’
    Her words were lost in a mass of black crêpe silk. She had worn it but once, for the funeral of Roger’s cousin, at the beginning of their courtship. The sudden purchase, entirely for his sake, had pleased her immensely.
    ‘Arms in the sleeves. Be quick about it.’
    She realized that the Contessa’s dress, which Miss Temple had taken for a dusky violet, was in fact closer to a shimmering charcoal. ‘Who has died?’
    ‘O who has not?’
    The Contessa cinched the laces with as little regard for comfort as a farmer trussing goats. Her hands darted purposefully, flicking the skirts free of Miss Temple’s feet, batting the dress over her petticoats, and alternately tugging down the bodice and lifting her bosom. Throughout it all the silken handkerchief remained in Miss Temple’s hand, balled tight.
    The Contessa stepped back with a sigh of resignation. ‘Your hair would shame a sheepdog. Have you a hat?’
    ‘I dislike hats. If you would allow my maid –’
    ‘No.’
    The Contessa took Miss Temple’s curls with both hands. They stood near to one another, the Contessa fixed upon her task and Miss Temple, shorter, gazing at the other woman’s throat, inches away.
    The Contessa frowned. ‘With charity, one could say you looked Swiss. But we are already late. What did you make of Oskar? Is he in
health
, Celeste? In his
mind
?’
    ‘We scarcely spoke. I had been injured –’
    ‘Yes, he must have liked that. Probably wanted to eat you whole.’
    ‘Why did you not kill Doctor Svenson?’
    ‘Beg pardon?’
    The question had flown from Miss Temple’s mouth. ‘You left him alive with the glass card.’
    ‘Did I?’
    ‘Half of him wants to die, you know. Because of Elöise. Because of you.’
    The Contessa met her censorious gaze and laughed outright, her pleasure the more for being taken unawares.