Page 111 of A Much Maligned Miss

Gervaise set down his glass and headed in their direction, a steely glint in his eye.

“Yes,” Caroline assured an ogling Clarence. “It is me. Those are my cats too, pulling the chariot.”

“Blimey!” Clarence said. “I wouldn’t want one cat that size, let alone two! Reckon they would eat me!”

Caroline laughed, then started to explain. “Well, actually—” At this point she noticed Gervaise glowering down at her. “Oh, there you are, Gervaise.”

“Yes, here I am,” he said grimly. “If you will excuse us,” he said to Clarence and his friends and whisked her away before they could object. A few disappointed groans still followed them. “I thought we discussed the inevitable repercussions of you wearing that dress unaccompanied?” he said tightly.

“Did we?”

“Me having to defend your honor,” he reminded her.

“Oh, that.” She glanced down at the scarlet silk encasing her flaunting bosom. “Well, you did say it was for the grand opening.”

He could make no reply to this, for he had said that. “Give me that bracelet,” he said holding out a hand.

“Why?”

“Because it was a mistake on my behalf.”

She lifted her chin. “How so?”

“You look like a goddess in that dress,” he said tersely. “The bracelet is cheap and tawdry and I hate to see it on you.”

“Vi really likes it.”

“Then Vi may have it. You can give it to her tomorrow.” She unfastened it and handed it over, and he slipped it into his pocket with a muttered “Thank you.” He took a deep breath. Now the discordant note was gone, he should be able to relax, yet still he felt poised on a cliff’s edge.

They stood side by side surveying The Citadel lit up for its public debut, its polished fixtures glittering under the extravagant gas lamps. Gervaise’s breath was coming quick and fast. He was heading for a fall, he could feel it. Disaster was looming and about to break over him in a devastating wave.

Perhaps he ought not to drink tonight to keep his wits about him. But he had a fatalistic feeling that any preventative measures he took would be in vain. The die had already been cast.

“Does it not look wonderful?” Caroline asked quietly.

“I don’t know, does it?”

She turned to him in surprise. “You don’t know?”

“I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything but you in that dress,” he admitted before he could stop himself.

She hesitated. “Yet you have scarcely looked at me.”

“It almost hurts to look at you,” he said flatly. In his head he added, It hurts because you are not mine. He felt almost sick with the realization. He wasn’t heading for a fall. He had fallen already.

She opened her mouth on some reply, but at this point Ralph clambered onto a chair and declared in ringing tones that the establishment was now officially open. Gervaise pulled out his cigarette case as Caroline politely clapped. Jeb made his way over to the entrance and drew back the bolt.

Outside the bowed windows, there was a queue forming, even this early in the evening. “Throw open the doors!” Barty Ewell shouted and the barmaids scurried into position. It was going to be a busy night.

*

Caroline fanned herself with her hand. She felt hot despite the icy bursts of cold that kept drifting through the open double doors. The Citadel was packed to the rafters with paying customers.

It must be getting on for eleven o’clock by now. Gervaise had disappeared upstairs with Ralph and Mr. Ewell about half an hour ago, taking a select few patrons up to their gambling room. Reg had been dogging Caroline’s every step since that point like a faithful hound. She suspected Gervaise had set him on her.

For a while she had sat with some friends of Barty Ewell’s, the prominent actress Dora Dabney and her handsome husband, and a flamboyant couple named Jones. Mr. Jones proclaimed the gambling room was “too rich for his blood” and that he would sooner play billiards. Miss Dabney eagerly exclaimed she had always wanted to learn, and all four of them made off in that direction to play a mixed couples match.

Caroline turned to Reg. “Well, I think it’s high time I retired…” she began when her eye was drawn to the spectacle of two newcomers stood swathed in great coats and mufflers and sticking out like two sore thumbs amid all the gaiety. The taller of the two reached up to drag down his knitted scarf and reveal his face.