Susan Krinard - Luck of the Wolf

“She’s sleeping again. I have a few more errands to attend to.”

Yuri gave him a long look. “What is it?” he asked. “What has happened?”

Cort told him briefly about her reaction to the dress.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “This will not be easy.”

Feeling an unaccountable desire to defend Aria, Cort glared at Yuri. “She has remembered her name.”

“Lucienne?”

“Aria,” Cort said.

Yuri eyed him askance. “You do not seem disappointed.”

“ I never assumed she was Lucienne Renier.”

“You were confident enough to agree to my plan. In any case, she might not remember her real name. Or she might be lying about not remembering.”

“You think she is feigning her amnesia?”

“It is possible, is it not?” Yuri took a drag. “Have you changed your mind about our plan?”

Cort considered telling Yuri that he had decided to place advertisements in local papers and thought better of it. Yuri wouldn’t be pleased. “I believe we must be cautious,” he said.

“I am still confident that she is Lucienne. We must proceed on that basis, or we cannot proceed at all.”

Yuri was right. Yet a little prick of unease kept Cort silent. By the time he had finished his errands, however, he was thinking clearly again. Night was falling, and for once the sky was clear. He returned to the boardinghouse in far better spirits.

Yuri met him in the hall.

“She is going to need a great deal of work,” he grumbled.

Cort’s good mood began to fade. “Have you had an argument?” he asked.

“What makes you think that?”

“She doesn’t like you.”

“So? That means nothing to me. She trusts you, and that is enough.”

“Did she tell you so?”

“You can try to turn a Russian bear into a pussycat if you wish.” He shook his head with a sigh of resignation. “We will have to begin as if she were a peasant child from some backward derevnia in Siberia.”

Cort began to grow angry. “A peasant?” he repeated softly.

“She eats like a peasant, behaves like one and speaks like one.”

“As I did?”

Yuri threw up his hands. “You are one no longer. Nor will she be when we are finished.”

Damn Yuri. It would be the same discussion all over again if he let this continue. “I have things to give her,” Cort said. “You’re free to go out.”

“Spasibo , Your Highness,” Yuri said, bowing with an ironic snap of his heels. “When have I your permission to return?”

“Before nightfall, Baron Chernikov. And bring back a proper dinner and a bottle of wine, s’il vous plaît.”

Growling like the Russian bear he had spoken of, Yuri strode out the door. Cort went on to their rooms, knocked lightly and waited for Aria to answer.

She opened the door a crack, her face pressed to the jamb, a single turquoise eye visible in the narrow gap. The eye widened, and Cort almost thought he caught the edge of a grin.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said with an air of indifference, and opened the door. She was wearing a sheet from one of the beds, gathered and tied around her waist with what looked like one of Yuri’s suspenders. She glanced at the packages, skipped out of his way and took her accustomed place on the sofa. Beside her lay the damaged dress. She picked it up and began industriously stitching the shoulder seam.

“I asked Yuri for a needle and thread,” she explained. “I will have this mended very soon.”

Cort set down the packages and watched her, careful not to reveal any of his thoughts. Her skill was evident in her deft motions and the painstaking care she put into the task. Ladies of good family might embroidered handkerchiefs or antimacassars, but few made or mended their own clothing.

“Where did you learn to sew so well?” he asked.

Aria looked up, and Cort could see the pleasure she quickly concealed. “It isn’t difficult. Anyone can learn to do it.”

Especially anyone who didn’t have the luxury of replacing worn clothes with new ones.

“I’ve brought you a few more items you’ll need,” he said.

Aria set down her sewing. “My shirt and trousers?”

“Among other things.”

“Thank y—” She wrinkled her nose. “Something smells awful.”

Cort couldn’t have agreed more. He knew better than to give a loup-garou female perfume, no matter how subtle, but the paper the shop girl had wrapped the items in was scented.

“It will fade,” he said. He laid out a selection of hair combs, a mirror, a brush and other toilet items. Aria slid off the couch and approached, real interest in her expression. She picked up and examined each item in turn. The mirror she held a little longer, staring ferociously into the glass as if she could make no sense of what she saw in it. After a minute she put it down.

“Thank you,” she said.

Cort was unaccountably pleased by her gratitude. “Voilà,” he said, opening the last package.

As soon as she saw the trousers she gave a crow of delight and nearly knocked Cort over in her eagerness to take them from him. She held them up to her waist.

“They are perfect!” She danced like a foal kicking up its heels as he displayed the shirt and cap and shoes. “How wonderful!”

Bemused and reluctantly charmed by her antics, Cort considered how mortified any respectable mama would be to see her daughter in such bliss over a secondhand, outgrown set of common boy’s clothes. But Aria was unaware, or simply didn’t care, how she must appear or who might disapprove.

With a little bob of her head, she dashed off into the bedroom. The sounds that followed told him that she was obviously in some haste to remove her makeshift robe and change clothes. Cort did his best not to listen or imagine her appearance between the shedding of one garment and the donning of another. He was studiously examining one of many threadbare spots in the ancient, dirty carpet when she reemerged.

Aria might have passed for a boy if she had taken the time to bind her breasts and tuck her hair under her cap. As it was, with her tresses tied back in an untidy queue, she looked once again a full five years younger than the twenty or twenty-one years he judged her to be.

It would be easier, much easier, for him if she wore such clothes for the remainder of his time with her. But that wouldn’t be possible. Soon enough she would be accustomed to wearing proper garments again. Perhaps, given the many layers with which modern women armored themselves, that would make things easiest of all. Her flesh would be confined, untouchable.

But that wasn’t going to happen soon enough. Her warm body fell against his. “Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Cort closed his eyes, working desperately to suppress his instinctive response. The smell of her hair filled his nose. Her heart thumped against his ribs. She broke away, and he realized with relief that he had been able to stay true to his resolve. She was only expressing her gratitude as a child would, oblivious to the consequences. His body remained under his control.

His emotions were another matter. He was in another kind of danger now. The danger of becoming fond of her. He could so easily step over the line from a certain admiration to something like affection. And he had given up such feelings many years ago. Any personal interest in her could only lead to disaster.

“De rien,” he said, setting her back. “It’s nothing.”

“Au contraire,” she said, speaking with a distinctly European French accent.

“You speak français very well,” he said.

“Do I? I wonder where I learned it.”

From a teacher whose employers considered it an essential skill, he was sure. But why that, and not an appreciation for other pursuits essential to the American rich?