Beast Read Free Page B

of white foam, like endless yards of floating lace—then dropped, sending a spray up over the deck. The girl squealed as she and her beau took a pelting of water. Then they both ran. Straight toward Charles.
    He drew back, alarmed and madly scrambling for a logical, polite explanation for his being outside on deck wearing nothing but blankets. He was sure the two lovebirds were about to join him right here under the companionway.
    This most certainly was the young man's intention, for when the girl veered again, toward the top of the steps instead of the underside, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward Charles's little patch of dark.
    Quick as lightning, however, a rather large fan came out. It rapped him on the knuckles loud enough that Charles heard the crack and saw the young officer jerk his hand away, clutching the back of it.
    The young man exclaimed, "By heaven, Miss Vandermeer, you quite nearly broke my fingers!"
    Free of him, she trotted around and climbed up the first half-dozen steps where she turned and sat—sending a voluminous, shushing billow of silk and ruffles to flop through the spaces between the foot treads, directly onto Charles's bare shoulder and arm. He caught his breath—holding in a deep, pleasing intake, floral-scented. Then he quickly had to remove his own hand from the step or she would have put her sweet little feet right down onto his fingers.
    The smell of her settled like a little cloud at his shoulder. She wore a jasmine perfume with hints of acacia and clover, one of the more elegant jasmine blends, though a bit too clustered in the middle range of notes to be perfect. Belvienne's of Paris. All this registered in an instant without effort, then became complicated. There was something more, something separate. The scent of real jasmine. There was distinctly about the girl, her dress, her entire person, the faint smell of the fresh flower itself, not the attar or perfume but something light, layered, harmonic, the sort only nature could produce, reminiscent of late summer when the blossoms themselves were piled waist-high on the floor of Charles's factory, ready to be spread on cloth frames soaked in oil. Then she bent her head forward, and the sharp, unearthly light from below shot up the back of her to reveal the explanation: Tucked into the neat shadows of very fair hair were small white stars, fairer still, of Jasminum
    simplicifolium . This little constellation of flowers trailed down the back of a rolled chignon; it intertwined the knots of the gown's dropped shoulders.
    The young man, meanwhile, had swung round the handrail and climbed a step or two. He placed one arm on the bulwark wall, cornering her this time on the stairway.
    "You almost broke my fingers," he insisted.
    She let out light laughter, a sound that up close had a cool nuance to it. "No, I didn't," she said. "I know precisely how hard I hit you. It wouldn't have broken a finger, though I'm sure it smarted."
    The young officer was annoyed by this response. "Well," he said, "don't use that thing on me again."
    She leaned her shoulders back against the step at Charles's ear. "Then don't grab me when I don't want you to. You keep your hands to yourself, Lieutenant Johnston, and you shall walk away tonight with your knuckles intact."
    Heedless of this warning, the young lieutenant leaned forward, putting his knee into her copious skirts as he bent his elbows. He pressed forward, an attempt to kiss her. Then pulled suddenly back. Or more accurately was pushed back. Charles could just see past a round, bare shoulder to where the girl's extended arm, aided by the fan again—held straight out not unlike a bayonet—put the fellow at more than arm's length. The lieutenant looked down at the thing poking him in the chest.
    His face rose to hers again as he murmured inscrutably, "Don't be a fool."
    She only laughed.
    He countered earnestly, "He's a devil."
    "Yes, you have implied as much all evening."
    The young officer made a