Twain's End Read Free

volatile.
    She looked up from her inspection. “Should I tell Mr. Ashcroft that you’re busy today?”
    â€œTell Ashie—” He stopped. “Wait a minute, what’s your pet name for that English bastard?”
    She kept her expression cool as she brought over the shirt. The King himself had dubbed Ralph “Benares,” after the holiest city in India, where dying pilgrims went. If Ralph could bring new life toThe King’s already robust bank accounts, The King would think him holy, indeed.
    â€œTell Brazierres, ” The King drawled scornfully, “to go home.” He sucked deeply at his cigar, as if to draw sustenance from it. “Remind me to stop and think next time about hiring an Englishman to promote America’s Sweetheart, will you? He creeps around like an English fog.”
    â€œOh, you’re America’s Sweetheart now?”
    He smiled around his cigar. “The Belle of New York, America’s Sweetheart—same difference.”
    â€œI’ll make sure it’s on your next playbill.”
    â€œMy next playbill”—he blew out smoke—“will be for my funeral.”
    â€œPlease. You are outliving us all.”
    â€œNot if Halley’s Comet has anything to say about it.”
    Isabel wished he had never read that article in the Times about the return of the comet next year. Even before the article came out, he made too much of being born under it, as if it held some kind of magical power over him. It disturbed her that he kept claiming it would take him with it when it soared through the skies in April 1910. He claimed that he and the comet were two “unaccountable freaks”—they came in together, and together they must go out.
    â€œPut on your shirt,” she said.
    Cigar in teeth, he shrugged on the shirt and turned his back for her to button his collar. She used her wrist to push his hair from his nape—she knew his mane’s surprising weight, being the one to wash and rub it dry for him every day—and then fastened his collar. He smelled good, like a scented cake of shaving soap. By day’s end, the smell of smoke would sheath him like armor.
    â€œClara is coming today,” she said.
    Only the tightening of his jaw indicated that he had heard her. He took his cigar from his mouth and slowly tapped it against the ashtray on the bedside table. “Did you place the telephone call?”
    â€œYes.”
    He took a languid puff. “You know, someone could have Wark killed, and who’d ever know who’d done it? Everyone would think that his wife was behind it.”
    Isabel kept quiet. It was best in these situations to let The King get control of himself on his own. He did not really mean that he would kill his daughter’s lover—the man couldn’t bear to move a sleeping kitten from the pocket of his billiards table. The reality was that The King himself was the one in danger. He was increasingly suffering from pains in his chest, searing constrictions that would drop him into a chair and blanch his face to the color of an onion paring.
    He smoked in silence as she moved on to the rest of his shirt buttons. She was getting his cuff links from the chiffonier when he said, “Miss Keller here yet?”
    She returned to him and waited for him to raise his wrist. “We have plenty of time until her train arrives, or I wouldn’t have risked going to see Mother.”
    He watched her poke the stem of a link through a cuff hole. “How is the old dame?”
    â€œMother? The same.”
    â€œI shouldn’t call her that. I’ve got twelve years on her.”
    â€œYou don’t look it.”
    He kissed her cheek, brushing her with his mustache. “I knew I liked you.”
    Isabel fastened the link. “Liked?”
    Their eyes met. Let him look away first; she wasn’t afraid. Let him see her lips, remembering their kisses.
    He looked at her mouth,