Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Twenty Two: Kiss Number One

Alice had taken the news that Jack and Ellini were getting married entirely too well.

She hadn't pretended to be pleased, of course. But she hadn't shouted or thrown things at him either. She had just raised her eyebrows and wondered aloud how long it would last.

And presumably – since she could get people to do whatever she wanted just by telling them to – she could have put a stop to it. She could have said, 'No, Jack, you won't be marrying Miss Syal. In fact, you'll be marrying me next Saturday, and for the rest of your life, you will be known – if you're known at all – as Mr Alice Darwin'.

But somehow, he sensed, it was a matter of pride. She wouldn't tell him not to marry Ellini – that would be like admitting that her power over him wasn't already absolute. She would stage something, probably involving her cleavage – almost certainly involving pain for his little mouse.

And it was the fourth of July. Pain for Ellini today might mean no Ellini tomorrow.

So Jack had taken the precaution of being extremely polite to Alice since he'd broken off his relationship with her. This meant not snorting derisively whenever she said something idealistic about science, and – hardest of all – not staring at her tight-wrapped curves. 

Whenever he could feel her presence in his peripheral vision, drawing his eyes towards her like a magnet, he developed a sudden interest in the papers, and leaned over them resolutely until the temptation passed. Or until she left the room. Whichever happened first.

This morning, he'd been left alone with her in the Faculty Lounge. She was taking his pulse--an activity which always made her smug.

"You know, it's a funny thing, but I always seem to come up with a much higher pulse-rate than Sergei does when he takes your pulse," she said, looking up from his veins and giving him a sharp-cornered smile.

"Perhaps one or the other of you isn't very good at counting," Jack suggested.

"Well, it's most certainly not me," said Alice, getting up from her chair and sashaying over to the side-board where she kept her syringe.

Jack's heart sank. The blood samples were so much worse. He couldn't get his muscles to relax around her, so the needle always met resistance, and tore through with quite a lot of pain. He was no stranger to pain, but he dreaded the idea that she might mistake any gasps or groans or flinches for yet more evidence of his attraction to her.

She took her time tying up his arm and prodding his veins with her forefinger, trying to find the one which had risen closest to the surface. She needn't have bothered. They were all closest to the surface. They rose up eagerly to meet her touch, the traitorous little bastards.

She sat beside him, drawing out his blood while he read the paper – although, in truth, he had just been running his eyes over the same two or three lines for half an hour, without taking in much of their meaning.

"How are the wedding plans coming along?"

It was quite a common-place question. But the way she said 'wedding plans' made them sound like hare-brained schemes which had little chance of ever coming to fruition.

"Very well," said Jack, his eyes still fixed resolutely on the paper.

"Has she told you why she left you in India?"

"Mmm-hmm, yes. She was temporarily overwhelmed by my attractiveness and fled in panic. It's been known to happen. I think she's got used to the idea now, though."

Alice Darwin didn't even raise her eyebrows at this, which perhaps suggested that her mind was elsewhere. God, he hoped it never came back again.

He looked back down at the paper, but the unnerving silence drew his eyes up again. And when he focused on her face, he saw, to his complete bewilderment, that she was biting her lip – or rather, she was delicately pinning down her under-lip with her perfect teeth.

It wasn't an anxious gesture – it couldn't be, because the rest of her face was just as calm and contemptuous as ever – but it was such a good impression of an anxious gesture that, for a moment, he was at a loss to explain it. He thought bemusedly that she might be in pain. But what kind of pain would have the temerity to trouble Alice Darwin?

"I've been thinking that perhaps I don't want you to marry Miss Syal," she said, releasing her under-lip for just long enough to speak, and then clamping down on it again.

"Well, we can't always have what we want, can we?" said Jack, half-convinced that she was joking.

"I daresay we cannot, but does the wanting then obligingly disappear and never trouble us again?" She shifted her chair closer to him, without making a sound. "And, when you're a married man – sitting around playing dice with your homely, respectable little wife, won't you always wonder what it would have been like?"

Jack's blood froze in his veins. The lip-biting suddenly made sense. Oh my god, that's clever, he thought, in a moment of shining horror. She was going to pretend he'd won. She was going to let him have a brief taste of power over her – just enough to persuade him to touch her – before she slapped the shackles round his wrist.

His left hand, as though sensing that this was some kind of pivotal moment, dug its fingernails deep into his thighs, but Jack was barely aware of it.

She leaned closer to him, and he caught the scent of her perfume like a smack in the face. "Perhaps you shouldn't marry her," she breathed.

She was going to say 'please'. He could see her lips forming the word. In five years, the only pleases he'd had from her had been sarcastic, and the only thank yous had been shorthand for 'thank you for doing the thing you should have done anyway without being told to'.

He wanted that 'please' so much that he literally couldn't imagine his life going on without it. This was a moment he couldn't get past. He couldn't think until he'd kissed her – he couldn't make plans until he'd kissed her – he couldn't get on with his life until he'd kissed her. As far as he was concerned, time would just stand still right here, prolonging his agony, until he took her in his arms.

So he did. In his urgency – or maybe just to spite himself – he didn't even let her finish saying 'please'. 

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