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

Chapter Thirty Six: The Forget-me-not Waltz

When Jack got to the River Club, he danced with a few ladies who wouldn't have left him alone all night if they hadn't been indulged immediately, and then took up station by the band-stand and applied himself to the serious business of drinking.

He spotted Sam and Manda in the crowd, but neither of them came up to speak to him. Perhaps they had heard about the way he'd treated Ellini – although he couldn't imagine Manda would have resisted the temptation to slap him, if that was the case.

The dance-floor was really just a wide pier beside the river. Oxford's climate meant that it was generally too wet to be used, but the sky was clear tonight – he could even make out a few stars. What with this and the music, and the soothing absence of electric lights, he soon began to feel better. By the time Ellini arrived, he had even stopped thinking about Violet's lurid nails.

One look was enough to convince him that her attitude towards him had thawed. There was no trace of the haughty, mechanical politeness she had levelled at him earlier. She looked just as she had when they'd been standing in front of the mirror together, admiring her new dress: blushing and glowing, and adorably conscious of her own beauty. 

But for all that, there was something resigned in her face when she looked at him. She was excited by the night, the atmosphere and the dancing, but it looked as though he was just part of the general excitement, rather than a cause of excitement all on his own.

He didn't like it.

A waiter had already pressed a glass of champagne into her hands. She was sipping it with nervous enthusiasm by the time she reached Jack.

She had pinned a little posy of forget-me-nots to the bodice of her dress, and had obviously used one of her hair-pins to secure it, because one errant lock was hanging loose beside her neck, giving her a kind of blushing, asymmetrical charm.

"Mouse," he said, giving her a cordial nod as she came to rest beside him. "You look as complete as your mended dolly – not that I'm angling after more praise for that or anything."

Ellini laughed. "All right," she said, "thank you, thank you, thank you – I already said thank you!"

"Through a door. After a lot of hinting."

"Well, I didn't mean it any less for that. It's important to me – I mean, I was glad to see her fixed – before tonight."

A slight cloud appeared in the sunny skies that had been brought about by her arrival. Jack tried to ignore it.

"Can I get you another drink?" he asked, gesturing at her half-full glass of champagne.

Ellini nodded and downed it with a single gulp. "Thank you," she said, handing him the empty glass.

Jack stared at it. His old, predatory instincts – the ones that had been so mysteriously absent when Violet had told him about her open window – couldn't help suggesting that this was an interesting development.

"Are you celebrating something?" he said weakly.

Ellini nodded again. "It's a going-away party."

Jack looked at her blankly. "And, by 'going away', you mean...?"

"It'll be all right," she said, with a sort of cheerful awkwardness. "You'll forget about me in a week, I promise you. I haven't been so careless as to compromise on that. And it's all in the prophecy – I've had plenty of time to reconcile myself to the idea."

Jack looked back at her empty glass – mainly to keep his temper. "You really are exasperating sometimes, you know that?"

"You didn't?"