Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

31 - Chapter XXXI: A Match for a Candle

Shaftesbury Avenue, Westminster, 11:21 pm. 18 November, 1899.

The carriage was moving, the soot-covered bricks of the Lyric Theatre fading behind them. Fading but regrettably not forgotten, decided Lucian, staring with some discontent at the figure across from him. Jacqueline. It was the final hour of her outing. She was lounging in her furs, the scent of rose and jasmine idly drifting from her fan. Without question, perfect in form, graceful when fate opted to nurture rather than needle her sentiments. Her English refined, her French faultless...

"Did you like it," she asked, shifting her legs provocatively beneath her gown, enough glass-beaded silk to clothe all of Westminster. Her face was now partially obscured by a theatre programme, an elaborate printing with the words Florodora strewn across the cover. "...that ungainly woman called it 'risqué,' but I thought it was delightful. Elegant." Her curls were keeping time with her voice. "Only a spinster would say otherwise."

Unable to muster much else, he said, "Mm." Had he been listening, he might have stuck up for the spinster. He might have indicated that Florodora was the worst production he'd seen since Shakespeare's Henry the VIII burned down the Globe Theatre. But 'Mm' had satisfied Jacqueline on many an occasion, and reason told him it would suffice for one more.

"Like a can-can without legs," she purred. "...Florodora, Florodora." With certainty, she flicked her fan at him, almost singing the words, her inability to scent out his mood bearing witness to how young she still was. "I adored every minute. The dinner, the theatre..." She was holding out her arm, touching the gift he had given her over dinner. "...the bracelet..."

His attention was drifting, his eyes meandering to the window on his left. The curtains were drawn, but he could see streetlights through the fabric. They were heading in the direction of Christian O'Riley's home. His prison, to be more accurate.

"It all ended so perfectly..." Jacqueline was not yet aware of their destination... She was going on and on, like roots on a rocky shore, a tree with little hope of survival. "...the singing, the dancing. I know Mother says there's no intellect in theatre, but the coordination of fifty people on a single stage must take some measure of..."

"Forty-four." The number had called him back to attention. Forty-four individuals on stage...eight couples, sixteen labourers, twelve in the back. Coordination: a simple matter of separating members into groups, moving them across a field, like going to war without gunfire...but Jacqueline had no concept of war...no concept of loss.

She pursed her otherwise unblemished brow. "Pardon?"

Ironically, it was the reason she first attracted him... "There were forty-four," he said again, giving her no more than that.

"But..." She was struggling to appear perceptive. Finally, she gave up. "...fifty or forty-four, what does it matter?"

"Matter does not enter it..." He could hear the austerity in his voice. Wrong of him to be bitter over that play, that waste of his time. "...I am only reflecting that if the number has no bearing, then it is questionable why it is the culmination of the last three hours."

The number ticking in his brain. Forty-four. Twenty-seven. Fourteen. Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy. The links on the bracelet, the turns of the street, the seconds as they passed. Forever counting with mounting precision, while the words of his mouth became enigmatic and vague.

"I have some unexpected news," he said, changing the subject abruptly. No purpose to be had from explaining his thoughts to one who would be cursing his name within a week. "...a visit."