Free Blazing Bodices by Robert T. Jeschonek Page B

head once, then nodded. Her perfectly creamy complexion shaded crimson as she blushed. "It's why I'm late getting home, actually. I was visiting Lorna Farnesworth, and I suddenly came down with the vapors." She fanned herself, making the auburn strands of hair around her face dance in the little breeze. "It took me ages to get my sea legs back, I'm afraid."
    Such an e minently reasonable explanation. I believed her on the spot, no questions asked. "You're feeling better now, though?"
    She patted her hair with one hand, keeping the left hand clasped at the base of her throat. "Still a bit shaky, truth be told. Best if I have a little lie-down, I should think."
    "Very well." I nodded and backed away. "We can celebrate another time."
    "Thank you ever so much for understanding." Bess smiled thinly and moved past me, heading for the stairs.
    Before she could elude me completely, however, I shot out a hand and caught her left wrist in my grip. Tugging her hand free, I kissed it lovingly...all the while stealing a glance at the thing she'd been hiding.
    At first, I could have sworn it was staring back at me. My first impression was of an eyeball planted in the high collar of her dress, flicking in its socket to look in my direction.
    Another moment's inspection, however, revealed the truth. It was an eye, all right, but it was crafted of silver, not humors and muscles and blood vessels. It was just a piece of jewelry, a pendant on a silver chain--an elongated eyeball mounted inside what looked to me like an Egyptian symbol.
    I'd never seen it before in my life...not in my house and certainly not on my wife.
    But I did not speak of it at that moment. I lifted my lips away from her soft, pallid hand, allowing her to cover the pendant once more.
    And then, with a sigh, she was gone up the stairs. I heard the door to her bedroom close, and I frowned.
    For the first time, suspicion took shape within me. Why had she felt the need to conceal that strange pendant? What was the real reason for her absence that afternoon?
    Perhaps, I thought, my mistress might shed some light on the subject.
    Â 
    *****
    Lady Undine Crenshaw reclined on a fainting couch in the parlor of her rooms at the Savoy hotel. Her black-trimmed red silk dressing gown flowed over her voluptuous curves, leaving her pale ankles and feet scandalously bare. Sunlight streamed from the open windows through her luxurious blonde hair as it lay across her shoulders and breasts, forming a wispy halo. Her eyes, a brighter blue than any robin's egg could ever be, twinkled as she gazed at me.
    "You're asking me about the likelihood that your wife indulged in an assignation?" Her voice was deep and husky. One corner of her mouth was cocked upward in a knowing smirk as it almost always seemed to be. "Darling, how should I know?"
    I shook my head in frustration as I paced in front of her. "I'm simply asking your opinion. As a woman. "
    Lady Crenshaw sighed and turned her gaze to the ceiling. "She was surprised, you say? Alarmed?"
    I stopped pacing and looked down at her, expecting insight. "Exactly."
    "Perhaps she wondered if your company had collapsed, or you'd committed some unspeakable crime." Lady Crenshaw met my gaze. "Seeing you unexpectedly, and so out of context...of course it would worry her."
    "This was different." I waved her off and resumed pacing. "Bess was not happy to see me."
    "Believe it or not," said Lady Crenshaw, "wives are not always happy to see their husbands." Twisting around, she reached for the silver cigarette case and matches on the round marble table behind her. "Or so I've heard."
    "But the pendant ." I pressed my left hand at the base of my throat as I recalled it. "She was hiding it from me. And it looked so strange. So foreign. "
    Lady Crenshaw opened the case, drew out a slender brown cigarette, and slipped it between her lips. "Perhaps you've been spending too much time at that Wanderers' Club, darling." Her words were muffled as she spoke around the