She laid the beige linen napkin across the table and laced her gloved fingers together. Her eyes slipped closed and she wished she could hear the music the dancers drifting cross the ballroom floor heard, the strain of the violins that drove their fluent, floating steps.
She opened them very slowly, gazing around Acier’s elegant Parlor in the soft, intimate light.
Most of the silk draped tables were empty as their elegant patrons glided from the parlor and left for dancing in the gleaming, sparkling Ballroom or for the Noh play in the dim Theater. Excluding herself, there were only five other people in the roomy yet intimate Parlor; two couples dined in the Parlor; a man sat reading the Elbrus Times two tables away. A big, bold headline on the delicate parchment-yellow newspaper read GRAS MILITIA STILL SEARCHING FOR REBEL JOURNALIST E. She had read the front page articles earlier that evening.
The paper lowered abruptly and the man looked around. She continued to stare, still seeing the bold headline of the Elbrus Times before her eyes. The man watched her staring at him listlessly, then rose from his seat quite suddenly, taking up his derby and sweeping overcoat. She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, a set of bottle green velvet covered thighs filled her line of vision.
“Good evening.” The voice was deep, quiet, located somewhere above her and in front of her. “May I join you as you dine?”
She nodded even as she looked. This man was tall, solid beneath a stylish and cut velvet suit. Very short, smooth-looking waves lay against his head. Unblemished cinnamon skin and heather-gray eyes drew her attention. He held the copy of the newspaper folded in his hands.
Silently, watching him from beneath the brim of her velvet top hat, she wondered what he would think if he knew who he was dining with.
He draped his coat neatly across the back of his chair and set his hat on the edge of the table, sitting quietly across from her just as Robin returned. The young waiter held clasped crossed between his fingers the long stems of two champagne flutes in one hand and two dark bottles in the other. A golden bucket of ice clinked softly on one arm. Robin bowed as he came upon the secluded table.
“Sir, my apologies for the delay. I noticed a guest had joined you so I brought two glasses. Is this to your satisfaction or will your guest not be joining you for the evening?” he inquired politely, bowing to the gentleman across from her.
“That is fine, Robin, thank you.”
He set the two flutes on the table, the ice bucket and the pre-chilled bottles as well. Carefully, so the ice would not spill out, he slipped the narrow, long-necked wine bottle inside the ice in the bucket. From his pocket, he drew a neatly wrapped, golden silk napkin. Robin set this on the table as well, bowed, and left them.
For a moment, the two of them were silent.
Ice clinked and settled in the gleaming, golden bucket….
“I noticed you, reading the headline on my paper,” the man said quietly. He gave a soft laugh. His gaze burned into her top hat with a searing curiosity though his tone remained light and congenial. “I don’t know what exactly possessed me to come to your table as you look quite well to keep your own company.” He motioned at the paper he had laid down on the table beside his hat. “Would you care to read the article?”
“I read it this morning, thank you, sir. It was quite…interesting.” She reached for the golden napkin. “This rebel journalist they keep writing about seems determined to start trouble in Elbrus.”
She studied his face. His brown skin wasn’t as flawless as she had thought. A thin, pale scar ran along his jaw from his right ear to his chin. She followed it leisurely with her gaze.
“The matter interests you?” His gray eyes lit up.
“Very much.”
“A war is rising.”
“Yes.” The city of Elbrus was strung tighter than a bow, waiting for the first shot to be fired. The Gras Militia was from a city outside of the mountain, a place where men conquered what was unconquered just to possess it. She unfolded the gold, silk napkin. Inside lay four sugar cubes.
He watched her hands. “The Gras Militia are trickling into the city and taking hold of its businesses. The people are frightened that soon they will control the entire city.” He took a deep angry breath. “What have we done to them? We lived in peace in our winter city before they came.”
She regarded him quietly, understanding his anger. “Elbrus is made of some tangible things…and mist and ice, and dreams, sir. What the men outside of it don’t know about, they will seize in a fit of jealousy and power-hunger the moment they discover its existence. That is the way of the world.” She tipped her top hat up, revealing a pair of burnished, brassy scarlet eyes. “Now, how did you come by that scar on your jaw?
He stared, her words seeping into him before her question set in. “That was very poetic. You will have to explain what you mean in truth to me.” He then smiled and laughed softly again. He touched the thing in question, running a long finger almost caressingly along his jaw line. “You want to know how I got this? First…you must tell me your name and tell me why you are dressed so….Madame.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You knew?”
“Yes.”
“What gave me away?”
“I have never seen a man quite so very slender before…with such small, slender hands….
“However, that suit looks dashing on you. I doubt any man in Elbrus will appreciate your style though. Does your waiter know? And your name, if you please.” The last of the couples at their private tables rose and departed quietly, whispering softly to one another.
She recalled reaching for the silk napkin with the sugar cubes inside, his gaze watching her hands. “Robin knows. He just plays my game.” She reached up and took the top hat delicately from her crown.
He watched, mesmerized by the wealth of dark, dark hair that spilled almost endlessly from the confines of the top hat.
She shook out her hair, russet eyes—neither red nor brown—shining in the candlelight. “No more pretenses then?”
He stared at her, then shook his head. She, sitting there in her top hat and expensive men’s clothes, was more captivating in her unearthly beauty than any of the debutantes and fine ladies of Elbrus in their jewels and fancy gowns and glittering ballrooms. And she had revealed herself to him and him alone.
“Eden.”
“Pardon?” he blinked, pulling his gaze away from her lips.
“My name is Eden. Just Eden. And you?”
“Acier Bruyère.”
A smile curved Angel’s bow lips. “How romantic. Were you named for this place?” she gestured around to encompass the Parlor and Acier itself.
“No, I wasn’t.” Acier smiled as well, admiring the glitter of the intimate light in her eyes.
“I assure you my lady, there is nothing romantic about it,” he smiled in return.
“Why not?”
He spoke in French, and Eden understood the words.
She laughed, the musical sound ringing in the empty parlor. “You speak the language?”
He raised a brow. “You understood me?”
My father named me after his gun.
Acier. Steel.
Eden laughed again, red-brown eyes sparkling. “Yes, yes.”
“And what or who are you named for?”
A swift wind, neither warm nor cool, guttered the candle on the table. Just as swiftly, the sparkle vanished from Eden’s eyes and her laughter died a quick, irrevocable death in now empty Parlor. There were no windows in the room, none which opened out.
“I am named for my homeland,” she replied shortly. A thin smile bowed her lips. “Tell me more about you.”
Acier contained a frown at her obvious unwillingness to discuss herself.
He cleared his throat. “I am delighted that someone understands my native tongue.”
“You are from France?” she asked curiously, her eyes clearing of the quiet, brief tenseness by degrees.
“I was born there,” he
replied, gesturing at the wine and champagne. “I don’t remember much. May I pour you a drink?”
“Allow me,” she said, reaching for the glasses. “Are you opposed to a flute of absinthe?”
A black brow rose. “Absinthe? Isn’t it lethal?”
“In certain quantities, yes.” Eden winked, drawing the wine and champagne bottles in the bucket toward her. “But not if you know how to make it.”
Acier studied the shorter, green bottle. “That is but wine.”
“Ah, a special kind of wine–absinthe at its core.” The cork popped loudly in the silence. “Just enough of it to make it more than wine….” She laughed a little. “But maybe more absinthe than wine.”
She poured the wine into glasses, filling them almost halfway. Cold white wine tinged a bright, bright green, almost luminescent, lapped at the crystal walls of the glass flutes. Eden patted her breasts, then reached into her coat. The pocket there was lined in silk. From it, she withdrew a flat, silver spoon.
“Have you ever seen this done before?”
“No.” Acier watched silently, a green light reflected off the Green Fairy’s potion in his heather-colored eyes. He glanced at her. “Are you from Elbrus? I have never seen you before.”
“No,” she replied shortly. Without looking at him, she curled her fingers around the neck of the champagne bottle. She twisted the cap off, plucked two sugar cubes from the gold, silk napkin, set the spoon across the top of one flute, then put the cubes on the small spoon. Carefully, Eden tilted the champagne bottle and trickled a sparkling stream of new crystal clear liquid over the sugar