Wicked After Midnight(29)

“I’m a contortionist, monsieur. The best Paris has ever seen.”

I placed one splayed hand against his chest and let my lips nearly brush his before pushing away, arcing gracefully and falling into a split on the ground. Monsieur Philippe cleared his throat and fussed with his coat. From my vantage point on the floor, I could see the effect I was having. And I struggled not to get smug.

“I can see that. But ma chère, a Bludman in a cabaret? It’s unheard of!”

“Then hear of it,” I said.

I stood with a twirl and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to do what I was going to do, but I didn’t see that I had a choice. With Mademoiselle Caprice’s lessons in my head and steel in my spine, I stepped close to him and lifted his hands, placing them in their proper places at my waist and in my other hand. Palm to palm, he was warm and clammy, with just the faintest tremor of unease, and his blood burned high in his cheeks, spicing the air with nervousness and desire. The blood hunger tugged at me but wasn’t problematic. I’d seen other Bludmen lose it—especially Catarrh and Quincy, the two-headed twins at the caravan, who’d run hotter than most and needed to keep both mouths satisfied. Even Criminy got peckish if he went too long without feeding. But for me, it had always been like this, the same sort of polite hunger you would get waiting for a meal while staring at food behind a glass display. Sure, you wanted it. But you weren’t about to break the glass and steal it.

I began to hum a well-known waltz, and after a beat, he moved with me, surprisingly light on his feet. Madame Sylvie took up the song with a strange quaver in her voice, which freed me to talk.

“You see, monsieur. I am a very unusual woman. I was raised in a caravan, performing for humans every night. I’ve never drunk from a live subject. I don’t even know how to break the skin. My hunger is as inconsequential as my talent is enormous.” I leaned close, my lips brushing his ear. “I am as tame as tame can be.”

He twirled me out and stared at me, just flat-out stared, as if he couldn’t quite figure out what sort of curiosity I might be but wanted to put me in a locked glass case in his bedroom. I swept a deep curtsy, knowing it would show off the tight fabric over my bosom to best advantage.

“How much, madame?”

Madame Sylvie chuckled, low and husky. “I don’t believe the girl wishes to offer such services, monsieur.”

All three of them looked to me. I hid my panic behind an enigmatic smile, as Criminy had taught me long ago.

“Is that true, Mademoiselle Ward?”

I winked. “For now. But please, monsieur, keep asking.”

He shivered all over and closed his eyes as if he couldn’t take another moment of looking at me without carrying me away to a bed, and that’s when I knew I’d won.

“She will be in tomorrow’s show?”

Madame Sylvie regarded me, taking in, I’m sure, my ragged hems and tangled hair. “Her debut will be Saturday night, I think. That gives us three days to get her in shape.” She walked close, lifting a lank curl that had fallen from my updo. “Interesting coloring, though. Blue eyes and hair the color of thick coffee.”

Monsieur Philippe nodded hungrily. “Exotic, just so.” He gasped and chuckled to himself. “That’s it. La Demitasse. The cup. Delicate and small and curved, perfect for holding both darkness and sweetness, yes?”

Much to my surprise, Madame Sylvie’s skin shivered over pink as she laughed and clapped her hands like a little girl. “But monsieur, that is brilliant! We’ll have to have posters made up tout de suite. I wonder if Monsieur Lenoir would . . . but no. He won’t even look at her until we’ve made her a star. I’ll send for Steinlen. If you believe she is safe?”

Monsieur Philippe licked his lips like a toad. “Perhaps . . . one last test?”

I struggled not to bare my teeth and hiss at the expectant silence that followed. My eyes flashed to Vale, his jaw so hard that I winced as if struck somewhere soft. The interview was getting out of hand, testing the bounds of that one word: anything. One step after another. And now it all came down to something I very much didn’t want to do. Something that meant nothing to me and yet also meant everything.

I turned my quavering lips into a quirked smile and went up on tiptoes to kiss Monsieur Philippe on the rosy, blood-hot cheek.

“I’m very young, monsieur. Please forgive my shyness.”

A tremor ran through him, and he pulled a silk handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe away the sweat that beaded his brow.

“Understandable, my dear. How young?”

“Only eighteen, monsieur,” Madame Sylvie said.