Wicked Becomes You(32)
“No! You can’t do that. Wine stains fabric!” When he grinned and opened his hand, letting the handkerchief drop onto the table, she felt her patience snap. “This is very childish,” she said, “and pointless to boot. I said I wished to live freely, not to throw things at people. ”
“No,” he said evenly, “you said you no longer cared for others’ censure.”
“One entails the other.”
He inclined his head. “Precisely my point. So, can you follow through with it? Try the wineglass.”
“The wineglass? But it would break!”
“True,” he said thoughtfully. “And quite loudly, to boot.” He picked up her glass and extended his hand into the aisle.
His fingers opened.
The glass shattered.
“Oh, dear,” she heard the American girl murmur. The other patrons glanced over, some of them blushing with vicarious embarrassment.
It wasn’t so bad, really. Gwen looked at him and shrugged.
He smiled back at her and lifted his glass as though in a toast. “To waking the dead,” he said, and then dropped it onto the ground as well.
Shouts went up. The matron at the table behind her said in a very loud voice that he had done it deliberately. The man with the curaçao shot to his feet, cursing in language Gwen could not follow, although she did gather he was offended by the splatter on his pant leg.
“You’re quite red,” Alex said mildly. “Feeling a bit . . . uncomfortable?” With a casual rap of his knuckles, he knocked her water glass off the table.
At this point, people on the pavement began to stop and gawk.
Gwen sat frozen. Alex propped his forearms on the table, leaning in confidentially. “We seem to have run out of minor glassware. There’s always the pitcher, of course. Or if it’s real drama you want, I can tip over the table.”
“No,” she snapped.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon—would you like to give it a go yourself?”
“This is not rude. This is wanton destruction!”
He shrugged. “A table, a glass, a lady’s character . . . all of them break so easily. Pity, that.”
A clawlike grip caught her arm. The waiter ranted incoherently down at her, spittle flying from his lips.
Alex reached over and took hold of the waiter’s wrist, saying something sharp and short.
The waiter spat back a guttural curse.
Alex’s knuckles whitened, and the waiter gasped, his fingers loosening. Gwen inched out of his grip and Alex’s hand dropped. He sat back in his chair.
The waiter clutched his wrist to his chest now, launching into a flurry of agitated French that she could not follow—save the mention of les gardes municipaux.
Police.
That meant police.
She came to her feet, clawing at the chatelaine bag clipped to her waist, wherein sat all her money. Her stammered apology did not assemble grammatically. “Get up!” she cried at Alex. Why was he smiling? “He’s going to summon the police!”
He tipped his head to listen. “Why, yes, so he is. Apparently we’re a public nuisance.” He nodded once. “I always did suspect you’d be a nuisance, Gwen.”
Pounds. Pence. Francs, yes, finally! She shoved a banknote into the waiter’s hand. He took a look at it, fell abruptly quiet, and began to bow to her profusely as he backed away.
Murmurs went up from the crowd on the pavement. Suddenly everybody was looking at her very queerly.
Alex began to laugh.
“What?” She felt near to stamping her foot. To strangling him. “What is so funny? I should say he was owed fifty francs for this mess!”
“Then you overpaid him tenfold,” he said as he rose. “That was a five-hundred-franc note. Seems we’ll have to work on your bribery skills.”
By God, she was sick of being laughed at! “Oh yes?” She turned and snatched up the pitcher of mazagran from the Americans’ table, ignoring the sharp “Hey!” from the man with the newspaper.
Alex lifted his brows.
Holding his eye, she threw it at his head.
He ducked, and the crowd behind the railing followed suit. The pitcher exploded against the pavement.
Utter silence.
“That was a bit much,” Alex said helpfully. “But at least you did take aim this time.”
A tap came at her shoulder. The young waiter, brow lifted, held out his hand imperiously.
“Another five hundred, do you think?” The amusement in Alex’s voice did nothing to cool her temper. In a minute she would not believe she’d just done this.
“One hundred,” she said to the boy, and dared him with her eyes to refuse the note.
He was not a fool. Sketching her another deep bow, he retreated once more, the note clutched in his hand.