“Am I not allowed a choice? I thought we had a partnership. A marriage of equal minds.”
Walter’s fingers twitch. “You can’t lie with Richardson in the grass like a whore, and deny your own husband in his bed. That is a fact, Violet, the bedrock of our agreement. Did I ever neglect you, whatever my other adventures?”
“I see. Then it’s all right if I take lovers, as long as I let you have me, too? Perhaps we should all get in bed together. Wouldn’t that be daring and modern!” The metal razor warms in her hand, light and agile. She wonders why Walter doesn’t simply turn around and leave her alone.
“Violet, my dear. You’re being ridiculous. Put down the razor.”
“You cannot touch me, Walter. Never again.”
“Trust me, child. Put down the razor. You’re overwrought.”
“I am not—”
But Walter strikes in a flash, knocking the razor from her hand. He pins her hands neatly behind her back and forces her from the bathroom. She struggles against him, but his hold on her is expert, perfectly placed to lever her across the bedroom, as if he’s done this sort of thing before. He turns her over the bed and places his knuckles in the small of her back, atop her kidneys. He smells of sweat.
“You’re a brute.” She locks her legs together, but he inserts his knee exactly in the center of her thighs and forces her open.
“You do not refuse me, Violet.” Walter’s breath invades her ear, and she braces herself, shuts her eyes and mouth, shuts down every sensation and thought in her body so she will live through the next two minutes.
Because of this, because she’s concentrating so hard on severing her mind from the workings of Walter’s brusque hands, she doesn’t hear the knock on the door, the rattle of the locked knob. She hardly notices the crash of wood as a booted foot forces it open.
Then Walter is gone: his hands, his heavy body, his sweaty breath. Shouts, thumps. A hard grunt. With effort, Violet pushes herself up and turns around, bracing herself on the mattress.
Walter lies on the floor. Lionel stands above him, rumpled and unshaven, rubbing his fist. “Christ, Violet.” He turns and pulls her against him. He is as thick as a pillar, as solid as a tree. “I’m sorry, Christ, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Did he hurt you?”
“Not . . . not yet.”
“I’m sorry. Christ. What an idiot. I’m sorry.”
“Is he dead? Is he dead?” Violet shoves her nose into his scratchy tweeds, full of outdoors and automobiles and Lionel. Her nerves jump, her head spins.
“Dead? No, damn him. If I’d had my revolver he would be.”
She pushes away and stumbles over Walter’s body to the wardrobe. “Is your motor outside?”
“Yes, but—”
“Take me to Berlin.”
“Violet, wait—”
“Now, Lionel. Before he wakes up.” She finds the valise and yanks it out from behind her dresses with a spring of her electric muscles. Her brain is a blur, coalesced around a single overriding thought: flight. “For God’s sake.”
“We can’t just leave . . .”
She drags the valise across the floor and drops it at Lionel’s feet and takes his jacket into her fists. She stares up at him to communicate the desperation in her babble of words. “We can. We can. We can. Jane will take care of everything. Take me to Berlin, Lionel. Now. We can. We can.”
Lionel’s hands find her elbows. His brow is worried, his cheekbones pink with a sunburn that disappears under the new prickles of his beard. The skin around his eyes is heavy with exhaustion.
He looks down at Walter and back at Violet. She wants to touch his face, but her fingers have stiffened around Lionel’s lapels, the only way she can hold herself still, and she doesn’t dare open them.
Lionel releases her elbows and pries her hands from his jacket. He keeps one firmly in his palm and reaches down for her valise.
“Right, then. Berlin.”
Vivian
Anyway. I’m not going to bore you with a long and self-indulgent description of the scene that followed, there in the orchid-scented Lightfoot mansion that fine November evening, a week before Thanksgiving. I’m sure you can imagine it for yourself. To be honest, I don’t even remember most of the details.
Not that I dragged myself through dinner in a trance. No siree. No no no. Not Vivian Schuyler. I was the life of the damned party. You should have seen me! You’d have been so proud. The way I kissed Gogo’s cheek and hailed Doctor Paul with a vigorous congratulatory handshake; the way I exclaimed over the height and breadth and brilliance of the engagement rock that perched precariously atop Gogo’s slender finger. The way I turned to Lightfoot and began to flirt as I’d never flirted before. Nothing vulgar, mind you. Just the nulli secundus of elegant flattery, the ne plus ultra of sparkling admiration. I knew how to pirouette along that slender line without losing my balance.