It was all innocent. Birdie had changed behind a silk screen, damn it. So much for seeing more of Birdie Dreyer. But Allene had caught him staring and wouldn’t let it go.
“I’ll bet she’s never been kissed,” Allene went on. “Have you, Birdie?”
Birdie shook her head. The blush now extended down to the top of her bosom, peeping out from the borrowed dress.
“If you’re such an expert,” Jasper challenged Allene, “then show me how it’s done. I’m just a poor student, you see.”
She laughed and waggled her large sapphire ring at him. “I’m getting married! This is my engagement party, if you haven’t noticed.” But she took a timid step closer to him anyway.
“You’re not married yet. Consider it an early present.” His hubris was irresistible; Allene stepped another inch closer.
“No.”
“Yes!”
“Jasper Jones!” But now she was laughing less. “Fine. You can kiss me if you kiss Birdie too. That will make it all very equitable and innocent,” she said, as if trying to convince herself. Her fingers fiddled with the beads on her dress. After being so keen on the idea, she seemed awfully nervous now. Jasper had hardly moved. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Don’t you just love those?” Jasper said, smirking. Birdie tittered in agreement. He stood and reached for Allene’s waist and closed the final distance between them. “Just remember, Allene. You invited us here, not the other way around.” The lace of her dress caught his rough fingertips. He looked down on her perfectly coiffed hair, and she lifted her chin.
“Don’t you dare tell a soul,” she whispered, her voice shaking a little. The giggles and bravado had dissolved away.
“Not by a darn sight,” he said. “Cross my heart.”
She was so close that their bellies touched, and her hip bones tapped against his. Her lips were smudged with a coralline salve that smelled of roses. The tiniest sound escaped her mouth when he leaned in. A whimper, almost.
The kiss was long and short, soft and firm at the same time. She tasted like sugar and flowers. Much better than the Bowery girls he’d meet in the cheap dance hall on Third Street, the ones who fell victim to his rather effective, crookedly roguish smile. They’d let him dispense his heated frustrations between their welcoming thighs for an evening and wonder why he didn’t call on them afterward. Like sticks of chewing gum, their sweetness lasted for only so long before he no longer wanted them.
When Jasper’s lips pulled away from Allene’s, he realized his eyes had been closed. Allene blinked a few times and put her fingertips to her lips.
“Oh. Well.” She turned away, red faced. “Birdie, now you.”
Birdie shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Come now! It’s only fair.”
“Well . . .”
“I’ll show you how harmless it all is,” said Allene. She gaily swept over to rest her hands on Birdie’s shoulders, barely covered by the silk gauze of her dress. She looked to make sure Jasper was watching. Of course he was.
“Now you put your hands here, on my hips,” Allene instructed. “Close your eyes.”
Birdie obeyed, and Allene leaned forward. Her eyelids drooped as her lips captured Birdie’s under her own. Allene leaned in a little more, and Birdie’s mouth yielded to the pressure. The kiss might have lasted a thousand years, or a second. Jasper couldn’t tell.
“Golly” was all he could manage to say, after swallowing hard. “Golly,” he said again.
The girls parted and swayed drunkenly, though neither had sipped any champagne that evening.
“Oh,” Birdie murmured.
“Nothing to it,” Allene said, trying to smile but failing. She seemed desperate to look at anything that wasn’t Birdie or Jasper. “Well? What are you waiting for, Mr. Jones?”
This time, Jasper didn’t hesitate. He stepped over the ottoman by Allene’s vanity and slid his hand around Birdie’s silk-bedecked waist. She was thinner and more delicate than Allene. He could break her in two if he wanted.
“One kiss.” Birdie held up a cautionary finger. She seemed slightly out of breath, still recovering. “Between old friends.”
“Between old friends,” Jasper repeated. Birdie’s lips were slightly parted, and he tasted the tiniest bit of sweet tongue and a bit of rose salve from Allene, which confused him. Warmth rose in his body like a humid July day. His hands squeezed her waist harder before he abruptly stepped back.
“Why, Jasper Jones, you’re red as a beet!” Allene hooted. Her own face had already cooled, and her eyes were neutral, watching.
He had the sudden urge to escape the two of them. He didn’t feel like he knew what he was doing anymore.
A series of thumps and crashes shook the floor below them.
“What was that?” Allene wiped her mouth hastily and straightened her dress and hair. Footsteps pounded toward the bedroom door, and the dark-haired maid, Lucy, burst inside.
“Oh, Miss Allene! I do believe Miss Florence Waxworth has fallen down dead!”
A Klaxon sounded obnoxiously from the waiting car, and Jasper jolted back to the curb, where the August evening warmed him in his suit. Andrew had been studying the various emotions playing over his face.
“So where were you when Florence died?” Andrew asked again.
Ruining my life.
Jasper slapped on a quick grin. “I was in the bathroom. Champagne went right through me. I’m more of a suds downer myself.”
Andrew looked dissatisfied, but the lie had slid off Jasper as easily as water on oiled paper.
Somehow he knew the lying would get easier from here on out.
CHAPTER 3
Florence had stared at the three of them just before they ascended the stairs so Birdie could change her burnt gown.
“Look at you all,” she had drawled, after a sip of champagne. “Trying so damn hard not to be yourselves.”
Something dug sharply into Birdie’s hand, and the memory of Florence’s acid comment disappeared. She looked down. Allene’s sapphire ring was enormous and the new platinum prongs were sharp. Birdie wished it was gone, like all the other guests that had fled the Cutter house minutes ago.
“You’ll stay tonight, won’t you?” Allene’s face was expectant, but not desperate. She knew Birdie’s answer even before Birdie did.
“Of course,” she said. “But I need to telephone my mother first, to let her know.”
Allene squeezed her hand again. It pained Birdie’s fingers, but she swallowed the discomfort.
Allene looked over her shoulder. “Lucy? Show Birdie to the study, will you?”