Across town, near the train yards, a few thin rays of morning sun burned through the clouds and fell through an open window, warming the freckled arms of Cordelia Lehane.
She pushed her hands through Malcolm’s hair. He normally kept it slicked back in a ducktail, but now it stuck up at all angles. Last night’s pomade greased her already-sticky fingers. He turned his face, swarthy against her winter-pale skin, and his stubble rubbed her belly. Sunlight struck threads of gray at his temple. Cordelia traced one strand, her finger sliding through the sweat gathered at his hairline.
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in an age,” he said.
She half-smiled and shoved his face away. “Go on,” she said. “I ain’t.”
He pressed his face into the softness of her, between hip bone and navel. The pressure made her bladder ache, but she didn’t tell him to stop. The pain mingled with the tingling comedown of sex.
“I’ll prove it,” he said, and pushed her thighs apart.
“Mal.”
He didn’t lift his head. She grabbed his hair and pulled his face up. “I’m dying for the toilet,” she said. “Give me half a minute.”
He laughed and let her go, rolling over onto his back to fill the space she’d left. “You’re a treasure,” he said.
“Even treasures gotta piss sometimes.”
When she went to flush, the pipes groaned and shuddered. “Queen’s sake. Ring round a plumber once in a while, why don’t you?” She rinsed her hands in water that came out reddish brown with rust.
“Can’t afford to. The washrooms at the theatre’ve got to be done over this month.”
“Maybe you ought to move in there.” She came back to bed and flung herself across the sheets. A breeze, fresh with high tide brine, rolled through the room. Cordelia shivered and moved into the warm curve of Malcolm’s body.
“You don’t take care of yourself,” she said, but she didn’t put much into it. Half a shake of the head, a rueful smile. “You’d sell your own ma if it’d bring in a bigger crowd.”
Malcolm cuffed her gently on the side of the head. “My old man, maybe. But never Ma. She was—”
“The jewel of the peninsula, I know.” She rested her face on the hard curve of his bicep, staring up at his seamed, stubbled face. “The finest dancer in Hyrosia.”
“She would’ve loved to see you,” he said, drawing a calloused hand through her hair. It caught, but she didn’t complain. Malcolm’s eyes changed when he talked about his mother: The flint went out of them. “My mother would’ve loved you,” was as close as he ever got to “I love you.”
But everybody knew—especially Cordelia—that Malcolm only loved the Bee.
His mother had given up her stage career to come north and marry. And it had gotten her nothing but accounting books and two sons dead at sea, killed by Lisoan pirates somewhere south of her home country. Her youngest, Malcolm, she’d kept at home despite her husband’s squalling. Malcolm heard all her stories, saw all her tintypes and mementos. Promised her she’d have a stage to walk again.
When she died of fever, he took what she’d left him and abandoned his father’s shipping company for the boards. All his love for Inita Sailer went into making a go of the Bumble Bee Cabaret and Night Club.
“How’s the new routine?” he asked. “Speaking of dancing.”
She shook her head. “I got it all down, but the orchestra’s having trouble.”
Malcolm sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the bed. “I’ll ask Liesl about it.” He picked his watch up from the bedside and flipped it open. “Better be getting over there. Got a delivery coming in for the bar.”
“Ytzak can take care of it,” said Cordelia, wrapping her arms around Malcolm and tangling her fingers in the dark hair across his chest. She tried to pull him back into bed, but he resisted.
“No, he has the morning off—said his ma’s sick, but you know he’s courting that razor who plays bass in Canty’s band, and he was a little too eager to run out last night.”
“So drag him in,” said Cordelia, hooking one leg over Malcolm’s thigh.
He laughed and pinched her, but stood nonetheless. She let him go and collapsed against the bedspread, giving him her best pout.
“You learned that one from Makricosta,” he said. “You know it won’t work on me.” Pulling a threadbare cotton undershirt over his head, he added, “You’re welcome to hang around here, if you like. But I won’t be back before curtain, almost sure.”
Cordelia sighed. “You gonna ask me to run to the cleaners for your swags again?”
“Be a swan?” He swooped in and kissed her cheek. “Tell Kieran to put it on the account.”
“You owe him half a fortune this month already.”
“He knows I’m good for it. Especially once this new show’s up and running.” Malcolm slipped his braces over one shoulder then the other, and hooked his jacket and hat down from the back of the bedroom door. “Later, spicecake.”