Chapter 2: Success and Regret
"Florian... would you care to remind me of what we discussed before you left the house?"
Florian's back straightened unconsciously as he met Noir's eyes, as well as the suppressed aggression contained therein. "You were making sure that I wasn't on the verge of exhaustion."
"After that."
"We discussed the difficulty of finding decent help."
"And, as I recall, your weakness for hard-luck stories."
Florian nodded. "We may have... touched on such a thing, yes."
"Yes, I believe so." Noir's fingers drummed against the mantelpiece for a moment, and stilled just as quickly. "Bearing all that in mind, would you please explain why a stranger is awaiting an interview in my drawing room?"
"If you don't want to see her, I can send her away. I made it clear that you might refuse."
"That's not the point!" Noir's voice dropped to a nearly-frantic hiss. "The point is that you have a very, very bad habit of picking up strays, and sooner or later, one of them is going to maul us in our sleep."
"She's an unemployed woman, Ray, not a rabid wolverine." Florian was always careful to use his lover's given name where their conversation might be overheard by someone outside their inner circle. "You talk as though I brought home a member of the Black Hand."
"Perhaps you did. Louise Tassel had half of Paris fooled before her stunt on the Eiffel tower." Noir sighed. "Even if she's not a member of the Black Hand, she could be any one of a thousand other things. How do you know that she won't steal any silver we give her to polish?"
"How do you know that about any of them?" Florian gestured to the pile of applications that still adorned Noir's desk. "As I understand things, that's what the interview's for."
Noir turned his face to the wall and growled. "I'm busy."
"Five minutes. If you don't like her, you can just send her away. If you're not sure, you can always ask her to come back tomorrow." Florian softened his eyes to the point of supplication. "That's all I'm asking, Ray."
With a frustrated noise, Noir turned from the mantel and moved to sit behind his desk. "Your damn compassion is going to be the death of me." He raised his left index finger imperiously. "She's got ten minutes, starting now. If I don't like her, which I'm very certain I won't, she leaves, and we never speak of this again. Got it?"
"Perfectly." As he opened the study door, Florian glanced over his shoulder. "Thank you, Ray. I appreciate this very much."
"Don't be too grateful." Noir grinned devilishly. "I reserve 'I-told-you-so' privileges."
Florian laughed as he stepped out into the hallway. "I'm not worried."
Not, at least,
his mind finished for him, about enduring your gloating.----
As Florian and Ruby came to the slightly-ajar door of Noir's study, Florian touched her shoulder gently. "Good luck," he whispered.
She grinned over her shoulder at him. "Thank you, but I won't need it. It's all about optimism, remember?" Without waiting for a response, she stepped into the study, and Florian entered behind her, hoping Noir wouldn't be put off immediately by the fact that she hadn't waited to be introduced.
"Good afternoon. I presume you're Ray Balzac Courland?" Ruby bowed to Noir as Florian closed the door behind them.
"That's right," Florian interjected, hoping to salvage some of the situation's propriety. "Ray, this is Ruby Brown."
"A pleasure to meet you," Ruby added.
Florian watched Ray take a leisurely drag on his cigar, exhale the smoke, and set the cigar aside before he spoke. "Thank you. Won't you take a seat?"
"Of course. Thank you." Ruby settled herself into one of the chairs in front of Noir's desk, and Florian took up a position against the wall by the door. "First of all, I'd like to tell you how grateful I am to you for agreeing to see me. I understand that you're a very busy man, and I can only imagine how precious your time must be."
Noir blinked, and Florian could tell that Ruby's articulate politeness had caught him off guard. "I'm sure you'll appreciate, then, why we'll have to keep this meeting short."
Ruby nodded. "Of course."
"Good." Noir cleared his throat. "I suppose I'll begin by asking you the most obvious question: why do you want to work here?"
"Well, I'll confess that I don't really feel a burning desire to work 'here'." Ruby crossed her legs. "I need a job, and I've done some domestic work in the past, so it seemed like a good opportunity." She reached into a pocket of her dress and pulled out two folded sheets of paper. "Here are copies of my references from those jobs. I have done other work, but if you want to see anything from those jobs, it could take a while. I'd need to send to America for them."
Noir unfolded the papers, scanned them, and set them back on his desk. "Your employers seem impressed with your performance."
"They were easy to get along with."
"Evidently." Noir leaned forward, and lowered his voice. "Things are not always easy for the staff here."
"I'm not worried," Ruby replied brightly. "You may be strict, but I believe you're a fair employer."
"Really? And how did you come to that conclusion?"
Ruby gestured in Florian's direction. "I doubt that Monsieur du Rochefort would stand for anything less."
Noir followed the movement of Ruby's hand, and his gaze crossed Florian's for a moment. "You're perfectly correct. If it weren't for Florian's influence, who knows what kind of monster I would be?" He smiled at the private joke, and Florian mirrored his expression.
"Thankfully, we'll never find out," he replied.
The glint in Noir's eyes softened for an instant before reverting to a businesslike edge. "And what do you expect from this job?" he asked Ruby.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Enough money to live on, and decent hours."
"You do realize that, as we're not taking on any live-in staff at the moment, you'll need to travel from your home to work?"
"Not a problem." Ruby glanced over her shoulder again. "Monsieur du Rochefort was kind enough to show me around the district, so I don't need to worry about getting lost."
"How very characteristic of you, Florian." Noir's attention shifted back to Ruby as she settled back into her former position. "In our service, you may be required to do a variety of tasks, which may include but are not limited to cleaning, laundry, shopping, and decorating for any events that may take place here. Is there anything you can think of, any limitation, which may prevent you from executing these tasks properly?"
"It all sounds fairly standard." Ruby uncrossed her legs. "I'm sure I can handle it."
Noir's eyes met Florian's, and the inclination of his head communicated a question to Florian: What do you think?
In response, Florian shrugged, and smiled. Would I have brought her here if I didn't think she deserved a chance?
Whether Noir intuited this message, Florian couldn't say. However, it didn't seem to matter: Florian could see that Noir's decision was already made, and he couldn't imagine it being anything but favourable to Ruby. She's almost too good to be true. Apprehension followed the path that these words blazed through Florian's mind, however, and he recalled his suspicion of her. Too good to be true... I hope, for our sake, that she isn't.
"I suppose I only have one more question for you," Noir was saying when Florian came back to reality. "Can you think of any extenuating circumstance which might prevent you from fulfilling your duties, and which we should be aware of?"
"None whatsoever," Ruby answered, almost too quickly, and Florian dismissed the nervousness that sank into his stomach at these words as a product of his as-yet-unfounded concern.
---
"So, you got the job?"
Ruby stirred her coffee absently, watching the milk swirl into it as though she were profoundly bored. "Of course. It wasn't difficult."
"I presume Ray didn't follow up on your references?" Solomon took a bite of his croissant.
"Even if he does, my work should be done by the time he realizes they're forgeries." Ruby smiled. "You didn't tell me that his lover was such an easy mark."
"Florian?" Solomon frowned. "Don't take him lightly. On the surface, he seems a bit flighty, but he can be surprisingly perceptive."
Ruby waved her hand gently, as though she were drying her nail polish. "Maybe. I doubt that he'll present much of a problem, though. Thus far, he's done a fantastic job of making my work easier."
"Still, be careful. I don't want this job to go up in smoke because you didn't take it seriously enough."
"You worry far too much, Solomon." Ruby grinned. "Has the novelty worn out of your enforced vacation already?"
"I think that's even less funny the second time around."
Ruby's grin faded into a pout. "Have I struck a nerve? I'm sorry, Solomon." She reached across the table, and touched his hand. "I promise to be more careful with your fragile heart in the future."
"Stop it, Ruby." Solomon jerked his hand away from her, and grimaced. "You never could tell when playtime was over."
Ruby sighed. "Alright." She sipped her coffee, and looked out at the street beyond the cafe terrace on which they were seated. "You know, Solomon," she said, very conversationally, without even looking back at him, "you were a great detective, no matter what any of them said."
Solomon's brief hesitation was the only indication of the effect that Ruby's words had produced in him. "Coming from you, I'm not sure whether I should take that as a compliment. There was a time, not so long ago, when you'd as soon have killed a cop as look at one."
"You were different, though." Ruby turned back to face him. "Even when you were in full-out crusader mode... you weren't like the rest of them."
Solomon sniffed. "What was the difference?"
"That's easy." Ruby took a larger swallow of her coffee. "You were honest. You still are, as a matter of fact." She chuckled. "If you have one fault, Solomon Sugar, it's that you're too genuine for your own good. You can't betray your true nature any more than I can fly to America on a broomstick, and that nature is of the very best kind."
Solomon studied the remains of his croissant for a long while before saying, somewhat anticlimactically, "I wouldn't be so sure about the broomstick."
Ruby buried her smile beneath an expression of feigned offence. "You never had any confidence in me before, Solomon. Why the sudden turnaround?"
He did look up at her then, and there was a trace of the old spark in his eyes, a glowing ember of the idealistic blaze that she could still recall so distinctly. "What would have been the point in showing it? You've always had enough confidence in yourself for both of us."
She met his eyes, and allowed the faintest inkling of her true feelings to flow into her face, just enough for him to glimpse without giving anything away. "Do you really think so?" she asked softly.
The silence that followed was nearly as heavy as their shared past.