8. New Horizons
Serena had never thought to share a bed, especially if such a thing took place in Florida. Even sleeping alone, her skin gave rise to small pearls of perspiration and her hair hung heavy from her head. It was unseasonably warm, balmy air stirring the white curtains hanging before the balcony door. Blair had flung open those doors the night before and stared through the gauzy fabric, seeming to stretch out with her eyes for the ocean. They'd dared to order the kind of whisky Asher drank from the bar downstairs, which had been delivered in time for bed – so they slept too long, through the morning and into the afternoon. The light was a block of bright yellow when Serena awoke, famished, and tossed a slipper in the direction of Blair's bed. The lump beneath the covers stirred and let out a catlike hiss.
"Stir your lazy bones, B."
"No."
"The others will be expecting us."
"They won't."
"I'm hungry."
"I'm not."
"B!" The left slipper followed its pair, and a roil of dark curls emerged from beneath the crisp sheets.
"Serena." Blair's eyelids were puffy, pouter pigeon foot pink. She hadn't been crying, her friend was sure, she would've heard at such close quarters. "I'm exhausted, and this climate doesn't suit me. What I really want is to sleep until dinner, then wash and change into something pretty. Why don't you go down and play nice with the family? Oh, and deliver this, please." Her hand emerged, a folded scrap of paper trapped between two fingers; Serena turned it over as she took it.
"'For the attention of Mr D. Humphrey'?"
"Ask not, lest ye be asked."
"Lest I be asked what?"
"What you were doing on the train with him for so very long. Why you agreed to walk with him in the first place. It can't have taken so much time simply to retrieve my book and your own belongings, one ladies' bag and one dratted notebook."
"Blair, I…" She wasn't positive as to how to finish the sentence. "And you haven't spoken with Chuck about your book."
"Go down," Blair bade her irritably, then rolled over on her side to gaze out into the twin blues: blue sky, blue sea. Her deep affection for New York, for the grey city with its almost startling patches of green and bright colours in the ballroom, seemed silly compared to the marvelousness of the coast. Tired though she was, though she had been, the taste of salt on her lips as they drew up before the hotel the night before had electrified her in a way that summers in Newport never had. Palm Beach smelt of adventure to Blair, whose life lately had been rich in tragedy and so much dramatic irony that, sometimes, it was as if she were the beleaguered leading lady of a poorly spun operetta. Her headache was genuine this time, however, since she hadn't slept – or she had, but her dreams were too deep and her rest too shallow to count. Those dreams had been electrifying too, but in the wrong way, since they themselves were so very wrong. She hated to dream of Chuck, and she blamed the heat.
The heat above her.
Around her.
The stickiness between her shoulder blades, thighs, anywhere flesh could lie beside flesh.
But she supposed it wasn't Florida's fault that she associated humidity and closeness with fornication, the word she would now use instead of making love. What a silly phrase that was, since Blair assumed that love was assumed pre-consummation. It had been professed over and again in her case, and now again in the words below the words of Voltaire. She had decided to take the high moral ground, since that quote was apparently how he'd chosen to apologise for toying with her in the morning: she would stop Dan Humphrey dead in his tracks, and point him in a more appropriate direction. Chuck wouldn't suffer, nor be jealous of some imagined romance. He would grow tired of chasing her.
Chuck would no doubt disagree.
Chuck did disagree, but his conclusions were similar.
He was half-lying across the bar as the other gentlemen were, louche and lazy and indolently rich. They were all dressed similarly, in shades of fawn and ivory. Chuck stood out in his pure white suit, its piping black to match his cravat. The scotch in his glass was receding rather slowly, since he was required to make calls on several business associates and the gossips whose company Jenny would keep for the vacation's duration. He wanted to be sober for his investors later on, but he wanted to be sober now to answer a difficult question –
Should he let Blair go?
The very notion was painful, a tugging on the cord that bound them like sail and mast with each piece was made useless by the loss of the other. But Blair, he knew, would do very well without him. She was unhappy with the current state of affairs, as a bone of contention between him and Jenny. She didn't want his protection and, he was certain, wished to be married herself. Every young woman over fourteen did, in his experience. Again, there was a jolt of almost tangible pain at the thought of her in white, not in white as he was but with snowy layers of lace wrapped around what was still considered the most sought after virtue in Manhattan. She'd be frosty no more. She'd be soft and sweet in someone else's arms.
Soft and sweet and happy.
Happy, above all else.
It would pull the barb from his chest and most likely tear his heart out with it, if he were to indulge in the style of dramatics Jenny so favoured. But she would be happy, she whom he'd declared the, it, all, even now. That might yet leave a portion of heart to live with. Nobility was what she deserved of him, and nobility would be to live on that small portion of heart without complaint, without holding the very grudge that had brought him back to New York in the first place.
Los Angeles, California
1899
Chuck had no problem with the Spanish, especially half-blooded Hispanic girls with the toasted sugar skin and black hair of their mothers and blue or grey or green gazes of their American fathers. Best of all, they knew how to enjoy themselves.
"Cómo estás, Señor?" The girl was lying across him, her hair slithering through his limp fingers.
"Cómo está," he corrected – she was a whore, after all, he didn't owe her the courtesy of addressing him informally. "You're good. And I'm done. Your money is on the table."
His assumption was she only spoke rudimentary English, understanding 'good', 'money', 'customer' but no more than that. His other assumption, the arrogant, American assumption, was that her inability to speak the language would make her blind to him, would mean she didn't observe him as any other women would and could see no flaws, no shortcomings, no sadness, no joy. He enjoyed the anonymity.
As she rose, however, the girl spoke. Her grey eyes were large and pretty. "I hope you find peace in your heart, Señor."
"Peace?" Chuck repeated, thinking he must have misunderstood. "Paz?"
"De acuerdo," she agreed. "It is not my place to tell you so, but you are not a man who needs a woman because you are a man who needs a woman. You need some woman, some special woman – she was your lover, yes? Or you wish to be her lover? You wish for her love?"
"How do you –"
"Men sigh when they have love, Señor, when they have love with me or the other girls. You sigh after love, as if you are saying, 'yes, my body is at peace, I have stopped needing the need of a man, but my soul is heavy'. You are heavy with dreams of the woman you love, and you will never sigh when you have love unless is is with her or unless you learn to love her no more." She grinned, her teeth dazzlingly white. "She will not be as free as me, she will not know much. But you will look back and think, 'no whore was ever as good as love con la mujer que amo."
He translated aloud. "As love with the woman I love."
"Yes."
Chuck kept her with him no longer, yet found himself counting out bill after bill to add to the few paltry notes ready on the table. He continued counting long after the girl had left with triple her fee and more besides, and when he ran out of money he pulled up a floorboard and began to count all he had there. Another floorboard. Another. Beneath the mattress. Lining the dresser drawers. In the safe. In time, he was surrounded by green, the final notes drifting to the floor and settling like the final clotting of blood. He loved no woman. He loved no man, no partner so much as the thousands of dollars that surrounded him, the hundreds of thousands more in his dozen or so accounts. There was no woman he loved, but there was a woman. It was said that she was the most charitable creature in the city, but her charity had never extended to him. Her lust, perhaps. Her pride. Her grief, at times. But to Chuck Bass, she'd been as tight-fisted with her trust and love as a miser.
How much, he wondered, was enough to bring her down. He didn't waste a second reflecting upon having love with her, only learning not to love her.
How much would it take, he wondered, to screw Blair Waldorf as hard as she'd screwed him. As hard, and for as long. She'd made him dance, he wanted her to dance. He wanted her to shrink back from kisses she couldn't evade. He wanted her to do everything in her power to save her beautiful face from society's censure.
Dan Humphrey resembled her a little, more than he did his sister. In his mind, Chuck granted her the liberty to kiss whomsoever she pleased – just not him. She could kiss anyone but him.
~#~
"Sir Peverell –"
"Sir Hugo. It would be sir if I were a lord, dear Lady, but unfortunately I am a mere knight."
"We haven't so much as a baronet in New York, there's nothing unfortunate about it." Jenny slanted a glance towards Ivy, who nervously stepped forward so the exquisitely painted parasol in her hand shaded Serena and her hostess better. They two were seated on the terrace with the maid behind them, drinking lemonade and being introduced to the great and good of Palm Beach. Jenny was, naturally, thrilled by the attention and the compliments which were lavished upon her; Serena thought the people quite as false as in New York, only browner. Tans would never be fashionable as long as she lived and breathed.
"And we have no one so celebrated as you in Palm Beach," twittered Mrs Smelt, a young divorcée whose disreputable company Jenny was patronising. "Shall we meet your illustrious husband soon, Mrs Bass?"
"He holds himself above," was her abstruse answer. "But there's no doubt in my mind that he'd be delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs Smelt, and yours too, Sir Hugo."
Sir Hugo Peverell was an English gentleman with the fair countenance of that country, from his complexion to his expertly trimmed moustache to his near transparent eyelashes. All that pallor prompted Serena to uncharitably dub him 'the Peeled Shrimp', and she resolved to tell Blair later. Blair laughing would be something, not only with her mouth but with her whole body. Serena longed to make her dear friend shake with laughter again, the kind of laughter which would bend her double and rack her with uncontrollable giggles. That was her goal for this vacation – that and to vex Jenny in any way she could.
"I'm convinced Mr Bass would be beside himself in his fervour to meet Mrs Smelt," she interjected.
Jenny's response had a snap to it, as if she knew what was coming. "Why?"
"You know Chuck loves a good divorce," Serena said archly, then smiled brightly at the newcomers as if her words were nothing more than an errant comment. Sir Hugo and Mrs Smelt smiled nervously back, and Ivy smothered a snicker while Jenny downed lemonade. She could never truly understand Serena, who could be so placid and then so vibrant and then suddenly, out of nowhere, on the offensive. Maybe she had that sharp streak in her nature, or maybe it was her way of being a good friend, or maybe she was merely Blair's puppet, Jenny didn't know. What she did know was that Serena hadn't trusted her even when she was a maid, had smelled her out as a traitor. She'd never liked Jenny hovering in doorways, taking her coat, bringing her tea. She'd liked Blair disguising herself even less, and dressing Jenny in yellow to seduce Chuck. Speaking of…
"Serena."
"Mrs Bass."
"Jenny, please."
"Mrs Bass."
This was ignored. "Would you happen to know if Blair had a particular ring she favoured?"
"Of course, her ruby."
"Not that. I heard a ring was made from the same stone as that white gold bracelet of hers I once wore, a diamond solitaire. I was informed that Blair had it, and that its worth was one thousand dollars at the time of purchase. Would you know if that were true?"
Serena's face was a blank page, and just as white. "I've never heard of such a ring."
"Chuck has," Jenny tried.
And then it was no longer a blank page, but threatening thunder between the lovely Miss van der Woodsen's brows. "'She has your ring', or so you announced on the train as if you might beat him about the head with it." The knight and the divorcee politely pivoted to face the other direction, but kept their ears open. Serena realised this and lowered her voice to a modicum above silence. "You may ask Blair yourself what jewellery she has and who gave it to her, but my advice is not to bandy such things about in public if you want anyone to go along with the ridiculous premise that your husband loves you and chose you of his own free will."
"Blair's man until death, aren't you?"
"Shall I alter that statement to reflect your husband," challenged Serena. "Or shall we play croquet?"
"If you take that tone with me, I'll –"
"I wouldn't so much as consider trying to blackmail me, Jenny Humphrey. Blair and Chuck may be too star-crossed to conspire together to take you down, but threaten to reveal Blair's secret over my actions and I'll knock you down in the dirt where you belong, and I'll do it with my own hands." Her smile returned, as dazzling as daylight. "Now: croquet?"
Jenny glowered.
Ivy held the parasol a little higher and smirked.
The croquet game was never-ending, lasting through lunch beneath the burning sun. The heat was like hellfire on the avenue where Blair was strolling, her walking dress simple cream with tiny pearl buttons. Dorota had attached invisible padding beneath the arms and in the bodice, but even so the sensation of being too warm and too sticky was pervasive and uncomfortable. Blair held a dainty lace parasol in her right hand, but the gentleman who walked beside her was bare headed, the yellow light gilding his black hair a dusty brown.
"Your note was rather vague."
"I couldn't risk Serena reading it and foiling my plot."
"Then this must be about her."
"About her. And you. About her, you and I."
Dan appeared mildly surprised. He was dressed in beige, with a white shirt underneath. "If this is about the dining car, you know that I –"
"I know that you talked about it with Serena, you misjudged me, yes, yes, yes, it's all very tiresome and I'm getting bored of reading while she moons after me like a swain because she's worried I'm pining to death. I want to give her a gift."
"A gift?"
"A gift," Blair articulated. "Do attend."
"What kind of a gift?"
"I believe I'll dabble in the flesh trade."
"Slavery is illegal."
"Oh no, not slaves." She beamed at him, innocent as a babe in arms. "I'm going to give her you."
Dan nearly choked on the moist air. "Me?"
"The cornerstone of attraction is there, you share a taste for adventure and a disregard for high society – she's forced to live in it, you outside it – and you will come to care for each other as you've never cared for anyone before. I can read my friend with as much ease as people can read and rightly sneer at your novels. You'd be good for her, and you only have to imagine the children to know that it makes genetic sense."
"You're educated about genetics."
"I read," Blair reminded him sourly. "And the Bible is not my preferred material. Science suits me better."
"And how exactly do you plan to give her me?"
His companion was silent as they passed beneath a row of palm trees, some arching over the path and some standing tall and cruel, offering no relief from the sun to those beneath. Blair's hair was less tightly pulled back today, a small braid running from each temple and enwrapping a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She fiddled with the white gold bracelet at her wrist, then abruptly stopped and looked directly up at Dan.
"I don't love you," she told him. "And you don't love me. We'll never love one another – you weren't born for me, for someone like me, only to immortalise someone like me in fiction. I'm an arrogant creature and so are you, but I know I'm arrogant and judgemental, and you'll never properly comprehend that about yourself. Pursuing me is uninteresting to you, and continuing with the pretence is likely to bring down the wrath of the Almighty upon you."
"You mean Chuck."
"I mean the Almighty."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"So go after her," Blair instructed, in a far gentler tone to the one in which she'd reprimanded him. "With my blessing. With my insistence. Go and take her mind off me and show her your funny lonely writer boy world, and see how quickly you begin to dream of Serena Celia van der Woodsen. Who gives a damn about whether or not your sister approves."
They walked on a short way as he absorbed all this, past a freshly painted hotel with blue shutters on one floor and lemon coloured ones on the next. Could he…but no. Should he? Though she'd insisted upon it…and what about Serena? Did she, could she ever…did she now?
"My mother would say you had a heart of flowers, Miss Waldorf." He was a little too in awe of her at that moment to use her Christian name.
"How kind of you to say so."
"It's not a compliment."
"No?"
Dan slowed his pace and Blair, shielded from both the sun and his view, paused in mid-step. What he could make out of her beneath the lace brim was a latticework of brightness and shadows, her look shining dark in the deepest shade of all. "No," he affirmed. "A heart of flowers is a heart filled with poetry, with beauty but also with thorns. I think a man would bleed to death attempting to traverse your heart; he would spill his life instead of spilling your secrets."
"Of one thing you can be sure," replied she. "You can be confident that you'll never be my soul's confidante, but in lieu of that…be an ally to me."
"Is an ally a friend?"
"You're not my friend, Daniel Humphrey."
"But you'd like me to be."
"I don't beg for friendship from the likes of you."
"So we are friends."
"Do be quiet, Humphrey, else you'll never woo anyone. Ever."
She was right, undoubtedly right, but Dan couldn't shake the feeling he was letting his family down somehow. Yes, his family was only Jenny, who'd changed so much that he barely recognised his skeletal sister with her expertly applied war paint, an absent mother and a father back in Brooklyn. Jenny had been his reason for coming to the city and coming here, however, had bought him his fine new clothes and paid what was owing to the printers. It was that which prompted him to bend his head and, in a move that astounded Dan himself, kiss Blair full on the mouth. He was right about the heart of flowers, of course: she was as soft, delicate and unyielding as a frozen petal.
Blair gripped his lapels, more to lever him away from her than to draw him close. She blinked.
"I had to check there wasn't some slowly smouldering spark between us."
"You already know there isn't."
"I needed empirical evidence."
"You focus too much on the mechanics of the kiss," was her conclusion. "Which leads me to assume you've never loved anyone enough to allow yourself to be taught how to do it properly. Your first love should've done that. Your first everything should be with someone you love, be it first kiss or first marriage."
Dan laughed. "Then what guidance do you have for me?"
"Fall in love," Blair stated, as if that were cripplingly obvious. "If you're all tangled up in your heart and your emotions when you kiss, everything else will move naturally. It's a dance, Humphrey, she gives, you give, she pushes, you push. Gentlemen follow a lady unless they have absolute assurance she'd enjoy them taking the lead."
"Strange kind of dance."
"If Serena trod on your toe, would you step back to accommodate her even if it would seem you were the one to have made a misstep?"
"That's only polite."
"Then kiss politely until she tires of it."
"What makes you so very certain that she will tire of it?"
Her eyes rolled to Heaven. "I'm granting you, a complete outsider, the great honour of helping to produce my godsons and daughters. Do you honestly believe that any woman would waste the best years of her life being kissed politely, being taken and got with child politely?" Blair snorted. "You're more like one of us than I previously believed. A cold society marriage would suit you down to the ground."
Aggravated by the way she spoke to him, by the way she'd ceased to be amiable in his dealings with Serena and become dictatorial, Dan sniped, "Not every woman disdains politeness, you know, and you wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't."
"Meaning?"
"Politeness is not being seduced by a young woman of higher status and fleeing when she rejects you. Politeness is not sulking for two years and stockpiling against her. Politeness is definitely not that young woman's head being turned again, first by manipulation and then by passion. You hold your head high as if you desire nothing and no one, but you're so much more of a slave to passion than anyone else. I saw him send you a kiss in the train station, another apology you refused to accept; and yet you trembled, because you do know what an impolite kiss is like, and neither he nor my sister would have any power over you if you didn't."
Blair twirled her parasol, scattering spots of latticed light across her nose. "You're a writer, Daniel Humphrey," she stated with remarkable coolness.
"Yes."
"Which is the life better lived, then, in your expert opinion? I've fallen from grace but learned from that mistake, so I'll never fall again. Your sister, on the other hand, ascends another step with every sycophant who calls out her name as she passes." Her deep brown gaze was full of something that might've been pity. "She has so much farther to fall than I."
"You'd lose your reputation."
"I lost my love, that's enough." Dust rose beneath her heels as Blair picked up a smart pace. "That's more than enough," she murmured as she left Dan standing at the end of the tree line, his expression as contrite as could be. "'Tis better to never have loved at all than to have loved and lost."
The hotel dinner gong sounded in the distance.
I've had so many alerts and favourites over the past few weeks, thank you - but I'd really love to hear from you! If you don't fancy leaving a review, come say hi on my Tumblr or Formspring? I appreciate all of you, truly, silent or loud. Thanks to: Eternally Romantic, Kate2008, , L, notoutforawalk, MegamiTenchi, Nikki999, bfan, lulubelle2010, Stella296, Laura, CBFanForever, SaturnineSunshine, teddy bear, Maribells, abelard, flipped, Kaya, That Pam and fanny0997.
