The ballroom was marble floored and velvet curtained, the arched windows showing a breathtaking vista of the city at night, and the guests were a dazzling selection of New York's boldest and brashest.
Joan was in hell.
"He's a new man," commented Marlian, wife of somebody the third. "My sweet girl in red satin, you have transformed him!"
"He rarely used to bother with our little soirees," agreed Debony, who was something big in mobile technology. "But he's so exciting and so brilliant, we've been utterly bereft."
"Your ravishing beauty must have done the trick," Marlian said, winding a lock of Joan's hair around her finger. "It's hard to imagine you were ever a doctor!"
"Surgeon," corrected Joan, and caught herself. It did not matter! Who were these awful people? She had loathed this kind of party all her life -been subjected to a fair few in the name of networking or fundraisers- and yet here she was, dressed up way beyond the nines, sipping nasty white wine and smiling as these repellent women fondled her like a pet, a good little pet who has retrieved their favourite stick.
Where the hell was Sherlock?
At that moment he appeared at her side, hair combed, clean shaven, dressed sumptuously in a midnight blue velvet evening jacket and silk-seamed trousers. His shoes gleamed. He wore a bright silver signet ring on his left middle finger, encrusted with the Holmes crest. My father's, he had said carelessly when she noticed it.
Sherlock approached, and Marlian and Debony broke into sighs and moans of appreciation.
"Oh look at the two of you together!" exclaimed Marlian as Sherlock bent to kiss the back of Joan's neck. "My angel, you have perfectly cured him of that horrid broken heart!"
Joan shivered at the touch of his lips on her skin. The gesture was an exact split of tenderness and possessiveness,and she hated herself for wanting to forgive his manipulative behavior.
Debony stroked Sherlock's arm. He merely smiled and asked if they were having fun before leading Joan away with a hand under her elbow.
"Thanks," she said once they were out of earshot in the crowd. "They were driving me insane."
"Not insane, Joan, that would be an exaggeration as ridiculous and lazy as their own. I agree however that their company is tedious."
"What is this event, anyway?" There had been food and music, but no speeches and no drumroll for a special guest or big announcement.
"Tech launch," Sherlock told her. "Except we'll never see the tech or hear anything about it. Too hush hush, but still the manufacturers, or as I should call them at this stage, the patent holders, want everyone to know about their clever idea. And give them money to launch production, preferably."
"So they don't have a product yet."
"They have a prototype. Which naturally we will not be allowed to see."
"So what does it do - what's it for?" Joan followed him through the crowd towards the windows.
"Not completely sure. My research suggests it's a design for a kind of power supply which can give immensely long usage from the briefest of charges. The inventors are claiming medical, military and consumer applications."
Sherlock led her to a small stand. It supported a glass case - with black velvet curtains drawn all around and over it, on the inside of the glass. "This is it. See how they tease us with the suggestion of revelation, while simultaneously removing the possibility."
Joan looked at the box. "The prototype is in there?"
Sherlock leaned back on the case with his elbows and gazed around the room. "Probably not. If there was anything valuable in it, a burly man in a self important cap would burst from the crowd and shout-"
"Move away from the prototype, sir!"
A muscular, tanned young man in a security uniform strode towards Sherlock. "Move away now, sir, that's private property."
"Sorry, just taking the weight off. " Sherlock grinned and led Joan away. "So, they've got the brass neck - or stupidity - to put their precious idea in a box at the launch event."
He caught Joan's so-what look. "Instead of, for example, in a high security vault where it can't be compromised."
Joan looked around at the crowd. "You think someone here would steal it?"
Sherlock's expression turned grim. "I think someone here has already stolen it. The box now contains nothing of value."
Joan glanced around. "I thought this event was invitation only."
"And yet with the aid of a high end laser printer and an air of supreme confidence, here we are." Sherlock rummaged in his pocket and brought out a device like a phone. He glanced at it, then replaced it and yawned. "I never knew how these events dragged when you're not knocking back the Bollinger."
He looked around and the sleepy, languid look Joan had seen of late, crept over his face. His tone changed and he spoke offhandedly, not bothering to make eye contact with het. His gaze wandered past her. "We have not quite done our duty yet. Another half an hour should finish the job. Everyone is desperate to meet you."
"You mean, you," said Joan. "I am just the sideshow - you're the one they've been waiting for." She had meant it as a statement and was surprised at how snide and self-pitying it came out. "I mean, they haven't seen you for a long time."
"I rarely come out to feed the fishes," Sherlock said unpleasantly.
He was scanning the room. His eyes betrayed the air of boredom he assumed: they were bright and never still. His gaze flicked from person to person in the massive ballroom. He was looking for someone.
Then Joan saw the flash of acquisition in his eyes. He said abruptly, "I think we've covered it actually. Let's leave."
Something in her snapped. All this time, going along with it, allowing him to lead her on a hunt for whatever it was, being fed snippets of information when it suited him, being ignored at other times... No, she was not ready to just go or stay at his whim. She lifted her chin. "I'll just visit the -"
"No, we're leaving now, you can hang on, can't you?" He made to tug her by the arm.
She glared at him in outrage and disbelief. "I will be back in a minute," she told him icily and turned away to find the bathroom.
"Passionate," whispered a woman behind her with a low chuckle. "That's how he likes it..."
Joan whirled round and saw a dark haired woman in a twilight blue gown, her bare back to Joan, updo just on the sensuous side of tousled, walking towards Sherlock with her empty wine glass dangling from her fingers, trailing its last drops onto the floor.
Joan flushed pink with anger. These people! She knew it was a kind of snobbery in itself to despise the privileged, but really this fawning over Sherlock was sickly and disturbing. And yet he seemed to revel in it with her at his side. This was the third such affair since...the letter.
She found the bathroom and pushed through a crowd of women spritzing themselves with parfums or dabbing on extra lip gloss, to reach the privacy of the stalls.
The truly awful thing about these dates with Sherlock, she reflected, was that she hated them ...and he enjoyed it.
When he stepped into a ballroom, he forgot who he was, who she was, and became this socialite, this performer of petty deductions for the amusement of the adoring throng.
He was clean - that was good. He was out enjoying a social life with people he had known since childhood. That was good.
So why was she so unhappy?
She would leave, with him now, and when they got home she would -
What?
Break up with him?
She let out a bitter laugh and turned it into a cough.
You can't end something which has never begun. Something conducted without discussion or declaration. Any tenderness, any seeming signs of attachment, were merely method, technique, process.
She had known this. Expected this. Professionally, her actions were unforgivable. Personally they were... very questionable.
She cursed herself for her own stupidity. She had known his manipulativeness, known his weaknesses as an addict, known enough of his history to be very wary of it, known her own role in his life perfectly clearly. So why had she gone ahead and become involved with him? Of all people - she could have picked anyone to work through her own needs and desires with, but she picked him.
It was foolishness and it was wilfulness and it was ego. Surgeons have egos as big as moons and she was no different. She would be immune, she would remain detached, yada yada yada.
The shame was worse than the hurt at being used.
Joan carefully wiped her eyes and smoothed down her dress. No more tears of anger or regret.
No more being kept in the dark.
No more expecting, hoping to be go en something. What she wanted, she would take.
And so she emerged, face frozen in a sly smile, to find Sherlock hovering outside the ladies' room. Before he could speak she commanded. "Take me home, it's late and I'm tired."
He looked at her carefully and offered her his arm without a word.
In the taxi, she instructed, "We'll sleep in my room tonight. It's much more comfortable." Then she turned her face to the window and said nothing more.
She could feel him looking at her, thinking, probably cursing her for introducing emotion when he wanted to be working. But in fact it was the opposite. She was removing emotion, neatly, with a clean cut.
The old Joan was gone.