20. Agony & Hope
Indecorous remarks had been made at the Glass Ball about Blair Waldorf's escort, Asher Hornsby, about Blair Waldorf's conversation with Mrs Wickes, about Blair Waldorf's best friend, Serena van der Woodsen. Blair Waldorf herself was generally smiled upon that evening, not to know she was being discussed on the railroad and in the embassy in Paris and in her own pantry. It was a day later, her champagne headache was gone, and she was pressing every ounce of her weight down on a trunk lid to try and force it shut. What a spectacle her bedroom was, its pretty blue walls stripped of her favourite paintings and her bearskin rug gone from the floor. Books, clothes and jewellery lay everywhere. She was in grave danger of becoming disorganised.
But Blair was headache-free, determined. She knew what she wanted, and she was going to get it.
The space held so many memories. Here was the room she'd been brought hours after being born, washed and dried and pink and naïve. Here was the room she'd been nursed and taught her ABCs and arithmetic. Here was the room where she'd been a girl, and here was the room where she'd become a woman. She wouldn't be away from it forever, but she'd miss it all the same.
Dorota crept in, trying to avoid making a sound and disturbing her mistress' reverie. When Blair glanced up, however, it was not with an admonishment or an order in Polish. "I'm sorry you decided not to come with me," she said. "Promise you'll write if you change your mind."
"I will write," the maid replied carefully. "Or if I would like to surprise you, I will write to Mr Hornsby, who will arrange everything."
"Precisely."
"I have a leaving gift for you, Miss Blair."
It was in a sleek leather case, and Blair immediately suspected jewellery. Something of her mother's, perhaps, that had been locked away? One of the pieces she herself had given her former nurse, a coral necklace for her birthday, a diamond pin for Christmas? Deciding she would be delighted, whatever it was, the New York royal who did not 'do' hand-me-downs thanked Dorota as she took the box from her and readied herself to thank her again once the trinket was on display.
This parting present was no bauble, however. Inside the case, nestled in a velvet recess, was a little pearl-handled pistol. Blair loved it on sight, and couldn't think why. It was only just bigger than her palm and polished to a high shine; she could see her face reflected back in the barrel. "Where on earth did you get this?" Her fingers reached out automatically to stroke the cool metal, more than appreciating such refinement that could be so deadly – rather like Blair herself.
"Mr Harold."
"Daddy?"
"For your twenty-first birthday, Mr Harold ordered this. He hoped to teach you how to take care of yourself, but he will not be in Paris to take care of you, and I will not be in Paris to take care of you. You must be brave and take care of yourself…and you must promise, Miss Blair, not to shoot Miss Eleanor."
Blair let out a sound that was halfway to being a laugh, dropping the box to her bed and wrapping her arms around her maid. Dorota decided that Miss Blair definitely wasn't ready to be without her if she was tossing around live firearms like they were throw pillows, but at least she was happy. Her glow was muted, like candlelight, however, and her voice was small. "You remember everything I said? Everything I asked you to say?"
"Yes."
"Say it back to me."
"'Just because we can't be together doesn't mean I won't love you'. I say that to Mister Chuck, and give him your most recent address."
"Thank you, Dorota."
"Thank you, Miss Blair."
They'd jointly conspired to dress her fit for foreign travel, in a navy blue shirtwaist with white satin edging and a sensibly wide skirt. There was a woven straw hat with matching trim atop her shockingly loose – but neatly brushed – hair, and the addition of a jaunty green neckerchief had, of course, been Asher's idea. He had the reputation of always being on time unless a place was not worth being and, as a compliment to his friend, had arrived ten minutes early with the sputtering dragon of a motorcar someone had lent him to get them to the waterfront in style. Blair rolled her eyes as he tutted and tugged at her scarf so the knot was to one side, but she was just as glad and sad in his presence as she had been upon receipt of Dorota's gift.
He kissed her lips, since Asher always had to be kissing someone somewhere. "Out you go, darling girl. Out into the wide world."
"Who will bring down the cases?"
"You have servants hiding in this warren of a house, you know. A male one let me in, as a matter of fact. Hobnobbing with the likes of Little J Humphrey has made you forget that the help are meant to be behind the scenes, not causing scenes on the arm of your one true love."
"He's not my…well, I suppose he is."
"No point arguing about that now."
"But you must stop talking like that, it's overblown and British and I won't have it."
"The British are in this season, did no one tell you?" His brows were manicured, as were his nails. They waggled. "Paris is over, New York is dead."
"If New York never sleeps, it can hardly die."
"It'll be dead without you, though."
Blair met Asher's look with a sense of near astonishment at his being sincere. Intelligence and good humour came to him as naturally as breathing, he saw the world around him for what it was and it amused him. What she'd never really let herself appreciate was how lonely he was. Few people knew he was the Gamesome Gallant, so much more than a mere journalist, and even fewer were aware of his more secret, more dangerous fascination. People assumed he was a consummate bachelor, too busy for a bride. The unhappy truth was that Asher would never be able to love whom he chose without being ridiculed, persecuted, abused; he'd devoted that intelligence, that good humour and his time to ensuring Blair could be with the man of her choosing, and she'd thrown his wretched circumstances into sharp relief by choosing herself over even the person she loved most in the world. She took his hand.
"One day," Blair promised. "I will have a home of my own, and there will be a place for you. You'll do whatever you want there, be with whomever you want, and none of my friends and no one in my employ will ever or call you names. I will make a new world if I have to, if it means things will be fair and right."
"Dearest, darling Blair." This time, his kiss landed on her forehead, lighter than the brush of a butterfly's wing. "Our world will never be fair. It's too beautiful for that, you as a beauty should realise: loveliness is cruel enough not to favour everyone, and so fairness is irrelevant. I'm not a martyr. I'll live my lies loudly and my life quietly rather than lose everything."
"It's not fragile, our world. Not like the Glass Ball."
"No. But one day people better and braver than us will raze it to the ground, and there'll be another world beyond its borders. That one, perhaps, will be fair."
A tear, the first of many, slipped down her cheek. "I love you too. As well as him."
"I love him too," said Asher, wiping it away. "As well as you."
There didn't seem to be anything more to say after that, and two manservants were rung for and carried Blair's things down to the cart which would follow the car in silence. Their wages would be paid, even though they'd have no one to wait on.
As the motorcar roared and puffed into life, Asher surprised Blair by chuckling and shaking his head. "Don't cry for me, la belle Waldorf. You're an inspiration to us all with these abnormal antics and all this running around proving yourself and defying your class. Inspirational ladies don't cry, the Book of Seamstress' Verses says so."
"And what have I inspired you to do?"
"Why, to drive very, very fast."
~#~
Someone wrapped in a gentlemen's coat was riding the rails from Palm Beach to New York. She sat at the bar and drank anything, and hissed at anyone who tried to speak to her.
She didn't have a name.
She couldn't honestly claim to deserve one.
~#~
Asher had to give Dorota a small quantity of his favourite narcotic before she'd stop sobbing and hiccupping by turns. He opted to walk home after dropping off his precious package, who'd refused an escort through the bustling crowds, up the gangplank and onto the ship itself, not once but twice. Blair's maid wasn't in a fit state to drive and nor did she have the skill, but Graham Collins was a colleague of Asher's and, more importantly, of his persuasion. Dorota would get home safely, and Asher could walk alone and spend some much needed time organising his thoughts. This week's column was half done, and he'd find some restaurant to serve him cutlets for dinner. There were oranges in the fruit bowl, beneath a stack of yellowing newspapers, he'd have one of those to tide him over. A clove cigarette would be welcome, and maybe the aforementioned Graham Collins too, if he happened to pass by.
Humphrey would need an answer soon.
How bothersome.
Sighing at the unsolicited cheek of that stubble-chinned man-child Dan, Asher spurned the elevator to climb the endless flights of stairs to what he liked to call his garret. There were several spectacular vintage umbrellas in the hat stand to the left of the front door, and Chuck Bass was occupying the wingback chair in the main room.
"I've had dreams like this." Asher was in two minds about removing the rusty sword concealed inside one of the umbrellas. "But usually, you have no clothes on."
"Mr Hornsby."
"Mr Bass. Aren't we past all this now?"
"No."
"Fair enough." He took a seat on the couch and did indeed light a clove cigarette, excitement fizzing in the pit of his stomach. How was it that Blair managed to improve his quality of life without even lifting a finger? "Purple suits you." Crossing his legs, Asher studied the lavender cuffs peeping from beneath his guest's greatcoat. "Now, would you like an orange, or would you like to tell me what you're doing in my apartment? Your hair is too long, by the way." And very, very alluring. I like a man with a touch of the poet.
"I've been to Blair's house."
"And left with no Blair, I take it."
"Where is she?"
Asher came very close to wriggling with delight. This was too much, the dramatic entrance of the hero at what everyone was sure was the final curtain. Far be it from him to wreck a romance…but, for all her admirable qualities, Blair had an infuriating habit of extraordinary circumstances just happening to fall into her lap. Was he, Asher, not entitled to some fun? Especially if she was going off to Paris. Even more so if Chuck planned to rush to the rescue, and they were going to get married and have babies and do everything properly.
"I know you know."
"I know I know too, Mr Bass. You're the only one who doesn't."
Chuck sighed. He looked tired, and ever so rakish. "I'm not in the mood to play games." How did such a rumpled man manage to be twirling such an immaculate hat between his hands? That was something worth knowing. "Not that I'd have to with you, you're so goddamn transparent."
"You charmer."
"Don't be coy."
"Me? Coy? I believe I was stating the obvious: I know where Blair is, and you don't. You want to know where she is, and I won't confess unless you give me what I want. I must warn you, by the way, that this information has a time limit. She'll shortly be in transit, and then neither of us will know where she is." He stubbed out his cigarette on an old clipping of his column. "So the only question which remains, excepting where Blair is, is whether you're man enough to do what you must in the time you've been given."
"Man enough?" Chuck was incredulous. "Do you really think I've never kissed a guy before?"
"No? Then I am pleasantly surprised."
They were of a height when they stood, which Asher supposed would make the process easier, but Chuck was imposing. He appeared to swallow the space around him, drawing it into the darkness of his gaze. No wonder Blair was running away to France, since the Gamesome Gallant could barely contain himself – and they hadn't even kissed. As he did several times a week, Asher wondered whether what 'normal' couples actually got up to in bed together could live up to his own escapades. In this case, he concluded that being with Chuck Bass probably equalled the experience. Poor Blair probably went off like a rocket in the first few moments, what with those eyes, and those hands, and the warm, musky scent of that cologne…
"I apologise for the dog hairs."
"What?"
"On my sleeve. Monkey was ecstatic to be home." He was drawling each word, drinking Asher in. Feeling like an aroused fly being advanced on by a highly attractive spider, Asher gulped. The functioning part of his brain inquired as to what game the legendary Mr Bass was playing. The rest of it was quite incoherent.
Slowly and very deliberately, Chuck pressed his mouth to Asher's, corner to corner, trying neither to move nor blink nor evoke any response. He gripped the other man's wrists when his arms rose to do something or other to his hair, and shook Blair soundly in the happy world of his imagination. The things I do for love. At least it was more pleasant than kissing Jenny, than being violated by her – he'd spoken too soon, for there was the tongue. Gently, Chuck put Asher away from him, feeling mildly smug as the journalist continued to be cow-eyed and dreamy and required holding upright. With any luck, he wouldn't swoon.
"She's taking a steamer."
"To?"
"To Paris."
"Mr Hornsby, I could kiss you again."
"But will you?"
"No."
That brought Asher back to himself. "I have no idea how you're going to convince her to stay. She doesn't deny that she loves you or that you belong together, she doesn't hold it against you that you didn't stop her leaving Florida. God only knows what's going on inside her head."
"God," Chuck returned. "And me."
"Cocky, aren't you?"
And because he had no particularly wish to kiss him again but needed to reward him for his cooperation somehow, Chuck leaned in close to Asher's ear and whispered a few very important things on the subject of 'cocky'. The undesirable swooning fit very nearly happened then and there, but before it could Chuck was out the door and thundering down the stairs, and his satisfied customer had decided that Graham Collins was required that very minute, or else he was going to have to go and sit in a bathtub full of ice chips and picture his maiden aunts in their ill-fitting bathing costumes one traumatic Newport summer.
Chuck vaulted over the bannister. It seemed admissible.
~#~
Dinner was served, and for the first time in months, she ate and drank with great gusto, white wine with fish and chicken, red wine with beef and lamb.
Her stomach ached as she lay down in her bunk to sleep.
She didn't mind.
~#~
The fact that no young woman of gentle breeding should be left alone to board a ship was precisely why Blair had sent everyone away. She'd appropriated a porter to transport her luggage from A to B, and he trailed along in the wake of her practical skirt. With her suite of rooms and first class ticket, he'd probably be the last man between here and France who was surly and silent in her company, instead of grinning with a mouth full of even white teeth and leaping to obey her every whim. Blair rather liked that: he was one of the grey people of this fair, grey city, where it was so easy to forget that only the rich sparkled in jewel bright colours.
A man with a beard clipped to military measurements and gleaming brass buttons took her papers for inspection. "You may either board first or last, miss, as per your preference."
"Last, please."
He returned the documents and touched his hat. "The White Star Line wishes you a pleasant journey." Such was his training, he made no comment on her lack of retinue, taciturn companion or the absence of a wedding ring.
Blair had decided to wait because she wanted to watch. Tides of people swelled and ebbed past her vantage point, perched on the largest of her cases, eddying around the officials whose job it was to direct them to their berths. Some were ridiculously dressed for the occasion – the sister of the youngest Mrs Astor, for example, was going to visit her aunt in London, and her leaving outfit consisted of a billowy blouse and a bottle green skirt so tight she had to take four steps for every one of her husband's – and enormous hats and expensive suits with matching parasols were everywhere. In among the finery were more of the grey people of New York, those who for some reason thought things would be better on the other side of the Atlantic. Was Blair herself any better? Paris was the most fashionable locale in the world, after all, where everyone passed judgement on everyone else for everything imaginable, from the price of each individual piece of that day's ensemble to the presence or absence of a tiny dog with dyed fur tucked beneath one arm. That brought to mind Monkey, the raggedy, endearing creature who liked the way she smelled. He surely wouldn't fit underneath her arm…and then suddenly, a pair of paws thumped down on her knees and a pair of large brown eyes were adoring her from beneath shaggy eyebrows.
A lightning strike would've probably been less surprising.
"I thought you'd changed your perfume."
But then, she should've know better. Blair petted Monkey's head, keeping her own head bowed and her gaze fixed upon him. "All my other bottles of scent were packed, and I couldn't have gone without this morning."
"Indeed not."
"You can't stop me," she said to the dog, since she was still refusing to face his master. "You can't offer me an upgrade of what I used to be and expect me to tear up my ticket and stay here forever."
"No."
Blair raised her eyes, and the visual realisation that he was in her space, standing close by with his coat flapping and his throat bare and pink and vulnerable in the wind seemed to send an electric shock through her and out again, prompting poor Monkey to jump when she did. "You have to know how it felt when you stayed behind. When you stayed behind for Jenny…"
"I do," Chuck replied gravely. "But my defence is this: that the person who stayed behind for Jenny, to take care of Jenny, is the person I became because of you. I went to California and I became jaded and cruel because you'd hurt me, and when I came back I wanted to hurt you too. I overcompensated in the end, and chose to marry Jenny before asking your opinion because I was so desperate not to see you harmed. You should know that I respect your opinion, even though I didn't ask it, for which I apologise. I respect you. And I'm sorry for everything that followed, first standing outside your house and torturing us both and then trying to deceive you about my feelings in Palm Beach. And then that night…you told me to come for you when I couldn't live without you, Blair, but I've never been able to. I become noble to the point of stupidity or I become a nothing of a man. The fact is you're in my bones, you knit me together. I have to be where you are, even if it takes me a little time to get there because you take my spine with you when you go. I don't want you to stay here, if that's not what you want. I want you to be happy, however that's achieved."
"What do you want, Chuck?" She challenged him, subconsciously caressing the dog's silky ears.
"I want to be your something, even if that's not your husband. I'll be…" And he looked at her very squarely, his eyes black gold and firm and honest enough to make her chest ache. "I'll be your mistress."
Blair couldn't help it. Even though her teeth were gritted, she let out an irrepressible giggle. "My mistress?"
"Yes."
"Will you wear a negligee and pearls to bed?"
"Yes."
"And too much lipstick and rouge?"
"Yes."
"Will you dance with the fans like those ladies in the Montmartre?"
It was one step too far. "Don't play with me, Blair. You know better than that."
"Do I?" She blinked her innocence at him, doe-eyed, satin-skinned and not entirely truthful. "What I know is that I've spent a good deal of my life playing with you, and it wasn't fair on either of us."
"There's never just one of us to blame for past trespasses."
"I agree with that."
"But you're always the one fighting to bring me back to myself, whether you have to seduce me or chastise me to do it. This is who you are. I want to honour that. I want to fight for that." Chuck dared to assume the space beside her on the bench, and Blair jumped again. She was in a strange sort of place between being terrified and being electrified, and he wasn't helping matters. "And if you don't want a mistress in a negligee and pearls, then I'll be your friend. I'll be perpetually unsatisfied and possibly waste the rest of my life with girls who I pretend are you, but I'll be your friend. I'll even romp with Asher for you, though I hope to God he's got me out of his system after the events of today."
Blair didn't inquire further. "I doubt it," she countered, softly and quietly. "You're very hard to shake once some poor creature's fallen in love with you and given up all hope of ever wanting anyone else."
His hand stole hers, insinuated itself in her warm pocket and pulled out the tight little fist. She conceded not at all, refused to loosen her fingers or wrap them around his. He kissed them first, and then settled himself against the side of her throat, not caring who saw or knew them and that he was married and she wasn't. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed to reach out and touch his cheek, blood running hot while the flesh was still frozen. Chuck removed his scarf from his pocket, since he'd been too flushed to wear it on the race from Asher's, and wrapped it around her neck.
"I remember this."
"My signature."
"Why did you ever stop wearing it?"
"I first got to know you when you were grieving for your father. It wasn't appropriate to wear such a bright garment when you were so sad."
"Did you love me then?"
"I loved you very slowly, as a matter of fact. You kept setting it back by throwing tantrums over the silverware."
She bumped her nose against his, drew back her hand from a whining Monkey and gripped the collar of his coat. It was turned up against the wind and kept that next kiss, which was by no means the first or the last, private and perfect behind the heavy wool. Anyone could've guessed what they were doing, but no one, hand on heart, could claim to know the details. No one could remark on the symmetry with which they moved, knowing exactly which way to go and how long the breaths between should last. No one could crow to their friends that they'd caught Charles Bass – didn't he have a wife? – and Blair Waldorf – who they were certain was and would be a virgin forever – French kissing, actually opening their mouths to one another, sitting as close together as was physically possible to be.
Hidden but not hiding, he stroked the nape of her neck. He touched his lips to her temple, tasted both salt and sweet. He kissed the dark slash of one eyebrow, the smooth curve of one cheek. In short, he explored her not in the conventional way, which was to kiss the mouth and go downwards from there, but went from left to right and feature to feature until it wasn't the cold causing her to shake.
"Still going to Paris?"
It was her leg that moved then, upwards in a rustle of skirts, her knee pressing lightly against his groin in erotic threat.
"You can't stop me." He had no doubt, of course, that she'd kick like a mule if roused; lucky for him that she was aroused instead, her pupils deep black pits and her mouth swollen and raspberry coloured, raspberry plump and expectant.
"About that fan dance…"
"Not a word. Not a single word."
Thanks to: aliceeeebeth, Laura, SaturnineSunshine, chairilove, Maudie, Trosev, CaroDaria, Nikki999, MissJess13, Molly Dooker, thepluot, alissajackie, thegoodgossipgirl, 29cmk, Guest, lovetvtomuchxo and everyone who got me to write this story after the events of the end of TVSOP. I would've given up long before now if it weren't for you.