The Evening of Lies and Heated Gazes (or, The Next Time)
Things have gone back to normal. Ichabod was saved from being buried alive, again. Abbie escaped from Purgatory. (If you are concerned with how, I encourage you to read She and He by CreepingMuse.) Jenny is feeling better – although she skips physical therapy more often than Abbie would like, but you can't change people. Captain Irving is working with a dedicated and creative lawyer upstate. Everything is just the way it was before.
Although no one has heard a peep from Katrina or Abraham. And no one has seen Henry. It's been two months.
Abbie groans as she braces herself against the table. "Is this really necessary?"
"Teeny tiny waist? Boobs on a platter?" Marcus pulls once again, grunting with the effort. "You're lucky I'm letting you wear this."
"Miss Mills?" Crane calls from outside Marcus's workroom door. "The hour is late."
"How'd you do with the jacket?" Marcus volleys back as he ties Abbie into her corset, then begins fastening the line of hooks and eyes down her back.
"Mr. Williams, you are indeed an artist. But lieutenant, please hurry. If Mr. Thiebault is as suspicious as you gather, we ought not draw attention to ourselves."
Even with Marcus's help it took forever for Abbie to get ready. Underdress, four different muslin skirts, giant side paniers, this rib-cracking corset, heavy violet brocade underskirt, then the ornate golden jacket dress over all of it. Crane's clothes may be fancy, but as least they resemble normal menswear. And weigh less than a hundred pounds.
Driving in her get-up is nearly impossible. The twin paniers – cartoonishly large hoops ballooning out over each hip – are not made for bucket seats. The left one is twisted around so that now it covers most of the side window; the right is flared out over Crane's lap. Abbie has all five skirts hiked up over her bare knees so she can reach the stick shift. Sitting back in the seat is disturbingly constricting, but even with perfect posture everything above the waist is being squished out the top of her corset. Thanks to her old friend Marcus and his warehouse of costumes she could fool anyone into thinking she's a D cup, and every struggling breath just presses the girls further up.
Crane looks good, she has to admit. Better than good. He wears clothes well, even on an ordinary day. He's strong but not brutish, tall but not lanky. He's got the bearing for a velvet vest and a long coat. She finds herself stealing glances while he glares, immovable, at the road.
She really doesn't – can't – care about his reaction to her. They have a job to do. "Look, when we get to the party, you blend in while I find a way upstairs to his office. In and out in ten minutes, tops."
Crane attempts to urge her hoop away from his thigh, but it bounces back, a metal stay flicking his leg with a sharp jolt. "You may find stealth somewhat challenging," he counters. "Perhaps I could -"
She interrupts. "And what are you going to do if your trinket is locked away?"
"It is an amulet, and it's not mine. Yet." He nods toward Abbie without glancing her way. "But as ever, Miss Mills, I defer to your more accomplished delinquency."
The valet parking attendant, a pimply teenager in sagging tights, watches Abbie as she climbs gymnastically out of her car, fabric and wires tangled around her. Crane, on the other hand, waits until she's straightened her corset and coaxed all of her skirts to lie flat. Then he steps beside her and, out of the blue, holds his elbow out.
Abbie pauses. Avoiding contact, even meaningless contact like this, is what has allowed them to move on. Which he knows, so what is he doing? She thought they were in this together.
She glances toward the door. Every woman, each ornately coiffed and dressed, is being led by the arm by a man, like being helpless enough that you need to be propped up while walking is somehow the height of femininity. Or possibly because none of them can reliably take a full breath.
But she and Crane have to try to blend in, and she's already at a considerable disadvantage. "Yeah, fine," she finally says, bending out her elbow. Crane lifts it gently over his forearm and guides her to the door while she pretends it doesn't shake her.
From the foyer only one staircase to the upper floors is visible, rising from where a dozen elderly men in familiar dress guffaw and snort like pigs. The women hover in the ballroom to the left, chattering in collections of three or four beside a large, square dance floor. A consort of strings in the far corner underscores their conversation.
Just inside the door, a liveried guard holds out an empty palm. "Invitation," Miss Mills murmurs into Ichabod's shoulder. He slips his fingers inside the breast of his coat and produces the precious piece of paper the lieutenant deployed no small measure of artifice to procure for this exclusive event.
The guard deliberates, squinting at the mismatched couple for longer than should be necessary.
Ichabod stretches to tower over him. "There isn't a problem, is there?"
"No, no problem," the guard agrees, shrinking slightly against the wall. "Go on in."
With a slow, superior nod, Ichabod guides Miss Mills just inside the gilded ballroom, nothing but a deep breath belying his outward serenity.
Miss Mills was right: she is indeed the only woman of color here, from what he can see. She warned him that the party's hosting society continues, centuries on, to exclude descendants of those their ancestors owned. He found it hard to imagine such a wrong-minded practice would persist for centuries and yet the room is uniformly pale, with Miss Mills its only, radiant exception.
He leans to speak into her ear. "You did not exaggerate."
She huffs a joyless laugh. "Told ya."
Ichabod has become accustomed to Miss Mills' beauty and strength; he no longer allows it to distract him. Her usual costume only fleetingly hints at the gifts Aphrodite has bestowed upon her. But tonight, her stunning gown displays every charming curve, every shadow and swell. What's more, at her friend Mr. Williams' insistence she eschewed a period-appropriate wig, favoring instead what the two of them referred to as natural hair. Left unstraightened, her locks separate into voluptuous curls which she has swept into a twist at the nape of her neck. Tendrils have fought themselves loose; they kiss the tender bend where her shoulder meets her neck, a delicate spot Ichabod knows is particularly sensitive.
Knowledge to which he has no right.
Despite her evident discomfort in such a foreign milieu, Miss Mills' bearing is regal - generated, he is certain, in her abundant personal confidence. Miss Mills shines like the very sun; by comparison, even the most handsome woman in the ballroom resembles a brittle, aging matron.
Over the din, a disembodied voice announces, "Sweet Richard! Take your lines!"
It is a dance Ichabod knows well. He gestures toward the double line forming on the large dance floor. "Would you do me the honor?"
"What? No."
"Dance is one of our greatest social joys, Miss Mills," he insists. After all, to avoid detection they must appear to be invested in the festivities. The uncharitable pleasure he may derive from watching her suffer through the practices of an era two hundred years removed from her own figures not at all.
At her slight hesitation, Ichabod deposits her across from him in a line of women. "Crane!" she hisses through her teeth.
"Follow me. I've got you," he assures her.
Introductory music swells. Ichabod bows, nodding leadingly toward the floor. The women beside Miss Mills curtsey; she bends, still glaring at him.
Under billows of laughter and the strains of the string consort, Ichabod surreptitiously directs her movements. "Left foot, cross. Now right. Two steps in. Circle me. Back." At the outset Miss Mills stumbles, chasing the beat. But the difficulty cannot smudge her radiance. When she turns on the angle, a ringlet of ebony curl dips to stroke her shoulder.
How intimate to glimpse the curl she erases as a lieutenant.
Crane really is in a class all his own. The other men dancing on either side of him are droopy or jagged, so modern and informal it's almost disrespectful. They conspicuously fling their arms and waggle their butts mockingly. Not Crane. He glides forward and back, one arm folded across the front of his waist, the other tucked behind him. His eyes are locked with Abbie's, willing her to keep up.
It gets easier as the dance repeats. Crane's directions drop to a barely audible whisper. When in the third time through the pattern she predicts the next step, he smiles proudly at her accomplishment. She rolls her eyes. "Doesn't mean I'm ever doing this again."
Even so, it's nice to see him in his element. She has some idea how hard it must be for him to always be several steps behind. It's only fair for her to take her turn at it.
As they step back into their lines for a fourth round of the dance, the amplified voice calls out the next one: "Soldier's Joy!" Abbie seizes the opportunity, slipping behind a clutch of women making their way onto the dance floor.
Crane darts to her side.
"I thought you were staying down here," she reminds him.
"Upon further reflection," he counters, "nefarious schemes are best performed with a scout."
The door guards, relaxed now that all guests have been accounted for, hover beside a table of hors d'oeuvres. Abbie slips through the door in a whoosh of fabric. Crane closes it behind them; Abbie is already halfway up the staircase when he turns around.
"Scout," he hisses. "Do you require a definition?!"
Abbie tries all of the doors; this one, at the far end of the third floor, is locked.
"Here," she whispers, drawing two pins from her hair.
"Resourceful as ever," Crane muses, bending to scan the hallway.
She picks the lock in moments and immediately steps inside, leaving Crane to keep watch.
It's an office, as she expected, lined with dark wood paneling. Behind an enormous monument of a desk is a wall of bookshelves. In the center of the eye-level shelf, a framed sketch of an old ship is mounted to the wall.
"Hello, safe."
She feels along the right edge of the frame for the release mechanism she knows must be there. And it is.
The safe's lock is harder to pick, but she gets it on her second try. Inside, behind a newish handgun and a stack of stuffed envelopes, sits a tarnished gold cross no bigger than her badge. "Has to be it," Abbie whispers to herself. She replaces her hair pins and stuffs the ancient trinket down between her breasts.
"Was it there?" Crane prods when Abbie closes the office door behind her.
Abbie grins.
"Well, where is it?"
"Safe and sound," she assures him, adjusting the top of her corset. "Now let's get out of here."
Rene Thiebault, the suspicious host, is waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs.
"Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson," he drones. "What a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Crane arches an eyebrow at Abbie's joke, naming them this way. She studiously doesn't notice, offering her hand with a broad, staged smile. "Mr. Thiebault."
After a second of hesitation, the host takes it. "Were you lost?" he asks her, bowing to leave a kiss inches above her hand even as he watches her.
Crane steps in, holding his hand out next. "Admiring your impressive art collection here in the staircase. Without permission, I'm afraid."
Thiebault shakes Crane's hand with his thick paw, pumping it as arrogance overtakes his suspicion. "Permission granted, Mr. Jefferson. Imagine, an Oxford historian at our annual ball. You'll pardon the victors a bit of hubris."
He doesn't know the half of it, Abbie thinks as the man's treasured Moravian Cross pokes her breast.
"Come," Thiebault insists, wrapping his strong, stubby arm around Abbie's back. "The waltzes have just begun."
Thiebault walks them to middle of the busy dance floor. "The night is only beginning, and I have so many questions for you, Mr. Jefferson. But Cognac and conversation later." He drops a heavy palm on Crane's shoulder, then another on Abbie's, turning them toward each other before he walks away.
"Damnable timing," Crane grumbles.
"Stay cool," Abbie warns him.
Like he's emerging from a daze, Crane notices the swaying, spinning couples surrounding them. "What dance is this?"
"It's a waltz." Now, this is a dance she knows. Not well, but of the few dances she learned in school, this was one she actually liked. Something about the math of two feet working in a triple meter. And the twirling which, with the right partner, can be pretty magical.
Without warning, she puts Crane's left hand behind her waist. Yes, they've been doing so well with no physical contact. But it's how you waltz. And they aren't getting out of here anytime soon, not under Thiebault's hawkish glare.
"I don't - this is not strictly -" He pulls away, lifting his hand off of her.
But she presses it into place and takes his other hand in hers, dropping her right hand lightly on his shoulder. "I've got you," she parrots back to him. "One, and then two little steps." She demonstrates, moving him along with her.
His feet move as instructed, but his body is otherwise rod-straight.
"That's it. One, two, three. One, two, three." She looks up into his face, willing him to follow her lead. "You've got it. Relax."
Ichabod watches her, bewildered. Perhaps it is the sudden loss of their comforting moat that confounds him, what Miss Mills calls personal space. No, he is well aware it is the lingering, recently repressed memory of his arm wrapped around her waist, his hand given access it should not have but wants anyway.
The country dance he taught her was so much kinder. It only promised this heady embrace. To have it is almost too much.
As he learns the simple step, Miss Mills releases her lead. A wisp of a smile appears at the corner of her mouth. She leans into his hand at her waist. The weight of her skirts pull at their twirls, deepening each movement. Her gaze floats lightly over the faces around them.
For the moment, spinning here in his arms, she appears content. How rare and beautiful. This is what dancing is meant for, he thinks. This is what gazing is meant for.
He holds her small hand in his, drawing her ever so gently closer to him, and then closer still. When her bodice presses against his vest her eyes return to his, full of playful mirth. But his are dark with the longing she couldn't see on that fateful night two months ago.
The recognition in her face almost causes Ichabod to let her go. Just under the surface, the same impossible desire is mirrored back to him.
You should stop, Abbie registers. Eye contact, she knows full well, can be so much more dangerous even than skin on skin. So much more honest, and now she is spilling everything, and so is he without a word. She can't look away. She doesn't want to. The space between their lips is too vast. She recklessly spins in his arms, the force of her skirts and the music and something else, something they share, something they shouldn't binding them together and twirling them around and around each other.
They stole the Moravian Cross from under the nose of its rightfully paranoid owner. They escaped the evening without harm or censure. Why then does Ichabod feel so entirely gutted? For all their success, he yearns to begin the anesthetizing process of recovery from this evening of lies and heated gazes.
Before Miss Mills has even brought the vehicle to a stop Ichabod engages the door's handle, impatient for her absence. "Goodnight, Miss Mills," he says quietly, lighting on the dirt outside the car.
Abbie turns off the engine. "Wait. I need your help. With the, uh, thing." She indicates her back with a vague gesture.
Absolutely not. He couldn't possibly disrobe her; it would be inappropriate under the most mundane circumstances. All the more after this evening's activities. "Jenny would be a more fitting attendant, wouldn't you agree? Or perhaps Mr. Williams. Not I." He hopes she cannot sense the tremor in his voice.
Miss Mills' shoulders suddenly slump, which serves only to offer up the perfect bosom he has so willfully ignored more completely to his weary yet eager eyes. "Crane. It's two in the morning. I'm not going to wake up Marcus or Jenny at this hour, and I'm really not going to sleep in this torture rig." Were she to look at him, she would see his utter distress. But she refuses. "Please."
He ought to protest: Miss Mills, when I imagine unfastening your bodice - But he cannot bring himself to argue that his desire is too powerfully piqued to taunt himself in such a way. He is a soldier, a married man, and most importantly, her friend. "After you," he offers instead, gesturing toward the door.
Abbie'll have to go inside; there's no way he could get at all those little hooks and eyes here in the car. For that and a million other reasons, part of her was hoping he'd stick to his guns. Because as much as she needs his help, this is a very bad idea. It's the first time she's even considered going in Crane's cottage since That Night.
Before Crane's scheme to steal the Moravian Cross, before they played dress up and spent the evening whirling around a dance floor together, everything was fine. Crane was a perfect gentleman from the morning after she sped away. Sure, there were moments she wanted to bring it up, but what would she tell him? That she wished she hadn't left? That wasn't even entirely true, and anyway, he freaked out just as much as she did. No, in the end neither of them ever said a word about it. She was careful not to touch him – she realized in those first few days how often she reached for him – and he seemed to do the same. Pretty soon, they found their groove again.
Until tonight. For her, tonight opened the flood gates. All of the whatever-it-was that came over her That Night has rushed back. So she would have to be certifiable to go in there for the express purpose of him helping her take her clothes off. Right?
Miss Mills unfastens her gown and drops it over the back of a kitchen chair, exposing her bodice. She stands, as tightly wound as Ichabod obviously is, with her deceptively small back facing him. Again.
A knot of memories surge through his mind: of Abbie under his hands, of reverently unfastening Katrina's bodice on their wedding night, unwrapping her slowly like a gift. He watches his fingers delicately remove hook from eye, first one, then another. To brace the fabric he must reach inside. Her skin is aflame; his is ice.
She hisses at the cold.
"Evening chill," he tries to say, but his voice hitches in his throat. His fingers falter.
Abbie sighs. "I fucking hate this."
"I apologize," he whispers, wilting behind her. "Abbie."
She whips around to face him. "No, okay? We are not doing this. We are not apologizing and we are not taking three steps back and we are not going in that bedroom."
"I wouldn't -"
"You already have and so have I! But not again. You are helping me get this fucking thing off because you wanted some supernatural trinket that you are sure will help us save your wife, who is alive. That is why we are here. Not for us. Not for this."
"It's an amulet," he argues, his voice pale.
"Seriously?" she counters.
They glare at each other until their frustration cracks and, just as suddenly, falls away. Abbie smiles with relief; she laughs, shaking her head. Crane's smile transforms his face and soon he is laughing, too.
He turns her around and makes quick work of the fastenings, then unties the spiraled lace. "There. No more torture."
Abbie picks up her gown. "Right," she says, her grin dissipating. "Or just a different kind."