Mina (16 page)

The spell
which had seemed almost deliberately cast, was broken. Gance took her hand.
"I see the coincidence has made quite

an impression," he said
after they'd been introduced.

"Coincidence,
Lord Gance?" For a moment she wondered if he had read her mind.

"You
needn't be so polite, Mina dear," Winnie said as she moved beside her.

"The
velvet," Mina said, realizing that they wore the same shade and texture in
coat and gown.

"I
think the color looks far better on you than it does on me, Mrs. Harker,"
Gance said. "Under the circumstances, my guests will

understand if I absent myself
for a little while."

"It's hardly
necessary, Lord Gance," Mina protested. "As you noted, it's only a
coincidence."

He shook his
head. "In my house there are no coincidences, Mrs. Harker. Later, you must
dance with me." He left her, followed

by the dog, then the butler
as he went out the doors.

"How strange," Mina
commented to Jonathan. As she did, she noted that those nearest them had
stopped speaking and were looking at her curiously. Winnie moved close to the
pair, dragging them into the nearest group, introducing them both then adding that
they were recently married on the Continent. As the group began asking the
couple the usual questions, Winnie excused herself and moved to a second group
then a third. Sometime later, Mina noticed her standing alone at the window.
She asked Jonathan to get her a glass of eggnog and joined Winnie there.

"Would
you care to explain what's happened here?" Mina asked.

"This
is Lord Gance's holiday party. In the past, he has often invited his mistress
and they have always worn matching colors.

Under the circumstances, he had to change. Otherwise, I suppose he
would have had to make some announcement. It would have been highly amusing,
but also a terrible embarrassment for both you and your husband."

"And
for Lord Gance."

Winnie laughed. "Dear Lord, no!
He'd revel in it." She waved toward the elaborate buffet and out the
window at the extensive gardens glowing with their hanging Chinese lanterns,
at the ice sculptures on the terrace below. "He has something suitable to
wear, Mina. Don't doubt it. Here comes your husband with the eggnog. Be
careful of your later glasses. I think the brandy content increases as the
night wears on."

After Jonathan handed Mina her
glass, Winnie pointed across the room. "Now that I have you both together,
come and meet the Andersens. They live nearly across from you at number
forty-nine and have been anxious to meet you. Afterwards, perhaps we should
simply move to the next address and the next until we've covered
everyone." Mina laughed. Jonathan merely smiled and held his wife's arm
somewhat more tightly than necessary. Mina knew he was not afraid of losing her
to some group, but simply holding on to her for her support. She felt far more
at ease in this gathering than he did, interested rather than intimidated, as
he was, by each new arrival. Poor Jonathan! she thought and gave him frequent,
encouraging smiles.

Gance had intended to hold the party
in the first-floor solarium. If the weather had been as fine as earlier in the
week, he would have ordered the doors opened and let the party spill into the
terrace and garden. The sudden freeze had changed all that, and preparations
had shifted to the second-floor ballroom.

A string
quartet had been hired to provide the entertainment for his sixty guests. The
house staff had done the rest. They had

labored with remarkable efficiency, without a word of complaint
because, though Gance's reputation was tarnished in polite society, his staff
adored him. The feeling was mutual. Abandoned by his self-absorbed parents,
Gance had been raised by the family retainers. As a result, he did not believe
in caste. He wished he could invite his servants to these socials, for he
frequently took his meals in the kitchen with them and found their banter to
be far more interesting than the strained amenities at these formal affairs.

In keeping with Gance's mode of
entertaining, the dinner would be served buffet style. In the meantime a
selection of cheeses, hot rum and cider, and cold eggnog were being served at
a table close to the fire. For those less traditional, a butler carried glasses
of champagne.

While Gance was changing, the music
had begun. Now he stood in the doorway, watching his guests talk and dance.
This was the way the house was meant to be-filled with people and laughter.
The more socials he held in the mansion, the more he seemed to exorcize the
tragedies of its past.

"David,
what is the piece being played?” he asked his butler.

"Part
of
Scheherazade
by Rimsky-Korsakov, sir."

"Ah!"
Gance paused, listened a moment then said, "Order the candles lit and the
gaslights turned down."

He moved through the room, stopping
often to talk with his guests, circling ever closer to Mina. He waited until
Jonathan was with her before approaching them both. "I came to collect my
dance," he said to Mina, then turned to Jonathan. "With your permission,
of course."

Jonathan
watched them walk to the center of the floor. His lips were affably upturned.
Only his eyes revealed his concern.

"Emory?"
Winnie asked, glancing from Jonathan to Mina. He nodded. Without a word, Winnie
drew Jonathan onto the dance

floor, placing her hand on
Jonathan's shoulder just as Mina and Gance swept by.

Damn that woman! She behaves like a
venomous ex-lover, Gance thought as the pair stayed just within hearing
distance. He had hoped to be charming, to make an impression, and instead
found himself nodding politely to Mina's husband. "I hear you were married
in Hungary," he said to Mina.

"Yes. Jonathan was on a business trip. He fell ill. He had no
family to go to him, so I did. We were married in Budapest." "You
visited that country again, didn't you?" "Business. Jonathan thought
I might like to go along since I did not get to tour the country properly the
first time." "Did you, the second time?" "No." "One
of your group died, didn't he? Quincey Morris, the American?" "Where
did you hear about that?" Mina asked, astonished by his knowledge.

"I
handled some of Lord Godalming's affairs in his absence. He later wired that he
had to go to America. Poor Arthur. First a

fiancée, then a friend. Mr.
Morris became ill, I take it?"

Mina nodded.

"It is a lovely country, though. I've been there a number of
times." "Do you speak Hungarian?" Mina asked, thinking of the
book she intended to show him.

"Enough to get by. I have no
great skill with languages. Fortunately, others do." The music stopped. He
held her at arm's length for a moment, "I do believe the color looks
better on you than me. I promise never to wear that green in your presence
again.

Unless you request it, of
course."

She knew what he implied, but he had
done it so skillfully that the blush that colored her cheeks seemed only to
reveal the nature of the gossip she had heard. When the music started again,
she danced with her husband, resting her head on his shoulder so she would not
have to speak at all.

Dinner was served a quarter hour
later. Huge silver trays of sliced roast beef were surrounded by pieces of
pudding. Whole salmon baked in a pastry crust followed, and the main dishes
gave way to glazed carrots, potatoes, creamed leeks, pickled vegetables,
breads, cold meats and a selection of sweets.

When the
guests had all been served and were seated at the tables scattered around the
edge of the hall, Gance clapped his

hands.

Servants
brought in three slender urns, each half the height of a man, then filled them
with pitchers of oil. One burned red, the

other two bright orange. The
gaslights were turned down even further, until all the light in the hall seemed
centered in the urns.

Gance clapped again and five men came into the hall. Each was
dressed in a white cotton turban and loose trousers. Their swarthy skin looked
even darker against the flowing white fabrics. Three carried drums and stood
beside the oil burners. The others carried stringed instruments. Someone
standing close to Mina whispered to a companion that they were a tanbur and a
lute.

Without waiting for an introduction, the group began to play an
intricate melody so unsuited to Mina's ears that she could only distinguish
the deepest drum and the tanbur, which whined at such a high tone that it
seemed to be buzzing in her head. Attention was centered on the door, and a
moment later two men and a woman entered.

The men wore white cotton shirts and
trousers, but instead of turbans, their heads were shaved. The woman, her face
and hair and body covered with thin silk veils in clashing shades of red and
gold and purple, moved at their center like a butterfly among camellias.
Though her entire body was covered, except for her eyes and her hair, the way
the thin fabric clung to her made it obvious that she wore little underneath
the outer gown.

She took a place among the musicians
while the men who had come in with her began to move in time to the
music-swaying, whirling, apart then together, until Mina was certain they were
not Arabs or Turks but dervishes from India. When it seemed that they were
incapable of moving any faster, the men began a tumbling act, bouncing off each
other's shoulders and arms. Each trick was more complex than the last, and the
audience applauded enthusiastically.

The music shifted, becoming slower, more sensual. The woman
stepped forward and began to dance. The sinewy movements of her arms, the soft
motion of her bare feet on the wood floor had an exotic beauty. Though her body
moved in the most provocative way, the mask on her face gave her a remoteness
that kept attention fixed on her art.

Mina tried
to focus only on the dance, though the way the dancer moved beneath her flowing
silks reminded her---No, not here,

she admonished herself so
sternly that she nearly said the words aloud.

Mina glanced
at Jonathan. His eyes were focused on the woman, his hands beating time against
his thighs. His mouth was slack.

Had they been alone, she
would have kissed it. Instead she merely looked away, letting the music lead
her thoughts.

The woman
danced through three more songs then fell to her knees, signaling that her
performance was over.

One of the
musicians whispered something to the dancer then unhooked the veil that covered
her face.

The woman's arms remained at her
side, but Mina saw them tense, fighting the urge to cover her face. The men
applauded; a few women did as well, but only out of politeness. Mina did not
applaud at all. She saw the woman's expression. She knew exactly what the
musician had done.

How dare the
man! she thought. And how dare Lord Gance allow it. Didn't he understand what
that act meant to the woman?

"Jonathan,
it's getting late. Would you take me home?" she asked when the performers
had left the room. As they said good-bye to their host, Gance noted Mina's
disapproval. He drew her aside and whispered, "The man was her husband,
Mrs. Harker. He had the right."

"And
you the power to stop it," she countered.

Gance
watched them go and thought, happily, that he had broken through her defenses.
Yes, he would definitely see her again.

"You were so lovely
tonight," Jonathan said as he helped Mina unhook her gown. He lit the
candles beside their bed and on her dressing table, then turned out the
gaslight. As he did, she unpinned her hair. It fell over her shoulders in a
warm cascade. He loved her hair-its color, the subtle perfume of the shampoo
she used. She reached for the brush, but he took it instead and stood behind her,
running it through the tight curls. "Gance wasn't the only one watching
you, though he was the most obvious."

Mina
laughed. "Should I wear something less revealing next time?"

He kissed
her shoulder. "Let them look," he said.

But Jonathan
knew he didn't mean it, at least not where Gance was concerned.

Jonathan's jealousy astonished him,
for he had never felt anything like it before. On the journey with the men, he
had noticed Seward watching Mina with more than clinical concern. He had
understood that they all loved her, all respected her strength and common
sense, and he had even taken some comfort in knowing that if he had died, one
of them would have eventually married her. But those were all good men, who
would have seen to her needs and welfare. Perhaps his jealousy stemmed more
from Lord Gance's reputation with women. It was said that Gance seduced them,
used them, abandoned them. There were even rumors of suicide connected with
his affairs and, so barbaric in these times, a duel.

And that
creature had held Mina, had stared at her breasts-so beautiful against the dark
velvet of her dress-had touched her hair,

inhaled the scent of her
perfume.

Jonathan had
almost lost her once, he would never allow it to happen again. He wished there
were some prayer he could say to

guard her against every evil,
human or otherwise, some way to ensure that a creature like Gance could never
touch her. A way ...

"Jonathan?"
Mina turned sideways. "Jonathan, if you're not going to use the brush,
give it to me."

He stroked
her hair a few more times, watching the sparks he raised flicker in the dimly
lit room, then set it down. Taking her

hand, he pulled her to her
feet, turned her to face the mirror and began to undress her, the articles of
clothing falling one after