“No, no, it’s okay,” Roma insisted. “We’re only here for lodgings, really—”
Unable to suppress it any longer, Juliette snickered a laugh. Roma’s head whipped up, as if the sound had reminded him that Juliette stood three feet away. Only instead of calling for help, he exclaimed, “Lǎopó!”
The girls startled, releasing him for a short moment. Juliette wasn’t laughing anymore. Her eyebrows shot straight up. Who the hell is he calling his wife?
Roma quickly pulled free, hurrying to Juliette’s side. “I’m so sorry!” he called back. His arm came around Juliette’s waist, and when Juliette jumped, immediately trying to dart away, he preempted the direction she tried to pivot in and tightened his grip. “My marriage vows forbid such mischief. Maybe in another lifetime!”
“Please forgive me,” Juliette muttered under her breath. She could feel the press of his fingers through her coat. She could feel the tension in his arms, the way he was trying to stop himself from settling into the usual hold they had perfected five years ago. Don’t lean in. Whatever you do, don’t lean in. “I don’t even remember when we exchanged our vows.”
“Play along,” Roma said through gritted teeth. “I fear they would kill me in my sleep without a better excuse.”
“This isn’t Shanghai, qīn’ài de. They will kill you with their kindness, not their blades.”
“Speak less, dorogaya.”
Juliette shot a sharp look at him, then wondered if she could get away with holding a blade in her hand and tripping to slice his beautiful face—just a little, a red nick here and there. She had used a term of endearment sarcastically, but she still bristled to have him do the same. Before she could grab her knife, however, Miss Tang was gesturing ahead to follow her up a winding staircase, onto the second floor.
“Ah, young love,” Miss Tang said when they caught up with her at the top of the staircase. She sighed, splaying her arms against the banister theatrically. “I have almost forgotten what it is like.”
Torture, Juliette replied silently. They started to walk along the second floor. Everything hurts, and I’m certain that I am soon to collapse into agony and dust—
“Same room or separate?” Miss Tang asked, interrupting Juliette’s reverie.
“Separate,” Juliette snapped, so fast that Miss Tang jumped, peering over her shoulder with wide eyes. Juliette offered an appeasing smile. “My”—she turned to Roma, just daring him to refute her—“husband snores extremely loudly.”
Miss Tang clucked under her breath. When she came to a stop near the rooms, it was hard to tell where exactly the doors were, given they opened and closed by a folding mechanism, hinges blending into the wall like merely another part of its elaborate decoration. But Miss Tang, all the while lecturing Juliette on putting up with a husband’s flaws, pushed easily, and doors opened in on two rooms, side by side. Juliette hardly heard a word: her eyes were quick at work, searching the interior of the rooms. They looked safe enough. No chance of a waiting attacker inside ready for ambush.
“You are absolutely correct, Miss Tang,” Juliette said, lying so easily she hardly registered her own words. “I’ll start working on my behavior once we’re back in the city.”
That seemed to appease the madame. She nodded, appraising Juliette up and down. “Washroom is over there, on the far side of the building. Rest well!”
The moment Miss Tang sashayed off, Roma released Juliette like he had been prodded with an electric shock, down to the sudden flex and clench of his fists.
“Well,” Juliette said. “Good night?”
Roma stomped into his room without a word, pulling his door shut. There was another low giggle nearby, and though Juliette knew they were too far away to be giggling at her, her hackles still rose, never fond of any chance of mockery.
“What are you getting mad at me for?” she muttered, stepping into her room too. “You are the one who married us off.”
The burlesque club was quieter than usual tonight, so when Kathleen pulled an apron on, she figured it would be a way to kill time rather than any real work. She hadn’t shown up to waitress in so long that she didn’t even know who was managing the club anymore, given how quickly they were switched out depending on Scarlet inner circle ongoings.
“Table at the back is free!” one of the other girls, Aimee, shouted from the bar. “Someone go wipe—” She blinked, sighting Kathleen. “Miss Lang, what are you doing here?”
Kathleen rolled her eyes, adjusting her sleeves. She had changed from a qipao into a buttoned shirt. She was attending another Party meeting immediately after this and she needed to look the part, and if she picked up a few stains from waitressing away the few hours beforehand, then so much the better.
“I know everyone forgot,” Kathleen answered, “but I do work here.”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant.” Aimee wrung her rag cloth, then pushed a tray of freshly washed cups down the bar where Eileen was drying. “Miss Rosalind said she was off to eat dinner with you. She left almost an hour ago.”
Kathleen froze. A serving boy brushed by, almost colliding with the elbow she had jutting out. Had she forgotten her plans? Had Rosalind asked to meet? Almost frantically, Kathleen searched through her memory, but all she could conclude was that Rosalind certainly had not made plans to eat with Kathleen, and it was unlikely that the barkeeping girls had misheard for someone else instead, because the only other possible contender was Juliette, and Juliette was out of the city.
“I . . . think she might have misremembered,” Kathleen said.
Eileen didn’t pick up on Kathleen’s confusion. She grinned, making fast work of wiping the glass in her hands. “Or maybe she’s off to see her foreigner.”
Her . . . what? Kathleen felt like she had stepped into a film without watching the first half. Aimee hushed Eileen immediately, but her mouth had a quirk to it, as if the thought itself was amusing.
“Chen Ailing, don’t spread rumors.”
“About a foreigner?” Kathleen asked, finally recovering from her shock. “What are you talking about?”
Eileen and Aimee exchanged a glance. One of their expressions said Now look what you did. The other said How does she not already know?
“Lang Shalin has been sighted with a man who might be a lover,” Aimee reported, entirely matter-of-fact. “Only rumors, of course. No one’s gotten a good look at his face. They can’t even decide if he is a merchant or the son of a governor. If you listen to the messengers running it, the same ones would say that Miss Cai was seen embracing Roma Montagov.”
Which was . . . true.
Kathleen didn’t let her expression show her continued bewilderment; she merely quirked an eyebrow and turned away, making for the table at the back to begin clearing it. She hardly paid attention to the plates as she stacked them onto her arm, laying them one atop the other until she was balancing them all upon her wrist. Of late, this would be fully in line with Rosalind’s peculiar behavior. And Kathleen could not fathom it, could not pinpoint when her sister had changed.
For the longest time, it had been Kathleen and Rosalind against the world. Their antics together constituted some of Kathleen’s earliest memories: as toddlers climbing the mansion gates when Juliette’s Nurse was not watching; as children trying to hide the bump on Rosalind’s head after they failed to slide down the staircase railing; as just the two of them, playing pretend with dried leaves because there was nothing better to use. The Langs had been triplets, but hardly anyone would have known by watching the three of them interact. Even after they were sent to Paris, the dynamic remained the same. Their third sister was an empty seat at the dining table because she was in bed again fighting a cold while Rosalind and Kathleen whispered secrets beneath their napkins, giggling if the tutors asked them to eat properly. Their third sister was the empty middle seat, absent at all the events Rosalind and Kathleen crashed, leaning on each other in the back of the car and laughing louder if the chauffeur glanced back in concern.