Wolf Among Sheep Read online

  Wolf Among Sheep

  Sara Dobie Bauer

  Published by Hot Ink Press

  Novi, Michigan 48374

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover Art by Rue Volley

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by CLS Editing

  Copyright © 2016 Hot Ink. All rights reserved

  Dedication

  For the love of Charleston

  Acknowledgements

  From the brightly lit Ravenel Bridge to the dim gas lamps of East Bay …

  From the candlelight and wine of Broad Street to the quiet, smoky burn of back alleys …

  From moss-covered tombstones to graceful churches and boisterous bars …

  Charleston, South Carolina, was once my home. It is a place of passion, splendor, history, and heart. Many thanks to the bevy of beautiful men and women who changed my life there, not the least of which being the last: the man who would one day become my husband.

  I stand on the edge of another party. The room is lamp-lit and glowing a shade of golden pink. I am in this strange, foreign place called the American South, yet I bask in my foreignness—the odd mystery of me that brings so many curious spectators to stand at the hem of my garment of velvet green and ask about Turkey, Italy, and Spain.

  My skin color is different from theirs. I know they crowd South Carolina beaches on the weekends. I’ve seen them in their old-fashioned bathing suits that cover all but ugly, dancing toes. They wear broad brimmed hats and swim until the tang of saltwater burns their lips.

  My skin is the color of coffee and milk. My eyes are dark blue. I am an exotic thing, a fish that dances through the reefs of their rich boredoms. So another party, and I watch from the outskirts and sip the absinthe specially ordered for me by the hostess. I await the pleasant company of the Green Fairy and watch.

  ***

  My wife stands above us all at the gala event. I glance up from the bar and wonder if the glorious mixture of perfume and fresh flowers reaches her up there. It’s a flavor so sweet I almost taste it on my tongue.

  Ah, Charleston. I love this place and wonder why Veronique does not. She said in our hotel room the other night that everyone seems phony. I think she translates the Southern hospitality to a form of attack. She can be very defensive due to the color of her skin, in this place where slave owners were once the richest men in town. She sips her absinthe and sees me watching. She waves her gloved hand and smiles our secret smile.

  “Your wife is a vision, Mr. Duke.”

  “Yes, she is, Mrs. Cleaver.”

  Mrs. Cleaver is the hostess and owner of this multi-storied home with large, open spaces and windows that overlook the harbor. We’ve been here before, Veronique and I, to this place of crystal and lace. I find it a wonderment that a house of such size could feel so cozy with its plush furniture and windows, like lazy eyes that watch boats pass.

  Mrs. Cleaver says, “I’m surprised you leave her alone so long.”

  I respond. “Veronique is quite independent.”

  ***

  How the hell did I get assigned another of the dreaded Cleaver soirees? Right, because I’m the society columnist for The Sentinel. At other papers—more modern papers—women get these assignments, not men from the bad side of the tracks like me.

  My editor sent me to this purgatory while the rich, popular, well-known news writer, Sammy Sikes, steals my research. I broke the story about the mayor and his philandering fund, but it was Sikes’s name on the byline. I was warned to keep my mouth shut—or at least filled with scotch. The Cleavers have good scotch.

  Women wear grotesque, frilly gowns and dance around me. I’ll have to keep the word “grotesque” from my article. Wouldn’t go over well, although that is how these parties always seem to me: rich people eating too much food, drinking too much, saying too much. By the end, at least one married couple will devolve into a screaming match and be the talk of the town until another party and another argument.

  Maybe a refill on the scotch.

  Five hundred words, that’s all I have to write, so I could leave early. No, my editor will know because, when he asks about the gossip, I won’t have any. No one’s drunk enough to be gossip-worthy yet.

  There is one thing different this time: a woman on the third-floor balcony. She hasn’t been down among the rabble for a while. She’s out of place—too exotic, not white enough to be Charleston elite. Her gown isn’t frilly. Instead, it’s slim, dark, and shimmers in the light. She can’t possibly be alone here. Maybe I should talk to her? Wouldn’t mind a tumble in her bed.

  Talk about gossip-worthy.

  ***

  My husband shares a smile before he continues talking to the odious Cleaver woman. She is round in the wrong places, the shape of an upside-down cupcake. The layers of tulle beneath her gown remind me of juvenile dress-up.

  Of course she would be taken with Timothy. His skin is pale like hers, but he speaks with the unfamiliar, crisp accent of one who travels often, unlike the lilting, lazy-mouthed dialect of this strange place. He is tall and broad and wears his light hair in a careful wave above his forehead. He keeps his moustache clean and coiffed. I know he smells like coffee beans, his trade.

  I notice the shark as I reach into my purse for a cigarette. I slowly place the end into my ivory holder and light up. Smoke from my mouth joins the smoke of so many others in a blue cloud against the gilded ceiling above.

  The shark is out of place out of water. How on Earth did he flounder his way up from the harbor, across East Bay Street, up an entire flight of circular steps? How does he manage to hold a glass in his fins?

  I am busy studying this unsettlingly beautiful, wild presence when Timothy returns to me with a hand on my lower back. He sips champagne then leans in and presses a single, moist kiss behind my ear.

  “I spy,” I say.

  “What do you spy?”

  “I spy a shark. A wolf among lambs.”

  Timothy’s body, so close, gives off more heat than a Charleston kitchen at lunchtime. He has his arm wrapped around me, one hand on my right hip, and the other against the balcony. His half-empty champagne flute balances precariously between us.

  “Oh, of course,” he says. “How could I miss him?”

  I take a sip of earthy wormwood. “He’s not rich.”

  “Not at all. His eyes search the party as though studying it.”

  I lean closer to my husband. “A journalist, perhaps?”

  “On assignment. How intuitive.”

  “Describe him to me, darling,” I say. It’s a game we play. I like to hear if Timothy sees what I see.

  He speaks right into my ear. “Hair the color of a spilled inkwell. Unkempt, uncut. Perhaps he can’t afford a regular barber.”

  “Or perhaps he keeps his hair that way on purpose.”

  “An air of flippancy, yes, which is why he wears no tie. He leaves his skin open to the air.”

  “Practically a scandal.” I finish my second drink. “What else?”

  “I can’t be sure from all the way up here, but I believe his eyes to be the color of burnt coffee beans.”

  I smile, which is precisely when our flippant shark looks up at me. I run the backs of my fingers across my cheek. He watches.
/>
  “Although, I do believe you’re wrong, Vonnie. I believe him to be a lamb among wolves.”

  “Is that so? Let’s give him a name,” I say.

  “Hmm.” Timothy kisses the shell of my ear. “He looks like a Judas.”

  When I tongue my top lip, the shark looks away. “Destined for betrayal?”

  “Willing to do desperate sexual acts that could get him hung.”

  I laugh and notice several people turn to stare. I’m beautiful—more beautiful—when I smile, and I know my laugh has the resonance of a sea horn over a motionless sea. “Let’s meet him.”

  ***

  Veronique, my Vonnie, has an eye for art. At auctions, she knows which paintings to wait for. She knows the value of every brush stroke, due to her own predilection for afternoons spent with canvas.

  My wife paints men—no, she studies us. She claims she does not understand the stronger sex: our stoicism and careful words. Our decorum. I adore her for that lack of understanding, as she is, every day, filled with passion and heat. How many times has she dragged me from the very streets outside, back to our hotel, with a claim that her heart will explode if we do not make love?

  As she waits for another drink, I stand beside her and watch our lamb make his way to the side porch. He rifles in his suit pocket as he goes, and before disappearing into the lamp lit exterior, I see him put a white cigarette between his lips.

  I gesture for my wife to lead. The guests part for us, or more accurately, for Veronique, who I know is a prize. I won her in Tangiers, years ago, and she has traveled with me ever since. We are never apart for long.

  There are but a few people milling about in the exterior semi-darkness of Charleston spring. The air is stickier out here on the porch and smells of salt, fish, and smoke. The lamb leans against a Doric column that runs from the green grass below all the way to the top story roof, a floor and a half above us.

  “Excuse me. May I borrow a light?” she asks him.

  He doesn’t jump in proximity to her beauty. He doesn’t hurriedly search his pockets. He calmly removes a tarnished, silver lighter from his back pocket and slowly lights Vonnie’s cigarette. He has long fingers with thick, hairless knuckles. I think, fleetingly, Fighter’s hands?

  “I’m Veronique Duke. This is my husband, Timothy.”

  He doesn’t kiss her hand when she extends it but gives her gloved fingers a light squeeze. He nods to me. From a distance, I thought him much younger, but I feel mistaken now. The lamb is not my age, but neither is he as young as Vonnie. He is perhaps in his mid-thirties.

  “Do you have a name?” she asks.

  He exhales a cloud of smoke. “Avery Collins.”

  “What do you do, Mr. Collins?”

  “I’m a newspaper reporter.”

  My wife smiles up at me.

  “And have you found the Cleaver’s party newsworthy?”

  He bites his bottom lip to keep from a full grin. “Rich people wasting money on French champagne while starving people wander the streets of Charleston from the Battery to the bridge.” He sighs. “Yes, madam, quite newsworthy.” He finishes a glass of what looks to be scotch.

  “Let me guess.” Vonnie leans a bit closer to him. “Your editor sent you here as a punishment. What did you do? Tell the city the mayor was having an affair with his cleaning woman?”

  Avery Collins seems taken aback by my wife’s astute, as always, observations. No one thought to tell him she is always right.

  ***

  How the hell did she know about that, I wonder?

  Up close, she’s younger. She can’t be yet thirty, but she holds the frightful presence of royalty. She smells like something sweet, floral, but not like Charleston flowers. The scent is almost as engaging as her light eyes surrounded by that dark skin and silken hair.

  I blink and try to catch a scent of ocean over the smell of her perfume. “Not his cleaning lady,” I say. “I don’t think.”

  “So what will you write about this particular soiree, Mr. Collins?”

  “Maybe I’ll write about you,” I say, expecting something; in particular, some reaction from the husband who has yet to speak a word. Does he let his wife do all the talking? He’s large enough to be a big, dumb oaf, but I don’t think so—something about the attentiveness of his eyes, like he’s investigating me.

  “What would you write about me, Mr. Collins?”

  “Bringing modern fashion to the American Lowcountry.”

  She looks down at her gown of green velvet. “This is hardly modern. In Paris.” She smiles through smoke. “You don’t speak like the rest of them.” She turns her large eyes away from my face and toward the tittering voices beyond the porch entrance.

  “I left the city for some time.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “New York mostly, for school.”

  “And why not work for a big, famous newspaper there? Why return to this lonely, little place?”

  “I don’t find Charleston lonely.”

  “No,” she says. “I don’t imagine you have much time to be lonely.” She leans in closer. The scent of her perfume surrounds me like strong arms. “How many of these rich old women have you had, Avery?”

  I glance at her husband who stands there, waiting. Mrs. Duke moves even closer until I feel velvet against my hand. I take a step backwards but forget I’m on a balcony and almost tumble over the edge—if not for Timothy Duke’s strong hand on my upper back. He keeps it there, making sure I’m balanced, until I do a quick waltz step to get away from them both.

  Then, I’m saying my goodbyes. I’m walking for the door and not looking back. No, I suppose my editor won’t get a story about high society’s drunken brawl of the night, but at least, beneath the Charleston sky, I no longer smell the perfume of Mrs. Veronique Duke or feel the forceful hand of her husband.

  God, what on Earth did they want from me?

  ***

  My arms are still tied to the bed above me, and my fingers are almost numb. I am covered in Timothy’s sweat, cooled only by the ocean breeze that dances between atrocious, flowery hotel curtains. I whispered Avery’s name once during our lovemaking, which made my husband fuck with increased alacrity. I will be sore tomorrow.

  ***

  “Shall we have him for a drink, then?” I ask my wife.

  ***

  I received their invitation on my desk at The Sentinel. A nondescript, white envelope with “Avery” printed in curling, black script on the front. My friend and coworker, Chas, has long suspected me of keeping a woman in secret, so of course, he was the one to open it and read aloud to the news floor.

  “Your presence is requested …”

  My editor, overstuffed from a lunch of oysters and beer, beckoned me into his office. “Do the exotic foreign visitors want to be in the social column?”

  Which was the only reason I accepted the invitation to attend a small get together at their Charleston Place suite. I’d never set foot inside a room at the overpriced, newly built monstrosity just off Market Street.

  Now, I’m here in the foyer, staring up at a crystal chandelier that could fit two chubby children inside.

  The front desk tells me I’m expected. Then, a tall man in a red bellboy uniform escorts me up the immense, curving staircase to the first floor elevator. An elevator! The man must notice my enthusiasm.

  “Ever ridden in one before?”

  “No.”

  The machine starts with a shudder and clang. Then, we move upward. The feeling in my stomach is akin to seasickness. Nothing a scotch won’t fix—or a chilled, bubbly glass of champagne. From what I saw of them at the Cleaver celebration, I would expect nothing less of the Dukes.

  The slim, attentive bellboy leads me to their room on the top floor. He knocks twice, quietly, before he leaves me to stand alone and wait.

  Timothy Duke opens the door. “Avery. How good of you to come.”

  This is the first time I’ve heard him speak. No accent, not really. Mor
e so a careful training of his mouth to sound posh: crisp consonants, tightened vowels. He has shaved his blond moustache since the party. He seems more alive, more alert. He doesn’t wear a suffocating suit but, instead, a dark red robe over a white dress shirt and dark slacks. His feet are, strangely, bare.

  I expect the quiet laughter and murmured conversation of a private party, but there is nothing but the crackle of wood in the massive fireplace before me … and silence. Everything about the suite is massive, really: the high ceilings, wide windows, plush furniture. I see, through a partially opened door, a canopy bed, swathed in decadent layers of cream-colored fabric. The bed is unmade.

  “Drink?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your pleasure?” He puts his hand on my shoulder as he passes.

  “Scotch.”

  Timothy smiles. “Vonnie guessed that about you.”

  “Vonnie?”

  “Forgotten me already?”

  That voice of hers feels like ocean waves caressing naked feet. Now, her hand is on my shoulder, too, but she walks past me and reclines, shamelessly, across a couch the color of merlot. She’s in a white silk robe and what I suspect is nothing more than her bedclothes. My ears feel warm.

  Timothy hands me a double pour of scotch. “Sit,” he says.

  I don’t want to sit. Feels too permanent. I look around the room. “Am I early?”

  Veronique Duke—Vonnie—laughs. Her black hair is down, free around her shoulders. “No.”

  “The invitation said small get together.”

  “This is small.” She licks the edge of her mouth. Her husband hands her a glass of champagne and sits at her feet.

  I take a long, long sip of scotch. “My editor will give you a feature story in the society column, if you’d like. I can write about your coffee trade, Mr. Duke, and the new roasting techniques you’ve brought to East Bay.”