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The blood thrums in her veins at the thought of their near daily encounters. Toe-to-toe clashes for control, for ascendancy. Vicious remarks veiled in a gilded friendship. She’s never truly pleased with the outcome, but in the end she always gets her way. Scarlet will survive another day inscribed in gold above her doorway.
He is her oldest friend. Her dearest ally, she thinks, but, true, her greatest counter. Of every man who stands in her way, he is the most ruthless. Not because he holds true who society says she must be. No, he knows better than that. But sometimes, she is loathe to admit, in her darkest moments, he can almost make her believe it all. Her place. Her capacity. Her fragility.
Almost.
He cheats when they fight.
The way he crowds her with his presence, uses his large, imposing stature to shrink her by comparison. To remind her just how small she is in actuality. His dirt-earth scent with whiskey undertones wraps around her senses and awakens her nerves. His hands, clenching and unclenching at his sides with growing ire, betray a restraint she knows he will never part with. A warning, nonetheless.
That long, slow sigh. How it aggravates her. Disapproving. Patronizing. It winds itself around her throat and squeezes. She breathes it deep into her lungs and wills her anger burn it away before it suffocates her completely.
His words, sharp and personal, cut to her core and at the knees, reminding her that nobody will understand her as wholly as he. So her words scratch and bite back at him until he is equally wounded and laments.
Time passes, they lick their wounds, apologize, and move willfully onwards until the next battle sparks. Weeks, months may pass, but its presence looms ever.
The seams of their friendship fray further with each skirmish and she wonders how much it can endure. She is fearful for it. But she’s running on waning oil and self resentment and little patience. Fighting seems to be all she can manage these days. So she pins her smartest hat to her high chignon, checks her appearance in the hallway mirror, and snatches her purse with a ferociousness that shakes the vanity, making way for the door and his home, out into the crisp London evening.
She is determined to see its end. One final battle with him, consequences be damned. Because she knows where she will not waver, and she will not have a master.
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The gentle rapping at his door pulls his attention from the burning logs in the fireplace. A glance at the clock face dancing in the dashes of firelight tells him it can only be one person. Only she would call on him unannounced at so late an hour. Worry chills his pulse as he walks to the door and invites her in, watches as she gently removes her cap, her coat, her gloves, and her bag, placing them on the hooks that line the hallway. She turns to him slowly, a sad smile in her eyes, and walks into his drawing room to warm her chilled fingers at the fire. He cannot help but follow.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He peers down at her curiously. Inspecting her. No sign of injuries or overwhelm, no rips in her skirts or blouse, nor scratches on her boots. Her hair remains well coiffed. He lets out a breath.
“We need to talk,” she responds calmly to the crackling blaze, and somehow that worries him more.
“About?”
“Us.” She stands upright and faces him, steeling herself with her hands on her hips.
His brows furrow. “I’m not sure I follow.” His eyes drop to her hips, taking in her body language. He knows what’s coming. He has been here before.
“I think it’s time to clear the air between us.” She exhales and braces herself. “Our friendship and this… arrangement… are untenable as they stand, which means we are going to need to foster some form of peace between us if we are to work together—“
“We do not work together.”
“Fine. I consult you from time to time. But—“
“You inflict yourself on me, is more like it,” he grumbles.
She purses her lips. “I beg your pardon?” Her tone has dropped. He knows he has crossed the line. There is no going back now.
“Do not feign ignorance, Eliza, it doesn’t become you.” He steps closer and mirrors her, his hands on his hips as he scrutinizes her. “You pick up the slightest scent of a case and barge through my door with no regard to my responsibilities, nor to my position. You tear apart my boundaries and protocols and leave me to pick up the pieces, often at great personal expense and humiliation.”
She lifts her head and glowers at him. “Don’t speak to me of humiliation, William.”
—————————————————————
She feels it. The anger vibrating through her body. The warmth spreading throughout despite her movement from the fireplace. “You have no idea what it is like to be disregarded solely on the basis of your sex, William. To be ignored. To be mocked. Mistrusted. Infantilized. And all by men whose collective intelligence gallops at a glacial pace.”
She drops her head a moment to take in a breath. To remind herself why she came. Fortifying herself, she lifts her eyes to his and allows herself a moment of vulnerability. “And the one man who I thought I could rely on. The only man who I trust to treat me as an equal, does not respect me enough as a person—as a friend— to support me in keeping my father’s business afloat. In pursuing work that matters to me. He instead makes me fight and scavenge for every opportunity.”
The unexpected shift in her demeanor shakes him. “I respect you more than you know, Eliza,” he hesitates, “but you put me in an impossible position. My role rarely allows me the freedom of collaboration with private entities, and that you are a woman makes the situation no easier. And then when I finally engage with you, often against my original intent, I am played as one of your many marionettes, made to dance to whatever tune you play.”
He stops to take her in, the soft shadows caressing the curves of her cheekbones. The gentle rise and fall of her chest as she forces her own self control. “It all feels a game with you. That I will never know the full truth until I am turned out on my arse in your wake. There is no predicting you. There is no controlling you.”
“I will not be controlled.” Her voice catches in her throat, she grits out her next words. “And it has never been my intention to play games with you, nor to manipulate anyone. I am simply doing what I must as a means to an end.”
“Is that what this is now, Eliza? Another means to an end?”
“Cease thinking the worst of me for a moment, will you?”
“How can I,” His voice raises, “when every step you take is calculated? When every word you speak forces me to look for a second meaning?”
And then he sighs. That slow, anguished sigh that pulls somewhere deep in her stomach. It seeps under her skin and into her bones. She looks up at him, towering and frustrated and vulnerable.
And angry tears prick at the corners of her eyes.
Stepping forward, she lifts her chin and presses her lips squarely against his.
A moment passes and he grasps her about the shoulders, pulling her back slightly to see her face, exposed and stricken with grief.
“And was this all part of your plan too, Eliza?”
Tears finally spill over and she glares daggers into him, hoping he feels each one pierce. “Bastard.” She grounds out.
And their lips meet each other once more.
—————————————————————
Feverish and impatient.
The stairwell finds her pressed tightly against the wall, his hands at the pins in her hair, his tongue rough at her clavicle, her deft fingers working the buttons of his shirt in search of new skin. He catalogues every spot that catches her breath; that rips a moan from her throat.
The top landing finds her strewn across his lap, fingernails raking across his scalp and sucking his bottom lip into her hungry mouth as he grasps at the closure of her skirts, impatient to remove them. She grinds down against him, reveling in the way he responds in time with her movements.
The doorway to his bedroom finds their clothes swallowed by the floor, her head tipped back against the hardwood, his tongue between her thighs and her fingers grasping for purchase in his hair; his name a prayer on her lips.
The bed finds him buried deep inside her, their legs intertwined, her lip pinned between her teeth in ecstasy and nails leaving crescents on the skin of his back. They climb and fall over the edge together again and again and again.
—————————————————————
“Have I made my point, Detective Inspector?” She smirks through languid kisses.
“I’ve completely forgotten everything you’ve said.”
“That sounds about right.” She rolls her eyes and playfully swats his chest. “I meant about nurturing some peace between us. We’re clearly good together. In perhaps a few senses, even.”
He sighs, although it seems a little lighter this time. Something in her stomach begins to flutter.
“We’ve always been good together, there’s no questioning that, Eliza.” He pauses to take her in, her mussed hair and easy smile. “You know this doesn’t change a word I’ve said…”
She nods gently. “But…?”
He snickers. “But I’m open to discuss it.”
She throws her leg over him and presses him into the sheets, a devilish smile painting her face.
“Already, Miss Scarlet? Are you sure?”
“You think me so delicate, William? I’m tougher than you realize. I’ll not break…”
A low chuckle bubbles deep from his chest. “Believe me Eliza, I know.”