Untitled girl!Frank/Bob, PG-13
Allow me to quote my past self:
Also, when I was scrolling down to get to the fabulous girl-oral, I was thinking about your regency AU Ray and how he probably learned to give really awesome head from his mistress, girl!Frank, who was an opera dancer in the city. This was before he was married, obvs, because that's what was Done. He breaks it off when he gets engaged, or no, she breaks it off before then, to run off with Bob, who is a musician in the opera.
So this isn't even the fannish thing I should be working on, but here, have 3,000 words of ridiculous and self-indulgent girl!Frank/Bob set in pearl_o and impertinence's girl!Gerard/Ray Regency AU.
They have to replace their timpanist at the beginning of the Season, and while it is a tremendous aggravation to their director at the time, in the end, it's for the best. That's what Frankie notices about Bob first, how much better the percussion line is at rehearsal.
She tells him this afterwards, and he looks at her and says somberly, "Thank you." And then he walks away.
That's what she notices about him second, how polite he is to the dancers. No one says it aloud, but everyone knows the opera is basically a glorified bawdy-house. The other musicians treat the dancers like whores; sometimes that's as unpleasant as it sounds, and sometimes it just means they don't treat them like ladies. Frankie doesn't mind the latter, and she's happy to break a finger or two in case of the former, but she doesn't know how deal with Bob's grave courtesy.
She thinks for a while that he's mocking them, or judging them. Then one night Greta's father comes by, wanting money. He catches her alone by the back door, and when Frankie sees them, he has one hand on her arm, too tight, and Greta is on the verge of tears. They have patrons there that night, and if there is a scene, Greta will get in trouble for it, but Frankie is about one minute away from going out there and making him let go of her.
That's when Bob appears, quiet and steady as always. He puts his hand on the other man's wrist and squeezes. Greta's father gasps and lets go, and Bob maneuvers him out into the alley.
Frankie goes and puts her arms around Greta, who's crying openly now. When Bob comes back he's shaking his hand out and his knuckles are red.
"Thank you," Frankie says, and Bob nods. He touches Greta's shoulder very gently when he walks past them.
Frankie doesn't exactly know what to think after that.
She asks the other musicians about him, and they tell her he started out as a drummer in the army. He was wounded on the continent, maybe that's what made him so quiet.
It's like a challenge after that, to make him smile or laugh or something. To make him react. To make him notice her, she realizes later, too late.
"Don't fuck the musicians," Maja advised her when Frankie joined the company. "If you are going to have bad sex, at least be paid for it."
Frankie didn't actually need to be told that.
Frankie has two tattoos on her stomach, two sparrows. She got them when she was very young, from a lover who was a sailor, before she knew this would be her life. Her protectors mostly find them deliciously shocking, secret marks of some low-born perversity. The first thing she will do when she quits this life is to get something tattooed on her neck, or her arms, something bright and vivid that can't be covered up easily. Something to show that the only person who makes decisions about her body is her.
So she doesn't need to be told that there are some things she will not be able to have in this life.
Frankie's current protector breaks things off at the end of the Season.
It's not a surprise, and she was getting tired of him anyway. She already has her things packed.
The next day she puts on her most conservative walking dress and takes Greta and Bob with her to start selling the jewelry he gave her.
In the hired hack, she tells Greta how to get the best price: dress respectably, only sell a few pieces at a time, bring one of the girls like a lady's maid, and one of the boys just in case.
"One you trust," she says, flashing a grin at Bob, who is sitting on the other side of the carriage watching them with an unreadable expression.
"Put it all in the bank," Frankie adds. "Never spend your own money if you can help it."
Greta nods, sharp and intent.
That's where most of the girls, especially the young ones, go wrong, spending money on silly things like they'll always have it.
But Frankie knows she can't do this forever, even if she wanted to-youth and beauty and health won't last. She's going to earn everything she can now, put everything she can in the bank, where she's the only one who can touch it. She wants to end up like Maja, who only sings in the opera because she wants to, who has enough money to take lovers instead of protectors.
In the mean time, Frankie finds another patron. He is young and over-eager, and she is bored of him before the year is out. But he has more money than sense, so she doesn't needle him into breaking it off, not until the beginning of the next Season, when she has a better chance of finding someone new.
She is on her own when she gets sick again. She curses the timing as she vomits backstage during the intermission. Maja hands her a flask of gin, and she rinses her mouth out, then swallows down a burning gulp.
On stage, the only thing she can focus on is the drums, their steady rhythm leading her through the steps.
Bob finds her in dressing gown in the common room afterwards, trying to make tea on the fat-bellied stove. He frowns and puts his hand on her forehead.
"Shit, Frankie, I can get a doctor-"
She shakes her head against his palm. "Waste of money," she says hoarsely. They will poke her and prod her and bleed her, and she will get better-or not-despite them.
"Go lie down," Bob says, "I'll make the tea."
She drags a blanket over herself on the elderly horsehair chaise in her dressing room. She's still shivering, and she feels like she can't get warm.
Bob comes back with the tea and makes her sit up. He puts an arm around her to steady her while she drinks, and she curls into the heat of his body, resting her head on his shoulder.
When she wakes up again, he's still there, one arm wrapped around her. He's asleep, and she presses her face into his shoulder, closing her eyes and breathing in his scent, and just for a little while, she lets herself pretend.
Two days later, cheeks flushed and eyes glittering from the last of the fever, she goes to the opera house's private salon to flirt with the gentlemen of the ton.
She picks too quickly this time.
He's not violent, she can recognize those out a mile away, he just treats her like a whore. A cheap one at that; the jewelry he gives her is all paste. Still, he's well-connected and she can't afford to anger him. She just grits her teeth and tolerates him, not even trying to appease his moods.
It makes her touchy and snappish, and maybe it's what makes her drink too much the night their violinist marries one of their costume makers.
She'd like to think it's the gin that makes her cajole Bob into dancing with her.
"You're a dancer," Bob says when she steps on his foot again. "Shouldn't you be better at this?"
"It's a different kind of dancing," Frankie says, frowning at her feet. "Also, I'm drunk."
Bob laughs. "Me, too," he whispers back, unnecessarily; she can tell by the laughing.
His hand is warm and strong on her back as they move among the other couples in a loose approximation of a waltz.
When the music changes to a jig, she doesn't drop his hand. "Come on," she says. "I want to smoke."
He rolls his eyes, but lets her pull him into one of the back hallways.
"It's your turn," she says, and waits while he rolls the cigarette.
They pass it back and forth, pressed close together, giggling over the increasingly inarticulate and obscene wedding toasts coming from the common room.
She lets Bob finish the cigarette. It's definitely the gin that makes her put her mouth over his and breathe the last of the smoke from his lips.
He makes a low noise in the back of his throat, and then he's kissing her, hard and desperate.
She kisses back just as fierce, her hands knotted in his shirt. He pushes her back against the wall and she grinds up against him, starving for his touch.
Then he turns his head sharply, breaking the kiss. "No," he grits out, "no."
"Please," she says, "it doesn't have to mean anything."
He flinches, and meets her eyes. "Yes, it does," he says, and walks away.
Frankie gets ridiculously drunk after that.
Maja rubs her back while she throws up.
"If you say you warned me, I will slap you," Frankie says, between heaves.
"I would never," Maja says kindly. "Warnings do no good in matters of the heart."
Later, curled up with her head in Maja's lap, she says in a tiny voice, "He doesn't want me."
"Shush. We all want things we cannot have."
She can't tell if Maja is talking about Frankie or Bob or herself.
Frankie lets Bob avoid her for days after that.
Finally, he joins her in the back alley during a break in rehearsal.
She holds her cigarette out in lieu of an apology, and he takes it.
They smoke in silence. He stands far enough away that she can't feel the warmth of his body, but he's there, and that's enough.
Her obnoxious protector drops her soon after that. She makes a wry mental note of the fact that melancholy will drive a patron away faster than shrewish behavior.
She feels tired, but the Season is just starting and she can't really afford to waste her best chance to form a new attachment. She goes to the salon after the performances, but she can't bring herself to flirt. She laughs with the other girls, exchanges gossip with some of the gentlemen, but doesn't try to catch anyone's fancy. Next time, she thinks, next time.
It's always next time, until the man with startling hair comes up to her and compliments her dancing, which is so unexpected it makes her laugh.
His clothes are right, but nothing else about him is. She offers her hand for him to kiss, and even though he looks awkward and uncomfortable he makes a perfectly correct bow.
She is charmed despite herself, and when Toro's man of business sends his offer, she has Maja accept it.
::
Frankie's sitting on the edge of the stage, chin resting on her knees, watching him tune the drums. She's half-dressed for the performance that night, no make-up or wig. Her short hair and delicate features make her look sweet, pixie-like. Then Greta shrieks from the wings and Frankie straightens up, grinning.
"No," Bob says when he sees her expression. "Frankie, if you touch my drums, I will hold you down for Greta to-"
His breath comes out in a rush when she jumps into his arms, but she doesn't touch the drums. She kisses his cheek, then squirms down and takes off running. He sighs and scrubs at his face, but he can still feel the press of her lips on his skin.
Bob was not prepared for Frankie. He spent most of his first Season with the opera baffled by her, not by the smoking and the drinking and the swearing, but by her sweetness and her laughter and her willingness to fight. Somehow, when he wasn't looking, she worked her way under his defenses.
He thinks walking away from that kiss was the hardest thing he's ever done in his life, but despite what his brothers-in-arms might say, he does not actually have a self-destructive streak. He can't ask her to give up her income and her chance at independence to share his dingy rented room, his poor, spare life. He knows she is going to be one of the women who make it out of this life, who will be able to thumb her nose one day at the men who think they are using her. He can't offer her anything better than that.
But he can't share her either, can't be just a warm body for her. He would rather have nothing than crumbs of what he wants, and it's that knowledge that gave him the strength to walk away.
Lately, though, he thinks that seeing her be happy with Toro might be even harder that breaking that kiss.
Greta tells him all the gossip she knows about Toro: new money, but respectable enough to be able to marry up, no gambling debts, considered a bit stiff-necked.
"I think he only has a mistress because it's fashionable," Greta says, with a little eye-roll.
He treats her well, generously, and it makes something brittle and fragile in her ease.
Toro finds them in the orchestra pit one night after a show. Bob is packing away the drums, and Frankie is smoking and complaining about the new violinist. Bob straightens up and steps back as soon as he sees Toro, making his face blank and respectful. Frankie doesn't try to hide the cigarette or the fact that she's talking to Bob in her dressing gown, and Toro doesn't look surprised or angry at all.
Bob has never seen her like this with any of her other protectors.
"Do you love him?" he asks her once, after performing has exhausted all his self-preservation instincts.
She laughs. "No," she says, and the speed of her answer is reassuring. It doesn't get rid of that little curl of jealousy though.
"He'll break it off when he marries," Greta tells him later, obviously taking pity on him.
Bob shrugs like he doesn't care. It makes part of him feel better, but part of him is disappointed for Frankie's sake, too-the quiet friendship between the two of them would be a good basis for a long-term arrangement. Maybe his brothers-in-arms were right, after all.
Frankie gets sick again in the fall. Bob isn't truly worried until she begs off work. After the third performance she misses, Bob makes Maja go with him to Frankie's house. Maja raises one eyebrow-it is in very poor taste for him to visit the household that Frankie's protector has set up-but Bob just glares back and she doesn't argue.
Frankie's curled up in bed, and she scowls at them when the maid lets them in. Her greeting breaks off into a wet, tearing cough. It's an awful sound.
"Frankie," Bob says, and Maja makes a disapproving noise.
"Have you seen a doctor?"
"Fuck the doctors," Frankie mutters.
"Toro will pay for-" Bob stops. "You did tell him you're sick."
"Sent a note."
"You sent a vague note that made him think you're having your menses and he's politely staying away like always."
Frankie glares at him, and Bob knows he's right.
Maja puts her hand on Frankie's forehead and frowns.
"I'll get better," Frankie says, and won't yield.
In the carriage, Bob says, "It would look better if you spoke with him."
"She is very adamant on this subject."
"She needs a doctor, a good one. Toro will take care of it if you asked."
"I won't. If you are wrong about what kind of man he is, you could ruin her arrangement."
Bob is almost certain that Maja is doing this to test him, that she will speak to Toro if he won't, but at the same time, Maja is not someone he wants to cross.
Frankie misses the next performance, and Bob goes to see Toro.
Waiting to speak with him, Bob thinks maybe he should have sent a note after all. But he knows this is far enough beyond the pale to require a private visit.
Toro calls for his carriage immediately, and sends a page for the doctor.
He looks back at Bob. "Well? I assume you want to come."
Bob flushes, but doesn't deny it.
After the doctor reassures them that she won't actually die, Bob and Toro go in to see her.
He thinks she's sleeping, but she opens her eyes when they reach the edge of her bed. "Bob," she says, softly.
"Frankie," he says back, and he's sure everything in his heart must be on his face. She smiles and closes her eyes again.
Bob makes himself look at Toro.
"I won't break it off over this," Toro says carefully, watching him. "If I thought she would accept it, if I thought you would accept it-"
Bob nods shortly. He has done many foolish things for the sake of his pride, but he knows how much his pride is worth. It's not his place to decide how much Frankie's is worth.
Toro sighs.
Maja gives him the exact same sigh when he tells her about it, and Bob gives her a half-hearted glare back.
He doesn't visit her while she's recovering, so the first time he sees her after that is when he opens the door to his room and finds her on the other side.
He didn't realize she knew where he lived.
She pushes past him and starts taking off her gloves. He can't read her face.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry, but I thought you were going to die."
"The doctor says I have weak lungs. He says the city air is bad for me."
"Oh," Bob says.
"I still have family in Italy, and the climate there is better. I talked to Toro about investing my money for a little income, and anyway Italy is cheaper, so."
"Oh," Bob says.
Frankie starts smiling, this warm, happy, indulgent smile that he's never seen before. "Christ, you're dumb, Bryar," she says, and takes two steps forward to kiss him.
"I'm dumb?" he says dazedly when she pulls back.
She rests her forehead on his chest. "All right, we deserve each other." She clears her throat. "I love you. I'm asking you to run away to Italy with me. I promise I can support you-" she looks around her "-at least in the style to which you've become accustomed."
"Oh," he says, "yes, yes," and he cups her face in his hands and kisses her.
Later, kneeling between her thighs, one of her legs thrown over his shoulder, he looks up at her and says, "I love you, too," and she smiles back like the sun coming up.
Also, when I was scrolling down to get to the fabulous girl-oral, I was thinking about your regency AU Ray and how he probably learned to give really awesome head from his mistress, girl!Frank, who was an opera dancer in the city. This was before he was married, obvs, because that's what was Done. He breaks it off when he gets engaged, or no, she breaks it off before then, to run off with Bob, who is a musician in the opera.
So this isn't even the fannish thing I should be working on, but here, have 3,000 words of ridiculous and self-indulgent girl!Frank/Bob set in pearl_o and impertinence's girl!Gerard/Ray Regency AU.
They have to replace their timpanist at the beginning of the Season, and while it is a tremendous aggravation to their director at the time, in the end, it's for the best. That's what Frankie notices about Bob first, how much better the percussion line is at rehearsal.
She tells him this afterwards, and he looks at her and says somberly, "Thank you." And then he walks away.
That's what she notices about him second, how polite he is to the dancers. No one says it aloud, but everyone knows the opera is basically a glorified bawdy-house. The other musicians treat the dancers like whores; sometimes that's as unpleasant as it sounds, and sometimes it just means they don't treat them like ladies. Frankie doesn't mind the latter, and she's happy to break a finger or two in case of the former, but she doesn't know how deal with Bob's grave courtesy.
She thinks for a while that he's mocking them, or judging them. Then one night Greta's father comes by, wanting money. He catches her alone by the back door, and when Frankie sees them, he has one hand on her arm, too tight, and Greta is on the verge of tears. They have patrons there that night, and if there is a scene, Greta will get in trouble for it, but Frankie is about one minute away from going out there and making him let go of her.
That's when Bob appears, quiet and steady as always. He puts his hand on the other man's wrist and squeezes. Greta's father gasps and lets go, and Bob maneuvers him out into the alley.
Frankie goes and puts her arms around Greta, who's crying openly now. When Bob comes back he's shaking his hand out and his knuckles are red.
"Thank you," Frankie says, and Bob nods. He touches Greta's shoulder very gently when he walks past them.
Frankie doesn't exactly know what to think after that.
She asks the other musicians about him, and they tell her he started out as a drummer in the army. He was wounded on the continent, maybe that's what made him so quiet.
It's like a challenge after that, to make him smile or laugh or something. To make him react. To make him notice her, she realizes later, too late.
"Don't fuck the musicians," Maja advised her when Frankie joined the company. "If you are going to have bad sex, at least be paid for it."
Frankie didn't actually need to be told that.
Frankie has two tattoos on her stomach, two sparrows. She got them when she was very young, from a lover who was a sailor, before she knew this would be her life. Her protectors mostly find them deliciously shocking, secret marks of some low-born perversity. The first thing she will do when she quits this life is to get something tattooed on her neck, or her arms, something bright and vivid that can't be covered up easily. Something to show that the only person who makes decisions about her body is her.
So she doesn't need to be told that there are some things she will not be able to have in this life.
Frankie's current protector breaks things off at the end of the Season.
It's not a surprise, and she was getting tired of him anyway. She already has her things packed.
The next day she puts on her most conservative walking dress and takes Greta and Bob with her to start selling the jewelry he gave her.
In the hired hack, she tells Greta how to get the best price: dress respectably, only sell a few pieces at a time, bring one of the girls like a lady's maid, and one of the boys just in case.
"One you trust," she says, flashing a grin at Bob, who is sitting on the other side of the carriage watching them with an unreadable expression.
"Put it all in the bank," Frankie adds. "Never spend your own money if you can help it."
Greta nods, sharp and intent.
That's where most of the girls, especially the young ones, go wrong, spending money on silly things like they'll always have it.
But Frankie knows she can't do this forever, even if she wanted to-youth and beauty and health won't last. She's going to earn everything she can now, put everything she can in the bank, where she's the only one who can touch it. She wants to end up like Maja, who only sings in the opera because she wants to, who has enough money to take lovers instead of protectors.
In the mean time, Frankie finds another patron. He is young and over-eager, and she is bored of him before the year is out. But he has more money than sense, so she doesn't needle him into breaking it off, not until the beginning of the next Season, when she has a better chance of finding someone new.
She is on her own when she gets sick again. She curses the timing as she vomits backstage during the intermission. Maja hands her a flask of gin, and she rinses her mouth out, then swallows down a burning gulp.
On stage, the only thing she can focus on is the drums, their steady rhythm leading her through the steps.
Bob finds her in dressing gown in the common room afterwards, trying to make tea on the fat-bellied stove. He frowns and puts his hand on her forehead.
"Shit, Frankie, I can get a doctor-"
She shakes her head against his palm. "Waste of money," she says hoarsely. They will poke her and prod her and bleed her, and she will get better-or not-despite them.
"Go lie down," Bob says, "I'll make the tea."
She drags a blanket over herself on the elderly horsehair chaise in her dressing room. She's still shivering, and she feels like she can't get warm.
Bob comes back with the tea and makes her sit up. He puts an arm around her to steady her while she drinks, and she curls into the heat of his body, resting her head on his shoulder.
When she wakes up again, he's still there, one arm wrapped around her. He's asleep, and she presses her face into his shoulder, closing her eyes and breathing in his scent, and just for a little while, she lets herself pretend.
Two days later, cheeks flushed and eyes glittering from the last of the fever, she goes to the opera house's private salon to flirt with the gentlemen of the ton.
She picks too quickly this time.
He's not violent, she can recognize those out a mile away, he just treats her like a whore. A cheap one at that; the jewelry he gives her is all paste. Still, he's well-connected and she can't afford to anger him. She just grits her teeth and tolerates him, not even trying to appease his moods.
It makes her touchy and snappish, and maybe it's what makes her drink too much the night their violinist marries one of their costume makers.
She'd like to think it's the gin that makes her cajole Bob into dancing with her.
"You're a dancer," Bob says when she steps on his foot again. "Shouldn't you be better at this?"
"It's a different kind of dancing," Frankie says, frowning at her feet. "Also, I'm drunk."
Bob laughs. "Me, too," he whispers back, unnecessarily; she can tell by the laughing.
His hand is warm and strong on her back as they move among the other couples in a loose approximation of a waltz.
When the music changes to a jig, she doesn't drop his hand. "Come on," she says. "I want to smoke."
He rolls his eyes, but lets her pull him into one of the back hallways.
"It's your turn," she says, and waits while he rolls the cigarette.
They pass it back and forth, pressed close together, giggling over the increasingly inarticulate and obscene wedding toasts coming from the common room.
She lets Bob finish the cigarette. It's definitely the gin that makes her put her mouth over his and breathe the last of the smoke from his lips.
He makes a low noise in the back of his throat, and then he's kissing her, hard and desperate.
She kisses back just as fierce, her hands knotted in his shirt. He pushes her back against the wall and she grinds up against him, starving for his touch.
Then he turns his head sharply, breaking the kiss. "No," he grits out, "no."
"Please," she says, "it doesn't have to mean anything."
He flinches, and meets her eyes. "Yes, it does," he says, and walks away.
Frankie gets ridiculously drunk after that.
Maja rubs her back while she throws up.
"If you say you warned me, I will slap you," Frankie says, between heaves.
"I would never," Maja says kindly. "Warnings do no good in matters of the heart."
Later, curled up with her head in Maja's lap, she says in a tiny voice, "He doesn't want me."
"Shush. We all want things we cannot have."
She can't tell if Maja is talking about Frankie or Bob or herself.
Frankie lets Bob avoid her for days after that.
Finally, he joins her in the back alley during a break in rehearsal.
She holds her cigarette out in lieu of an apology, and he takes it.
They smoke in silence. He stands far enough away that she can't feel the warmth of his body, but he's there, and that's enough.
Her obnoxious protector drops her soon after that. She makes a wry mental note of the fact that melancholy will drive a patron away faster than shrewish behavior.
She feels tired, but the Season is just starting and she can't really afford to waste her best chance to form a new attachment. She goes to the salon after the performances, but she can't bring herself to flirt. She laughs with the other girls, exchanges gossip with some of the gentlemen, but doesn't try to catch anyone's fancy. Next time, she thinks, next time.
It's always next time, until the man with startling hair comes up to her and compliments her dancing, which is so unexpected it makes her laugh.
His clothes are right, but nothing else about him is. She offers her hand for him to kiss, and even though he looks awkward and uncomfortable he makes a perfectly correct bow.
She is charmed despite herself, and when Toro's man of business sends his offer, she has Maja accept it.
::
Frankie's sitting on the edge of the stage, chin resting on her knees, watching him tune the drums. She's half-dressed for the performance that night, no make-up or wig. Her short hair and delicate features make her look sweet, pixie-like. Then Greta shrieks from the wings and Frankie straightens up, grinning.
"No," Bob says when he sees her expression. "Frankie, if you touch my drums, I will hold you down for Greta to-"
His breath comes out in a rush when she jumps into his arms, but she doesn't touch the drums. She kisses his cheek, then squirms down and takes off running. He sighs and scrubs at his face, but he can still feel the press of her lips on his skin.
Bob was not prepared for Frankie. He spent most of his first Season with the opera baffled by her, not by the smoking and the drinking and the swearing, but by her sweetness and her laughter and her willingness to fight. Somehow, when he wasn't looking, she worked her way under his defenses.
He thinks walking away from that kiss was the hardest thing he's ever done in his life, but despite what his brothers-in-arms might say, he does not actually have a self-destructive streak. He can't ask her to give up her income and her chance at independence to share his dingy rented room, his poor, spare life. He knows she is going to be one of the women who make it out of this life, who will be able to thumb her nose one day at the men who think they are using her. He can't offer her anything better than that.
But he can't share her either, can't be just a warm body for her. He would rather have nothing than crumbs of what he wants, and it's that knowledge that gave him the strength to walk away.
Lately, though, he thinks that seeing her be happy with Toro might be even harder that breaking that kiss.
Greta tells him all the gossip she knows about Toro: new money, but respectable enough to be able to marry up, no gambling debts, considered a bit stiff-necked.
"I think he only has a mistress because it's fashionable," Greta says, with a little eye-roll.
He treats her well, generously, and it makes something brittle and fragile in her ease.
Toro finds them in the orchestra pit one night after a show. Bob is packing away the drums, and Frankie is smoking and complaining about the new violinist. Bob straightens up and steps back as soon as he sees Toro, making his face blank and respectful. Frankie doesn't try to hide the cigarette or the fact that she's talking to Bob in her dressing gown, and Toro doesn't look surprised or angry at all.
Bob has never seen her like this with any of her other protectors.
"Do you love him?" he asks her once, after performing has exhausted all his self-preservation instincts.
She laughs. "No," she says, and the speed of her answer is reassuring. It doesn't get rid of that little curl of jealousy though.
"He'll break it off when he marries," Greta tells him later, obviously taking pity on him.
Bob shrugs like he doesn't care. It makes part of him feel better, but part of him is disappointed for Frankie's sake, too-the quiet friendship between the two of them would be a good basis for a long-term arrangement. Maybe his brothers-in-arms were right, after all.
Frankie gets sick again in the fall. Bob isn't truly worried until she begs off work. After the third performance she misses, Bob makes Maja go with him to Frankie's house. Maja raises one eyebrow-it is in very poor taste for him to visit the household that Frankie's protector has set up-but Bob just glares back and she doesn't argue.
Frankie's curled up in bed, and she scowls at them when the maid lets them in. Her greeting breaks off into a wet, tearing cough. It's an awful sound.
"Frankie," Bob says, and Maja makes a disapproving noise.
"Have you seen a doctor?"
"Fuck the doctors," Frankie mutters.
"Toro will pay for-" Bob stops. "You did tell him you're sick."
"Sent a note."
"You sent a vague note that made him think you're having your menses and he's politely staying away like always."
Frankie glares at him, and Bob knows he's right.
Maja puts her hand on Frankie's forehead and frowns.
"I'll get better," Frankie says, and won't yield.
In the carriage, Bob says, "It would look better if you spoke with him."
"She is very adamant on this subject."
"She needs a doctor, a good one. Toro will take care of it if you asked."
"I won't. If you are wrong about what kind of man he is, you could ruin her arrangement."
Bob is almost certain that Maja is doing this to test him, that she will speak to Toro if he won't, but at the same time, Maja is not someone he wants to cross.
Frankie misses the next performance, and Bob goes to see Toro.
Waiting to speak with him, Bob thinks maybe he should have sent a note after all. But he knows this is far enough beyond the pale to require a private visit.
Toro calls for his carriage immediately, and sends a page for the doctor.
He looks back at Bob. "Well? I assume you want to come."
Bob flushes, but doesn't deny it.
After the doctor reassures them that she won't actually die, Bob and Toro go in to see her.
He thinks she's sleeping, but she opens her eyes when they reach the edge of her bed. "Bob," she says, softly.
"Frankie," he says back, and he's sure everything in his heart must be on his face. She smiles and closes her eyes again.
Bob makes himself look at Toro.
"I won't break it off over this," Toro says carefully, watching him. "If I thought she would accept it, if I thought you would accept it-"
Bob nods shortly. He has done many foolish things for the sake of his pride, but he knows how much his pride is worth. It's not his place to decide how much Frankie's is worth.
Toro sighs.
Maja gives him the exact same sigh when he tells her about it, and Bob gives her a half-hearted glare back.
He doesn't visit her while she's recovering, so the first time he sees her after that is when he opens the door to his room and finds her on the other side.
He didn't realize she knew where he lived.
She pushes past him and starts taking off her gloves. He can't read her face.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry, but I thought you were going to die."
"The doctor says I have weak lungs. He says the city air is bad for me."
"Oh," Bob says.
"I still have family in Italy, and the climate there is better. I talked to Toro about investing my money for a little income, and anyway Italy is cheaper, so."
"Oh," Bob says.
Frankie starts smiling, this warm, happy, indulgent smile that he's never seen before. "Christ, you're dumb, Bryar," she says, and takes two steps forward to kiss him.
"I'm dumb?" he says dazedly when she pulls back.
She rests her forehead on his chest. "All right, we deserve each other." She clears her throat. "I love you. I'm asking you to run away to Italy with me. I promise I can support you-" she looks around her "-at least in the style to which you've become accustomed."
"Oh," he says, "yes, yes," and he cups her face in his hands and kisses her.
Later, kneeling between her thighs, one of her legs thrown over his shoulder, he looks up at her and says, "I love you, too," and she smiles back like the sun coming up.