In Fair Manhattan - Act 2, Scene 2
Act 2, Scene 2
A room in the Bass house.
“Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift.”
Lily was quite shocked when Charles came strolling through the doors and into what she perfunctorily thought of as ‘the family room’, even though no two members of what the press had affectionately dubbed the conjoined Van der Bass family were ever in it at the same time. Barring a charity affair or a small dinner party, Bart was generally to be found hard at work in his office, Serena had an obligation to be social and be seen out and about in the city, Eric was busy acquainting Jennifer Humphrey with the inner workings of high society life, and Charles...
Well, Charles preferred to stay out all night and sleep all day in his private suite at The Palace, where he could come and go as he pleased with only unheeded reprimands from the concierge to bother him.
Of late, her new stepson had taken his life of debauchery and parental disregard to new heights, and he rarely if ever bothered to attend the consecrated ‘family dinner’ night she and Bart had instituted immediately after returning from their honeymoon. She had not heard a word about him since the day before, when her son Eric had enlisted the aid of Charles’s best friend Nate Archibald to yank him out of the affectation of melancholy he had been wallowing in.
“Charles,” she put down her morning cup of tea and eyed his appearance. He was wearing a rumpled red suit that matched the disarray of his usually neatly styled hair. There were bags under his eyes, an unlit cigarette dangling between his fingers, and a disturbingly cheerful smile stretching his normally ominous features into the very portrait of youthful happiness.
What on earth drugs had he been taking?
“You’re here very early.”
Chuck tossed the unlit cigarette across her one-of-a-kind Regency antique table and, because there was no better word to use for what he did, flopped across one of the long couches and sprawled out like a lazy cat bathing in the summer sun.
The fact that he had not been to bed that night was not a particularly rare occurrence-she had often read of his exploits in the society pages: all-night drinking binges in bars he bought on the spot in order to keep them from closing and ending his fun, parties at clubs that reeked of designer drugs and $10,000 bottles of liquor, mornings when the cleaning staff would enter suite 1812 to find quadruplets in various states of sated undress in his bed. He had earned his reputation through a faithful and committed maintenance of everything that lent itself to scandalized columns in rag magazines or internet websites written by cell phone voyeurs.
But one thing Lily knew about Charles was that he came to her when he had important news and no one trustworthy to share it with. The condo was empty as he had known it would be at such an hour, and the staff would not dare interrupt their private conversation unless it was a matter of life or death. He grinned beguilingly at her and she instantly reached for another sip of her blissfully hot tea.
“What happened to you last night? I can see you haven’t slept.”
Chuck put his hands behind his head and a more recognizable look settled across his lips when he smirked. “I enjoyed sweeter rest than sleep.”
“Oh, Charles.” Lily sighed heavily and rubbed her temple in slow, soothing circles. “Whose daughter have you deflowered this time?”
“Nobody’s,” he replied swiftly, and the smug and secretive tone of it chased her every disappointment away.
“That’s good, I am glad to hear it.” She swept her eyes across the creases and wrinkles in his appearance and raised an eyebrow. “Then where have you been? Eric sent Nate to fetch you.”
Chuck let out a low, humorless chuckle and sat up straight to cross one leg over the opposite knee. “I was fetched.”
When he did not elaborate on his own, Lily resigned herself to serving as his provocateur and folded her hands calmly across her cream Chanel skirt. “And where did he take you after he caught you in mid-air and wagged his tail in victory?”
Her stepson, pleased as he was with her silent agreement to play along with whatever unspoken game he wanted to play, hopped up from the couch and moved suddenly to take the cushion beside hers and sling his arm casually over her shoulders. “You’re not going to believe this, but I have been feasting with my enemy.”
Lily’s eyes snapped to his to confirm that he was saying what she thought he was saying. The consequences of his attending the Waldorf-Rose masquerading could be more far-reaching than his one-track mind could possibly comprehend; if he had been seen, or if he had caused dissention in the guests, Lord Rose might not have paid attention to Serena’s well-rehearsed and incredibly important speech about the importance of lasting partnerships and conditional understanding when things could not be made to work according to a preconceived plan. She, herself, had written it for her daughter, and was anticipating a reconciliatory phone call from Lady Eleanor and a renewed invite to her garden party along with it.
Did the drugs Charles was clearly on have anything to do with his news? If he had smuggled an apothecary under Lord Cyrus Rose’s roof...
“Tell me plainly, Charles,” she prayed silently that his answer would be of peace and good will. She prayed to every unlikely god who very probably no longer opened their ears to the delinquent at her side. “What have you done?”
“I’ve met someone,” her stepson continued, with a glint in his eyes that belonged to a man whose every desire had landed in his lap. “No, not a call girl at a late-night bar or another insipid debutante.”
“Then who?” Lily supposed she ought to have heeded the heavy rock of lead that settled in the pit of her roiling stomach when she dared to ask for clarification, but a tiny and very convincing voice whispered in her ear that it would be better in the long run if she learned this mysterious person’s identity sooner rather than later.
She watched his face for some sign of who he might be speaking of-another Senator’s daughter, perhaps? God forbid he had found himself enthralled by the daughter of some austere priest or a strict private school headmaster’s innocent little angel. Lily did not think she could stand to hear the phone ringing off the hook when whoever it was realized just how broken her heart was as soon as he moved onto his next conquest. Someone would have to be notified about the upcoming onslaught of call forwarding...
But he did not say any one person’s name. Did not wink roguishly and tap her on the head as he left the room with some witty remark that was perhaps meant to lead her on a quest to find his latest victim’s identity. Charles merely smiled evasively, removed his arm from around her shoulders, and stood to brush off his seemingly ruined suit.
“It’s not time yet,” he informed her finally; after he was satisfied it was salvageable. “It won’t be any fun if you know right away.”
“Charles.” Lily felt the creases forming in her brow and frowned at her stepson as he made to leave. “Tell me. Who is she?”
“A lady,” he answered. Then, he scoffed and amended, “No, not a lady.”
Something about that word seemed to amuse him, and she watched as he turned it over and over again in his brain, undoubtedly picking it apart to find every digestible meaning so that he could invent one no one would be able to stomach. Charles had an uncanny habit of taking the best of things, the most promising and richest possibilities, and turning them to dust with one wave of his hand (in which was usually clutched a glass of ancient Scotch). It had been done to plenty of hopeful young ladies, besotted by his dangerous good looks and the fact that he could produce for them whatever they desired whenever they wished for it.
What did he have in store for this poor girl?
Had he already robbed her of her innocence? Was that why he could so effortlessly strip her of her title?
He leaned down and kissed Lily on the cheek. “She is a queen.”
The minutes ticked by after his abrupt departure; he had gone unannounced, just as he had come. They would not sit at the breakfast table and share a pitcher of orange juice while he filled her in on the finer points of his conquest before Eric came down the stairs and he was forced to change the topic to avoid incurring her wrath.
This time, it was different. He was not only keeping a secret, but he was keeping it seemingly for the plain enjoyment of making sure no one knew his mind. This meant, to Lily anyway, that whomever he had set his sights on this time was someone he should have known to stay away from. Who she was, what her name was, what she had done to pique her stepson’s wanton interest, she did not know.
When Eric came down for breakfast, she would tell him to inform Nathaniel of this development. Then, she would leave it to them to handle. The matters of the young were not really her concern, and she had more pressing matters to attend to.
“Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.”