Read Online Raisins and Almonds by Kerry Greenwood - Free Book Online
Authors: Kerry Greenwood
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unreliable way which marked the season as spring and the city as Melbourne. The wind appeared to have died down. The noises of the house came to her as she turned her head and picked rose petals from her surroundings. Something with a very high-pitched howl was making its wants felt: the telephone bell announcing that the outside world was still there and desirous of establishing contact with Miss Phryne Fisher. She heard Mr Butler's even tread as he went to answer it and Dot yelling something to the girls, who appeared to be in the kitchen. All normal, even comfortable sounds, after the strange night and the delightful, if fraught, morning.
Sprawled asleep across half the bed was a long-limbed young man of surpassing beauty. His eyes were closed, his expression beatific, his arms outspread, his hands out and half-open, half-curled. He could have been a renaissance painting, except for the love bites which marked his olive throat with round red patches, darkening into black. Phryne wondered what had prompted her to bite him so hard, and shivered at the remembrance. If she had been his first lover—and she suspected so—then this was a youth of truly remarkable amatory skill, who needed only a little cultivation to be superb.
She knew that she could not keep him. He had to go back to his father and his family duty. But while she had him, Phryne meant to enjoy him.
But she was hungry, and it was lunch time. Also, whatever message he had come to deliver had been lost in the translation, so to speak, and it might have been important. She slipped a considering hand down his face, from brow to nose to lip, and he woke enough to kiss her palm.
'That's how this all started,' she observed. 'Wake up, my dear Simon, it's lunch time and I'm starving.'
His bright eyes snapped open and he sat up, startled.
'Oh, Phryne,' he said. 'Oh, Phryne,' he began again. 'I never asked, you know, I never asked all those things one is supposed to ask. You just ravished me out of all my senses,' he said complacently.
'And very nice too,' said Phryne, throwing back the sheets and rising. 'Come and have a bath. You didn't need to ask me,' she added, taking his hand and leading him to her bathroom, where the tub was quite big enough for two. Over the roar of the taps, she commented, 'You would have touched my diaphragm, that meant I would not conceive. And anything else can be settled now.' She put both hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. 'Thank you for your love and your body,' she said very deliberately. 'But I can't keep you, you belong to your family, and you can't have me, I belong to myself. Is that clear?'
'Yes,' stammered Simon. 'But ... does this mean that you have had your will of me, that you ...'
'Curb this tendency to melodrama. I do not intend to cast you aside like a soiled glove, either. Dear Simon,' she said, kissing him and helping him into the bath, scattering orchid bath salts with a liberal hand, 'you shall come and lie with me again, if you please, and we shall have a love affair of which your mother will never approve. Now, what did you come here to tell me?'
Simon Abrahams sat in warm water and sponged Phryne's white back while he racked his brains to recall what had brought him to her house so early on a Sunday morning.
For the life of him, he could not remember.
Five
Rubedo is the ascension of the red queen.
Elias Ashmole,
Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum
1689
Phryne pushed back her chair. She had lunched well and her young lover appeared to be coming to terms with his new status. Simon had refused cream soup but accepted lamb chops and pureed vegetables, and was now eating new strawberries with enthusiasm.
'What do you make of these, Simon?' she asked, laying the dead man's notebook and the strange engravings on the table. He puzzled over the black letters.
'No, I can't read them. It's Hebrew, but it's some sort of code, or maybe just a jumble of letters. No, that doesn't seem likely, does it? But the
Sprawled asleep across half the bed was a long-limbed young man of surpassing beauty. His eyes were closed, his expression beatific, his arms outspread, his hands out and half-open, half-curled. He could have been a renaissance painting, except for the love bites which marked his olive throat with round red patches, darkening into black. Phryne wondered what had prompted her to bite him so hard, and shivered at the remembrance. If she had been his first lover—and she suspected so—then this was a youth of truly remarkable amatory skill, who needed only a little cultivation to be superb.
She knew that she could not keep him. He had to go back to his father and his family duty. But while she had him, Phryne meant to enjoy him.
But she was hungry, and it was lunch time. Also, whatever message he had come to deliver had been lost in the translation, so to speak, and it might have been important. She slipped a considering hand down his face, from brow to nose to lip, and he woke enough to kiss her palm.
'That's how this all started,' she observed. 'Wake up, my dear Simon, it's lunch time and I'm starving.'
His bright eyes snapped open and he sat up, startled.
'Oh, Phryne,' he said. 'Oh, Phryne,' he began again. 'I never asked, you know, I never asked all those things one is supposed to ask. You just ravished me out of all my senses,' he said complacently.
'And very nice too,' said Phryne, throwing back the sheets and rising. 'Come and have a bath. You didn't need to ask me,' she added, taking his hand and leading him to her bathroom, where the tub was quite big enough for two. Over the roar of the taps, she commented, 'You would have touched my diaphragm, that meant I would not conceive. And anything else can be settled now.' She put both hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. 'Thank you for your love and your body,' she said very deliberately. 'But I can't keep you, you belong to your family, and you can't have me, I belong to myself. Is that clear?'
'Yes,' stammered Simon. 'But ... does this mean that you have had your will of me, that you ...'
'Curb this tendency to melodrama. I do not intend to cast you aside like a soiled glove, either. Dear Simon,' she said, kissing him and helping him into the bath, scattering orchid bath salts with a liberal hand, 'you shall come and lie with me again, if you please, and we shall have a love affair of which your mother will never approve. Now, what did you come here to tell me?'
Simon Abrahams sat in warm water and sponged Phryne's white back while he racked his brains to recall what had brought him to her house so early on a Sunday morning.
For the life of him, he could not remember.
Five
Rubedo is the ascension of the red queen.
Elias Ashmole,
Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum
1689
Phryne pushed back her chair. She had lunched well and her young lover appeared to be coming to terms with his new status. Simon had refused cream soup but accepted lamb chops and pureed vegetables, and was now eating new strawberries with enthusiasm.
'What do you make of these, Simon?' she asked, laying the dead man's notebook and the strange engravings on the table. He puzzled over the black letters.
'No, I can't read them. It's Hebrew, but it's some sort of code, or maybe just a jumble of letters. No, that doesn't seem likely, does it? But the
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