Lasher Read Online Free Page A

the water, face bleeding and bruised, heart stopped.
    Then another scent caught her—that same strange smell she’d picked up earlier in the hallway of the house and in the front parlor where the Chinese rug used to be. It was faint but it was here all right. When she drew near the balustrade shesmelled it. All mingled with the cold four-o’clocks. A very seductive smell. Sort of, well, delicious, she thought. Like caramel or butterscotch could be delicious, only it wasn’t a food smell.
    A little rage kindled in her suddenly for whoever had hurt Michael Curry. She’d liked him from the moment she laid eyes on him. She’d liked Rowan Mayfair too. She’d longed for moments alone with them to ask them things and tell them things, and especially to ask them to give her the Victrola, if they could find it. But those opportunities had never come.
    She knelt down on the flags now as she had done before. She touched the cold stone that hurt her bare knees. The smell was here all right. But she saw nothing. She looked up at the dark servants’ porch of the main house. Not a light anywhere. Then she looked beyond the iron fence to the carriage house behind Deirdre’s oak.
    One light. That meant Henri was still awake. Well, what about it? She could handle Henri. She had figured out tonight at the supper after Comus that Henri was already scared of this house, and didn’t like working in it, and probably wouldn’t stay long. He couldn’t quite figure how to make Michael happy, Michael who kept saying, “I’m what’s called a high prole, Henri. If you fix red beans and rice, I’ll be fine.”
    A high prole. Mona had gone up to Uncle Michael after supper, just as he was trying to get away from everyone and take his nightly constitutional, as he called it, and said, “What the hell is a high prole, Uncle Michael?”
    “Such language,” he’d whispered with mock surprise. Then before he could stop himself, he’d stroked the ribbon in her hair.
    “Oh, sorry,” she’d said, “but for an uptown girl, it’s sort of, you know, de rigueur to have a large vocabulary.”
    He’d laughed, a little fascinated maybe. “A high prole is a person who doesn’t have to worry about making the middle class happy,” he said. “Would an uptown girl understand that?”
    “Sure would. It’s extremely logical, what you’re saying, and I want you to know I loathe conformity in any form.”
    Again his gentle beguiling laughter.
    “How did you get to be a high prole?” She’d pushed it. “Where do I go to sign on?”
    “You can’t sign on, Mona,” he’d answered. “A high prole is born a prole. He is a fire fighter’s son who has made plenty of money. A high prole can mow his own grass any time he likes.He can wash his own car. Or he can drive a van when everybody keeps telling him he ought to drive a Mercedes. A high prole is a free man.” What a smile he had given her. Of course he was laughing at himself a little, in a weary sort of way. But he liked to look at her, that she could see. Yes, indeed, he did like to look at her. Only some weariness and some sense of propriety held him in check.
    “Sounds good to me,” she’d said. “Do you take off your shirt when you mow the grass?”
    “How old are you, Mona?” he’d asked her playfully, cocking his head to one side. But the eyes were completely innocent.
    “I told you, thirteen,” she’d answered. She’d stood on tiptoe and kissed him quickly on the cheek, and there had come that blush again. Yes, he saw her, saw her breasts and the contour of her waist and hips under the loose pink cotton dress. Yet he’d seemed moved by her show of affection, an emotion quite entirely separate. His eyes had glassed over for a minute, and then he’d said he had to go walk outside. He’d said something about Mardi Gras Night, about passing this house once when he’d been a boy, on Mardi Gras Night, when they’d been on their way to see Comus.
    No, nothing really wrong