Beneath Beautiful

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Beneath Beautiful

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Allison Rushby.

  Edited by Lauren McKellar

  No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, stored, scanned, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, including but not limited to mechanical, printed, or electronic form, without prior written permission of the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.

  Contact information: [email protected].

  Cover art (girl neck) © by Mooney Designs. All rights reserved.

  Cover art (girl neck and lights) © by Najla Qamber Designs. All rights reserved.

  Cover art (girl seated) © by Berto Designs. All rights reserved.

  This book contains adult situations and is meant for readers 17+.

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  About The Author

  Other New Adult books by Allison Rushby

  A note from the author . . .

  “Call me Ishmael . . .” The voice startled Cassie, drawing her out of her much-thumbed copy of Moby Dick. She looked up through a mess of wind-blown hair, leaving sea salt and whales behind. Suddenly aware of the real world once more, she shifted on her concrete perch and took him in. Tall. A flop of blond-ish brown-ish hair. Greeny-brown eyes to match. Skin that wasn't shockingly white, as was her own, but that wasn't really olive, either. No outstanding features to speak of. He would be a good decade and a half older than her almost twenty-two years, and dressed entirely in black for the chilly autumn day. Shoes, socks, trousers, shirt, jumper, coat, scarf, satchel . . . Black, black, black.

  “Goodness.” She ignored his opening line. “Are you in mourning?”

  He burst out laughing at this. “Maybe.”

  “Oh, God. I'm not sitting on your grandmother or something, am I? I've done that before, you know. I've even been ejected from the cemetery once.” Cassie scrambled off the flat, low grave.

  “Ejected from Père Lachaise. How rock star of you. Jim would be impressed.”

  Cassie grinned slightly. “It does sound amazingly cool, but then I remember I'm also in the exalted company of the flasher I had ejected myself the very next week, so . . .” She cleared her throat. “Is that who you're looking for? Jim Morrison?” It was always Jim Morrison they were looking for in the famous Parisian cemetery. Or Oscar Wilde. Rarely anyone else.

  “Actually no. It's Théodore Géricault I'm looking for. But he doesn't seem to be on this useless map.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it slowly, meticulously. “And I thought that seeing as you were reading, rather than wandering around aimlessly with an equally stupid map, you might have an idea where the more obscure dead people might reside in this place.”

  In all the years Cassie had sat in Père Lachaise and read whichever favourite books she had brought in her suitcase with her to her grandmother's Parisian apartment, no one had ever, ever asked her where Théodore Géricault's monument was. No one had ever quoted the first line of the book she was reading, either. Suddenly, she saw this man in a whole new light. In that moment he became more than a black outfit, a haircut and mixed features. She immediately abandoned her book on a plinth and took a step toward him, a moth to his flame. “Cassie,” she said, holding out her hand. “Well, Cassandra, but no one ever calls me that. Not unless I'm in trouble.”

  “Cameron.” He took her hand in his. “So, I'm taking it you do know where Monsieur Géricault is. Again, I'm impressed. Perhaps even slightly more impressed by that than by your ejection from the cemetery.”

  Ejection. The word stopped Cassie in her tracks now and made her flush, thinking he'd said something else entirely. Not a person who usually thought along such lines, it took her a moment or two to slide back onto the tracks of their conversation and realise he'd said nothing at all suggestive. Or had he? For a second she wondered if it had been a deliberate choice. But no—she had used the word first, hadn't she? And, unlike her, he didn't seem at all flustered. Instead he stood before her, clear-eyed and unabashed, useless map in hand.

  How embarrassing. With her mind busy running off on sexual tangents, she hadn't even answered his question. His two questions, to be precise.

  “Um, yes. Yes, I do know where he is. Sorry, it's just that I'm . . . surprised. Théodore Géricault isn't someone people go looking for, which I've often thought is rather unfair, especially after they've probably just seen The Raft of the Medusa in The Louvre.”

  He raised his eyebrows at this. “A painting you like, I take it?”

  “Oh, yes. It's amazing. I mean, you almost want to climb right in there and start waving for the ship yourself, don't you?” Cassie felt herself babbling, half-distracted by the undercurrent of questions running through her mind. Where was he from? He had a very nondescript mid-Atlantic accent. Still, he was American, she was sure of it. Maybe he had studied in England? Come to think of it, he seemed familiar somehow. Maybe she knew him vaguely, perhaps from Cambridge? But he was so much older and, anyway, surely he would have said if they knew each other?

  “It's the composition, you see. That makes you want to climb in. It's based on two overlapping pyramids . . .” He smiled and stopped himself with a wave of one hand as he stuffed the map back into his pocket with the other. “But I'll bore you.”

  “No, really. It's fascinating. Were you an art major? In college?”

  “For a while.” He glanced away.

  “Oh. Well, um, shall we? I'll walk you there if you like.” Cassie pointed in the direction of Géricault's monument. It was only then that she grasped the fact that she was offering to walk into the bowels of the cold, quiet cemetery with a complete and utter stranger. She narrowed her eyes slightly and turned to him. “Wait. You're not an axe murderer, are you?”

  “I don't think so,” he replied. “But you never really know until you're in the heat of the moment, do you? I don't have an axe about me right now, if that makes any difference.”

  With this, he opened his coat to demonstrate this fact, and Cassie caught an almost imperceptible whiff of him—clean and masculine, perhaps freshly hotel-showered. She didn't know how to explain it, but in books it would say the smell made her knees weak. The truth was, her knees felt just fine. It was more her stomach and her head, which was suddenly filled with all kinds of odd, fuzzy, abstract thoughts, ranging from, Why on earth is he really wearing so much black? to I wish I'd worn my yellow coat and a nicer scarf, and even, Despite the age gap, he's someone my sister might actually think was worthy of me, which would be a first. Cassie attempted to collect herself. “Well, I suppose that's all right, then. And if you've had the good sense to leave it behind Géricault's monument for later, at least you're
an axe murderer with some foresight.”

  He laughed at this. “Very true. I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps you're the one between the two of us with the axe murdering tendencies?”

  There it was again. Surely her mind was playing tricks on her? “Between the two of us.” Cassie felt his suggestive words run through her from head to toe.

  She took a deep breath. “So, um, shall we?”

  She bent down and grabbed her book, attempting to center herself before she stood once more and looked him squarely in the eye. As if she wouldn't rather suggest they go back to his hotel room, and . . . well, you know. See? That was the kind of girl she was. She couldn't even admit to something like that in her head, let alone do it.

  To be honest, Cassie was shocked to her very core that her brain was even offering up such thoughts. It wasn't that she was a prude. There had been boyfriends. Even one or two (fine, three) drunken one-night stands while she'd been at university. But nothing like this. Nothing had been at all like this. She had never met someone before and felt such an instant attraction. Never. Before now, she wouldn't have thought such a thing was truly possible. It was the stuff of soap operas and cartoons. But she couldn't deny it, because there it was. She could barely stop looking at him and had to keep reminding her eyes to dart away.

  “He's this way.” Cassie shook her head, telling herself yet again to stop ogling the poor man. She pointed and took a few steps off in the right direction, her boots crunching on the gravel path lined with Chestnut trees. She glanced behind her to see him following, and waited the few steps until he caught up. “Is there anyone else you wanted to see? In case they're on the way? You really don't want to see Jim Morrison, or Oscar Wilde, or Sarah Bernhardt?”

  He twisted his mouth slightly at this. “Well, there was someone . . .”

  “Yes?” Cassie's eyes met his, interested. “Who?”

  “The thing is, I thought better of asking you. It's a bit . . . axe-murderish, as you might say.”

  “Really?” Cassie's eyebrows shot up. She stopped walking.

  “Not literally. But, you see, it was Victor Noir I wanted to visit and . . .”

  Cassie threw her head back and started laughing.

  “See?” He laughed along with her. “How do you walk up to a woman and ask directions so you can go and rub a dead man's cock?”

  “Ladies first.” Cameron gestured toward Noir's crotch.

  “It's ridiculous! Honestly, it's just a . . . fold in his pants.” Cassie didn't sound convinced.

  “Funny looking fold, if you ask me.”

  The pair stared at the “fold” for a moment or two. It had been rubbed to a high shine by superstitious visitors to the cemetery who hoped to strengthen their sex life, or who were worried about their fertility. With such ardent attention, there was no denying its healthy gleam.

  “When I die from a duel gone wrong, I'm going to request the same. Fabulous top hat, a pair of good looking boots, and a really huge boner that people travel from all over the world to rub.”

  Cassie laughed. “Oh, yes. Me too.”

  “Well, great minds, and all that. You're not superstitious? Don't want to stick a flower in his hat?”

  “The last thing I need is a husband within the year,” Cassie snorted. She could barely work out what to have for dinner each night, let alone what she was looking for in a life partner. “Not that I think that would really happen,” she added quickly.

  “All right, then. Look, how about if we touch it together? There's more than enough room.”

  Cassie chuckled. “True.”

  The pair crouched down, one on either side of Noir's outstretched, supine body.

  “Ready?” Cassie said, after a moment or two.

  “Take your time. He's not going anywhere.”

  “Guess not.”

  The pair reached out at the same moment, their fingers touching by accident on top of the mound giving Cassie a thrill she immediately tried to suppress, considering what they were doing.

  “Farewell, old friend.” Cameron patted the verdigris-free area. “I'm sure you were loyal and true, and gave many hours of happiness to your master.”

  Cassie stood up with a drawn-out sigh. “What is it with men and their dicks. Really? Someday I'd like to know. Don't you ever get over having one?”

  Cameron stood up, grinning. “If you give me your email address, I'll let you know if it ever happens.”

  “I won't hold my breath.”

  “I'd say that's probably for the best.”

  Cassie strode on in order to hide her flushed cheeks. “Now you really do sound like an axe murderer.”

  “A badger and a hare?” Cameron paused slightly in his step on the path as they continued on their way to Géricault's monument. “You know, I think I might have bought one of those for my niece the last time I went through Heathrow.”

  Cassie adjusted her scarf as the afternoon cooled. “Everyone says that.” She didn't sound impressed.

  “What? Don't tell me you're one of those writers who detests being sold in places like Heathrow and thinks all writing is worthless unless you're a drunk, louche, garret-living type earning nothing?”

  “With TB?”

  “Now you're overdoing it.”

  Cassie smiled. “No, of course not. Just the opposite. It's only that I'm wary when people mention my work like that. Heaven knows I got enough flack for it all at Cambridge. You see, it's okay to write awful, depressing literature that no one understands and not make any money from it, but writing about a badger and a hare cavorting in the English countryside and selling loads of copies in airports and the like is akin to selling your soul.”

  “To?”

  “Well, we never really got that far. Usually they just spat upon me, ground a heel in my face and moved on.”

  “Sounds civilized,” Cameron said. “But, wait.” He reached for his phone. “I must take a picture of this. For my niece.” He moved toward her, placed his arm around her waist and held up the camera. Cassie smiled automatically and waited for the click, hoping he wasn't going to make a move on her in a cemetery. Then hoping desperately that he might after all.

  As Cameron pulled away and inspected the picture, he smiled. “She'll love that.” He stuck the phone in one of his large coat pockets, then moved his attention back to Cassie as they strolled away once more. “So, these books . . . Really you should have been a poor, single working mother from some London housing estate to give the newspapers a better story?”

  “Exactly!” Cassie threw one arm up. “I should have been someone they could champion. And then everyone would have been happy.”

  “But you wanted to write the books . . .”

  “At the beginning, yes. I just wanted to . . . oh, I don't know . . .” Cassie stared down at her now dusty boots, looking for an answer. “I suppose I wanted to believe in that magical place. That place that Pooh Bear, Milly Molly Mandy, Mary Poppins and Alice might really exist in. But that place doesn't exist anymore. And it probably never will again. That England is gone.”

  “No place better to try and find it than in Cambridge,” Cameron replied. “You chose wisely there, at least.”

  Cassie nodded. “There are glimpses. Fleeting ones. I think that makes it more depressing, though, not less.”

  “You're the last of your kind. A dying breed. As your name might suggest. Cassandra. Surely you have one of those fancy, double-barreled surnames to go with it?”

  Cassie looked at him sharpishly, but then sighed. “No, I don't. But you're close enough. My surname's Tavington. Cassandra Tavington. It's embarrassingly English.”

  Cameron smiled at this. “Surprisingly that works very well. A herd of buffalo, a murder of ravens, an embarrassment of Englishman. Is that what you're doing in Paris? Hiding from your Englishness?”

  Cassie laughed. “You must be joking. Paris is probably the worst place in the world to hide from your Englishness. No, I'm homeless now I'm no longer a student. I'm staying wi
th my grandmother. Well, I'm staying in her apartment while she's in the south of France enjoying the final rays of summer.”

  “And you're here writing Badger and Hare Take a Road Trip to Gay Paris?”

  “No. No more Badger and Hare. I've had enough.”

  Cameron interjected. “Of Badger and Hare, or of Badger and Hare's critics?”

  Cassie stopped walking, an alarm bell set off in her mind again. She knew him. She was sure of it. “I don't know,” she said, slowly.

  He took a step closer toward her, his entire being focusing in on her all of a sudden, making the rest of the world fade into nothingness. “Because those are two very different things. It's important that you know that.”

  She held his gaze for a moment, trying to work it out. Did she know him? If he wasn't from Cambridge, was he from the publishing world?

  “I agree,” she finally answered, though she couldn't have entirely sworn as to what. “I think. I mean, that is . . .” Taking a breath, she attempted to collect her thoughts. “Anyway, I'm writing something else now.”

  She didn't mention it was terrible, and awful, and that her agent had told her that the few thousand words she had sent her basically stank like her grandmother's beloved Epoisses cheese. It was based on a group of students at Cambridge, and her agent's exact words had been, “No one wants to read about shitty weather, ferrying tourists around in outdated water-based vehicles and eating ramen noodles for dinner every night, even if there is a lot of sex and bickering in between.”

  It was back to the drawing board, or, at least, to her laptop. Though Cassie had sadly found there was little inspiration to be found staring at her laptop—thus, the re-reading of Moby Dick in Père Lachaise.

  “So, um, here we are.” Cassie turned on her heel. “Cameron, meet Théodore. Théodore, Cameron.” She introduced the pair lightheartedly, her attention drawn up above. Atop the monument was the calm, reposed gentleman, with his paintbrush and easel at the ready for all eternity.

  It was only when she didn't receive a ready answer that her smile slipped slightly and she swiveled in the leaf litter. Turning back, she realised Cameron was closer—far closer—than she had thought.