Ways to be Wicked
Chapter One
IRONIC, SYLVIE THOUGHT, that the pitching and rolling of that
wretched wooden ship should set up a corresponding pitching and rolling in her
stomach, given that motion was more native to her than stillness. She in fact
leaped, stretched, and pirouetted every day, achieving semiflight with no ill
effects apart from sore muscles and the perversely gratifying jealousy of all
of the other dancers in Monsieur Favre's corps de ballet. Sylvie Lamoreux
was, in fact, the darling of the Paris Opera, object of desire and envy, the
personification of beauty and grace-not accustomed, in other words, to
losing the contents of her stomach over the side of a ship.
She supposed it had a little something to do with control. When she danced,
she commanded her body. Well, and Monsieur Favre had a bit of a say in
it, too: "I said, like a butterfly, Sylvie, not a cow. Look at
you! I want to moo!" Or "Your arms, Sylvie, they are like timber.
Lift them like so-ah yes, that is it, mon ange, you are like a
dream. I suspected you could dance." Monsieur Favre was a trifle prone to
exaggeration, but if she was ... read full excerpt from Ways to Be Wicked ebook
