Once the ordeal was over, Ursula hurried off to see to a few last details with strict instructions for Lily to “not move an inch” lest she muss up her outfit. Sighing, Lily sat down on the bed, folding her hands in her lap. As much as she wanted to, it was too late to back out. She’d thought she could just show her face, smile at a few people, and then go hide. But Ursula had gone over the whole evening in detail, explaining how she would join her grandmother in a receiving line to greet every guest, then mingle with cocktails, dine, and lastly dance for as long as the guests remained.
“You can dance, can’t you, dear?” Ursula had asked when she got to that part, a brief look of panic crossing her patrician features.
“Um, a little,” Lily hedged. “I learned a few steps for our college social balls.” What she didn’t mention was that she usually bruised her partner’s toes black and blue at the first such ball and had avoided the practice ever since.
“Well, that will have to do,” her grandmother said, glancing upward resignedly as if searching for deliverance.
There was no way, of course, that Lily would last through all that. She planned to slip away as soon as she’d danced with enough partners to convince them of her deadly toe-bruising abilities. Ursula would have to find her to force her back, and she’d been contemplating hiding places throughout the trial of being dressed. Possibly that was why she didn’t remember any of the names Ursula had thrown at her. Ah, well. Spilt milk and all that.
Lily felt a thrill of dread when she finally heard Ursula calling her name from the bottom of the grand staircase. Yet, this was not something that could be avoided. She was an adult, and she intended to act like it, if not in quite the way her grandmother was expecting.
Ever so careful not to tread on her dress, Lily descended the staircase with a grace that surprised even her. She supposed wearing heels all the time at work had given her a good sense of balance, as long as she wasn’t trying to remember dance moves. At the bottom, Ursula took hold of her arm, dragging her over to the new arrivals. The ordeal had begun.
There were, indeed, only about thirty guests, which was far fewer than the house could accommodate. Yet, to Lily, the stream of people seemed endless. It was a fair mix of couples and singles ranging from early twenties to sixties. Many seemed present only for the status they added to the occasion, based on Ursula’s constant whispers in her ear about each guest. Lily tried to smile even as she cringed inside. Her polite mask was a skill she’d picked up from all the work functions and staff meetings she’d had to attend at the library. Yet she’d never been in the crosshairs of so many single men and hawk-eyed mothers before. It made staying composed extremely difficult.
She shook hands, nodded, and spoke polite nothings to guest after guest, until Ursula finally towed her off for the pre-dinner mingle. Lily soon realized that her grandmother was, without knowing it, making her evening moderately bearable. If she kept her mouth shut, smiled and nodded, Ursula did all the talking, directing, and initiating for her. The LeFay family matriarch seemed content to tell everyone about her granddaughter rather than let her granddaughter speak for herself. Lily was content to let her, though the creative liberties she was taking with Lily’s past rankled her.
Everything was going well until Ursula was pulled away by an elderly couple. She reminded Lily to find the setting with her name on it when the dinner bell rang, then disappeared into the crowd. It was so unexpected that Lily almost panicked, eyes searching desperately for the nearest corner to hide in.
“You look stunning tonight, Miss LeFay,” said a voice behind her. She spun, a bit too vigorously as it happened, and wobbled precariously in an attempt to keep her balance. A strong hand took hold of her elbow and steadied her. Mortified, she forced herself to look along the hand to the arm, up the arm to the shoulder, and finally into the face of the stranger who had approached her.
His eyes were a stunningly beautiful green and were the best thing that could be said about him. The rest of his face was too angular and covered in a finely trimmed but rather weak beard. He was tall, skinny as a beanpole, and looked to be in his mid-thirties. Lily wracked her brain for his name and came up blank. Fortunately, he seemed to expect this.
“Daren Vance. A pleasure, ma’am,” he offered, bowing over her gloved hand to brush her knuckles with his lips. Lily blushed and looked away, entranced despite herself. Without Ursula’s chatter to hide behind, she had no defense. Her polite mask was no help when someone appealed to her romantic side—an unwanted disposition she’d long attempted to quash with practicality. She reminded herself she didn’t know a single person here and that each one was only present to gawp at her, gossip, and, as had become apparent over the course of the evening, matchmake.
Lily managed a passable curtsy, keeping her eyes lowered as she murmured, “A pleasure, sir.”
“I’m eternally in your debt for throwing this little party, as you’ve given me the pleasure of seeing the most beautiful thing I’ve laid eyes on all year,” he said to her forehead, since she refused to look at him. The remark, though sappy and calculated, earned him a bit of a smile. “I have to wonder, where have you been hiding all this time?”
She was searching for a reply when more figures entered her vision, and she had to look up. Better to know your enemy than to flail about in ignorance.
“Good god, Daren. Do shut up. Your drivel could stun a door into blithering insanity. Run along, now, like a good lad.” The speaker was the taller of the two men who’d joined their group, arrow-straight and perfect in every detail. If it weren’t for the arrogant look of disgust on his face, he would have made an excellent Ken doll model. The man behind him was a shorter, less perfect version of the speaker.
Daren shot the proud man a look of thinly veiled hatred, even as he shrunk in on himself. Yet he wasn’t quite finished. “I think Miss LeFay may socialize with whom she chooses. I would be happy to depart, should she wish.” He turned hopeful eyes on her.
This blatant display of bullying did what no amount of urging on her grandmother’s part could. Whenever Lily was conscious of herself, she was shy—cripplingly so in the face of eligible men. Yet as soon as she focused on something external, her inhibitions vanished. She wasn’t going to donate an organ to this Daren Vance or anything, but she wouldn’t stand for bullying either.
“I find Mr. Vance’s company quite refreshing, sir. Were he to leave, I would no longer have any reason to stay.” She held her head high and looked right into the proud man’s eyes, remembering him suddenly from the receiving line: Mr. Charles DuPont himself, eldest son of the DuPonts and still quite single.
Charles’s eyes flashed in anger, but it was quickly brushed aside in favor of a sardonic smile as if he recognized, and accepted, the challenge. “As you wish, m’lady,” he said as he lifted her gloved hand to his lips. But instead of holding her gaze, as was proper, he lowered his eyes to her neckline. Annoyed—she was sure he was staring at her cleavage—she kept her expression even, remaining aloof from his display.
Sensing his position slipping, Charles released her hand and made a gesture in the air. She saw his lips move in silent command and suddenly there was a red rose in his hand, full and fragrant. He presented it to her, and she accepted the gift, blushing self-consciously and mentally cursing herself for not being quick enough to think of a fitting refusal. With little effort she could tell Charles and his companion were both wizards. It was obvious by Daren’s look of hatred, no longer veiled, that he was not.
She was saved from further embarrassment by the dinner bell and fairly fled from the group after a hurried murmur of excusal. To her dismay, however, she found her grandmother had arranged the seating to place her squarely between Charles DuPont and William Johnston. Resigned, she sat, keeping her eyes on the table as everyone took their seats. A peek from under her eyelids showed Daren seated at the far end of a completely different table. Ursula, on the other hand, sat close by. Though she appeared engrossed in conversation, her b
eady eyes were locked onto Lily, making sure her granddaughter was where she was supposed to be: at the mercy of eligible young wizards.
Dinner was torture. Lily endured increasingly dull attempts to engage her in conversation—Charles and William would have had much more luck if they’d talked about anything but themselves—interspersed with cutting remarks about every other single male in the room. Mostly, Charles talked and William echoed him. They were ever so delighted that she was finally joining high society after her studies. Of course they would help her get acquainted with everyone worth knowing. All she had to do was stick close to them and she would be fine. She barely touched her food. Dessert couldn’t come soon enough.
To her eternal shame, Ursula rose and made a speech, toasting her as everyone ate their dessert. She sorely wished she could vanish as easily as Sir Kipling did, or at least melt into her chair. Everyone stared, leaning in and whispering to each other as Ursula listed off academic awards Lily hadn’t even heard of and dropped hints about her love life. She felt like a prize horse being auctioned off with her grandmother as the auctioneer, extolling her attributes so as to fetch the highest price. It was humiliating, and it was the last straw. Lily plotted her escape.
As chairs scraped back, marking the end of dinner, and the live orchestra traded quiet background music for a familiar waltz tune, Lily made her move. Dodging Charles’s attempt to take her arm, she excused herself to the restroom and fled, sneaking off to the library instead. After finding a suitable book, she retreated to the most inconspicuous sitting room she could find and hid in a corner. She got through the first few chapters before she heard her grandmother’s hunting cries.
“Lily? Lily, dear?” and then more quietly, as if to someone else, “I’m so sorry, Mr. DuPont. I’m sure she just popped upstairs to freshen up. Perhaps a wardrobe malfunction. I’ll fetch her down right away.”
It took Ursula a few minutes, but she was obviously being thorough and so came fully into the room, spotting Lily in her corner. She looked furious.
“What is the meaning of this?” she hissed, eyes flashing and nostrils flaring.
“My feet hurt,” Lily offered, trying to say no without saying no and therefore precipitate an explosion.
Stalking over and looming threateningly, Ursula spoke in a tense whisper. “You are embarrassing your whole family. I don’t care if your feet fall off, you will march yourself downstairs, young lady, and entertain our guests, or so help me you will regret it.”
Lily hesitated, considering her options. On the one hand, she was quickly growing to loathe her grandmother and everything she was trying to accomplish. On the other, she desperately wanted more afternoons like the one she’d spent with her father today. To get the latter, she had to please the former. Was it worth one night of discomfort? She had no intention of becoming like Henry LeFay, silent and submissive. Would giving in this time make it harder to say no in the future? She decided to take that chance.
Defeated, she followed Ursula back downstairs and danced the night away, stepping on as many toes as she could manage and speaking as little as possible. She showed no interest in any of the men, not even poor Daren. Some of them were nice enough, but most were snobbish and all of them dull. She tried to be as unpleasant as possible and was fairly sure she’d offended two-thirds of them by the time everyone left.
When the door finally closed on the last guest, Lily turned to trudge wearily up the stairs, counting the seconds until she could take the constricting dress off. But a cold voice stopped her.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady? Come here,” Ursula said from the bottom of the stairs.
Lily considered ignoring her, but decided it was better to get it over with.
Ursula’s face was full of cold fury, and Lily kept her eyes on the ground as the storm broke. “How dare you act so impolitely toward our guests! After I went to all this trouble and expense to help you, to make you accepted among our friends, you humiliate me by your behavior. Do you have any idea what kind of impression you’ve given to every wizard family in the area? How am I ever going to find you a suitable husband when you act so shamefully? You’ll be lucky to find an initiate who wants you, at this rate.”
Throughout this speech, Lily felt an unexpected build of temper. She’d intended to let it all wash away like water off a duck. Ursula would get over it. Lily could go back to being a nobody and studying magic. Everyone would leave her alone. But she had a bit of a temper from her mother. That woman could out-argue, out-bluster, and out-yell the biggest redneck in Alabama when she needed to. Lily’s temper rarely showed itself, since she avoided letting people get close enough to offend her. Apparently she cared more than she realized, because words started slipping out of her mouth without her permission and her voice rose in agitation.
“What do you mean all you’ve done? You’ve done nothing but treat me like an object since you met me. You don’t know me or care what I want. You didn’t do any of this for me. If you had, you’d have asked me first and I would have said hell, no! And how dare you presume to ‘find me a suitable husband’? How do you know I even want to get married? Or don’t already have a partner? My private life is none of your dadgum business, and no one has the right to dictate who I should or shouldn’t love, much less marry.” Lily knew her stepfather’s choice words were slipping into her speech, and somewhere inside she was mortified at her behavior. But mostly she was just angry. Really angry.
“If this is how you treated my mother, no wonder she ran off and took me with her. She spared me a lifetime of you.” She punctuated her last word with a stabbing finger to Ursula’s breastbone. The older woman stumbled back, her face a mask of horror, indignation, and shock. Some part of Lily’s brain wondered if anyone had ever stood up to Ursula like this before.
“I’m finished with all this,” Lily said, voice flat as she spread her hands wide to indicate the house and finery around her. “I’m going home where I’ll live my normal, unfashionable life, work a respectable job, and spend time with my real friends until you learn how to treat people like human beings. And don’t you ever speak about my love life to anyone again. That’s my business, and I’ll marry whoever I darn well please. Mundane or wizard, rich or poor, it doesn’t matter.” Finished, Lily stood there, breathing hard, finally processing what she’d just let pour unfiltered out of her mouth and trying to decide what to do about it.
“Well—I—I never—” Ursula spluttered, face turning red.
“Now, now, dear. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important,” said Henry, making Lily start as he materialized at his wife’s side, taking her arm in a calming hand. It was the first time she’d heard him speak. His voice was soft, but firm. “Lily is an adult and deserves to be treated like one.”
“That does not give her the right to so disrespect—” Ursula began angrily, only to be cut off by a loud crack behind her. They all looked to see John Faust standing, palms together as if he’d just clapped. He must have amplified the sound to get his mother’s attention, Lily realized.
John Faust came toward them, emanating a commanding calm in waves that Lily could actually feel, though she had no idea how or why.
“Mother, compose yourself. There’s no need to get upset. Our friends will delight in a new opportunity to gossip about us, as they always have, and Lily is too beautiful a woman not to get whatever man she sets her sights on.” Lily blushed furiously, feeling acutely embarrassed at such praise coming from her father. And not in a warm, fond way, but coldly calculating, as if he were simply stating a fact he had no emotional involvement in. “The family honor was damaged beyond repair decades ago. There are much more important things to worry about now, and you should let me worry about them. I am Lily’s father, and I will take care of this. Go to bed, you’ll be fine in the morning.” As he reached her, he placed both hands on her shoulders and spoke a soft phrase. Then he kissed her forehead and stepped back. Lily was startled to see her grandmother’s whole deme
anor had relaxed and her eyes had gone glassy. Henry gently took his wife’s arm and led her upstairs, looking back a few times in what seemed to be concern, though Lily wasn’t sure.
Watching them go, every fiber in Lily’s body had gone on full alert. What John Faust had done was simple enough, yet terrifying in its implications. He’d compelled his mother to be calm, forced it upon her. Yes, she’d needed it, but what right did he have to control someone else? It made her extremely wary. Compulsion magic was easily abused. It was paramount to assault to use it on another person without their express permission. Perhaps Ursula had given him permission in the past to calm her should she become upset? No, Lily thought, that woman didn’t seem the type to want anyone else controlling her.
When John Faust’s eyes turned to her, they were calm and welcoming. But now that she was paying close attention to every detail of his body language, she could sense how carefully he controlled himself. What she saw was what he wanted her to see.
“Lily. I apologize on my mother’s behalf. She’s had a hard time dealing with all this. I hope you’ll forgive her. There’s no need for you to go back to Atlanta. This is your home now, and we will do whatever necessary to make you comfortable. I thought a debutante ball would be a good way for you to get to know us, but I didn’t realize how far Ursula would take it, or how uncomfortable it would make you feel. I apologize. Let me walk you to your room. I have lessons planned for the whole week that I’m sure you’ll be eager to start on. There’s so much I want to teach you. I’m greatly looking forward to it.”
Nodding, Lily allowed herself to be helped up the stairs to her room, fixing a false smile on her face as she bade John Faust goodnight and closed her door. Inside, she was filled with fear. As she undressed—she’d sent the female construct away—Lily considered the situation. Tonight she’d realized her father was whatever he wanted her to think he was. He was a chameleon, changing his colors to suit his environment. This whole time he’d shown her only what she’d wanted to see.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Revelations Page 19