by Jane M. R.
I’m made to sit and my mother carries over a pair of blood red high heels with straps arching over the top of each foot and wrapping halfway up my calves. I stand in them and swear I’ve got two of Zadicayn’s castle towers beneath me.
The six-hour ritual bordering on torture finally over, my mother teams with Varseena to gush enough to challenge school girls. I reach for the long coat to protect me from further staring. There is no need for rouge because I’m blushing enough to earn a cherry’s envy. I don’t need to look in the mirror. I feel exactly how I look. And this isn’t who I am.
My father meets us downstairs in his celebration best. He takes my mother by the arm and leads her outside to the coach. He helps her inside first and then me. Knocking on the ceiling, the coach grumbles forward, followed by a steady creak of wheels and stomping horse hooves on gravel.
My mother leans into my father to whisper in his ear, but I still hear my name.
The Community Hall is too gaudy to be worthy of the small town of Valemorren. White stones glow from the light of a thousand lanterns around the foundation of the building and several more hanging from the eaves. A cobbled walkway leads to a wide spread of shallow steps in a semi-circle decorating the front of the building and the open doors. The coach stops. My father exits, assisting my mother first, and then me. Before I can take two steps my father is scooping me into an embrace.
“I’m so proud of you!” Is he crying? “My little girl has grown up.”
“Fabrin! You’ll ruin her hair!” Janella sweeps over and slaps at his arms until he lets go.
I take the lead, looking over my shoulder at my parents who have fallen behind. Like… on purpose.
A symphony reaches me as I approach the large open doors, playing Bach’s Minuet in G Major. My mother often plays it on her violin, along with several sheets of Beethoven. The tempo calms the fibers in the cool air and I breath it in, trying to chase my nervousness away… nervous because I think I actually look pretty tonight. I’m no good when it comes to actually trying to attract the opposite sex. My insides get all squirmy when I think they’re looking at me and I look for a tree to climb. I blame that on Durain, too.
I pass through the doors. The foyer bleeds red wallpaper and carpet. Pictures of the men who built this ancient Hall pepper the walls with gold plaques explaining the history. Small tables beside cushioned chairs hold at least ten candles each. Those just arriving cluster in small groups as they meet with friends, color popping into view every time a black coat molts off white shoulders.
I hang my own coat in the space provided, turning to the table where I pen my name on the open page of the guest book. I straighten up. Take a deep breath, mounting my courage to ride it through the next set of doors into the Grand Hall to prove to Jaicom I am serious. Since our last ride together, I finally believe I am. I enter the Ballroom.
Every member in town floods the red and white swirled marble floor, polished to reflect the light from the gas lamps dangling like tears from the balcony on the second floor. Green and silver banners spill down from those balconies, advertising the Whaerin family colors of their business, as if they are afraid people might stop using lumber to build houses and would instead use straw and mud.
The domed ceiling boasts a painted celestial grandeur and I wonder if this is what Zadicayn’s castle had looked like at its finest. The orchestra playing from the large dais on one end of the hall puts me at ease in this Horse Show. Pillars support the second balcony and open doorways on both levels lead outside to the view of the lake. Silver curtains grace each doorway but they are tied back to allow the lake breeze to waft through.
My mother was right. Every eligible girl here is in contest with each other. The room bursts with swirling colors and patterns and gas light reflect from glossy gold to sultry black hair, the perfume of rose thick enough to chew.
Someone touches my arm. I turn, expecting my father. My stomach flip flops as Jaicom’s handsome smile brightens on me. I can’t interpret what the flip flop in my stomach actually means.
“Miss Frondaren,” he says with a curt bow at the waist, “would you join me for this next cotillion?”
I courtesy back to him, taking his arm as he leads me onto the floor as the crowd begins clapping at the end of the song. We take our positions with three other couples, wait those three breaths before the music starts, and move on cue.
We bow to each other, then link hands with the couple to the left and right of us so we are joined in walking in a circle. The circle breaks and I am joined with the man on my right, walk around each other, and I’m passed off. I make it back to Jaicom.
“You are beautiful,” he says.
In a backwards way, I think I understand why Zadicayn keeps calling me a troll. “Thank you.”
We are both passed off to different partners, and by the end of the French-born country dance I’m dizzy with all the walking in tight circles. Joined back together, all of us face the spectators watching along the walls and bow to their generous clapping.
“Thank you, Miss Frondaren. I trust I’ll be seeing you throughout the night?”
Of course. My shoes are too tall and my corset too tight for me to walk home. I courtesy. “Twas a pleasure, Mr. Whaerin.”
I watch him merge into the crowd who are regathering for the next dance, hoping he makes nothing of the fact I used the word “twas.”
But I’m dizzy and a little breathless so I go to the refreshment table and inadvertently run into Crisy. I try to pretend I don’t see her. Because if she looks at my eyes she’s going to see herself in them with Jaicom touching her cheek.
“Miss Frondaren!”
I feign surprise. “Miss Garfair!” Now that I have acquired her piece of the key, I have no excuse for not calling on her more. I hope she hasn’t noticed.
Her eyes are following someone behind me. Likely Jaicom. “How have you been?”
I shrug. “Been busy with violin and painting lessons.”
“You played very beautifully at the social. I’ve been…”
I pick up a wine glass filled with chilled pale pink wine. The one-sided conversation continues without any effort from me, which I am grateful for since I can’t report on the interests of my own days since all of them are illegal.
My eyes are scanning the crowd both dancing and fanning themselves off to the sides, picking out faces I don’t recognize, some pretty fine looking young men likely from Bristol. Maybe even a few from London. As small as Valemorren is, we claim a highly reputable silver mine and Aklen Whaerin is not shy about throwing his own business in even the Queen’s face. Rumor has it the Queen is going to make him a Lord. God help us.
I hear Crisy sighing and I snap back to reality too obviously, trying to pull from the remnants of my attention what the last thing it was that she said. She shakes herself as if suddenly caught in her own daydream. “I just envy you so badly that Jaicom has his eyes on you.” She says it lightly, like it’s just a matter of inconvenience for her. She hides the truth well.
I know you do. I wish I could tell you right now that you can have him. But I’m afraid no one else will have his eyes on me and then I’ll become a spinster. Believe me, Crisy, I feel as awful about it as you do. “Lucky you’ve got all of these fine men from London to choose from.” I smile to keep the awkward subject airy.
Her eyes shift behind me and she leans slightly to the left to look over my shoulder. “I’ll say. Look who just walked in!”
That’s one small mercy God granted Crisy… she has this ability to move on if a wall shoots up in front of her. Any other, finer looking man with tall status would not have to fight too hard to sway her away. She is pretty enough that it wouldn’t be hard for her, either. She prefers her corset tighter than I do so she is already well on her way to having that sharply narrowed waist and healthy hips.
“I said look Miss Frondaren!”
“Let me guess,” I say, “it’s my constable escort I had for several weeks after my kidnap.
The one who’s fifteen years older than you?”
She laughs at my joke. “He was cute.” She keeps making eyes at whoever has caught her interest behind me. My eyes shift to the young men behind Crisy who aren’t fifteen years older than me. “I much prefer blond hair on a man but his black hair brings out his pretty eyes. He fills out his clothes pretty nicely, too.”
“Miss Garfair! You’ve got the rest of the town fooled into thinking you are a lady but you won’t be able to hide it from the men from London if you go on like that.”
She politely ignores my jab and scrunches her face. “He’s got a short pony tail. That’s kind of strange.” One more visual molestation of the man brings Crisy back into our shared space. “He’s really handsome and all but I can’t place his Middle Ages looking clothes.”
“Middle Ages?” I ask mindlessly with a short chuckle. “That’s really odd.”
My hand clinches onto the spindly stem of my wine flute. OH BLOODY HEEEELL NO!
“Ya. Really. Turn around so you can see him.”
“Hmhmmmhm,” I choke passed lips so tightly pressed they are numb. The flute stem snaps in my fingers. Calm down. Calm down. It is not him. Of course it’s not him. How could it be him? Because it’s not. It’s not him because he is as hairy as that gypsy’s stupid monkey named Tommy though I have no idea why I still remember its name and Crisy would not find him attractive. Zadicayn, not the monkey. Stop getting all anxious over just a few words or you’ll give yourself away like you did when you started spouting Old English off to mother at dinner.
My pulse calms down after this logic. I hope Crisy didn’t hear the snap of my wine stem in my fit of illogical panic.
Crisy is still watching him. She inclines her head a little. “I thought his eyes were green. But now that he’s walking toward us, they actually look… gold –”
I don’t know what happened to my wine glass. A handful of Crisy’s blue dress ends up in my hand instead as I push her out of my way so hard the poor girl spins on her high heel. It’s by an act of God she doesn’t fall down.
Running on the toes of my high heels, I’m skating across the dance floor and tripping over my dress in the corridor before I jam back on my reins.
I’m running for nothing. And now everyone who can still see Brine Frondaren beneath this mask of makeup will know I was the fool who just made a scene. I take a peak back into the Ballroom. The music is still playing and people are still dancing. Maybe I didn’t make a scene, though my heart tells me I got lucky.
I rest my back against the wall. The corridor is dark and empty. A few candles bear the responsibility to provide at least some light so people won’t walk into the tables and chairs.
What’s wrong with me? Tripped up by yet another word. Gold. There are people with unusual colored eyes. I’ve seen them. And they didn’t come crawling out of a vault in a castle tucked away. And maybe his eyes were just a very light brown. Gas lamps did alter color somewhat.
I try again to force logic into my skull. Zadicayn is not here. He wouldn’t dare wonder out of his castle to explore society at random. He said the church and three families would try to hunt him down if they found out he was out of the vault. It would be suicide to show his hairy face. And that’s the biggest logic of all of this… Crisy would not find a hairy faced man attractive. He also speaks a different dialect… another dead giveaway.
But just to pretend for a moment… what if he randomly showed up in society? Why am I running? What is this surge of panic that still has my limbs riddled with adrenaline? I have no idea. I wish it would stop.
I force myself to breath as much as my lung-restricting corset will let me. I need to apologize to Crisy. Make up same lame excuse she will buy. I turn from the wall, looking into the Ballroom to make sure my re-entrance is not noted as wildly as my exit was.
“Why art ye running, Brine?”
With a choke, I spin around so hard in my high heels that my ankle rolls. I’m wildly trying to right myself as I fall to the floor but hands grab at me, saving my face from planting on the carpet and my ankle from snapping. Despite the confusion of their hands and mine, we finally stop moving and I’m looking up into gold eyes.
I’m going to throw up.
I’m arched over backward (I have no idea how) from where I was recovered from my fall and it takes a moment of shakily recovered grace to right myself on my own feet with no one else’s hands touching me.
For once, all of Crisy’s Assessment of Attractive Men was right.
I try to talk but my heart is in my throat so I end up sounding like Tommy. It’s not him. I don’t know who this is, but it’s not him. It can’t be. Zadicayn isn’t shaved.
Secured in this sound assessment, I smile politely and turn away, not even bothering to thank him for saving me from falling face first into my foolishness.
I go outside. The night breeze off the lake feels marvelous.
A pier extends onto the lake. Two couples already occupy its furthest reach. I sit down on a bench facing the lake. Violins from inside are screaming too loudly, the pound of piano keys throbbing in my head like thick fingers pointing at what I refuse to believe is real.
It wasn’t Zadicayn. It wasn’t.
Boots crunch the gravel behind me. “Ye art nary the first to flee from these devilishly handsome fine looks.”
I take one, fortifying breath. “That is not why I ran.”
“No? Then why dost ye flee?”
Each excuse tumbles useless across my thoughts. “Vanity is one of the seven Deadly Sins.”
“Which is why I hath accurately called it devilishly.”
My gaze is still fixed on the lake, hoping the moon-splashed night cloaks my warm cheeks. “There is no way you recognized me in a dress with makeup and pinned-up hair. Who did you spell to point me out to you?”
“I spelled that blond haired waghalter who hath claimed thy first dance into showing me the only troll in the room.” He pauses. “He wast useless so I had to find ye on my own. Now…” A rustle of clothes shifts behind me as he moves, “did I go through all this effort to shave and walk four miles only to be refused a dance from yew?”
Perfect. Modern. English. Something moves through my blood and I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to come to the surface if I stand. The music behind me in the ballroom is irritating me.
I stand. Take in another breath, and face him. Heat rushes under my dress. Somehow his remarkable good looks finally not buried beneath all that atrocious hair made touching him while we slept on the kitchen floor something so much different.
Even with the bench between us, he holds out a hand freed of black hair, his fingers plump with color. Healthy.
“Okay.” I throw the word together, as if hastily building a shelter to hide under. I avert my eyes so he will not question why I am looking at him so obviously. His clothes do resemble something from the Middle Ages, but they are neat and crisp and his posture is in such a way that makes him and his clothes not stand out too badly. Small minded Valemorren will just think it’s the latest fashion trend from London.
I lay my white gloved fingers in his hand and he guides me around the bench. I lag a little behind as we walk toward the Ballroom, looking him up and down better without him noticing. His black hair is shaved on both sides, growing longer at the top and cavorting hand in hand with rogue in the way it is spiked with some pomade. His short pony tail at the base of his neck is secured three times down the length of the tail with silver string and colored beads.
The current Gavotte is ending and cheers burst into my eardrums. Why is everything so loud?
Once the cheering calms, the conductor announces to the room, “We will now be conducting the Waltz to Johann Stauss’s Voices of Spring.”
Zadicayn isn’t going to know how to do a Victorian Waltz. He’s got to know that too, so I end up resisting when he tugs on my arm to follow him onto the dance floor. My heels are already on fire because of all the eyes falling on my Middle Ages
boy who should still be locked in a vault according to the three families, and dead according to the church. If he botches dancing, his accent coupled with his unfamiliar dress and hair cut is going to bring the church in here faster than Hell’s Carriage.
I’m only able to reassure myself that Aklen Whaerin doesn’t recognize Zadicayn on the spot because Aklen has never seen him.
Zadicayn’s tugging becomes more persistent.
“No!” I hiss, trying to be quiet about it. “Dancing has changed since you last did it! And the Waltz is not the dance to learn on the spot.”
He looks hard at me. “I’m not about to go through all of this effort for ye just to make ye look like a fool in the end.” His gaze is fixed on me and I don’t remember when I stepped closer. “Trust me.”
I can’t afford to trust him. But I want to. Still distracted over his declaration of, …all of this effort for ye… I give in to his pull and he takes me to the floor where we join the mass of people assembling there. I admire his heart, but I doubt the warm forgivings of my current society. There are enough people and dresses that when he messes up it won’t be noticed right away.
We face each other. The conductor cues us and we step in close. Too close. I try not to notice, averting my gaze to look at everyone but at this eighteen-year-old with his hand on my lower back. He’s about two inches taller. I pray to God that my dress isn’t as low as it feels.
The music begins and purely because we sweep into a spin, he sucks me in closer to complete the move. I’m not sure why I am suddenly numb, but I loosen up – just a little – after the third leisure spin about the floor, noticing with halting admiration that he does know how to Waltz. I’ll nag him later about how.
We spin again and I hang my head back. His strides stretch out and I reach to match it; a challenge with my current footwear but he’s able to bend with me in such a way that I find I don’t have that great of an issue.
I’m getting dizzy again. I’m not sure if it’s from my tight corset, the relentless spinning, or something else…