Chapter IV
IV
London, England
One moment, Charlotte is surrounded by people, and the next, she is alone.
Her aunt peels away to join a cluster of women chatting by a grand bouquet, and soon after Margaret and Edith are called to dance, and both stroll off without a backward glance, and just like that, Charlotte finds herself at her first ball without a chaperone.
Small mercies, she thinks, grateful to be free of Amelia’s constant scrutiny.
She claims a glass of lemonade and drifts from room to room, slowing now and then to take in the splendor of the ball.
More than once, Charlotte feels herself drawn to a halt by the sheer grandeur of it, but every time she feels like she is in the way or underfoot, so she retreats, until her shoulders meet the curtained wall, and watches the servants pass with silver trays, the men and women talk and dance, the whole thing like a play until—
Her gaze snags on another girl, across the room.
It is the color of her hair that catches Charlotte’s eye, her breath. Or rather, the lack of color, her curls the same glossy black as Jocelyn’s. The same lily-white skin, so pale it glows against the rose tone of her dress.
Her head turns, this phantom friend, and just before their eyes meet, Charlotte is convinced they will be green—but of course, they’re not.
They’re dark, and just like that, the resemblance mercifully dissolves.
And yet, she does not look away, and neither does the girl.
The moment stretches like a rope between them, and then the girl’s mouth twitches, tugs into the kind of secret smile that makes Charlotte’s face go hot, and her heart quicken .
. . until she realizes that the look, the smirk, are meant for someone else.
A young man who strolls up and bows, asking her to dance.
The girl curtsies, offers him a white-gloved hand, and lets herself be drawn away.
And Charlotte wishes she could melt into the floor.
Instead, she claims another glass of lemonade and escapes, out of the room and across the intervening hall to the safety of the stairs. She is halfway up before her pulse finally slows, and so does she, one hand on the glass and the other clutching the rail as if for balance.
She sighs. From here, at least, she can absorb the ball in peace, see the couples dancing in the hall below. Her own card hangs from her wrist, the lines still mercifully blank.
She watches the partners move in time with the music, drifting together and apart, their hands grazing, elbows hooking for an instant before they separate.
On the girls, the dresses glitter, like sunlight glancing off a pond.
And every movement sets them shining, the candlelight glancing off their hips, and hands, their collarbones, and breasts.
Charlotte swallows and forces her attention to the other half.
To the young gentlemen, dressed in their coats and tails, their combed-back hair and white cravats, each there to court and find a match, secure the future of their house.
She studies them, and tries to summon something.
To understand what the girls find so alluring about this other sex.
What makes their hearts quicken and their faces flush.
Charlotte has read enough romance to know the way she should feel in their presence, and yet, while more than once the heroes in those books stirred her, reality does not.
She watches, wanting to want them, the way she wanted Jocelyn. Wanting to feel that mix of fear and hope, a hunger for their gaze, their touch, wanting her heart to flutter in their presence.
And when that fails, she tries a new approach—pretends that they are sculptures instead of flesh, breaks them down into their component parts and tries to admire the neat lines of their shoulders, the curl of their hair.
There is an elegance, to some of them. A poise.
But the longer she looks, the more the vision cracks, the charm rippling like a mirage until they are reduced again to awkward limbs, jutting chins, their posture so stiff she pictures them as paper dolls mounted on sticks, or—
“Like show ponies, prancing,” says a voice behind her, and the image makes Charlotte snort into her drink. She gasps, and wipes her nose, imagining Aunt Amelia’s horror, after the week of etiquette, as she turns to face the speaker.
And her whole world stops.
Later, when Charlotte looks back on this moment, it will take on the air of the impossible. In her mind, the ball will come to a grinding halt, the music stopped, the bodies frozen in their poses, some dancing and others with glasses halfway to their lips, the moment suspended on a breath.
Of course, that is not how it happens.
And yet, that is how it feels.
Like time is splintering, her whole life split into before and after. And who knows what might have happened, if she hadn’t kissed Jocelyn that day in the grass—if she hadn’t been sent to her aunt’s house that year—if she hadn’t been on those stairs at that ball on that night—
But she did. She was. She is.
The woman at her side is pretty. And yet, pretty is too dull a word.
She is tall and slim, with features more like a Grecian bust than an English rose.
There is a sharpness to her edges that sets her apart, but then, so does everything about her.
She is dressed in purple. Not lavender, or mauve, or lilac, or any of the other pastel hues that are in vogue this spring, but a much darker shade, one closer to bruised plum, or grape.
Her skin is fair and smooth, and her hair.
Her hair. Ropes of copper bright enough to burn the air around her head where it’s been coiled.
She is a few years older than Charlotte, at a guess.
Or perhaps she only seems that way. All the other girls have a restless air, as if caught in a constant, nervous breeze.
But this one stands, arms folded loosely across her waist, one gloved hand cupping her elbow, while the other twists a pendant at her throat.
Charlotte knows that she is staring, but she cannot help it.
And then the woman’s gaze, which until now has been leveled on the dancers, slides toward Charlotte, her eyes an ochre medley of gold and brown.
And there it is, that feeling the men have tried and failed to stir in her, that heady, ground-tipping mix of hope and fear, the hunger to move closer, and to shrink away.
Charlotte cannot bring herself to do either, so instead she forces her attention back to the dancers.
But the men have all been transformed into colts, with their odd, cantering gait.
“Oh no,” she groans. “Now all I see are horses.”
“You’re welcome,” teases the woman, and this time, Charlotte hears the faint touch of an accent, the very edges of her English foxed, as she gestures to the crowd below. “Well,” she muses, “anyone you’d like to ride?”
The sound that escapes from Charlotte is half gasp and half laugh, so sudden and so loud that a few heads around them turn, and she can practically hear her aunt Amelia tsk ing from somewhere down below.
She claps a hand over her mouth, mortified, but the woman only smiles, mischief dancing in her eyes.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she says, slipping a gloved hand through Charlotte’s arm. That touch, so easy, so familiar, Charlotte never thinks to hold her ground, simply melts into it as the stranger draws her up the stairs.
“You’re new to town.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“No,” says the woman, “but I have a knack for noticing. For instance,” she adds, nodding toward a pair at the bottom of the stairs, “ that is Lady Pendleton’s eldest, Eleanor.
Pretty enough, but as interesting as paint.
Unless, of course, you enjoy hearing someone spend an hour talking about curtains.
There, beside her, is her brother, Albert, who has made the rounds three years now and refuses to propose. ”
“Is no one to his liking?”
“On the contrary, they all are. He cannot seem to pick.” Next, she gestures to a gentleman at the edge of the dance floor, a pale mustache like a line of cream across his upper lip.
“Frederick Hanover, likes to promise, never delivers, and on the way has ruined the purity of countless prospects. You don’t want anything to do with him. ”
As they make their way around the balcony, several guests nod warmly at the woman on her arm. She answers each with passing charm, but her attention never strays from Charlotte.
“Henry Castle,” she continues, gesturing to a slender young man with a crop of dark curls. “If looks were wealth, he would do fine, but alas, his family’s estate is crumbling.”
Charlotte tries to pay attention, but it’s hard to notice anything but the scent of roses wafting from the woman at her side, the way her breath tickles the curls at Charlotte’s neck.
“That girl there, the one in blue,” she says, nodding at a figure in the doorway, “is Lisbeth Rennick. She was supposed to debut last S eason, but she spent seven months up north instead. For her health. ” A knowing pause.
“And that one, with the white-blond curls, is Olivia Finch. One ball in, and her card is full. Apparently, she’s as kind as she is pretty. ”
“And you ?” asks Charlotte, unable to hold her curiosity at bay.
Those hazel eyes widen a fraction. And then, she laughs. A soft, low sound.
“Forgive me,” she says, “I’ve skipped straight to the part where we are already friends.”
With that, she pulls back, drops into a brief but elegant curtsy. “My name,” she says, “is Sabine Olivares.”
Sabine.
That name. Charlotte does not know, then, how many times over the years it will spill out of her, as a longing, or a plea, or a curse. In that moment, all she knows is that she finds it strange and beautiful and fitting.
She feels a little giddy as she presents herself.
“Charlotte Hastings,” she says, bobbing in her dress, “but my family calls me Lottie.”
And there it is again, that smile, like a secret, or an inside joke. “First strangers to friends, and now friends to family? It appears we both are skipping steps.”
Charlotte knows she’s imagining the coyness in the woman’s tone, but her heart still gives a little flip, and she knows that if she were to pass a mirror at that moment, the color would be there, like a signal on her cheeks.
She is glad when Sabine begins to walk beside her once again. And yet, it’s strange, the easy way their bodies fit together, as if molded by years instead of minutes, and Charlotte finds she is far too aware of the places they meet, so she forces her attention back to the ball.
“How do you know so much about them all?” she asks as they descend the stairs.
Her new companion shrugs. “Sharp eyes, keen ears, and a gift for going unnoticed.”
“But surely you don’t,” she says. “I mean, how could anyone not look at you ?”
The moment the words are out, Charlotte feels her face go hot, wishes she could take them back, not because she didn’t mean them but because she did, and what is wrong with her?
But Sabine doesn’t cringe, demur, or even blush. Only lifts a single brow to show she’s heard the words, then carries on straight past them. “Ah, but you see,” she says, “there is one thing that renders me invisible.”
“What’s that?”
“I am a widow.”
Charlotte’s heart sinks on her behalf. “Oh,” she says as they reach the bottom of the stairs. “How dreadful. I am sorry.”
Sabine leans in, her voice barely a whisper as she says, “I’m not.”
The words are at once so soft and yet so jarring that Charlotte wonders if she even heard them, but before she can ask, or even stop to study Sabine’s face, a young man strides up to them.
His hair is a shock of honey blond, his face long and narrow.
Charlotte assumes he’s come for Sabine, but then he bows to her.
“Miss Hastings,” he says. “How nice to find a new face at the ton. I am George Preston. Of Barrington. I was hoping to have the next dance.”
“With me?” she asks, vaguely stunned.
George looks from her, to Sabine, and back again. “Yes. I mean, if your card has room, and Mrs. Olivares does not mind.”
“Nay,” says her new friend, and only Charlotte hears the slight trill at the end of the word, making it sound like neigh instead, and she has to stifle a grin.
And before she can think of an excuse, Charlotte feels Sabine’s hand come to rest against the small of her back, light fingers nudging her forward, into George’s outstretched palm.
Charlotte has no choice. She lets him lead her out onto the floor.
More than once, she glances back, expecting to find her new companion gone, but every time she looks, Sabine is still there, those hazel eyes fixed on Charlotte, until the music swells and the dance carries her away.