Chapter VII
VII
In fairy tales, big things happen in threes.
Three children. Three beds. Three roads.
The third bite is poison, the third gift is great, the third door always leads home.
It makes sense, then, that when Charlotte looks back on this time, it is the third ball she dwells on most.
The one that changes everything.
That night it’s held at some lord’s city manor, and there appears to be a theme.
The ornate interior of the impressive house has been transformed into a blooming garden: a well-manicured one, of course, every leaf and petal in its place, but the massive bouquets grow from every corner, and pale green gossamer spills down the walls, stitched with bits of glass that catch the light like dew on grass.
It is a wonder to behold, and Charlotte is surprised to find she wants to share it—not with Jocelyn, but with Sabine.
Alas, there is no sign of her new friend.
Charlotte has been at the ball the better part of an hour, more than enough time to be abandoned by her aunt, and then Edith and Margaret in turn, enough time to search the chambers and accept that the widow Olivares isn’t there.
Charlotte has finally resigned herself to braving the rest of the ball alone when someone touches her shoulder, and she turns, hopes rising, only to find George Preston.
The young man who asked to dance with her three nights before.
He bows, blond hair flopping into his face, then straightens with a sheepish grin.
“Miss Hastings,” he says, voice cracking a little around the words. “I was hoping I would find you. May I have the pleasure of your company, for this next dance?”
Her fingers close reflexively around the card at her wrist, the lines still blank. She is about to make some excuse when she spies her aunt watching from across the room, shrewd eyes narrowing with interest, and knows that she is trapped.
“Of course,” she says, managing a tepid smile as he leads her out onto the floor.
Their hands lift and meet, waiting for the music.
In the books Charlotte has read, the men all smell of leather or wood or winter air.
But not George Preston. He smells like soap and sweat, his hand clammy even through his glove and hers.
She is grateful that the dance keeps them apart as often as it brings them together.
But every time they do link arms, he rushes to tell her how glad he is they’ve met, how lovely she looks, how fine her dancing is, praise doled out in hurried snatches, and she knows she should feel flattered by the words, the breathless way he says them, but the truth is, they go right through her like a breeze.
The music quickens, and Charlotte does her best to keep up, trading partner for partner until she is returned to Mr. Preston’s side again, and just as the song charges toward its breathless end, she sees her.
Sabine, growing like a wild bloom, her copper hair wound into a braided crown, her dress a mossy green. She catches Charlotte’s gaze and lifts a glass, the crystal winking as it strikes the light. Charlotte nearly stumbles, but George is there to steady her.
The song ends, and the dancers all applaud, and Charlotte offers her partner a hurried curtsy and a thank-you, before fleeing to her friend.
“There you are,” she says, still breathless from the dance. “I was beginning to think you might not come.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” says Sabine. And yet, she doesn’t look happy to see Charlotte. Her expression is stern, almost severe, and Charlotte cannot help but ask if something’s wrong.
In response, those hazel eyes land on her, heavy and unblinking.
“Indeed,” she says. “I’ve discovered something troubling . . . about you.”
Charlotte feels her stomach lurch, the floor tilt dangerously beneath her. “Oh?”
But instead of going on, Sabine takes her by the arm and leads her out of the main hall, and into an adjoining parlor. She pulls the doors shut in her wake, and the rest of the ball is swallowed behind gossamer and glass.
Sabine folds her arms, as if waiting for a confession, and Charlotte feels her heart trip inside her chest, the blood draining from her face, afraid that she has done something untoward, or somehow overstepped.
“Whatever it is—” she begins, when Sabine cuts in.
“You don’t know how to dance.”
The air comes rushing out of Charlotte’s lungs like steam, and she finds herself laughing out of sheer relief. “Of course I do,” she says.
And she does.
That is, she’d learned—with James and Jocelyn and Joss’s cousin Anthony, the boys in coattails and the girls barefoot, twirling on the polished wooden floor of Clement Hall. The four of them turning and crossing and handing each other off like parcels, while their tutor plunked the keys.
But now in the parlor, Sabine shakes her head. “You are merely going through the motions.”
“Isn’t that the point?” she asks, to which her new friend clicks her tongue.
“Perhaps,” she says, “if you’re content to secure a husband with no taste,” and Charlotte almost says she’d be happier still to secure no man at all. Catching herself at the last moment, she crosses her arms and says instead, “Well then, how am I supposed to dance?”
Sabine holds out a gloved hand. “I will show you.”
The words make Charlotte shiver. It is not that she doesn’t want to take the offered hand. It’s that she does, and does not trust herself. She bites her lip and looks around. “We have no music.”
“Of course we do,” says Sabine, inclining her head. And sure enough, she can hear it, coming through the door, a little muted, its edges furred, but there. The musicians picking up again. A new song just beginning.
Charlotte brings her gloved hand to rest atop Sabine’s, only their fingers hooked together.
“When you dance,” she begins, “imagine there is a wind.”
She moves, and so does Charlotte.
“A force that you must push against.”
She turns, and Charlotte turns, too.
“The wind does not want you to reach your partner.”
Sabine retreats a step, holding Charlotte at arm’s length.
“But the wind is the only thing holding you back, and without it—”
Sabine draws Charlotte suddenly forward.
“—you would reach your prize.”
Charlotte flushes, off-balance, but Sabine steadies her, and says, matter-of-factly, “You are too stiff. Relax. Close your eyes.”
A nervous laugh. “I’ll trip.”
That teasing smile. “Don’t you trust me?”
And funnily enough, she does.
Charlotte closes her eyes and, after a few awkward paces, she surrenders, lets herself by moved by feel alone.
Guided by Sabine’s hand on her arm, her back, her waist, Sabine’s voice, saying Good, saying Better, saying There you are.
In the absence of sight, her other senses brighten, her skin humming with the nearness of another body.
Not just any body, but Sabine.
Sabine, whose hand is cool and dry, who does not smell of soap and sweat, but fresh-turned soil, and melting sugar, night air, and ripe stone fruit.
“Now,” says her teacher. “Let’s try again.”
Charlotte opens her eyes and they dance, the precise order of the steps abandoned, replaced by the rhythm of the music and Sabine’s whim as she leads.
They move together like a girl and her shadow.
Linked one moment at the elbow, the next, the tips of their fingers.
Bodies that briefly overlap, and tangle, only to break apart again, and every time they do, Charlotte feels as if a rope’s drawn tight between them, the almost physical urge to catch Sabine’s hand, to draw her close again.
“When did you learn?” she asks as they lock elbows.
“Another life,” says Sabine as they tangle, turn.
“How many have you had?” asks Charlotte.
“More than most . . .”
The song ends to polite applause beyond the door.
In the parlor, Charlotte stands inches from Sabine, their arms still raised, fingers laced in the space between them, and Charlotte cannot bring herself to pull away, so she waits for Sabine to lower her hand.
To break the cord humming in the air. Instead, she holds the pose, the slightest smile tugging at her lips, as if it is a test.
Or worse, a game.
The thought is enough to make Charlotte drop her hand. She retreats a step, and smooths her skirts and says, “I suppose we should get back. I wouldn’t want to keep you from any suitors.”
She waits for Sabine to nod and turn to the doors. But she doesn’t. Instead, her eyes burn into Charlotte’s.
“Alas,” she says, “none of them are suited to my tastes.” And surely it is just a bit of clever repartee, but Charlotte’s stubborn heart still quickens for a moment at the thought—the hope —of what could live between those words. “You, on the other hand,” she adds, “will have your pick.”
Charlotte’s stomach twists at the memory of George Preston’s clammy hand.
I do not want them, she thinks. I do not want their gazes on me. I do not want their hands. I feel nothing when they touch me. I feel nothing when they speak. And when I dance with them, it does not feel like this.
“Well,” she says, clearing her throat. “I doubt I’ll find someone who leads as well as you.” She forces her body toward the door, but it betrays her halfway there. “Why are you helping me?” she asks, turning back. “Surely there are better ways to spend a ball.”
Sabine’s mouth twitches. “I have been at court long enough to know how dreadful it can be.” She drifts toward Charlotte once again. “And how pleasant,” she adds, “in the right company.”
She reaches up and for a moment, Charlotte thinks she is about to stroke her cheek. She holds her breath, and hopes, but then the hand slides past, to fix an errant curl.
Beyond the parlor door, the music lifts. Another song begins.
“Well?” says Sabine. “Shall we rejoin the ball?”
Charlotte shakes her head. “Not yet. I think I need more practice.”
Sabine smiles. “As you like,” she says.
And so they dance again.