Chapter 5
Iscamper off, intent on fleeing the crowd before anyone notices the tears creeping out from underneath my mask, smearing my paint. Unfortunately, the stranger had been occupying the only remote alcove in the ballroom, and though he’s escaped into the crowd I can’t quite bring myself to turn around.
The shining double doors of the hall stretch out on the other side of the ballroom, but there is a battalion of coin-mongering aristocrats between me and there.
In my moment of hesitation, a hand clamps on my shoulder, forcing me to spin around.
“Might you grace me with a dance, my lady?” If the boorish stranger considered me an infant, this man surely should. Tufts of wiry gray hair form a wreath around the shine of his pale bald head, a monocle magnifying one of his watery blue eyes to twice its size. His voice is just as damp as his eyes, as if whatever he last ate is still dawdling in his throat.
Normally, I would not despise a man for the unfortunate ailments common to advanced age, but given the way his gaze focuses in on my bosom like a robin to a wriggling worm, I seem to have lost my knack for sympathy.
“I—” I don’t get the opportunity to object before the aristocrat slips his large wrinkled hand over my waist and pulls me into him, his dank breath wetting my hairline just below where his quivering lips linger.
“Such a little prize, aren’t you?” he says, wetting his pale lips with his tongue.
My stomach turns over, my tears forgotten as panic kindles inside my chest.
“My lord, I’m afraid we’ve yet to make introductions,” I say, fighting to keep my voice from shaking underneath the weight of his firm hand at my waist. My vision threatens to tunnel, to sweep me away to the parlor and the feel of velvet and the smell of incense and the touch of… But no. I slam those memories away and scramble for a polite but efficient way out of this situation, but my mind is still reeling from my mortifying encounter with the handsome stranger.
I like to think myself intelligent, despite what that horrid man might think about me, but my wit is the quiet sort. The kind that flourishes in solitude, in the shy pockets of the day. It spews from my pen rather than my mouth, and I often find my tongue clumsy where my script might have been elegant.
My mind slows in a crowd, and the effect worsens with stress.
“Lord Credence.” He says his name as though I should recognize it. When I don’t, he frowns. “You wrote to me by your own hand, Miss Darling.”
“Oh.”
“I must say, you’re much more eloquent in ink than you are with that tongue of yours.”
The words sting, though I shouldn’t let them. Fire spouts within me, and I long for a clever retort. I’m confident one will come to me as soon as I deliver myself from this man’s clutches.
“But no matter,” he continues. “In Estelle, the men might be weak-minded enough to allow their daughters to choose their husbands, but we know better in Kruschi. When I make you my bride, that your lips are heavy will be of little importance.”
“And why…” I say, slowly, to emphasize my point, “do you assume I would pick you to be my husband, Lord Credence?”
“Because, my dear,” he says, pulling my body closer to his as he leans in, his damp lips grazing my forehead and issuing a cringe through my bones as he does, “I’m the only one in this room who would dare take a claimed bride.”
My limbs freeze underneath the weight of his words, and he practically has to drag me through the next few steps of the dance.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I say.
“Now, Miss Darling. Don’t pretend me dull. It wouldn’t be fair. I’ve not determined as much of you, despite your sluggishness in expressing yourself. Your family might play this masquerade off as fun and games, a show of extravagance and a display of extreme wealth, but no Estellian puts his daughter’s body into the wandering hands of strange men without reason.”
The foul man takes his thumb and begins pressing circles into my belly.
Disgust flares within me, but Lord Credence isn’t finished with his accusations. “We’re all thinking it, Miss Darling. Your father can flash your substantial dowry all he wants, but what good is all that money if it will go to an illegitimate son, bartered off upon an unsuspecting husband? Was that the plan, miss? To declare what a lucky and fertile woman you were for becoming with child so swiftly after the wedding night? Passing off your babe for one of noble birth?”
“Lord Credence, I assure you, no such thing has occurred.”
The foul man laughs. “Then explain to me the importance of your being married off with such urgency.”
The freckles of my Mark sting underneath my mask.
It’s not so far from the truth—the story this lord has concocted in his mind. No male has ever wanted me after realizing I’m Marked to another man, one I likely will never meet. As rare as it is for a Mark to appear, it’s even rarer to find one’s match.
Unfortunately, the rarity of it does nothing to assuage the paranoia and possessiveness of the male mind. Sure, perhaps the men invited to this masquerade have no inkling of my Mating Mark, but Lord Credence can’t be the only male here suspicious of my family’s motivations in marrying me off so quickly.
If the noblemen attending this ball think I’m with child, there’s little chance of them desiring me, no matter how large a dowry my father attaches to me.
Shadows swirl in my vision, but I’m fairly sure they’re conjurings of my own morbid imagination.
You’re mine, they whisper.
Because I always have been.
“If you’re not to be dissuaded, my lord, then why not leave me abandoned on the dance floor?”
Lord Credence chuckles, his breath foul as he flashes me a straight set of teeth which I imagine did not originally belong to him. “Because, Miss Darling, I shall tell you a secret. Though it’s about as much a secret in my homelands as your dalliances are to the men in this ballroom. I’ve outlasted five wives, none of which ever succeeded in bearing me an heir. Not even an heiress. Now, though, I’ll claim ’til the day they rest my body in the grave that it was my wives’ assets that were to blame, I’m no fool. I’m aware it’s likely I who am unable to produce offspring. While your condition might prove a hindrance in the lives of other men, it would solve a great tragedy in mine.”
“You wouldn’t care that the heir would not belong to you?” I ask, so caught off guard by this man’s way of thinking that I find myself momentarily apprehended in this preposterous lie.
“I have suffered shame long enough. No one would know the child was not mine. At least, no one could prove as much, even if they suspected. I told no one of the urgency of this ball when I left, and Kruschi is too remote for news to travel back.”
Indeed. That is the very reason we sent an invitation to Lord Credence to begin with.
“You’re offering a sham of a marriage, so that I might bear an heir in your name?” I ask, biting the inside of my cheek. The idea of being wed to this man makes me long to squirm out of his arms, but if he has no intention of coming near me…
“Oh, sham is not the word I would use,” he says, his trembling voice going gravelly. “A man is not without his needs, after all. Though several of my senses have been dulled with time, I am sure a beauty such as yourself…” He traces my hipbone with his fingertips, allowing his hand to slip down and cup my backside. I flinch, which only provokes him more. “I assure you, Miss Darling, you will fill my last few years of life with pleasure. Though I’m confident you’ll be grateful to fulfill my needs, considering what I’m offering you.”
My limbs seem to have frozen underneath his hungry, weathered touch. I long for nothing more than to free myself of his vulgar advances, but no matter how vehemently my mind screams at me to shove him away, my limbs don’t appear to be listening.
I remember my biology tutor telling me that prey often utilize one of two effective responses to being stalked. Fight or flee.
Then there are the unfortunate fools whose bodies are not meant for survival.
I can’t breathe, can’t move. Even Lord Credence has stopped dancing. I should cry out against him for his impropriety, but it’s as if I’m in a dream in which I’m trying to flee my pursuer, but I’m trapped within my own worthless body, unable to command my limbs.
“What do you say, Miss Darling? Grant an old man a little enjoyment in his last few years to live? Secure a fortune for yourself and your child?”
Ink creeps into the corners of my vision.
It occurs to me that this awful man might be my only hope to escape the shadows.
But could the shadows be worse than this?
“Forgive me,” says a voice that strikes me out of my stupor like a match to sandpaper. “But given the fact that Miss Darling must be married off by the midpoint of the night, it only seems efficient that a single suitor not hog her ever-dwindling time.”
Lord Credence’s hands immediately find a more appropriate place to sit on my waist, and though his grip on me still churns my stomach, relief sinks into my chest.
“Of course, Sir…erm…” Lord Credence scans the foul stranger with the Mating Mark painting his hand.
“Captain, actually. Captain Nolan Astor,” he says, but not to Credence. To me. His glowing green eyes set upon me with a fierceness that might have my cheeks flushing, if they weren’t already drained from my encounter with Credence.
“Dance with me,” says the captain, though his voice remains steady, balancing between a question and a command.
“Of course,” I say, only to get myself out of the hands of Credence.
Credence delays in relaxing his grip, at which point Captain Astor says, “In my homeland, three do not dance at a time.”
The elderly lord grumbles something under his breath. For all his confidence earlier, he’s clearly bewildered by the captain, who towers over him by a head. And Credence is no small man.
When the lord lets go of me, a noticeable weight lifts off my body. It’s as if the shackles binding my limbs have released, and now that I’m free to move, immense frustration irks me for not having run. Not having fought.
As the string quartet transitions to a more graceful tune, the captain leads me to the ballroom floor. I can’t help but notice the tension in his fingertips as he keeps them firmly but gently planted at my waist. Never faltering. Never roaming.
It would likely be proper to thank the captain for rescuing me out of the eely hands of Lord Credence, but I’m too mortified that I needed rescuing at all to say as much. Especially to a man as coarse as Captain Astor.
“I was under the impression you weren’t interested in a child bride,” I say, forcing my gaze to meet that of the captain. It’s easier now than it was several minutes ago. Captain Astor is still intimidating, his presence just as imposing. But compared to my dread of Lord Credence, my fear of the captain tastes more like the respect one gives a challenger.
“I’m not,” he responds, his green eyes flashing.
“Then why, pray tell, are you wasting your time dancing with me?”
The captain actually averts his eyes. I watch, tantalized, as his throat bobs underneath his dark stubble. “It seems your evening is destined to take a turn for the worse. No need to add to your suffering.”
Something about his open admission, the acknowledgment of the terrors I’ll likely be subjected to this very evening, digs at the raw spot in my chest. “Perhaps dancing with you is the very definition of suffering.”
He makes no effort to counter. Just returns his attention to me and drawls, “Perhaps,” with an unshakeable look of boredom on his face.
As we dance, the cadence of the tune picks up, and the captain adjusts accordingly, guiding us through the steps with more grace than I would have expected from someone so hardened. My parents had initially hoped to marry me off to a nobleman, but as my prospects dwindled and the shadows of my fate crept closer, they thought it best to stretch our nets to those of self-made wealth. A captain would be among those, though I don’t recall signing a letter to a Captain Astor when we posted the invitations. Though considering how many males are here tonight, I suppose I shouldn’t expect to remember each one of them, especially with my parents and John having helped me write the letters.
I’m about to tell the captain he’s a skilled dancer, and expect for him to say something about life on the waters giving him steady feet, when his jaw opens, then works.
“Yes?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“You seemed about to say something.”
Captain Astor sighs, annoyed. “You shouldn’t have let him touch you like that.”
I reel back, but the captain is prepared for it, adjusting his hand on my waist accordingly.
“What would you have had me do?”
Captain Astor doesn’t frown. Perhaps I’d find him less perplexing if he would. “Anything other than the nothing you did.”
My throat stings, his words lodging there. I’m used to being insulted by haughty suitors. Never have the insults echoed my own recriminations so precisely.
“It’s not so simple for me as it might be for you,” I whisper.
The tune changes, but rather than end our dance, the captain pulls me closer, transitioning with ease into the slower piece.
“Tell me why that is.” The surety with which he gives the command startles me. Though it shouldn’t. He’s used to captaining a ship after all. “And don’t hide behind a difference in strength between the sexes. The lord is one hip-snap away from teetering into the grave.”
“He had a generous offer,” I say, because I can’t bear to admit the truth—that my dulled instincts had me freezing underneath the lord’s predatory touch. “One I would have been foolish not to consider.”
Maybe it’s because I’m so used to conversing with noblemen that I’m not at all prepared for his response. “You’re not a talented liar, are you?”
I grit my teeth, averting my gaze from the captain’s taunting stare. “Are you blaming me for a cruel man’s unwanted advances when I myself am in a…precarious position?”
I shouldn’t have let the truth tucked between those vague words slip, but if Credence is right, the captain is too cunning not to errantly suspect an unwanted pregnancy.
The captain snorts. “We all hold dreams of a utopian sort of world where those in power refuse to oppress those with less of it. But Darling, that is not the realm in which you and I reside. Forgive me if I’m not one to placate the mentality that just because this world is a cruel and unjust place, we should take it lying down while we wait for others to change.”
“There’s no shame in meekness, Captain.”
His piercing green eyes linger on my mask for a moment. “None at all. But to possess cowardice and call it meekness is a different sort of deception entirely.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “You despise me so thoroughly, yet we’ve only just met.”
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t give me the dignity of averting his eyes when he responds, “That’s because I despise weak things. Especially those for whom it is within their power to be strong. You, Darling, are the type of girl who allows life to happen to you. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Why you’re gambling your future away on a night of frivolity in the hopes of finding a husband. Surely you recognize what a frail reprieve that would be from the fate you so wish to escape.”
My words hang in my throat. How does he know…?
“Tell me, have you ever considered a life outside of the little shadow box in which you’ve been content to wither away?”
“Everything I’ve ever done has been in service of preserving my future.”
“And what a life you’ve squandered in the meantime.”
He watches me, his gaze so sharp I feel as though it might penetrate my mask. Spiced scents of teakwood and pipe smoke waft off of him, permeating my senses until I’m dizzy. I search my chest for rattling anger, but find none.
I should be incensed; I know this. And yet I’m familiar enough with myself to know that if I were to be given another night in this realm, I would retire to bed numb, calm. Then, as I replayed the events of the evening, the harsh words this man dared to speak to me would kindle my anger, boiling over until sleep fled me. Until rage consumed me.
But I won’t get another night, so I suppose I’ll never taste the hatred I should feel toward this man.
So we dance, and I say nothing. Because what’s the point of conversation when one’s dance partner sees through them?
The music continues lazily, and I glance toward his left hand, his fingers interlocked with mine. Beautiful golden tendrils curl around his fingertips, tracing his knuckles and swarming the back of his hand before converging around his wrist. His crimson sleeves have slipped just enough that I can follow their path, except there’s no more path to follow. Where a normal Mating Mark might curtail into a natural end, there are dreadful, inky gashes on his wrists that slice his golden tendrils in half.
Below the gashes, the Mark has grayed like a day-old corpse that’s long lost its warmth.
“Oh.” The word escapes my lips before I can reel it in.
“Oh, indeed,” he responds, following my gaze.
“Did you find her before…” My words trail off as my eyes trace the severed mark, like flesh dangling from a three-day-old wound.
“Which answer do you find more tragically romantic?” he asks, his voice calcifying.
I snap my attention back to him, his hard lines and sharp edges suddenly softening in my perception, despite the way his jaw is set. As I return my consideration to his hand, I notice the gentle circlet of paler skin, untouched by the sun, curving around his ring finger—a wedding ring he must still wear and have taken off for the ball.
Mating Marks might be rare, but the legends of them are told around the hearth of every home in Estelle. I suppose we have a tendency to find them romantic—at least, people who aren’t born with them do.
Of course, the stories always end the same way. With one of the Mates meeting a terrible end, leaving the Mating Mark of the other severed in a gruesome display of grief. An interwoven life picked apart like meat from the bone amongst a horde of scavenging birds.
“You’re lucky to have found her,” I find myself saying. It’s insensitive, the sort of thing I’d never typically say. But something about the captain tells me he’s the type to appreciate someone who speaks their mind rather than wrapping their opinion in lies to make it more palatable.
The captain laughs, but it’s the wry sort with no smile to lift its edges. “Luck? Is that what you’d call it? Do you think it’s luck to have one’s soul ripped in half, like a sail down the seam?”
“Better to lose love than die searching for it,” I say, though more to myself than to the strange captain holding me in his sturdy arms.
“Best of all to find love and be strong enough to protect it,” he responds, his hand tensing at my waist.
“But that’s not the realm we live in, now is it?”
It’s not a smile that grazes the captain’s full lips, but there’s a softening there. Perhaps seasoned with a hint of surprise.
“I think—Darling—” the captain says, spinning me around with a flourish before catching me at his firm chest, “that you and I might very well be the most pitiful creatures in this room.”
“Then it’s a good thing we found one another,” I respond, trying not to let my mind linger on the smokiness of the teakwood scent wafting off of him, the way his chest ebbs and flows against my cheek, pressing the edge of my mask into my face. It will leave a mark against my sensitive skin later, but I can’t bring myself to readjust. “Imagine the number of people we might have infected with our misery had we been paired off with anyone else.”
“Well, perhaps that old lordling will catch the fever and die before you can accept his proposal.”
My heart stutters. Anticipation wells in my chest as the familiar song on the strings hurries through its bridge, racing much too swiftly to a close.
The captain and I have already danced two songs tonight and other suitors are beginning to crowd. No one is foolish enough to stare. They mostly inch toward us, their feet pointed in my direction, though their conversation is elsewhere, ready to pounce at the last second.
“You think I would accept?” I ask, hating how obvious my silent question is by the way my pitch heightens.
“As I said,” the captain says, bringing us to a stop as the song comes to a close, “I think you’re the type of girl who lets life happen to you.”
My stomach drops, any flicker of connection I felt for this man clearly absent on his end.
Stupid. Stupid to dance with him. Stupid to get my hopes up, if only for the exchange of a few beautiful words.
My throat is closing up with embarrassment, my cheeks heating with mortification, so I step backward, but the captain’s hand lingers in mine, and in a swift motion he pulls me back into him.
And then his hand is on my neck, the rough ridges of his fingerprints staining my memory with his touch. He tucks his fingers into the underside of my braid, slipping his thumb against the crook of my neck, where my pulse is frantically giving me away.
My anger I might not feel until later tonight—but this stranger’s touch? It drowns out the present, lighting me on fire.
“Your paint,” he says, stroking the ridge of my Mating Mark underneath my jaw. “You missed a spot. Had better clean that up if you’re hoping for a proposal from a less aged suitor this eve.”
And then, quick as he pulled me into him, the captain slips away.
I lose sight of him in the crowd, and can’t help but notice the way my fingers trace the ridge that marks where he last touched me.