Chapter 28
B enedict’s eyes widened, taking in every inch of Lucinda’s costume. She was dressed from head to toe in his favourite colour. Even her hair flowed in sleek raven lengths. She looked every bit the Matherson, and it took every ounce of his will to be a gentleman to stop himself from throwing her over his shoulder and dragging her to the manor like a damn caveman.
“If you keep staring at me like that, you’re going to make me think I’ve got something on my face,” Lucinda said, smiling nervously.
“Your hair, the dress – I almost didn’t—” Benedict stammered, running his hands through his hair. “You look…” Without her glasses, her emerald eyes shone out against the dark hair and pale skin, highlighted by smoky makeup and a black lip.
“Who knew Frankenstein’s monster had such a way with words?” she teased as his gaze settled on her waist. The corset highlighted her luscious curves. “Can you guess who I am?”
He arched a brow. “Mine.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how I feel about others seeing you look this good,” he added, stepping closer. Her breath caught as his words brushed her ear.
“Very funny.” She pushed him away gently.
“Mrs Addams.” He gave her a mock bow. “I must say, evil looks good on you.”
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she said, nodding to his patched-up suit. His hair was slicked back with gel, and he’d added some bolts to the sides of his neck and some false stitches on the joins of his suit. “My very own monster.” She took his arm and kissed his cheek.
He cleared his throat, trying to remember they were here to work. “Shall we go in?”
True to its theme of Phantom of the Opera, the room was decorated with long, gold-rimmed mirrors and lit chandeliers on loan from the hotel.
“It might look good, but this corset doesn’t like my ribs,” Lucinda confessed. “I shouldn’t have asked Grams to tie the strings.”
“Do you want me to loosen them?” Benedict asked as they came to stand by the banquet table, surveying the room to make sure no one was up to no good.
She blushed. “Hardly appropriate, given our current environment.”
“I meant it as a non-sexual, purely kind gesture.” He kept scanning their surroundings, trying not to let her distract him, which was awfully hard when her perfume coiled around him like a serpent trying to seduce him.
“Are you going to share what’s in that flask, or will we have to suffer through this night sober?” Lucinda asked, slipping her hand into his jacket pocket –she must have seen its outline. He loved how comfortable she was touching him now. She put the flask to her lips and took a swig, only to cough at the strong liquorice taste of the liquor.
Benedict smirked, taking it from her. “I was going to dilute it, but I figured we have a long night ahead of us.” It was a little after seven, and they’d still have to check out the festival grounds after the dance to make sure what they’d spent weeks planning went off without a hitch.
“Thanks for telling me after the fact.”
“Who was I to get in the way of your rebellious act?” He poured some of the liquor into two cups and topped his off with alarmingly fluorescent pumpkin punch. For hers, he added the spiced apple punch instead.
“I’m sorry,” Lucinda said suddenly.
“For what?”
“For thinking you were making fun of me when you invited me to the dance during the assembly in our final year.” Her apology caught him off guard; he hadn’t thought about the incident in years. “I assumed it was a prank, especially when all your friends laughed.”
“I got that impression when you stormed off and left me in the crowd looking like an asshole. You didn’t even get to see me telling them to shut the hell up.” He drank to drown out his own embarrassment at the memory.
“I didn’t think you’d ever ask me. That was the same week that I gave you—-”
“You gave me Greko. And in my teenage, grief-riddled brain I told you to piss off and leave me alone when I should have thanked you.” He smiled sadly.
They went quiet, both thinking of the tiny lizard she’d gifted him when his dad passed away.
“I wanted to say thank you. I thought about writing to you, since we couldn’t manage to get through one conversation without arguing. I also couldn’t muster the courage to call in case Grams or your mum picked up the house phone.” Remembering how much thought he’d put into it, Benedict couldn’t believe it had taken him so many years to figure out his feelings for her. “Anyway, Peter mentioned you were upset about no one asking you to the festival dance, and I wanted to make up for how I spoke to you and to thank you for Greko.”
Lucinda nodded solemnly. “I wanted to have fun just as much as everyone else. I wouldn’t have ratted on anyone.” He hated that she knew many believed she was a goody-goody who’d run back to tell her High Priestess mummy if anyone used their magic recklessly. “I’m sorry I assumed the worst of you,” she added.
“Me too. I thought when you stormed off you were mortified to be asked by a Matherson to the dance.”
“Look at us, acting all adult.” Lucinda nudged him, breaking the tension. “Why couldn’t we have done this before?”
“Because we were too busy competing. We should do a round of the room, so at least it looks like we’re doing our job,” he said, his hand grazing hers as they walked around the hall, enjoying the atmosphere of the spooky classics.
“I wouldn’t say it was much of a competition,” Lucinda teased.
His hand settled on her back, playing with her corset strings. “I don’t know how you can breathe in this thing,” he said, eyeing her cleavage without a shred of discretion.
“Stop flirting with me. People will talk.” He felt her shiver against his touch.
“I can’t resist,” he teased, inching closer.
“I should’ve taken that flask from you. I’ll have to add that you flirt when tipsy to my list of new discoveries about you.” She took his hand, before he started pawing at her again. “It has nothing to do with the flask, and everything to do with the dress.” He leaned in, and her eyes widened. Clearly, she thought he was going to kiss her in front of everyone. But he stopped short. “And the woman in it.”
Lucinda swallowed, and he loved watching her struggle to string a response together.
Before she could say anything, his eye was drawn to a group of kids by the back door, laughing. They couldn’t be older than twelve, but there was something sinister in the laughter that caused both Benedict and Lucinda to approach the group.
“Give it back,” one of the boys pleaded, but another boy in a Peter Pan costume pushed him back.
Benedict put a hand on Lucinda’s arm, stopping her from interceding. She glared at him, but he didn’t want to make it worse for the kid.
“Why? It’s a fake pin. You think your scales prove anything?” one of the bigger boys snarled, pointing at the scarred skin on the side of the boy’s neck.
“It’s a birthmark, not scales! This birthmark and my family pin means we used to fight dragons!”
The group laughed again. Benedict admired the kid’s guts; he was smaller and outnumbered, but he didn’t cower or run away.
“That’s just a myth! Dragons are long gone– there’s no proof of anyone fighting them,” a younger girl said, her words whistling through a missing tooth. “You could’ve got the pin anywhere.”
Lucinda slipped her hand into Benedict’s, and he realised he’d clenched his fists. He hated seeing anyone bullied or accused of lying. He would’ve been a social outcast himself, if he hadn’t excelled in every way he could.
“You don’t have to be so mean.” The boy’s jaw wobbled. “Just give me back my pin. It was my grandad’s! I’m telling the truth.”
“This?” The older boy tossed the small pin into the air and caught it. “Why? You haven’t earned it. You haven’t slain a dragon! I bet your grandad lied and found the pin somewhere.” He threw the pin out the back door and into a puddle on the steps.
The other kids laughed, leaving the crying boy behind. Benedict clenched his jaw at such cruel behaviour. Family pins and signet rings were a way for magical folk to identify themselves to each other, and a symbol of how their ancestors had survived.
Lucinda left his side and crouched down by the young boy.
“Did you drop this?” she asked, picking up the pin from the puddle from the back steps. Her kindness dissolved his anger.
“Yeah. It fell off my cloak,” he lied, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve and smudging his ghostly make up.
Benedict wanted to go after the kids, drag them in front of their parents and ask them what the hell they were doing, filling their kids with such prejudice. They had the privilege of living in a sanctuary; he didn’t know how they could dare to raise the next generation with the same prejudice they’d suffered. No one is born hateful– it’s bred into them. It was one of the sad truths shared by magical folk and magless alike.
“You must be Thomas. Your mum volunteers at the library on Sundays, right?” Lucinda said gently.
Thomas nodded, a small smile replacing his sad expression. “She’s always reading me stories.”
“You’ve only been in town a year; give yourself some time to settle in. Friends will come in time. Sometimes others can be jealous,” Lucinda assured him.
His smile wobbled. “Mum said that about the last town, but they said we were lying about our lineage and kicked us out.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. But I promise Foxford will be your home now, and I think in time you’ll come to love it. If you have any trouble, please don’t hesitate to come to Hawthorne House, or tell your mum.”
“I don’t want to upset her,” Thomas said quietly.
Benedict knelt down to his level. “You shouldn’t believe what they tell you. This pin is all the proof you need. Same way my Matherson ring tells me who I am, and so long as we know, we don’t have to prove a thing to anyone.”
“But I only have my grandfather’s stories and this pin. Even Mum doesn’t like to talk about it,” he said, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
“I think Lucinda can help with that. In the town library there are many books about how dragon slayers saved an ancient kingdom!” Benedict said. Lucinda looked at him with gratitude.
“He’s right. If you want to come with your mum to the library on Sunday, I have plenty of books to show you.” Lucinda attached the pin, in the shape of a dragon’s tail wrapped around a sword, to Thomas’s cloak.
Thomas nodded.
“And she’s going to be the High Priestess,” Benedict told him. “So if she says she believes in your family, you can trust her.”
“Okay,” Thomas whispered, adjusting the pin so it sat straight.
“In the future, please don’t take what they say to heart,” Lucinda said, taking a tissue from her bag and wiping his tears.
“I just wanted to be their friend,” he mumbled sadly.
Benedict took his hand to bring him back inside. “If they can’t see how lucky they are to have you as a friend, then that’s their loss.”
“My mum is over by the punch bowl! Can I go?” Thomas asked, letting go of Benedict.
“Of course, and please come by the library,” Lucinda said, reminding him to stop by.
Thomas ran to his mum. Benedict watched him cling to her waist, remembering the first time he’d been sent home crying because some kids had found out that his great-great-uncle liked to torture animals using curses. What had been lost in the history books was that his uncle only tortured the beasts the Order had sent to sniff out those of magical descent. He wished Gwendoline had embraced him and told him it was going to be okay; instead, she’d told him not to waste his tears on people who were beneath them.
When Lucinda took his hand again, he realised that was probably the last time he’d cried in front of her.
“I wish I could do more,” she said. “I hate to think of anyone being treated that way just because of their name, their family. Being treated that way will surely only drive him to the dark.”
“Not necessarily. It’s up to that kid to choose the light or dark. How he deals with it will be his test.”
“Have you always been this wise?”
Benedict kissed the side of her head, wanting to put her at ease. When she took Wilhelmina’s position, the whole village would become her children. He only hoped she would let him help her lessen the burden.
“His little red cheeks broke my heart. How can they be so awful?” Lucinda said, anger edging her words. “They’ll grow out of it… they’re young.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“What worries me is where they learned it from,” Benedict said, looking around the room at all the smiling faces, wondering who would want to spread such venom.
Lucinda gripped his hand a little tighter. “The kids probably heard some stories and are acting out.”
“Pumpkin, you see the good in everyone and everything. There are those in Foxford who don’t see things that way.” He lifted her hand to kiss it, the heat of his element warming his lips.
“You weren’t treated that way! You had more friends than me in school,” she protested.
“Actually, I was, once or twice. But when you have perfect grades, play the right sports and make allies of those who want to find fault in you, life is rather smooth. The only trouble I got in was thanks to you,” he admitted.
“I never knew you felt the need to be so perfect.”
“I’ve done everything I can for this town,” he reminded her. “I even opened the door to Matherson Manor to strangers to help Foxford.”
“You didn’t have to,” she said, but even she didn’t sound like she believed it.
The music slowed. Benedict led her to the dance floor, wanting– needing any excuse to take her in his arms, even if only for one song. Everyone around them was too busy enjoying their night to pay much attention.
“After what happened with my dad, and then my brother, my mum stopped being summoned to coven meetings,” he told her. “Invitations to parties, lunches and dinners from people she’d known her whole life suddenly went missing. If Wilhelmina hadn’t intervened, we wouldn’t have lasted in this town.”
“Then why did you risk your perfect image tormenting me?” Lucinda asked, only concern in her words as they lingered on the edge of the dance floor.
“You were so good at everything. Everyone trusted you merely for your name alone. You could do no wrong– it was infuriating, and I couldn’t resist. I wanted to know if you were truly so perfect or if there was darkness in you, if you were acting as much as I was to become what others wanted of you.” His adolescent jealousy felt ridiculous now. “I didn’t expect you to give as good as you got.”
She rolled her eyes, and he pulled her closer.
“I never understood why you were so determined to hate me, but I suppose that makes sense. Whenever I tried to be nice to you, the meaner you got,” she murmured.
“Because if you were really so good, then you would never agree to be mine,” Benedict admitted.
He could see it clearly now. He’d spent so many hours, days, years obsessed with Lucinda Hawthorne. She was the one thing he’d always wanted, but no matter how perfect he tried to be, she saw through him to the depths of his soul. One look from her, and he couldn’t pretend anymore.
Lucinda’s eyes, full of questions, lingered on his, but nothing needed to be said. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and they swayed to the remainder of the song in silence.