CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Blackthorn ballroom had been draped in furniture sheets and covered in a thin layer of dust after being minimally maintained, but Graham could not believe the transformation he witnessed as he entered.
For a moment, he did not care that every guest turned to stare at him and his wife.
For a moment, he did not care about strangers being in his home, for he could not stop looking at the glittering sight before him.
Heavy drapes blocked out the natural moonlight, allowing only for one small window to offer a glimpse of the dark evening pressing down outside the manor.
The floor had been altered in ways he could not comprehend with a shimmering black effect, making it look as though everybody stood on a surface of glittering obsidian stone.
The room was hard and beautiful like an onyx, and the starkly white painted Blackthorn crest on the floor was the main source of color.
The chandelier above was dimly lit, but mostly dramatic candles flickered light over the dark ballroom.
Swathes of red fabric wound around columns and decorated the curtain rails.
The tablecloths were red, matching the wine that was being poured into every crystal glass.
It both terrified and pleased Graham. He fought the urge to turn to Amelia, surprised at what she had done with this free reign. He understood her striking gown now, and his own black and red attire.
Tightening his hold on her, the two descended into the dark ballroom, and he realized how the decoration allowed for low visibility.
Idly, he recalled Daphne wanting a masked ball.
Slowly, he figured out that this was his wife’s way of offering him a place to hide even as he was forced into society.
A place to move without being seen too harshly.
The attention was on them but there was no beam of light forcing them into the center.
His heart thudded, relieved and impressed at his wife’s thoughtfulness.
The Blackthorn ball would be the talk of the ton tomorrow. He could only imagine the speculation that the gossip column would write about. As they descended into the confused-looking mass of guests, most of them already muttering about the theme of the ball, Graham moved closer to Amelia.
“You have outdone yourself,” he murmured. “I believe I understand what you have done for us tonight.”
Amelia looked at him, her eyes bright with hope. “You do?”
He nodded. “We can remain in the shadows even as we are forced to entertain.”
Amelia’s smile was the most rewarding thing he had ever seen.
“That, but I also wished for the ton to know how they have forced us to live, too. You retreated after the duel incident, and I am aware that I do not know what happened fully, nor am I asking you to explain before you are ready to tell me. However, the ton’s gossip-mongers forced you to not feel welcome, to feel as a villain, but you are not.
I believe I have seen through your darkness, as you have seen through mine.
We were both forced to the outside of society against our will.
Now, they shall know the shadows that have forged us. ”
Graham could only laugh and wished to kiss her cheek in an unexpected moment of tenderness. “You sound like you are quoting from a fairy-tale.”
“Daphne advised me to be rather dramatic about my plans,” Amelia giggled.
As they walked further into the center of the ballroom, Graham could not help but straighten up, feeling taller. He was proud to have his wife at his side, and her intelligence had created something memorable tonight. He could not express how impressed he was.
“Do you wish to dance?” he asked her, eyeing the dance floor that nobody was daring to go on, as if they thought that by dancing, they agreed with the strange set-up of the evening, and nobody wanted to be the first.
“Not yet,” Amelia answered. “I am half tempted to know who shall be the first to begin the dancing.”
“I think we have found that couple.”
Graham nodded as Owen spoke with Lady Eleanor, and led her onto the dance floor.
There was a swelling in his chest at the sight of their friends supporting them.
Graham wished to laugh, and realized he had not felt so utterly on-edge yet eased in a long time.
Moments later, the Hawthornes descended upon the dance floor, closely followed by Lord Ambrose with his own dance partner.
A little further away. In a pale red dress, Lady Eleanor was every inch a perfect counterpart to his friend, who wore a jacket of a deep, respectable red and a black cravat.
In the center of the far wall, on a raised dais of silver, the musicians began a quadrille, and the couples began to dance.
Graham and Amelia stood together, watching the dance floor become more and more tentatively filled.
He was tense at her side, and he could not help it.
He silenced the voices in his head and forced himself not to look at any guest who looked at him.
“It is strange,” Amelia murmured, “every single Season I have attended balls, and all I have ever wished for was to be part of it all. The spectacle, the admiration, the choice of suitor. Yet now that I have surpassed it all, I am glad to have not been involved. Is that strange?”
Graham shook his head. “It is not. When I was younger, I felt the same. I would speak to Henry—” He stopped short, and cleared his throat, a beat of grief pulsing through him.
Amelia turned, her brow raised. “Henry?”
“He was an old friend,” Graham managed to say. “I—excuse me. I am sorry.”
“Graham,” she called out, her voice pleading. “Do not go. We may dance. Just… do not leave. If it is your own past that scares you then we may leave it in the past.”
Graham swallowed. He had resolved to be better, and this was the moment where he would have to do something towards proving that he would be.
Stiffening, he nodded. With grief rearing its head in his heart, he fought to replace memories of his friend’s face with Amelia’s instead.
The happiness he wished to give her, the perfect night of dancing she deserved.
Whether she was glad to be outside of the dance floor, not courted or wed, or not, he ought to ask his own wife to dance—so why was it so hard?
She had done all of this—orchestrated a fine evening, and she had greeted their guests with confidence and dignity. For all the ton had ever done to Amelia, she had remained strong. He gazed at her now, their hands clasped from where she had stopped him from retreating.
His eyes met hers.
Heavens, he thought she was beautiful.
“Amelia.” His voice was rough. “Dance with me.”
The request was not quite a question, not quite a command, but coming from a place of struggling to accept that all he truly wanted to do was dance with his wife across a floor of glittering black, as if they might close their eyes and be dancing across the night sky.
Slowly, she nodded, her eyes wide and unsure as he guided her to the floor.
***
Cassandra stood near one of the heavy drapes that blocked out any light from the garden outside, and sneered at the sight surrounding her.
“A ball draped in darkness,” she scoffed. “It is the most absurd thing I have ever heard of.”
“And yet everybody seems to like it,” Beatrice pointed out.
Cassandra’s head whipped around to glare at her friend.
Beatrice shrunk beneath the glower. “I am merely saying! We were all dubious at the thought of the ball, and especially when we entered, but Her Grace seems to have made a very wonderfully creative thing.”
“Ah,” Cassandra purred, “I see, and how wonderfully creative do you think it proves to be when you look upon your treasured Lord Owen dancing with Lady Eleanor? Do you praise this ball tonight, then? It is only bringing them closer. The four of them are friends. They are likely whipping up another scandal to arrange another fortuitous match.”
“They did not arrange the scandal that married Amelia and—”
“Hush,” Cassandra snapped. “Do you think you have a chance, Beatrice, when Lord Owen gazes at Lady Eleanor like that?”
With an accusing finger, she pointed at the dancing couple.
It sickened her. Over the last several weeks, she had been attempting to prove herself as the clearly superior choice as Duchess of Blackthorn.
Even if the two were married, it did not mean that His Grace could not change his mind.
There had been two Lady Kensingtons before Cassandra’s mother, each of the former ladies not lasting very long at all.
Tragedy could always happen, and a supportive friend could always be waiting in the wings.
Beatrice was looking at the dancing couple, her face angry with jealousy and forlorn from admiration of the lord, and she turned to Cassandra, her chin raised.
“You are right,” she sniffed.
“I know.” Cassandra smirked. “However, if more rumours are circulating regarding our gracious hosts, then Lord Owen and Lady Eleanor shall be forced to drop their attention to one another to comfort their friends. Does that now allow you, Beatrice, to swoop in and offer a dance to help him get away from such chaos? Offer him just one dance where he can forget about his troubles or the burden of comforting the ever-brooding Duke of Blackthorn?” Beatrice’s own smile grew wider, her face lighting up, as she nodded.
Cassandra raised her voice, ensuring the ladies around them overheard.
“What a stunning ball Her Grace has hosted! One questions how, if she has rarely participated in ton events or been in the center of balls, how she has the capability of hosting such a spectacle! Surely she has had the ability to prove herself worthy this whole time.”
Ladies turned, listening in.
“Lady Cassandra, do you not think it is so strange that Her Grace just so happened to be available for His Grace? She just happened to miss out on being courted for two seasons, to be steadily ready to become the Duchess of Blackthorn?”
“It is rather strange indeed,” Cassandra agreed.
“But we must recall that our dear gossip column writer speculated such things. And we all know she speaks harsh truths we all must listen to. After all, it was this writer who delivered the news regarding His Grace’s duel, and we all know the truth there. ”
Cassandra only laughed under her breath, and Beatrice looked on with a gleam in her eye, as they both watched the ladies nod, agreeing, before they began to discuss it among themselves. More and more whispers scattered through the crowd, and soon the whole ballroom would be abuzz with gossip.
“Fortune seekers are often quiet,” Cassandra announced, as the Duke led his wife to the dance floor, unaware of the gossip circulating. “Let us not forget that.”
***
Amelia could not stop thinking of how Graham had stopped his retreat at her request. It had been the first time she had been able to get him to stop walking away from her.
What made him stop this time? She wondered, as he guided her onto the floor.
His hand was large, cupped around hers, and she wished he would never ever let go.
Her grip tightened on his as he walked her to the center of the floor.
Not the outskirts, as they had once done, but the center, as if he wished for them to be the focal point of the ball.
She dared to hope passionately that he meant it as such.
Her dress swept the floor as his gaze held hers, and positioned them correctly.
“A waltz, my duchess?” he murmured. “I believe that is where it all started. Perhaps we may quell these writer’s rumours once and for all.”
Amelia dared a look around the ballroom. “As long as it is only the writer this time,” she sighed. “I feel more respected tonight. Is it wrong to hope we have changed their minds about us both?”
“Wrong, no,” he answered as he pulled her near. “Naive, mayhap.”
She was about to protest when she saw the light teasing smirk on his mouth.
She wished to kiss him in that moment, seeing that smile.
How she wanted to be back in the library, where there would be nobody to disrupt them like there had been almost a week ago.
If Daphne had not entered would Graham have continued? Would he have kissed her?
“If I am naive to want peace then so be it,” she murmured, a smile on her face as the music began again in a sweeping waltz.
Graham’s face returned to its stoic seriousness, and Amelia found her breath short.
Heavens, he was handsome, with the deep, dark eyes that seemed to pierce right through her, and his broad shoulders, long hair that was styled elegantly back from his face, and the jawline that was always pronounced.
She constantly wished to run her fingers over it, to see if it was as sharp as it looked.
Sometimes, there was a smattering of dark facial hair, a thing that Daphne had said meant that her brother was struggling.
He was now clean-shaven, and it only rendered him more handsome in her eyes.
And he was looking at her as if she was the only thing that mattered.
Before the tumult of the scandal, before she had uttered ill-timed words, before she had endured days in solitude whilst he brooded, they had once danced, and the world had receded into the background.
It did so now, and she found no desire to feign that this dance belonged to a time prior to their troubles.
Rather, she came to the realization that this was the most fulfilled she had felt since their hastily arranged marriage.
As if, by engaging in this dance together, they had at last discovered their concord.
Would he feel the same if she voiced her thought?
Why, every time I get near, do you pull away? You say you are cursed but what are you afraid of, for you will not lose me?
They glided around the dance floor, their steps light and wide, perfectly synchronized. It was as though they had finally found their way back to one another. A simple man and lady whose worlds had collided and they were now learning how those pieces fit together.
Her doubts were shed as she gazed at her husband, her breath catching with how her emotion was mirrored in his, as if finally he had realized that she was honest and true.
Could he grow to love her? Could he grow to want her, as she wanted him?
To think of a future with her that did not only consist of separate rooms and disjointed mealtimes.
Was this the version of her husband who would do more than merely tolerate her simply because he had dutifully saved her from being ruined?