Chapter Nine #4
That might have been an exaggeration, but not quite a lie.
When preparing for that first con, Mavis had struggled to learn the dances that were so popular in the Lucent ballrooms, practicing the complicated movements described in the society pages with Rafe and Leif, but by the time that first ball came around, she had been anything but an expert.
When she was partnered with Arden, though, she never felt out of place, as if his sure steps could make up for her stumbles.
Oriana shifted her gaze back to Mavis before glancing to Arden, her expression intrigued. “Is that so?”
A beat of silence passed, and it wasn’t until Mavis gave Arden a pointed look that he seemed to understand where she’d led him.
“I fear Miss Lindcourt is setting me up for some sort of failure, but might I claim this next dance if you have it free? I believe I hear a spinnalé striking up.”
Indeed, Mavis could hear the music shift into the slow, wistful notes that lent themselves well to the spinnalé—a dance where partners twirled across the dance floor, pressed as close together as decorum would allow.
It was the first dance she’d shared with Arden, though she doubted he remembered that.
There was no reason she should remember it.
Suddenly, she felt sick at the thought of watching Arden and Oriana dance to it even though that was precisely what she should want.
“I believe you’re right, Mr. Ryskamp.” Oriana heaved a sigh. “Unfortunately I’ve hurt my ankle—nothing too terrible, please don’t fret, I merely turned it walking on the beach this afternoon,” she added when Arden’s brow creased in concern. “But I oughtn’t dance before it’s fully healed.”
Mavis had to bite her tongue to keep from calling Oriana a liar, but when her eyes met Mavis’s, she understood that refusing to dance was revenge for insisting that she stay fifteen minutes more than she wanted to.
If Mavis had agreed to thirty minutes, she suspected Oriana would have agreed to the dance.
Arden, though, was oblivious to their negotiations and seemed to believe Oriana’s fib. “Next time, perhaps.”
“Next time,” Oriana agreed, and Mavis had to admit that she did sound sincere—and that was more than most of her previous suitors had gotten from her in similar situations.
“However,” Oriana continued before Mavis could congratulate herself further, “I refuse to keep you from enjoying a dance on account of my clumsiness, Mr. Ryskamp. Perhaps you and Miss Lindcourt might dance instead?”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” Arden said just as Mavis blurted out, at the same time, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly.”
“Why ever not?” Oriana looked between them, her fair eyebrows arching high.
Mavis struggled for an answer. She couldn’t tell Oriana that she’d resolved to spend as little time with Arden as possible. There were other reasons why dancing with him was a bad idea, but Mavis couldn’t seem to grasp any of them at the moment. Luckily, Arden found one.
“It would seem poor manners to sweep Miss Lindcourt away for a dance at her engagement ball before her fiancé has.”
“Oh, Thaddeus won’t mind.” Oriana waved his concern away, her eyes drifting over Arden’s shoulder, and when Mavis followed her gaze, she saw Thaddeus deep in conversation with a group of friends, face already flushed red as it tended to do after a few drinks.
Oriana was right—Thaddeus very well might not even notice her dancing with Arden, and it was only a dance, hardly enough to cause a scandal.
“I . . . am actually supposed to find my brother—” Mavis started, searching the room for Rafe. Though he rarely attended Luster events, he’d been forced to attend this one, since it would have seemed strange for her own brother to miss her engagement ball.
“Oh, I caught sight of him leaving just as I was coming in,” Oriana said.
Mavis silently cursed him. Of course Rafe hadn’t lingered any longer than he’d needed to.
She cast about for another excuse but came up short—she couldn’t reject a dance with Arden without leading Oriana to believe there was something wrong with him.
When she looked up at Arden, she saw that he’d come to the same realization, his gaze full of cool resolve as he held a hand out to her, palm up.
With no other choice, Mavis took it, feeling the slide of her gloved fingers against his, a warm clasp that had no business feeling as familiar as it did. Mavis had held the hand of many men since Arden, but with no one else had the simple gesture felt so intimate.
Home was not a concept that Mavis understood in a practical sense.
The word never brought up memories of the one-room apartment she grew up in with her tired mother and the father who was gone more often than he was present.
It certainly didn’t remind her of the boarding room the urchins lived in, packed full of narrow cots and hungry faces.
The hotel rooms they stayed in now were leaps and bounds better, full of comfort and extravagance, but they had never stayed anywhere long enough for it to truly be called a home.
But when Arden’s hand tightened around hers and the warmth of his skin seeped through two layers of gloves, the word home dug its claws into Mavis’s heart and refused to be pried out.