The Forest, Townhouse ofthe Grand Bucks
Letitia Delemere gripped the seat on which she sat. Loosening her hold might send her tipping into the reflecting pool before her, she reasoned through a haze as thick as the night’s fog outside.
She was in this place to please men. One observant, cruel man in particular. But that had been her life for many years, so she didn’t ask questions or enter with expectations. It hurt less that way.
Her fingers looked spindly and thin, like the tops of the spectral, bare trees all around her in this strange ballroom. Had her face become just as aged since the last time she’d paused before a mirror to look at it? Pausing and truly regarding herself was sodifficult now. She might see something she wished she hadn’t. Letitia preferred the fog.
If she did tip into the pool of water — somehow standing in the middle of this ballroom — could she even swim? She had some vague memories of learning to swim as a child, but she hadn’t had occasion to swim in decades. How strange the motions seemed without the weight of water against her limbs.
At least she was nude save a half mask covering her face; there would be no clothing dragging her to the deep should she land in the pool. But then, sinking under the weight of her bustle and corset and heeled shoes seemed poetic, once she thought about it. It would be a beautiful, fitting way to die.
“We don’t use that thing unless one of our guests truly wishes it,” said an unfamiliar man from over her shoulder. “Something of a mess to clean up after, I hear.”
Approaching her was a man, nude save for a papier-mâché stag mask with enormous antlers. Letitia flinched.
He walked closer, not noticing her alarm at his appearance. Something nearby distracted him.
“It’s a small orchestra,” he said, nodding towards a tapestry. Only then did she register that the sounds she was hearing were music made by instruments. “I hear wind as the notes of a harp now.”
Perhaps she wasn’t the only addlepated person here tonight. Somehow, the thought didn’t comfort her.
“Have you ever wanted something too pure for a tarnished soul?” asked the man, taking a seat beside her on the bench.
Letitia recognized that two nude people sitting beside each other but not touching was incredibly odd, especially given what was to take place soon. But he talked to her as a friend, and she’d needed one for so long that she didn’t want to upset what had turned out to be a companionable interlude.
“Something too pure for a tarnished soul,” she repeated back to him.
He nodded, those strange antlers sprouting from the top of his mask. The shadows moved over the smooth water.
“I wanted something pure once. Even had it.”
“I am not unaware that you use the past tense,” he said.
“Because it’s in the past. I gave him up because I loved him too much.”
The man turned, that deer mask looming over her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, scoffing. “I didn’t do it voluntarily or for my own gain.”
“Didn’t you?”
Letitia felt the fog vanish as her body grew hot with outrage. Who was this masked man to question the great sorrow of her life? Wasn’t her obvious misery sufficient proof of her regret?
“I’ll have you know that my pure thing’s papa came to me — begged for me to give him up. Said I would be his ruin, and if I loved him, I’d convince my darling he meant nothing to me.”
“His papa wanted you to break his heart?” he asked. If he was skeptical, he did a good job of keeping it out of his voice.
“For his own good.”
“And was it good for him in the end?”
Letitia studied her hands, still gripping the seat. In truth, she didn’t know how Lord Anthony Paschal-Lamb fared. He was now Viscount Corbet, having inherited the title from his deceased father a few months after the man’s fateful call on her.
She couldn’t hate the old viscount, especially now that he was dead. However, Letitia couldn’t help but wonder how different their lives might have been if he had postponed his visit and then died before making his awful request to her.
She’d expected Anthony to make short work of announcing an engagement, wedding, and heir after his father’s death. But she’d seen nothing of the sort in any of the papers. It made hermore upset than she could say: if she had to give him up, she’d hoped it would be for somereason! Some greater life than he’d be able to have with a courtesan attached to him. Years of her heartache for naught; it was too much to bear.
“When you get your pure thing, even if you think you’re too tarnished or broken to be worthy of them,” she said, her eyes flitting to that tapestry behind which the orchestra played, “don’t let them go. And don’t let anyone tear asunder that which love has brought together.”
