Page 41 of The Scarlet Ball

“I’m not.”

There was a final flourish from the violins, and we stepped back as the music ended. His eyes were still shut, but there was a tension to his face now, a restless animal scenting something it didn’t understand.

“Open your eyes. We’re done.”

“Of course we’re not. Please. Look at me.”

It was not a command, it was a plea, and I was not ready for it because without thinking, I did.

I raised my face to his, and this close, under a shoal of falling stars that lit us both up like fireworks, I could see his eyes. They were dark side to side like an animal’s, but they were never still. In them I saw the movement of clouds in the high wind, the distant flash of lightning, and suddenly I knew.

“You’re the storm,” I breathed, and his mouth went softer than I would have imagined it could, curling up in a smile that was only pleasure.

“I am your storm.”

I recognized him then, the storm that had followed me all the way down Twenty-Third Street the night I had come to Howard House. He was the one that had battered the glass, struck the door behind me. He was the one for whom I opened the windows after playing Rabbit Rabbit with the girls at Mrs. de Lange’s dinner.

It was him all the time, and there was no beginning or end to what I was feeling. He was the storm, he was the newcomer at the White Ball who had given Mrs. Howard such fits, he was a nightmare. He had killed a boy in the sculpture garden, and whether I knew it or not, I had felt him for weeks in the prickling of my skin, in the crackle of my hair. It was him, it could be no one else.

I knew him, and he knew me, and he stepped closer, taking my hand again. It was the smallest of liberties compared to what he might do, but I stared him down as Mielle had warned me I must not.

“Let me go,” I said. “I won’t have you like this.”

“When?” he demanded. “I’ll come to you, like I did at the Gracens’.”

It was the wrong thing to say, reminding me of the Gracens’ garden, the boy he had killed, and I straightened, putting more distance between us.

“My lord, you are singularly forward.”

“Then tell me when I might come to you. Tomorrow? The next day?”

“Ask me later.”

He paused, and then like a miracle, he bowed low over my hand. I should have dipped likewise in a curtsy, but I simply stood there watching him. Around us, there was a ripple of whispers at my lapse, but neither Sebastian nor I paid them any heed.

He squired me back to the Howards on his arm. I think he would not have given me up, had not Mr. Howard been there waiting. He released me with another bow, and under Mr. Howard’s stern look, turned and walked away.

Mr. Howard tilted his head, and then turned to me.

“Did you feed him?”

I looked up at him in confusion. Beside me, Mrs. Howard exhaled slowly, a considering sound.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Did you give him some of your spit or some of your blood, perhaps? Sometimes you girls are so clever, with your hatpins and your brooches.”

“No. When could I possibly have—”

“Of course she hasn’t. And that is no conversation for Richmond Hall. Henry, would you fetch her a lemonade, there’s an intermission before the—”

“No,” I said. “No. I cannot stay here any longer. Let me go home.”

“Don’t be so foolish—”

I smiled at her with the Howard face.

“Let me go home, or I will start to scream. I will not stop at screaming. I will tear at my hair and my breast like a mad beggar on the street, and then I will dig my fingers into this face, and—”