The Summer Palace [Fantasy romance/enemies to lovers/new adult]

Chapter Nine

I'm all of five steps into the crowd when someone grabs at my arm, spinning me around.

"What in the name of the Gods do you think that you are doing?" My mother is practically frothing at the mouth with anger, spit flying on each word. She then seems to realise that there are still a number of people around us watching me, now watching us, and the look of pure anger across her face simmers into masked indifference.

"What I must," I say primly, in the lady-like manner that she taught me; back straight, chest puffed only a little, head the slightest bit askew, vowels murdered.

She's still trying to look calm, but her jaw is set and there's a pesky little vein throbbing above her eyebrows. She looks set to blow. "You are a vile, selfish little girl," she whispers sharply, which I believe is a little rich. Then again, I suppose she doesn't know how to be anything else.

"Do you not realise how much you have brought our family name into disrepair?" She tells me this at least once every few weeks, so by this point the words have lost their sting.

"Oh, you do a fine enough job of that on your own," I sneer which, unsurprisingly, she doesn't like at all. Her face distorts into the wretched smirk that she's long-since perfected, venomous and sharp and it's edges like a snake's tooth.

"You would speak to your mother like that," she sounds incredulous, as if everything I've done hasn't been completely unwarranted. I'm loathe to remind her, once again, that she's trying to marry me off to the slimiest man alive. I'm honestly not sure I can find a new way to phrase it.

"You would treat your daughter as you do," I seethe. My voice catches on the last word, which takes me by surprise. Tears sting at the back of my eyes. I open my pupils wide, urging them not to come. If I cry before my mother right now, in the throngs of the season's inaugural ball, I won't let myself hear the end of it.

I can tell my mother notices all this and is wary of making a scene. "Don't come to me when your little scheme falls apart and you've no one left to speak for you."

With that she turns on her heel and disappears back into the crowd, now lively again with dancing and chatter.

I head for the long tables laid out along the edges of the hall, piled with glasses and plates. I've not the stomach for food but the other refreshments will do quite nicely.

I wondered how long it would take Elias or Rupa to come after me - assuming they'd seen or at least heard of my grand entrance. We've been attached at the hip each season since the first we met at when we were all fourteen. Between my daring palace escape and joining the Terian court, I haven't yet had chance to seek them out.

Indeed, I've only just finished knocking back my first flute of sparking wine when someone comes to stand next to me, a familiar voice saying, "Well, well, well. Miss Corina Fairisle-Daphry."

"Elias," I say, in our usual mock-demure voice, "charmed."

Elias Herrington wears the same sharp navy suit he often does in formal occasions. Though he swears to me that each suit is different and that he's never worn the same twice, I'm not inclined to believe him. His sandy-brown hair has been combed back into a presentable style and from the small mark on his nose bridge I can tell he's only recently relieved himself of his reading glasses. He's a handsome boy, really, from not too bad a family. At one point, mis-reading our closeness, my mother had asked if perhaps I'd be inclined to marry Elias one day. I'd told him of this and, of course, we'd both fallen into such fits of laughter at the absurdity of it.

As the ball rolls on before us, Elias leans against the same marble column I do, albeit the other side of it. My mother had told me many times that such a position as this - sagging against something rather than standing straight - is unbecoming. And causes back issues. But she's too foul with me at the moment to impart any frivolous advice and I've of a certain mind to partake in all activities she considers beneath me.