𝑾𝑯𝑰𝑺𝑷𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑵𝑮 || 𝑨 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚

05. 𝑴𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒇 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆

Chapter 5.

.˚ * ꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.

January, 1816

THE BALLROOM LOOKED like something from a dream she'd forgotten how to dream.

When Genevieve stepped inside - gloved hand looped tightly through her mother's arm - the light nearly blinded her.

Chandeliers bloomed overhead like giant, glowing flowers. Musicians stood in a row, coats buttoned, bows rising and falling in hypnotic time. The floor gleamed. Velvet and satin swept past her shoulders. Everything sparkled, moved, breathed.

And everyone was masked.

She held hers up slowly, a small blue velvet half-mask that tied behind the ears. It didn't feel like it belonged to her. None of it did - not the borrowed dress, not the pinched waist or stiff shoes or perfume behind her ears.

She didn't feel like a debutante. She didn't feel like a girl at her first ball.

She felt like someone watching from a window.

"Stay near," Violet said softly, her voice nearly lost in the waltz.

Genevieve nodded and slipped into the edge of the crowd.

For the first half hour, she wandered.

She didn't talk to anyone.

She watched.

The ballroom was a world unto itself: a place where grown girls laughed in fans and fluttered lashes, where men leaned in too close and pretended they couldn't tell who was who beneath the masks.

Genevieve drifted along the fringes. She tried a glass of punch and hated it. She ducked out of the way of spinning skirts. She trailed her fingers across the cool marble railing of the upstairs gallery.

A part of her wished she could disappear.

Another part - the deeper part, the new part - wished someone would look at her. Just once.

She was about to return to the main room when she heard her name.

"Genevieve."

She turned.

Anthony stood by the musicians, hands behind his back, a ridiculous little bow at his collar. He looked far too serious for the expression on his face.

"Dance with me," he said.

She blinked. "What?"

"I said: come on. You're clearly too scared to ask anyone yourself."

"I'm not scared."

"Prove it."

He extended his hand, mock gallant. She hesitated, then took it.

He was too tall, and too smug, and she couldn't stop giggling.

"Stop looking at my feet," she scolded as he nearly stepped on her.

"Hard not to, when they're stomping around like hooves."

"Anthony!"

He laughed, spun her gently. "You're doing fine. You look like a very well-trained duck."

"I'm going to kick you."

"Try it, and I'll tell Mother you drank half the punch bowl."

They moved in a clumsy, playful circle, nowhere near the elegant couples gliding around them. A few ladies looked over with polite smiles. One footman whispered something to another and stifled a laugh.