Opera Wine | Rosalie Hale [1]

huit

Heat bursting against her skin, feet gracefully carrying her with careful steps through spaced bodies. There was something to be valued by humans and the way they enjoyed showing their fortune in the face of others. The stock was not the best of the age, and it reminded the vampire so very much of France before the revolution that she often found herself glancing to the large windows despite herself in search of the less fortunate coming to seek vengeance.

Across the room, she could see Hugo doing much the same as he stood tense among a boisterous group of men that worked at the bank. Royce was nowhere among them, the man oddly absent at his own party, but Marion didn't care much for that fact - not with the way Rosalie sipped daintily at the spirits in her tall glass and the apples of her cheeks grew a lovely rose that was more fetching than they ought to have been.

The girl had tasted more than her fair share, but Marion did not guilt her for it. The prohibition had ended, alcoholic drinks becoming legal for distribution once more and never having had them before Rosalie did not know her own limit and inhibitions at its effects.

It was silly watching the girl as she flushed and giggled at the intoxicating feeling that took hold of her as Marion sipped conversationally from her own glance, the taste and effects lost on her as it graced her lips. She twirled the contents of her glass, smiling kindly and laughing along with Rosalie as the human leaned closer and closer with this conspirational air to her as Rose just seemed to breathe her in.

Marion almost couldn't help herself from following the girl's actions, from moving just as close and dropping her voice to the same sultry tone Rosalie adopted as the spirits took their hold - but she mustn't the room was so full, Rose was engaged, such actions were viewed as the devils work, as a psychological deficiency. So she stayed her hand, hid her smile behind the crystal of her glass as she simply basked in the other girl's presence.

It was well that all others stayed away, too afraid to approach them with the way Estelle would occasionally pass with a feral glare shooting at all those that stepped in their direction, the girl taking a turn of the room every so often to keep up the appearance of an antsy young woman that did not want to be here.

She had learned long ago that her daughter was a prickly sort beneath all that beauty, and beneath that, she was all soft edges and blushing cheeks. Estelle was an enigma to all aside from her mother and uncle.

As it were Estelle was on her way back from another turn of the room, brow crinkled and eyes squinted oddly as the ground as she approached with a determined step. Marion straightened. senses prickling as she searched for what it was that upset her daughter.

"Maman," Estelle whispered as she sidled up to her. "There is an issue by the restroom."

"What is it?" she asked, gently brushing her thumb over the hand her daughter clutched her arm with.

"Royce, he is, well, how you say, Rosalie se fait roullée dans la farine," Estella muttered dejectedly, Marion stiffening immediately at the implications that her daughter presented.

She wasn't sure what to do, what she was even meant to do at a moment like this. Such things would not have always been the end of a relationship when she was human. It would have caused talk, would have resulted horribly for the lady, but the man was never at fault for such deeds. Vaguely she wondered if the results would be the same of this era.

When she was young, cheating would not even always come to the end of a relationship. Marion knew, however, that now would not be the time to tell Rosalie, that seeing tears in the eyes of the other girl would cause the vampire to snap and do something that she would ultimately regret in the end.