Mare nearly collapsed when she met her parents at the fringe of the ballroom. Her mother looked quite respectable in a modest burgundy gown, and her father looked younger for the black and white. Both offered her a glass of wine, and Mare took both, downing one swift as she could and disposing of the crystal as a member of the waitstaff zipped by.
"Mare Atwood," her mother scolded, chancing a scan of the room to be sure no one had witnessed Mare's blush actions. "You will be positively drunk-"
"Aren't I too cold, mother? A bit of wine will only warm me up." But as she said it, she regretted the quick swallow. Already her stomach churned at the acid of the dark swill, and she remembered with a jolt that she'd had only toast at breakfast and nothing after, as her mother convinced her she'd pop a seam.
"Relax, Harriet," said Mare's father. "It is a night for frivolity-"
"It is a night for skill," snapped Mare's mother, reaching for Mare's glass. "How is she to maneuver her way back to Mr. Bridge if she can't pick his face out of the crowd?"
"I'd find him by his height, of course," said Mare, cocking a brow at her mother and defiantly lifting the glass to her lips. "Besides, this gala is meant to explore my options, not limit them. All of the girls will dance with all of the boys. I've had a turn with Teddy-"
"Teddy, is it?" Mare's mother grinned, teeth gleaming, and drew Mare close, no longer grappling for the wine. "Has he asked you to call him such? Oh, Mare-"
"Mother, he asks everyone to do so. Besides, I'm quite certain he's courting Ms. Gilbert." Mare turned, leaning against the wall to take in the room. Couples danced on the floor, gazing into one another's eyes with all of the hope and romance they could muster. Some of the matches were smart, Mare observed, and would lead to quick courtships and engagements by the following summer. Others were silly, some ridiculous, others intriguing. How had Mare looked, palm to palm with one of Star's Crossing's elite? Had she seemed as absurd as she felt now, imagining the swish of her red gown across his shoes?
"I saw you two at the door," said Mare's mother conspiratorially, linking her arm with Mare's. "Clever of you to run into him. What was your excuse?"
Mare's ears heated. She swirled the wine in her glass. What was her excuse? Heartbreak? Devastation? Betrayal? Humiliation? "Nerves."
"Brilliant! Convince him you're as weak and feeble as that Gilbert waif and he'll feel a hero every time he asks you to dance or offers his arm. That's the Mare I raised." Mare's mother lifted her chin triumphantly. "That's an Atwood girl."
Mare bristled. Yes, she thought, that is an Atwood girl. Nothing like Mare. Nothing like the girl she'd been, penning wistful letters all these years. Not herself, basking in hope for the future and absurd romance, cloaking plunging depths of passion and desire.
Mare had been herself in writing, in imagination, in solitude. Now, she was going to lose all three. Her writer, whoever he was, had abandoned her. No, worse, he'd humiliated her. He'd given roses to every boy to hide his face, and who knew what else? Had he passed the letters in the dorms? Shared them with every bachelor that crossed his path?
And the question remained-when would he reveal Mare's identity?
Had Camden Doores already done so to Theodore Bridge?
"That Gilbert girl," said Mare's mother, clucking her tongue. "I do fail to see what is so grand about her. She looks like a porcelain doll, but with none of a doll's fire. Hm, Elias?"
"She seems a decent enough girl. You liked her in school, didn't you, Mare?" Mare's father smiled with flowering sincerity, and she felt the heat in her blood cool. She took his hand and smiled back.
"I did. She is quite smart. This evening she does look very fine, don't you think, mother?" Mare bit her lip as she observed Lilith across the room, demurring from dance after dance with every beau in the hall.
Roses in lapels to match the one in her hair. Lilith stole a glance between the revelers, narrowing her sights on Mare. Mare took another long pull on her wine.
"Mare," said her mother, brow furrowing, "were not you donning a rose tonight? Elias, didn't you cut one from the garden for-"
"Lilith asked for it," Mare hastened, chest constricting the moment the lie left her lips. "She thought her gown too plain. And as mine is so...ostentatious, I was pleased to oblige."
"Strange." Mare's mother dropped all semblance of amusement as she watched Lilith bow and accept the offer of a dance at last.
With Teddy.
Theodore, Mare amended coldly, stomach twisting. She watched him grin, dimple in his left cheek, and lead Lilith back to the dance floor. They did not look ridiculous, or silly, or even intriguing. Mare's fingers tightened around the stem of her glass, and she shook herself before she snapped it and made a scene.
No, Lilith Gilbert and Theodore Bridge did not look absurd. They looked perfect.
"See," said Mare, gesturing flippantly, "Mr. Bridge is only being polite dancing with the other girls. If I'm to believe the indication of Mrs. Watt's matchmaking, the pair have already entered courtship."
"Courtships are breakable," said Mare's mother, but her lip curled, and she slipped her arm from Mare's. "Engagements are not. There is still time. You've no destined husband, Mare. Select one with good advantages, and win his heart. That Bridge boy is a good bet, even if he's got Gilbert on his arm. And what of the handsome Doores fellow, your escort from Mrs. Watt's dinner? I saw he approached you. Did he offer to dance?"
Mare spotted Camden chatting with Geoffrey, who looked bright as a new penny, hair combed back from his face, eyes like sunlight beneath the chandelier. He slouched against the wall, nursing a flute of champagne, smile crooked. He raised his eyes and met Mare's, as though he'd sensed her. Against every drop of blood in her veins, Mare's heart fluttered.
Then she spotted that damned rose at his lapel.
She tossed back the remainder of her wine and passed the empty glass to her mother, straightening. Mare was not to be made a fool. She would not be laughed at. Mocked. This was meant to be her night. Her writer would not be triumphant.
Camden Doores would not be triumphant.
"As a matter of fact," Mare said, smoothing a curl back from her face, "he did. Excuse me, mother. Father."
She bowed, hoisted her skirts, and strode across the room. It wasn't until she halted before Geoffrey and Camden, their conversation silenced by her arrival and eyebrows raised in question, that Mare realized she was not quite as steady as she'd thought. It felt only a moment ago she'd downed her first glass of wine; it couldn't have snuck up on her so quickly. Could it?
"Ms. Atwood," said Camden, crossing his arms. He smiled, but it was false and stiff, like a marionette's. "You look a bit flushed. Partaking again?"
"Do you monitor everything about me so closely, Mr. Doores?" Mare narrowed her eyes. "Or just my drinking?"
Camden straightened, smile vanishing unceremoniously. He took a step closer, leaning over Mare with hands in his pockets. "What else about you might I find as interesting, pray tell?"
Mare pressed her lips together. She felt her nostrils flaring, sweat beading anxiously at her hairline. Control was a far more elusive beast with drink in her blood. "Apparently my dance partners, to start."
"Teddy is my cousin, Mare Atwood. If ever I sense deception, I'm obligated to investigate. Blood is thicker than water, isn't it?" Again he leaned nearer, and Mare leaned in with equal verve. "Though in your family, money is thickest, hm?"
Mare straightened, lifting a hand to her chest. The wine had made her unsteady, and when she reached blindly for the edge of a nearby table, it was a hand that appeared instead.
"Camden," said Geoffrey softly, a coy smile on his lips, "I believe Ms. Elaine Greaves was looking your way. Wouldn't want to leave her to dance alone, would we?"
"Deception," hissed Mare, pulling her hand from Geoffrey's and stepping close enough to Camden their toes touched, silk against leather. "You are one to speak of subterfuge, Camden Doores." Mare lifted her fingers without thinking, tracing the plum-edged petals of the rose at Camden's lapel. His eyes widened.
"Mare." Geoffrey spoke her name softly, pollen on fingertips, and he appeared close in her periphery, pulling her arm through his. "Come. Let's dance."
Mare turned to him, focusing on the rose at his collar. If it hadn't been there, would she dance with him? If the crowds didn't watch, would she ask him where he'd gotten it? Why he wore it? Who deceived her?
"I don't want to dance, Geoffrey." Mare moved to pull away, stomach in knots, dread rising in her throat, but Geoffrey placed his hand over hers, seeking her eyes.
"It's warm in here, isn't it? Let's step out. Just a moment?" Geoffrey didn't smile, and for once, Mare saw not the boy she'd missed these last years, but the young man who'd returned in his place. His hand felt steady over hers, and she realized she had to look up to hold his gaze. "What do you say, Mare?"
Mare looked back to Camden, who wore the same stony, perturbed expression he had the night of the dinner, when he'd walked her to the carriage at the end of the drive. She could not fathom what it meant.
Nor did she wish to. She realized she could use the night air Geoffrey promised, but more than that, a moment of solace. She allowed Geoffrey to guide her across the floor. Beneath the undulating warmth and murk of wine in her mind, Mare realized she'd fumbled greatly this evening. Was it the roses, the letters? Camden? Theodore? Her mother?
Mare was unused to such grave missteps. Her mask had more than slipped tonight. It had cracked.
Mare realized she'd exited the great hall through one of several sets of fine French doors. Out on the pavilion, lanterns glowed like captured fireflies, flames batting against glass and iron frames. As spring came to a cool close, the garden thrived. Wisteria fell from the lattices and arbor in great lavender swaths, its cloying scent a balm for Mare's nerves. Thankfully, there were no roses in sight.
"Unlike you," said Geoffrey, elbows on the banister. When Mare looked to him, he flashed that wild, crooked grin. He looked handsomer by firelight, an oil painting of an impish lord, Shakespearean. A foil. "Must be nervous to drink so much. Is your mother driving you mad?"
Mare couldn't help but smile. She glared over the pastoral garden, regret weighing heavier in her blood than the wine. She wished she were as courageous as the ladies in her books, both those she read and those she wrote. She wished she could brush her writer's betrayal from her shoulder like powdered snow. She wished she could brush her writer away entirely. Better to have never traced his words in ink or awaited the mail on the drive, steeped in curiosity and delight-what had he thought of her poem? Her sonnets? Her short tales and novel ideas?
What had he thought of her?
"Do you know what a tragic flaw is?" Mare traced lines of grain in the veneered banister. She felt Geoffrey turn to her in question. "Do you ever wonder if you will cause your own downfall?"
"Mare, this is no play or novel. There are no grand downfalls. Only mistakes and remedies." Geoffrey traced the grain as well, cuff link catching the light of a nearby lantern.
"And what of grand, sweeping romances? Do those exist in this harsh reality, or only within the pages of books, Mr. Bridge?"
Geoffrey straightened and turned, brow furrowed. He gave a little shake of his head. "I've never heard you speak this way."
His words were sobering. Mare wrapped her arms around herself. At her back the party carried on, all in all nothing like what she'd wished or dreamt of. Five years had led her to this night. She'd read hundreds of novels; how had she not seen this twist coming?
How could she fix it?
"What is the remedy for betrayal, I wonder?" Mare leaned against the rail. "In the great stories it is often revenge. Brontë. Homer. Hawthorne."
"Mare." Geoffrey ducked his chin, searching for her eyes. "What's happened?"
Mare bit her lip. Can I tell you a secret? She closed her eyes and a lush breeze rose off of the fields beyond, stirred no doubt by the sea further still, come all the way to caress her face. A reminder. I believe in love.
It was so unlike her writer to divulge her pages, to tell her secrets, to summon others to don roses. Did he know Mare was his correspondent? Was the thought of her so hideous he could not bear to face her?
Or had something else happened?
"Rules are meant to be broken," Mare murmured, touching her lips. It was brisker outside than she'd realized, though her body felt pleasantly numb even as she began to sober. "The sea does not flow where we command. It storms the Earth's crust, carving beaches and crags, wrecking entire fleets in its anger and connecting us all in its mercy."
Geoffrey smiled, and said nothing.
Mare smiled back. "Mare in Latin means sea. Did you know that?"
Geoffrey straightened again from that infuriating lean, and lifted a strand of hair from Mare's forehead. She froze, heart leaping against her ribs. Every drop of alcohol was razed from her veins like trees opposing the great will of wildfire. She was utterly awake now, her mask shattered. She forgot the roses and boys. She forgot everything.
"I did," said Geoffrey. His thumb lingered against her cheek, a brand. An impossibility. "What rules will you break, Mare?"
Mare's breath returned at once, a bird taking flight through her ribs. Geoffrey lowered his hand slowly, but Mare could not move. If she could, what would she do, she wondered, now her mask had shattered, her pretense vanished?
She found her voice with her resolve, tucked in a corner of her mind. She would not be defeated this way. She would find her writer and demand an explanation. And she would not use a rose as her weapon.
Lilith was right, after all. Mare was more than an Atwood. She was more than a girl beneath a rumor. More than a legacy. Mare was a wolf. She had the teeth to prove it.
"Plenty," she said, holding Geoffrey's eyes as the fire of his fingers faded, and the night swept forth to cloak them both. "But I can't do it alone."
Geoffrey grinned, rakish and wild in the garden. "May I offer my services in your strange quest for revenge, Ms. Atwood?"
Mare turned to face the party. Beyond the frosted windows the dance proceeded, roses at collars like spills of blood, matching the glint of wine in glasses, and the crimson of her own silks. She crossed her arms and cocked a brow, gaze alighting upon her suspects, her enemies, her allies: mother and father, Alison Watt, Lilith Gilbert, Camden Doores, and, of course, Theodore Bridge.
No, this dance had not gone as she'd hoped. Not as she could have predicted. But the best stories were unpredictable. Mysteries. Full of masks, cloaks and daggers, rainstorms and ocean waves, wars and winners.
Mare was a writer, whether the world believed it or not. And whatever twist came next, she vowed she'd be the one to write it.
"I'd be honored, Mr. Bridge." Mare took Geoffrey's hand and he lifted hers to his lips, kiss feather-light against her knuckles. "Though I must warn you now, I know not how this tale ends."
He grinned. "That's what makes it interesting."
Mare matched his smile.
She couldn't agree more.