Chapter 45 – The Burden of Every Eye / The Badinage of Silk and Lace

Chapter 45

The Burden of Every Eye / The Badinage of Silk and Lace

            The herald’s voice cuts cleanly through the muted noise of the ballroom beyond the doors, his voice easily heard outside as well as in.

            “Presenting Her Grace, Duchess Ilsa Braemar, His Grace, Duke Alastair Braemar, and Lady Beira Braemar of Lochavria.”

            Music, conversation, movement, all of it rushes together at once into something bright and overwhelming as the great doors swing inward and the full breadth of the ballroom opens before us.  Light spills across polished marble and gilded trim in warm gold.  Crystal chandeliers hang overhead in glittering tiers, their light caught and scattered in mirrored panels and silver fixtures until the entire room seems to glow.  Silk and satin sweep across the dance floor in waves of color, jewels catching candlelight with every turn of movement.  The air is alive with music, conversation, and the soft rhythm of noble performance.

            As we step through the doors onto the landing at the top of a grand staircase that leads down to the ballroom floor, every eye in the room turns.  It is not subtle.  The shift is immediate and complete, attention rippling through the gathered nobility in a wave so tangible I can feel it before we have taken more than three steps into the room.  For one terrible instant, all I can think is that my mother had not been exaggerating nearly enough when she had told me what to expect.

            My father offers me his arm and I take it, more grateful for the point of contact than I care to admit, his presence grounding me in the moment.

            My mother moves at my other side with effortless poise, composed and immaculate in deep sapphire silk, her expression calm in the way only someone entirely prepared for this sort of scrutiny can manage.

            I do my best to imitate her, but I suspect my act is not entirely convincing.

            We descend into the ballroom as one, our pace measured, neither hurried nor slow.  Every step we take feels deliberate, every breath feels observed.  The sea of faces before me blurs at the edges into a wash of color as my vision narrows.  The sea is broken only by the occasional face that I recognize, even if I myself have never seen them.  The polite attention on these faces makes my stomach tighten and causes bile to rise in the back of my throat. 

            These are future classmates, the daughters of noble houses, girls that I remember in fragments and half-feelings.  Girls who had known me before I became someone I had to learn how to be.  A few offer polite smiles while one or two look at me with open curiosity as if I were a rare animal on display.

            Catalina Breegar stands near the edge of the ballroom in a gown as impeccably arranged as the girl wearing it, her two ever-present shadows flanking her like decorative accessories.  Her gaze finds me almost immediately, sharp and appraising, sweeping over me from head to toe with the sort of open assessment that would be rude if she were not precisely the sort of girl to make it look elegant.  Her smile is flawless.

            I can practically hear her voice from a few days ago, I look forward to seeing how you… readjust, Lady Beira.

            I keep walking, one step at a time.  If she actually says anything in that moment, I do not hear it.  I am not entirely certain I would trust myself to respond if she did.  The ballroom opens wider as we descend fully into it, the crush of observation gradually giving way to movement as conversation and dance resumes in careful increments.  The music swells again and it is as if the room exhales.

            Before Catalina can decide whether or not to make good on the promise in her smile, another figure slips neatly into my path.

            “Lady Beira.”

            The voice is familiar enough to catch me off guard.

            Lena Kincaid dips into a graceful curtsey, a warm smile already softening her features before she straightens.  She is dressed in pale green tonight, the color setting off her white hair and grey eyes in a way that makes her look elegant rather than severe.  Unlike Catalina’s smile, Lena’s reaches her eyes.

            “It’s good to see you,” she says, and to my surprise, she sounds as though she means it.

            I blink, some of the tension leaving my shoulders before I can stop it.

            “You too,” I answer, only to realize after the words leave my mouth that I mean them just as much.

            Her smile brightens, small but genuine.

            “I was beginning to think the rumors were exaggerated,” she says lightly, her eyes giving a quick glance at the faces around us. “You look well.”

            It is such a normal thing to say, that for half a second, I do not know what to do with it.  Not “You’ve changed”, not “How are you feeling?”, not even the careful politeness of “It is good to see you recovered”.  Just… “You look well.”

            After a moment of hesitation, something in my chest loosens as I realize she is saying this as much for those around us as she is for me.

            “Thank you,” I say, and this time the smile I offer her comes easier.

            Lena’s gaze flicks briefly toward the crowd beyond us, then back.

            “You’ve been missed, you know,” she says, the words soft and almost casual, but they land harder than they should.

            Before I can think of what to say to that, a bright familiar voice cuts cleanly through the space between us.

            “There you are!”

            The effect is immediate.  The heads of everyone around us turn and conversations pause as Princess Isabella sweeps into the space between us in a wave of pale pink silk and lace.

            Izzy looks radiant her face full of warmth, light, and unapologetic enthusiasm.

            Her gown is softer than mine, more playful in its design; pale blush layered with pearl and silver in a way that catches the ballroom light every time she moves. Her pink hair has been pinned and styled with more care than I have ever seen her tolerate, delicate silver woven through the arrangement like starlight.

           She is, unmistakably, the center of the room.

           “Beri!” she declares, as if I have not been in the ballroom for all of thirty seconds. “You made it.”

           I stare at her for a moment then, because apparently tonight is determined to keep wrong-footing me at every available opportunity, I blurt the first thing that has been sitting like a stone in my stomach since we arrived.

           “I d-didn’t get you a gift.”

           Izzy blinks in surprise at the sudden outburst of my admission.

           Lena stares at me, her mouth slightly agape.

           My mother, somewhere just to my left, goes very still.

           And then Izzy gasps like I have said something genuinely scandalous.

           “Beira Braemar,” she says, placing one hand dramatically over her heart. “How dare you.”

           My stomach drops and I feel as if I could start spiraling at any moment.

           Then she grins.

           “You’re here. Clearly, I have already received my gift,” her tone teasing.

           The relief is so immediate it nearly makes me dizzy.

           Izzy beams at me like she has personally solved a national crisis.  Then, leaning in just slightly, she lowers her voice enough to turn the next words into a conspiratorial murmur.

           “Besides,” she says, eyes sparkling and her tone teasing, “the second part of my gift arrives later.”

           “W-W-Wha-“ I blurt out, my head jerking back for a fraction of a second.

           Before I can ask what that means, she straightens, catches sight of Lena still standing politely to one side, and brightens all over again.

           “Oh! Lena, you’re here too,” she says, her voice coated in sugar and sweetness.

           Lena, to her credit, looks only mildly startled by the speed at which she has been absorbed into Izzy’s orbit.

           “For the moment,” she says dryly.

           “Wonderful. You may both stand with me until someone important steals one of you away.” Izzy says wuth a smile, entirely undeterred.

           Mari appears only a step behind Izzy, moving through the crowd with considerably less fanfare and all the inevitability of someone who had almost certainly failed to stop her.  She is dressed, unsurprisingly, in black.  Not mourning black, but something softer, with a deep purple undertone, the dark fabric threaded with subtle silver detailing that catches the light only when she moves.  It suits her in the same way still water suits moonlight... elegant, restrained, and even just a little dangerous.

           “Your Highness,” she says flatly, stopping just beside Izzy.  “I see you escaped.”

           “I was never contained.” Izzy says, beaming with pride.

           Mari’s expression does not change.

           “No,” she agrees.  “That was the issue.”

           I fail, almost immediately, not to laugh.  The sound slips out before I can stop it and Izzy gasps, turning to me as if I have committed a grave betrayal.

           “You laughed at me,” she says in mock indignation.

           “I laughed near you,” I correct, which makes Mari’s mouth twitch at one corner.

           Lena, to my growing surprise, covers a smile with her hand.

           And just like that, something in the room loosens.  Not the ballroom, not really.  That still hums around us in silk and candlelight and noble performance, but the mental pressure that is pressing hardest against my rib’s eases, if only by a little.  For the first time since stepping through the doors, I stop feeling like I am being observed and start, however briefly, feeling as though I am simply here.  The shift is small, but it is enough.

           Somewhere beyond the immediate orbit of pink silk, silver laughter, and carefully managed noble chaos, Queen Catriona moves through the ballroom like she has always belonged at the center of it, which, of course, she does.  While she herself was never announced, she doesn’t need to be; her overwhelming presence is taking care of that for her.  It is already woven into the room, into the easy rhythm of conversation and movement and welcome as she drifts from guest to guest with practiced warmth, pale pink silk and polished grace carrying her through the crowd in the role of hostess as effortlessly as breathing.  She smiles, greets, and receives each individual one by one, welcoming them personally.  Somehow, in the process, she manages to look less like the most politically powerful woman in the room and more like Izzy might, if Izzy ever learned restraint.  Frankly, it is quite unsettling.  Even more unsettling still is the realization that she is doing exactly what my mother has spent the last week trying to teach me: making power look effortless.

           Conversation resumes around us in softer currents.

           Lena is pulled away first, intercepted by an older woman with her same white hair and gentler eyes whom I assume must be her mother.  She offers me one last small smile before she goes.

           Izzy is claimed next, though less successfully, by a pair of lesser nobles attempting to politely remind her that this is, in fact, her ball and she is expected elsewhere.  She waves them off for nearly a full minute before Mari physically turns her by the shoulders and points her in the correct direction.

           “Go be celebrated,” Mari tells her.

           “You say that like it’s a burden,” Izzy says, amusement blossoming on her face as if expecting what comes next.

           “It is,” Mari replies, as expected.

           Izzy laughs brightly, catches my hands in both of hers for one quick squeeze, and leans in just enough to murmur, “Don’t vanish before the important part.”

           Then she is swept back into the crowd in a cloud of pink silk and glittering attention.

           Mari lingers only long enough to glance between me and the dance floor.

           “You should enjoy the first set while the room is still tolerable,” she says, sounding vaguely threatening.

           Before I can decide whether or not to ask her what that means, the first shift in the music rolls through the ballroom.  The current lively arrangement gives way to something slower and more formal.  Coming from across the room where he was doing who knows what, my father appears at my side with the timing of a man who has either been watching for precisely this moment or has been sent.  Possibly both considering my mother seems to have vanished at some point when Izzy was here.

           He offers me his hand.

           “May I have this dance, Lady Beira?” he says, the warmth in his eyes makes the formality feel more like a gental teasing than a courtesy.

           I smile despite myself and place my hand in his.

           “You may, Your Grace,” I reply.