Page 9 of Losing Wendy

I’d say my words are getting hung in my throat, but that would require me having an answer to begin with. Finally, I gather my swarming thoughts. “I didn’t—I didn’t know if perhaps I had offended you by being the first to ask you to dance.”

As to whether I offended him, he doesn’t say, but he shifts on his feet, sounding utterly weary as he says, “Why would I be interested in dancing with a spoiled heiress who looks as if she’s hardly been weaned?”

Heat flares at my neck, shock stunning my lips for a moment. I blink. Now that I’m close enough to get a better look at him, the difference in our ages is rather evident. Though I can’t spot the telling folds at the corners of his eyes due to his mask, he has that rugged appearance that sometimes inhabits men as their faces shift with age. Leaner at the cheeks, firmer at the jaw. He must be at least fifteen years my senior, if not more. “I thought—” My eyes betray me, searching for a glimpse of the Mating Mark I’d thought I’d spied on his hand. Surely it hadn’t simply been a trick of the light.

It’s the briefest of glances, but the stranger must catch it, because understanding dawns on his face. He tilts his chin up ever so slightly, crossing his arms at his chest and gesturing to his hand, his Mark shimmering in the low light. “Ah. Let me guess. You have one of these too, don’t you? I suppose it’s not a piggish disposition your parents are trying to hide underneath that mask, after all.”

My jaw drops.

A cruel grin plays on his lips. “Come now, Wendy Darling. You can’t blame a man for wondering.”

Tears sting at my eyes, each of his condescending words plucking at the corset strings I used to tie myself together tonight.

“Forgive me,” I seethe, “for assuming predisposed interest in a man attending a ball—the very function of which is to name the inheritor of my dowry.”

The stranger lets out a wry laugh, pushing himself from the wall in a fluid, graceful sweep. “I assure you, there are reasons for attending these functions that far exceed procuring a child bride.”

A child bride.

Images of a little girl, dancing barefoot with the shadows, careful not to let her skin touch, assault my mind.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” the stranger says, shoving past me on his way toward the center of the ballroom. “I’ll be looking for someone with slightly more wit to engage my attention.”

CHAPTER 5

Iscamper off, intent on fleeing the crowd before anyone notices the tears creeping out from underneath my mask, smearing my paint. Unfortunately, the stranger had been occupying the only remote alcove in the ballroom, and though he’s escaped into the crowd I can’t quite bring myself to turn around.

The shining double doors of the hall stretch out on the other side of the ballroom, but there is a battalion of coin-mongering aristocrats between me and there.

In my moment of hesitation, a hand clamps on my shoulder, forcing me to spin around.

“Might you grace me with a dance, my lady?” If the boorish stranger considered me an infant, this man surely should. Tufts of wiry gray hair form a wreath around the shine of his pale bald head, a monocle magnifying one of his watery blue eyes to twice its size. His voice is just as damp as his eyes, as if whatever he last ate is still dawdling in his throat.

Normally, I would not despise a man for the unfortunate ailments common to advanced age, but given the way his gaze focuses in on my bosom like a robin to a wriggling worm, I seem to have lost my knack for sympathy.

“I—” I don’t get the opportunity to object before the aristocrat slips his large wrinkled hand over my waist and pulls me into him, his dank breath wetting my hairline just below where his quivering lips linger.

“Such a little prize, aren’t you?” he says, wetting his pale lips with his tongue.

My stomach turns over, my tears forgotten as panic kindles inside my chest.

“My lord, I’m afraid we’ve yet to make introductions,” I say, fighting to keep my voice from shaking underneath the weight of his firm hand at my waist. My vision threatens to tunnel, to sweep me away to the parlor and the feel of velvet and the smell of incense and the touch of… But no. I slam those memories away and scramble for a polite but efficient way out of this situation, but my mind is still reeling from my mortifying encounter with the handsome stranger.

I like to think myself intelligent, despite what that horrid man might think about me, but my wit is the quiet sort. The kind that flourishes in solitude, in the shy pockets of the day. It spews from my pen rather than my mouth, and I often find my tongue clumsy where my script might have been elegant.

My mind slows in a crowd, and the effect worsens with stress.

“Lord Credence.” He says his name as though I should recognize it. When I don’t, he frowns. “You wrote to me by your own hand, Miss Darling.”

“Oh.”

“I must say, you’re much more eloquent in ink than you are with that tongue of yours.”

The words sting, though I shouldn’t let them. Fire spouts within me, and I long for a clever retort. I’m confident one will come to me as soon as I deliver myself from this man’s clutches.

“But no matter,” he continues. “In Estelle, the men might be weak-minded enough to allow their daughters to choose their husbands, but we know better in Kruschi. When I make you my bride, that your lips are heavy will be of little importance.”

“And why…” I say, slowly, to emphasize my point, “do you assume I would pick you to be my husband, Lord Credence?”

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