Page 62 of Prince of Masks
“Are you not capable of differentiating? The company, Olivia. That is what is different.”
“What about school?”
The look he gives me is tired. “What about it?”
“At Bluestone, Asta gambles, Mildred, Melody, even Serena sometimes. You all do, together.”
“School is school,” he says with a soft sigh. “It’s like what Oliver said last night. The truth that struck a chord in you.”
The corners of my mouth dig into my cheeks.
The truth that struck a chord in you…
It silences me, how easily he understood my reaction at dinner, how effortlessly he read me.
“The truth is that, after graduation, it changes.” He brings the mug to his mouth; his throat bobs, once, twice, then he sets the mug aside. “Our roles change, the expectations close in, and suddenly, the responsibility of a family, of a wife are pushed onto us—and we are to make the appropriate choices. School is school,” he echoes with a faint shrug, “but then it’s life, and that is different. Play in the mud when you are five, not twenty-five.”
I lean closer, a snarl twitching at my lips, “You play in the mud all the time, Dray. You just call it rugby.”
His smirk is small, but sharp.
He says nothing, just watches me.
“What goes on in the casino then?” I ask, then shove my empty mug onto the tray. It lands with a rattle. “What’s so secret we fragile women can’t handle it?”
“Nothing more than losing money,” he says and leans forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs, “drinking, cigars, networking.” His mouth twitches into a crooked grin. “The occasional escort.”
My eyes widen.
I know he means himself or Oliver, the unmarried men, not our fathers, obviously, but still.
I make anicksound at the back of my throat. “All you aristos men are more ran through than a train station.”
A faint laugh jolts him, a single curt sound that’s as quick to die as it was to come.
I glare at him, at the audacity he has for finding anything I say funny, that he thinks I am jokingwithhim, when I am actually calling him a used-up whore.
He probably knows exactly what I am saying.
Maybe it’s that our parents are just up the side of the boat at the bow, or that Mr Younge and Mr Burns are on the top deck above the dining room, parked on loungers, enjoying their free time, but within eyesight if they care to look.
I didn’t pick a blind spot to settle into.
I made sure I had all angles covered.
Not to mention, from the under-cabin and the dining room, crew are moving around.
“You might understand once you’re married,” Dray says, luring my attention away from the passing steward who carries a tray of juice jugs to the bow.
I lift my blank stare to Dray.
The shades hide me to a degree, but he seems to know that there’s a stupid look planted on my face.
He clarifies, “Escorts. Sex.”
Behind the sunglasses, my lashes flutter, and I feel them brush over the lenses, a foreign and unwanted pressure. “What do you mean, once I’m married?”
His smile is breathtaking for a beat, then he scoffs a true, curt laugh. “When you have had it yourself.”
