Page 36 of The Dravenhearst Brides
Margot pictured the face of the mystery woman who shared nights with Merrick in her place. She would be beautiful, of course, striking and magnetic. Confident. She had to be.
Whoisshe? What does she have that I don’t? Who? Who?
Through her rising opiate haze, Margot wondered if there was an owl on the balcony asking the question.
Who? Who? Who?
Then came the answer, her last conscious thought. A damning one, followed by eerie laughter, high and feminine.
Someone just like Babette.
The ballroom was aglow and hazy, rosy-hued in evening candlelight. Margot floated above the scene, drifting between the taper-laden chandeliers. Faces below blurred like the swirling brushstrokes of a Van Gogh painting, all movement, color, and current. All round edges. A feeling more than a reality.
She rolled over in the air, spinning lazily. Humidity sat like morning dewdrops on her bare limbs. Like water-laden crystals, glistening in the low light. Margot shimmered. Rolled her arms languorously, her gaze trailing across the scene below.
Like an angel, she descended. The skirt of her white nightgown billowed romantically, a peony in full bloom. Her bare toes pointed, then touched marbled ground. The cold hit her feet, icing them through. The sensation crept up her legs, rising like frost, as she began to move. Humid dewdrops turned to frozen crystals on her skin.
A ragtime reel was playing. Hands clapped to the beat, merry and sharp. The crowd fell away as two girls—a pair of doe-eyed, rosy-cheekeddebutantes—stole center stage on the dance floor. One with soft red hair. The other, pale blonde.
Margaret Babette and Ruth Auclaire.
Their feet moved in perfect unison, punctuating every beat with a dance step. The clapping of the crowd increased, winding faster and faster. Challenging the girls to keep pace. To dance. Tofly.
Only when it became untenable, only when their feet moved and tapped and twirled as mere blurs, did Babette break harmony, reaching for Ruth. The pair entwined their hands and leaned back, spinning like cherry blossoms falling to earth in springtime. Heads tilted up, curling strands of hair dripping down their backs, mouths open in joyous laughter. The sound rang louder in Margot’s ears than the thunderous clapping. Rang like the pealing of church bells on Easter Sunday. The laughter of unbridled youth, of princesses in a room full of peasants.
Fascination and desire swelled in Margot’s chest, shooting a current of warmth through her cold limbs, blazing all the way to the tips of her frosted fingers.
The two girls were a perfect pair of foils. Babette, the portrait of romance in a diaphanous dusty pink gown with ruffled gigot sleeves ending just above her elbow. Low cut to expose her flushed bosom, panting with exertion from the effects of the reel. And Ruth, a strikingly bold figure clad in black and white, art nouveau lines accenting curves down her bodice and lengthening the line of her legs. Her ears were weighted with succulent pearls, diamonds at her throat. Glittering with expense, dripping with it.
Together they consumed all the oxygen in the room.
“Louisville’s own pair of Gibson girls,” a watching mama announced. Curious, Margot reached for her, wondering if she could touch…but the woman drifted away, neither here nor there. Insubstantial.
“Indeed. Best for every other debutante in this room they make matches quickly,” her companion replied, staring right through Margot as she spoke. “Until those two dominoes fall, there’ll be no room for the rest.”
A dark-haired man in a crisp, narrow-cut tuxedo took to the floor. The music slowed. Ruth gave Babette a knowing, close-lipped smile, nodding over her friend’s shoulder at the approaching gentleman. She leaned in to whisper something, pink lips nearly touching Babette’s ear. Margot moved forward, dying to hear Ruth’s words, but the music swelled, transitioning to a waltz. Ruth melted away as Babette turned straight into the man’s arms and began to dance.
“You were saying,” the mama said, nudging her friend’s shoulder.
“Well, well, well. A Babette and a Dravenhearst. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Mmm, yes. It’s their fourth dance this week, second tonight. I daresay, that match is made.”
Margot hardly breathed as she watched the pair, their bodies a hair closer than proper, eyes locked on each other. Gazes pooling. Swimming in each other.
Heat warmed Margot’s core, between her legs, only from watching. Because if she slightly fuzzed her vision, it could be her and Merrick revolving around the dance floor. Closer than close. A dark-haired devil and a strawberry-blonde cherub.
Oh, how she wanted to be held like that! To set every tongue in Louisville wagging for something so scandalously improper but undeniablyright. To so clearly belong in another’s embrace.
Margot raised her arms into the hold, imagining what it would feel like. Just before she gave into the music and began to move, the gentleman beside her shifted. She froze, wondering faintly if he might take her hands and dance. He was young and fit with soft brown hair and matching eyes, kind eyes.
But his hands didn’t reach for her; instead, they clasped behind his back. A set of silver cufflinks twinkled in the candlelight, a pair of racehorses. When Margot’s gaze traced up his arms, over his shoulders, across his face, she found abject longing. He stared straight through her with eyes for none but Babette.
Babette, who was twirling in Richard Dravenhearst’s arms, seemingly enamored. Brushing her fingers on his neck, teasing, twining in the dark hair at his nape.
The man beside Margot flinched and turned tail. Only then did Babette’s attention falter. Her gaze snapped like a magnet, watching the man’s retreating back, like she’d known precisely where he stood all along. Her body continued to waltz, the crowd continued to gawk, but Margot was watching Babette’s eyes—a single flicker, there and gone. Enough to give her away.
As the music faded, Dravenhearst leaned low to kiss Babette’s curled fingers. She accepted her victory with smug delight, a princess ascending to the rank of queen. Murmurs buzzed through the room. Heedless, Babette took her leave, gently waving away another gentleman who extended his hand for a dance.
