Dresses get their magic from different places. Some dresses are magic because of where they are worn, a place that holds romance and potential and happiness. Some dresses are magic because of the people they affect—a bridal gown that brings a bridegroom to tears, for example.
And some dresses are magic simply because of the dress they are. The magic is in the fabric and the pleats themselves, the tiny stitches and even seams.
Tonight my dress was magic, even though I felt like I was wearing it to my doom. It was a bold choice for a soon-to-be bride, but I didn’t care. I wanted bold, I wanted it to scream Molly O’Flaherty. I wanted the eyes of the ballroom on me one last time before I tumbled headlong into this terrible marriage.
It was red, the kind of red that poets write about, a red that was bright and vivid and deep all at once, a red that brought to mind blood and roses and cherries hanging ripe on a tree. The silk glistened like scarlet water in the light, clinging to my curves and spilling out behind me in a glorious bustle with a small train. Coupled with my hair piled high with curls gracefully draped over one shoulder and a sheer re
d shawl hanging from my arms, there would be no mistaking me. No opportunity to paint me as some meek blushing bride. My last act of defiance to Hugh and my last chance to feel beautiful on my own terms.
I went to find a necklace to pair with it, settling on a small gold chain with a ruby cross. Though I’d purchased it in Rome with my own money, something about it always reminded me of my aunt back in Ennis. Maybe it was the cross—despite her aberrant views on pregnancy and fertility, she’d been quite religious. Or maybe it was the rubies, which reminded me of the dark red helleborine flowers that grew around her house. Either way, I pressed my hand against the cross, missing her cottage, missing her, the woman that was so like her sister, my mother.
And then, shit, the realization that I hadn’t drank my tea today, the tea that my aunt had taught me how to prepare in order to avoid pregnancy. I drank it every morning, and had since I was a girl, but I’d been so exhausted from the week’s events that I’d slept clean through breakfast, and pushed away lunch when it was brought to me.
It’s fine. You weren’t planning on sleeping with Hugh tonight anyway. He’d have to wait until we were actually married for that, and when that happened, I’d make sure to drink the tea every day. Twice a day, maybe.
It would be fine.
With a final glance at the mirror, I went downstairs to meet my fiancé.
The ball was absolutely the largest party I’d ever been to, including the one hosted by the Prince of Orange that Julian and I had attended in Amsterdam one year. Tonight, hundreds of people danced, drank, and flirted, all of them coming to the front to greet Hugh and me.
I have so many friends, I realized with a sense of sadness. For so long, I’d kept myself apart—burdened by my secrets, consumed by my business. Coming out to play whenever I needed a distraction. And all along, these people had grown attached to me, fond of me, even though I’d been distant and frequently dismissive. Possibly even cruel.
All of these friends, all of this carefree joy and lighthearted laughter as they drank and ate (at my expense, but that was easily forgiven)—would it all vanish once I was legally under Hugh’s thumb?
Unlike me, my future husband was untroubled by any sort of introspection or epiphany. He laughed along with the guests, handsome, ruddy, and blond, a picture of Saxon health and vitality. He shook hands and he kissed hands. He bowed to women and he embraced men.
Unlike me, he had nothing but a happy future ahead. A rich wife, an infusion of money, and nothing else about his life would have to change.
It took everything I had not to push him away whenever he drew me close. Especially when that woman Mercy Atworth sashayed up to us, her dark hair glistening and her neckline low. Mercy had been the woman to drive Silas and me apart last year—and almost again last month—and while I tried to remember that it wasn’t necessarily any fault of her own, since I had never laid public stake to Silas and Silas was by far the guiltier party when it came to both of those incidents, it was hard not to hate her. Her and her easy beauty and her lush sexuality.
We’d been friends once. More than friends; I knew what her nipples felt like hardening against my tongue. I knew what sounds she made when she came around my fingers. But that was a lifetime ago, in another world, with another Molly. Now I kept my posture stiff and restrained as she curtsied to us both. And then Hugh pulled her in to kiss her cheeks, both kisses landing at the edge of her curved, full mouth.
There was something about their familiarity that scratched at me—it wasn’t jealousy, not at all, although if Silas had touched her that way, I would have dug my fingers into her eyes until I touched her brain.
No, it was more like the realization that the two of them were closer than I’d really understood. Close like the closest friends, sensual like the most passionate lovers.
It struck me that the way they stood right now, hands clasped, bodies tilted toward one another’s like twin plants arcing toward the same sunbeam, was a lot like how Silas and I were around one another.
Were Hugh and Mercy…in love?
This didn’t upset me. This didn’t even change my perception that Hugh was genuinely fond of me, in a romantic way. I knew better than most people that you could believe yourself in love with one person while you were actually deeply and subconsciously in love with another.
I turned this new angle on their friendship over in my mind as she chattered with Hugh. I thought of how close they were, how frequently they spent time with one another. I thought of something else too. I thought of Hugh’s anxious displeasure when Silas came to town. Of the day we’d caught Silas with his cock inside Mercy’s mouth. I’d been with Hugh, lunching together in his townhouse, when he’d received a brief letter from Mercy. “She needs us to stop by,” he’d said, folding the letter and tucking it into his jacket. And I’d agreed to go, not needing to be anywhere else.
So it had been no coincidence that we’d walked in to find that scene. Which made me feel marginally better about Silas’s role in that, but quite depressed about my own intelligence. How had I not seen the trap? How had I not seen how I’d been guided and manipulated—not just by Hugh and Mercy, but by Cunningham and the board? For all these months…all these years?
I snagged a glass off of a tray traveling nearby, draining the champagne in two easy swallows. I scanned the room for Silas—something I’d been doing approximately every three or four minutes since the ball started. Castor was here, as were Julian and Ivy, and everyone else we knew.
But not Silas.
Not that I could blame him. If he were throwing himself a massive ball to celebrate his engagement to someone else, I wouldn’t be able to go either. But it still stung, because I missed him. I craved him. Especially after what I’d shared with him; he was one of the few people in the world who knew all of me, and the only one who loved me the way I needed to be loved. I knew this had to be unbearable for him, but what about me?
Doesn’t anyone care that it’s unbearable for me?
The time came for a toast, led by Gideon, Hugh’s closest friend. I allowed my thoughts to wander during his speech, pretending to laugh and smile at all the right jokes, and then it was time for Hugh and me to dance. The band struck up a tune, Hugh found my hand and my waist, and then we were spinning around the dance floor, our partygoers forming a circle around us.
Hugh smiled down at me, and I once again appreciated how completely oblivious he was to everything—my feelings, my needs, the unique monstrosity of the situation. And I couldn’t stand it any more. That smug happiness needed to end, and given that this was the first time we’d had anything remotely approximating a private conversation since the other morning, it was going to end now.
