Saturday dawned shittily. I hadn’t slept well, and I’d done exactly zero preparation for the phenomenally posh birthday party I would have to attend, whether I went with Caspian or not.
Urgh. Caspian. What had I done?
I mean, maybe he was right. Maybe I was asking for the impossible. He’d told me about Nathaniel. He’d trusted me with his nightmare. It wasn’t my job to fix his relationship with Ellery. It wasn’t even my business.
Back in Kinlochbervie, he’d promised to try, and I’d promised to be patient. And only one of us, really, could be said to have kept their side of the bargain.
Clue: it wasn’t me.
I’d been greedy, and pushy, and demanding. And not very kind. And Caspian had stuck with me, supported me, done so much for me, both practically and emotionally. And, in return, I’d made him feel like a failure. Like he couldn’t make me happy.
When he did. He so did.
Obviously, what we had together wasn’t perfect. But what was? I didn’t know how to do relationships and I was starting to get the sense he didn’t either. But we were trying. Faltering and fucking up, but definitely trying.
Well, except for the bit where I’d told him that wasn’t good enough.
And what did I want, when it came down to it? A fairy tale? A happily ever after as smooth as glass? Or something real and messy and occasionally painful? With the complicated, damaged, fascinating man I was pretty sure I was falling in love with?
I groped for my phone, and texted Caspian: I’m sorry. You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried. Please pick me up. I would love to be your date for the party.
As ever, Caspian’s reply came quickly: I think you’ve forgotten that I am capable of accomplishing almost anything to which I bend my attention. I could disappoint you comprehensively if I so desired.
I didn’t deserve to be joked at. But I laughed and felt better. Accepting Caspian’s comfort because he’d offered it and I needed it.
Still had to deal with the damn party though. In the end, I googled the closest branch of Moss Bros and forked out fifty quid to hire a tux and all the fixings. Of course, everyone else was probably going to be in bespoke designer shit, but at least I was in the vicinity of appropriate. I didn’t have a mask either, but anything in my budget wasn’t going to work for an event like that.
Basically I’d be Kaylee in that episode of Firefly where she goes to a party in the best pink dress in the ’verse. But everyone is all sneery because it’s off the rack instead of custom made by poor people.
Then, as I was sloping moodily home past the Mac concession on the ground floor of Debenham’s, I had a eureka moment. I didn’t need to buy a mask at all—I could use makeup. That way it could be as extravagant and unique as I wanted, and people would go “oh, isn’t he arty” rather than “oh, isn’t he cheap.” I stocked up and raced back to the flat.
It took a bit of practice, some diligent eyebrow shaping, and most of what was left of my afternoon but I was pleased with how it turned out. I’d managed to give myself butterfly wings: dark pink at the inside corners of my eyes, blending into blue and yellow and pearly green as the design unfurled across my cheeks and brow. The colors seemed especially vivid against the austerity of my hired formalwear and I felt, honestly, a little bit…magical.
Needless to say, I did what anyone would have done under the circumstances and I selfied the living fuck out of myself.
And was therefore so late that Caspian had to come up and get me.
“Did you change your mind?” he asked, stepping softly in the living area. “Are you all right?”
I yelped, nearly dropping my phone. “No, I mean yes, I mean I haven’t changed my mind sorry.”
“What are you doing?”
As it happened, what I was doing was working a MySpace angle but there was no way I was admitting that. I lowered my arm sheepishly. “Just, um, trying to get a signal.”
“Clearly.” He sounded very dry. “I sent you three texts.”
“God. Sorry.” This was the problem with having two phones—it was double the opportunity to miss things. Closing Instagram down, I turned hastily and—
Wow. Oh wow. Caspian.
He was immaculate in full black tie. Effortless, too, nothing imprecise or overdone: just fiercely fine tailoring and the subtle sheen of matte silk from the reverse and buttons of his classic, one-button peak lapel jacket. His mask was a single strip of black satin that I could already tell would make everyone else look too ornate and tacky by comparison. And it seemed so completely miraculous right then that this man, so steeped in wealth and power, who could have anything in the world he wanted…wanted me.
My heart twisted itself into a knot so tight and tender I could hardly breathe.
Then he crossed the room and drew me into his arms. Turned my face up to his and gazed at me in a manner I’m sure Jane Austen would have described as ardent. “You’re enchanting,” he said. “I want to kiss you, but I’m afraid I’ll smudge it.”
“Err.” I was good to take the risk but words weren’t working so well. Despite the fact that a couple of minutes ago I’d been fearlessly broadcasting how hot I looked to the whole internet, his compliment had flustered me. And was probably undoing all my hard work because I hadn’t factored being bright red into my mask design.
“This will have to suffice for now.” He caught my hand, drew it to his lips, and kissed my knuckles. All soft and gallant and unexpectedly sweet.
I just about swooned. “How about we ditch the party?”
“I don’t think Eleanor would ever forgive you.”
It was the only time he’d ever spoken of her in a way that suggested he had any understanding of what she might care about. Or interest in it. And he was right too—as much as I’d have liked to unwrap and eat Caspian like a Godiva Carre, it would have been a shitty thing to prioritize on Ellery’s birthday. “I don’t think she’d be massively happy if you didn’t show up either.”
“On the contrary, I think she’d be quite pleased.”
Had he even been in the same argument I’d witnessed yesterday? I made a whingey noise, wanting to protest, but also not wanting to start another fight with him about something we’d never agree on.
“And you’re sure about tonight?” The question was casual enough, but his eyes were so intent on mine he might as well have been saying are you sure about me?
“Yes. Definitely.”
Holding my hand tight to his chest, Caspian bestowed another of his fleeting kisses upon my nose, and then let me go. “Then come on. Fashionably late is one thing. Late is quite another.”
We traveled mostly in silence. The car took us right into the heart of Kensington—past on-site security and into a leafy boulevard literally behind Kensington Palace itself. A street of private mansions, delicately illuminated by Narnia lampposts and patrolled by armed guards.
It was hard to process really…the existence of a place like this, right in the middle of England’s capital, where the land values were unthinkable. Even One Hyde Park, with all its aggressive opulence, had been obliged to build upward. Not these languorous, three-story homes, with their wings and gardens and stable blocks. There was a quietness of conviction here, an unshakeable expectation of wealth and its advantages that was frankly kind of scary. How did you get the balls to own a place like this? To believe you deserved it?
The houses themselves, though, were just a little bit incongruous. The ornate stucco frontages, all pillars and porticos and wedding cake molding struck me as something I’d have expected to find in a Henry James novel. Status symbols of people called Vanderbilt. Not English old money.
The car drew to a halt in front of one of the mansions and I scrambled out, feeling dazed and floaty. Caspian, of course, strode straight through the swung-wide gates, past the fountain (the motherfucking fountain) and up the steps to the house, which was lit up and shining like a medieval vision of heaven. Or the Disney castle if it had been a touch more Rothschild.
Even in the moments I wasted dithering, a second car pulled up—another black Maybach—and disgorged a small collection of glamorous people, all of them masked, the men aloof and interchangeable in black tie, the women aloof and marginally less interchangeable in their designer frocks. Laughing, their voices entangling, they glided past me, and I realized that if I didn’t catch up sharpish I was going to lose Caspian in the flow of the fabulously dressed.
I scampered after him. Clearly starting the evening as I meant to go on: looking like an idiot. And caught up just inside the entrance hall, somehow managing not to go arse up, face down on the highly polished marble floor.
Holy fuck, that house.
I mean, yes, it had an entrance hall, for starters. It was that sort of place. Full of stately rooms that didn’t seem to be for anything. At least, nothing that normal people did like watch TV or wander round absentmindedly while chain-eating Pringles. It was all ornate plasterwork and inlaid panels, curlicues and chandeliers. Those really tall vase things that did nothing except proclaim that your house (and wallet) were big enough to accommodate them.
It all left me slightly dizzy. Too much light glinting on too many surfaces. And the inescapable truth that the only circumstances in which people like me were expected to visit places like this was with a National Trust membership card.
And Caspian had grown up here. This was his.
Shit. I was having a Pemberley moment.
I looked around desperately for Ellery. But unless she was wearing a particularly distinctive and Ellery-ish mask, or a name badge, maybe, I had no way of recognizing her among the guests. It wasn’t a horrible crush or anything—people sort of spilled very naturally through the spacious rooms and the atmosphere was at once lively and refined (dear God, I was in a Jane Austen novel). But there was no getting away from the fact I’d blithely turned up at a gathering where I didn’t know a fucking soul. And where the whole point of the evening was making basic interaction as difficult and obtuse as possible.
Suddenly, Caspian—who, I guess, hadn’t abandoned me after all—seized my hand. I hadn’t expected him to get all PDA-ey and I would have been gratified except he was holding me so tightly that I felt my bones creak in protest.
A man and woman had disengaged themselves from another couple and were now coming toward us.
She was just…lovely. This willowy, honey-and-roses beauty and an ageless, English elegance, everything about her exquisitely simple, from the smooth caramel twist of her hair to the midnight-blue folds of her gown. Her mask was a swirl of silver filigree over navy brocade. Impossible, in the presence of such grace, not to be self-conscious about my off-the-rack tux and my visit to the Mac makeup counter. I swallowed, trying not to succumb to profound despair. Attendee commits seppuku at high society event.
“Caspian.” She leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I’m so glad to see you.” Her voice was familiar. Its rhythms and intonations—that hint of a Fanny Ardant purr.
He gave a tight little nod. “Mother.”
Oh wow. I suppose I should have figured that out. I probably had. But…from the whole art auction thing and the way Caspian and Ellery talked about her, I’d convinced myself that Mrs. Hart would be a grim and heinous witch. Not a woman whose smile cut a deep dimple into her cheek and made her eyes crease at the corners.
She was smiling that very beautiful, very real smile at me now. “And you must be Arden?”
“Uh, yeah,” I replied suavely.
“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
My mum loved those lines. I could remember her whispering them to me, holding me tight, on the nights when—I realized with hindsight—she was waiting fearfully for my father to come home.
I nodded helplessly. It was either that or burst into tears. Vomit my life story onto Mrs. Hart’s Jimmy Choos. Weirdly, I almost wanted to. For some reason, part of me was convinced she’d be really super nice about it. Her golden-hazel eyes were so full of warmth.
“Arden.” Caspian’s voice sliced the silence. “This is my mother, Gertrude Hart.”
“Please, call me Trudy.”
“O-okay.” Fuck. Worst. Guest. Ever.
It wasn’t so much a sense of movement but a sense of stillness that reminded me she wasn’t alone. Weird, because the man at her shoulder wasn’t normally the type of person you wouldn’t notice. He was impressively tall and impressively attractive, in a steely, corporate kind of way, not entirely dissimilar to Caspian. Except older and sort of…more somehow. His mask was very plain, one side ungleaming black, the other a deep, heavy gray, almost the same shade as his eyes. It was testament to just how much I was Caspian’s that, apart from a mild and largely curious stirring of my libido, I wasn’t that into him.
“It’s been a long time, Caspian.” He spoke much as he presented himself: with an air of cold command. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”
Caspian’s hand was sweating in mine. “Of course. Arden, this is Lancaster Steyne. He was my father’s business partner.”
Steyne had barely glanced at me, which I discovered I was actually pretty glad about. He was fashioned to hit all my yes please buttons, but the sexy to scary ratio was a little too far toward scary for my comfort. Of course, I was into discomfort too, but I knew my own limits. I might fantasize, sometimes, about men like Lancester Steyne doing terrible things to me. But I didn’t want him to actually do them.
“Arthur always hoped you’d follow in his footsteps,” he was saying. “But I knew better.”
There was a pause. And it felt full of thorns.
“Why are you here?” Caspian asked, after a moment.
“Ellery invited me. So, of course, I came.” Steyne smiled, a perfectly normal smile, easy, affectionate, and urbane. “It’s been a welcome opportunity to renew acquaintance with your family. I was always very fond of you.”
Maybe I was imagining things but Caspian seemed…flustered somehow. “I’m surprised she still remembers you. It’s been a long time.”
“She’s very loyal. She feels both friendship and betrayal perhaps too keenly. But”—another smile—“who would know that better than you? You are her brother, after all.”
A terrible shudder ran through Caspian’s whole body. I wasn’t sure it was visible but, God, I felt it. Something was very wrong here and I didn’t know what it was or how to help. All I could do was hold Caspian’s hand and hope it could be enough when it so clearly wasn’t. His silence had taken on this odd, almost defeated quality. I’d never known him lost for words before and it…frightened me.
And that was when Nathaniel turned up.
I wasn’t sure how I recognized him because I’d never seen him in the flesh before but somehow—even with the top half of his face covered by a golden mask—I did. Maybe it was the rich copper of his hair or the expensive whiskey sheen of his eyes. The kissable lips. The sculpted jaw of a curse-breaking fairy tale hero.
Or maybe it was the familiar, possessive way he put his arm around Caspian’s waist and the way Caspian didn’t flinch or pull away. I’d seen them standing like that in photographs. Friends. Lovers. Partners. Everything I still wasn’t quite.
“Oh here you are,” he said. “Can you come a moment, my prince? There’s been a cock up with the caterers.”
It was a shock to hear him speak. For Nathaniel to suddenly become real to me in a way he never had before, when he’d been safely contained in pictures and in the past. In Caspian’s assurances that it was me he wanted. Me who understood him. Me who made him happy. But it was hard to remember that when Nathaniel touched him so easily. Called him by a name that belonged to the life they’d shared.
Caspian glanced at him, his eyes too bright and desperate. “Of course.” He pulled his hand from mine, murmured something vague about being back soon, excused himself politely to the others, and then disappeared into the sea of formalwear with Nathaniel.
Lancaster Steyne watched him go. I had no idea what he was thinking.
Or, for that matter, what had happened. Only that I felt horribly dislocated. Caspian had brought me with him into this world—his world—and hadn’t even thought to prepare me for it. He’d just let me blunder into things, clueless and confused and blind. Which would have been, well, not fine but typical. I’d have coped.
Except he’d needed me.
He’d needed me, but he hadn’t given me the power to help him. He hadn’t trusted me enough. Or believed I could.
And so it had fallen to Nathaniel.
I couldn’t resent him for rescuing Caspian. But it hurt that it had been someone else. That I hadn’t been able to protect my man.
I suddenly realized Lancaster was departing as well—apparently he’d seen a viscount he needed to talk to. And then everyone was gone and I was alone with Mrs. Hart.