by Alys Murray
“Don’t worry. We’ll be ready.”
Well…Daniel would be ready, at least. With his hand-me-down clothes, the second he opened his mouth to talk about starry-eyed love or to sing one of his love songs, every cynical man in Animos would vote for him. There was nothing more pitiful and pathetic to them than someone poor enough to live honestly.
No, Daniel would be ready. It was herself she had to worry about. She had to be prepared to let him go.
“If what you told me about his music is true, it shouldn’t be too hard. The second he starts playing love songs, they’ll give him the crown, no question. But be careful. They always pick real dogs.”
Whenever they got close to the subject of Mud Duck affair, Thomas’s mood turned knife’s-edge sharp, full of condemnation and judgment.
“What about you? Did you pick a real dog?”
“I don’t want to talk about Iris.”
This was the first piece of real information her brother had ever given her about this woman, and she leaped upon it.
“Iris?”
Thomas typed lightning fast on the nearest keyboard. It was obvious he wasn’t actually typing anything, just trying to look as busy as possible.
“Leave me alone.”
“What was she like?” Sam asked. On the night she’d told Thomas about this event, he’d always hinted at a bigger hatred for it. Now, she was getting some answers. “Did she win?”
“Do you want help or not?” Thomas snapped, a rare break in his kind, unaffected persona. It sent Sam shrinking.
“Sorry.”
“All right.” He took a deep breath in, a deep breath out, and rolled his shoulders back. He was himself again, all thoughts of the mysterious Iris and his Animos past forgotten… Or, at least, shoved into a tiny locked box in the back of his mind. “I’ve got tables and music. The car service to park for the guests since you’re taking our usual help. What’s left?”
“I’m waiting to hear back from the caterer.”
“What about a suit? Does your man have a suit?”
“He’s twenty-three years old, Thomas. I’m pretty sure he has a suit. He’s working-class, not an animal.”
“Does he have a tux? This party will be black-tie only.”
Sam had half a mind to say, No, this party will be whatever the hell I say it is because this entire party is nothing more than a sham to get this guy hooked on me, but given he’d taken care of virtually every detail of this last-minute shindig, she let it go.
In any case, she was distracted by a flash of red out in the distance.
“Did you see that?” She narrowed her eyes, trying to telekinetically pull back the curtains of rain separating her from the distant object.
“See what?”
“Out there. Through the rain. Near the tree line.” Rising from her seat, Sam crossed the room until her nose pressed painfully against the glass. “My car!”
The red hatchback was unmistakable, even in a torrential downpour. It crawled between the trees of the estate’s back forests, heading for the long drive connecting the front road to the far end of the property. Thomas joined her at the window.
“Is someone stealing it? I told you not to park it back there. Such an easy target.”
“I don’t know,” she said, halfway to the solarium’s exterior door by the time he finished the question, “but I’m going to find out.”
Haste was an important consideration when trying to stop a theft, but the second Sam stepped out into the rain, she regretted it. This wasn’t New York City rain, the thin and annoying spit that sometimes caught her on her walk home from school. This was biblical rain, shaking the heavens and washing away small villages. She’d never before wished so desperately for an umbrella or a pair of rain boots.
Unseeing with rain pelting her face, she planted herself in the middle of the road. Only to hear the frantic, immediate locking of brakes. She blinked and squinted and shielded her face long enough to see her car no farther than a foot away from her…and Daniel getting out of the driver’s seat.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, clearly rattled from nearly smashing her with two tons of steel and machinery.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sam shot back.
“You always park your car on mud track in back! I didn’t want it to get stuck in the mud!”
Chills covered Sam’s body. They had nothing to do with the rain or the cold. He approached her, holding an umbrella over their heads.
“I didn’t expect you to throw yourself in front of a moving car,” Daniel said.
“I thought you were stealing it!”
When had he gotten so close? All of the sudden, Daniel was everywhere, looming over her. Her throat dried. She tried to think of the last time she’d been kissed. She couldn’t remember. Shit, why was she thinking about being kissed now? Why was she thinking about standing on slight tiptoe, sliding her hands on either side of his neck, and pressing her lips to him, the rain be damned?
Oblivious to her internal conflict, the bastard smiled. He actually smiled, as though it was all very amusing. Her lips ached to kiss him now.
“It’s not such a nice car, Sam,” he teased.
She had to kill the feeling, had to rip it out of her bones. She’d never make it to the Animos Ball if she entertained such stupid fantasies. Samantha Dubarry would never kiss Daniel Best, and that was a fact.
“Come on,” she commanded, heading for the car.
He followed at a close clip, still holding the umbrella overhead. It muffled the sound of the rain, creating a private world for the two of them.
“Where?”
“Back up to the house, of course.”
They stopped beside the driver’s side door. Daniel waved a gesturing hand over his muddy, grease-stained self. If Sam understood the rules of the house correctly, she understood the hesitation suddenly evident in every joint of his body. Staff who worked outside of the house weren’t supposed to come into the family’s living quarters and vice versa. Like no one wanted the cook fussing outside with the horses, no one wanted a chauffeur rubbing his greasy hands all over the silver… Or the duke’s daughter. The line between workers was strict, and even as new as Daniel was to their employ, it was apparent from the fear in his eyes he knew he would only be welcome in the Ashbrooke servants’ den, not in the family’s living spaces.
“I’d just muck up the whole place.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sam scoffed. “You’re going to catch a horrible cold if you stay out here. C’mon.”
Defensively, her mind explained the concern away. You’re only worried about him catching a cold because of the date. Right, the date. If he gets a cold, you can’t bring him to the party on Friday, which would be a disaster. Nothing more. She reached for the car handle, but Daniel put his free hand over hers. It was like being touched by lightning.
“I’m sorry.” To his credit, he did genuinely look sorry. Sam couldn’t remember the last time a man had the guts to look so vulnerable in front of her. “But I have to ask you something first.”
“Do you want to get sick? You’d rather die of pneumonia than be my date. Do I have you figured out?”
“No!”
“Then let’s go inside!”
The scene was too romantic. The rain. The proximity. The way the rain and the proximity brought out the rich, sweet, whisky smell of him.
“It’s just…” Daniel stammered. “I wanted to ask you out, Samantha.”
“Sam,” she said, correcting his use of her full first name, not trusting her tongue to say anything more.
“Sam,” he echoed.
Why did she have to be cursed with the one man on earth who was an honest-to-God gentleman? Fingertips on Daniel’s free hand brushed hers gently, and he glanced up at her from beneath thick eyelashes.
“May I?”
“Sure.”
He took her hand firmly in his. All her life, Sam read the stories and heard the songs about sparks and electricity, the pops of
passion that supposedly accompanied a touch like this. She didn’t want to refute the official account, especially considering the reality of her false situation, but it wasn’t fireworks when their hands met.
It was waking up from a nap to find someone put a blanket over you. It was slipping into a pair of warm socks after running through the rain. It was a shot of whisky in a cup of tea. It was the first laugh after crying for an entire afternoon.
“Would you give me the great pleasure of being my date to a ball at Ashbrooke Manor this Friday?”
“I’d be honored,” Samantha said. And she meant it. Dammit, she meant it.
“It’s a date, then.”
He released her into the car before jogging over to the passenger’s side and letting himself in. The pair were almost halfway to the house before Samantha realized he’d been holding the umbrella over her the entire time, letting himself soak through with sickening rain to keep her dry.
…
Friday came faster than Sam could have expected. Since the rainy afternoon with Daniel, she’d found herself the subject of text after text from the man. Nothing weird, nothing romantic or particularly flirtatious, even. Just conversation. Sam couldn’t remember the last time her phone had been used for anything other than utilitarian purposes. Texts from Thomas about the week’s dinner menu. Texts to Mrs. Long asking for a certain kind of wine. Texts to her father (always unanswered) about his frequent trips to and from London. Texts from Captain about the next Animos event.
When Daniel’s name illuminated her phone, she never knew what to expect when she slid open the screen. An anecdote about his work at the bookshop, an interesting article from the BBC, questions about her own day all came in rapid succession until conversation flowed as easily between them as if they were speaking face-to-face. He threw curveballs at her, ones she narrowly avoided whenever she could, inquiries about her father, her childhood, her dreams for the future. He was unpredictable. Yes, he must have been unpredictable, because it was the only logical explanation for why Sam’s stomach fluttered every time her phone vibrated.
The only thing she knew to expect was a “Good morning, Sam,” text around sunrise and a “Good night, Sam. Sleep tight,” message around midnight. Thomas insisted Ashbrooke house was populated by four centuries’ worth of ghosts. If he was right, Sam was sure they were getting a kick out of the way her lips involuntarily twitched every time she received one of those.
On Friday afternoon, Sam found herself in the dining room across from her brother, scarfing down sandwiches and crisps between party tasks, when her pocket buzzed. Thomas was droning on about something to do with the caterer they’d finally hired, and Sam was halfway listening. Being used to being on her own, though, she slid the phone onto the table and opened the message. A gif of a chubby bulldog puppy greeted her. He nudged open a closet door with his snout and proceeded to rip clothes off of his owner’s shelves, throwing the closet’s contents on the floor before lying and rolling over the fresh pile.
When you’ve got a date in a few hours and can’t decide what to wear, read the caption.
Hand flying to muffle her laughter, Sam smiled. Thomas, whose story she’d interrupted, noticed the sudden change.
“So,” he asked, his tone too high to be casual, “who are you talking to?”
She’d been caught. Sam straightened, dropped the phone with no ceremony, and returned to carving up her cheese and pickle sandwich with a knife and fork. The one good thing about eating in a rich guy’s house was the wine. Even when the lunch could’ve been bought at a gas station, it was always accompanied by good wine. After shoving a bit of bread and cheese into her mouth, she washed it down with three glugs of Chardonnay. A little liquid courage for the face-off.
“Daniel. You know. Our mechanic,” she said as if she hadn’t been talking to him basically nonstop since Tuesday about everything from the geopolitical implications of a currency market collapse to whether or not Rocky IV was better than the original.
“Big smile you’ve got there.”
“I didn’t even notice.” Sam took another sip, hoping in vain that it would sink into her blood and settle the sudden rushing in her veins. “Good wine, I guess.”
Thomas wasn’t stupid enough to buy such a weak excuse. He suddenly looked very grave indeed.
“This isn’t real, Sam. Don’t forget.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” she snapped.
No one knew better than she did. This was fake. She’d had to remind herself every time she crafted a text message or imagined herself waltzing across the Ashbrooke ballroom in his strong arms.
“If you haven’t forgotten, no one’s told your smile.”
With this rebuke wedged in between her brain and her skull, Sam prepared herself for the ball. Keeping with her desire to blend in with the regents, she’d begged Thomas to let her borrow the family accounts card to order a divine black-and-white Chanel suit but had been firmly vetoed not only by him but by her father, who butted in during his usually silent dinners to give her a piece of his mind about the subject. Wearing slacks and blazers was fine when she was trying to be one of the Animos boys, they argued, but when she was representing the family in public, she needed to be in traditional dress. Sam grumbled about the gender normative nature of it all. Had Thomas been the only one to tell her this, Sam would have snuck into her father’s office and taken the card to order the suit anyway, but nothing got her to agree to anything quicker than when Lord Dubarry gave his opinion on something. If her father wanted her in a dress, she’d wear the dressiest dress she could find.
And she did. After a long, hot bath—where she blared the livestream of NPR to keep herself from thinking too much—she slithered into a midnight-blue concoction of satin-chiffon. Finding a ball gown for a woman her size on such short notice wasn’t easy, especially in a country like England, where the waifs were especially waifish, but Mrs. Long outdid herself not only in finding the thing but in tailoring it so beautifully.
Sam was wearing midnight. She looked like she’d pulled the night sky down around her and snuggled into it, finding comfort in the heat of the stars and cool of the inky blues in between. Mrs. Long offered to assist Sam with her hair and makeup, but after lunch, she’d begged off of the help. Sam needed time alone.
Those ghosts who were laughing at her dopey text-message faces were surely doubled over now, as she followed along with a YouTube contouring tutorial and muttered to herself.
“Listen up now, Dubarry. You’re gonna go down there like a machine. No feeling. Get the job done. Wait, do I use this brush or the other one to highlight? Screw it, I’ll use my fingers. It doesn’t matter how good he looks in a suit. It doesn’t matter if he’s the best dancer in the world. It doesn’t matter if the Queen herself shows up and commands that you swoon over this guy. You’re. Not. Gonna. You know why? Because you’re stronger than that. You’re gonna sweep him off his feet, and then you’re gonna take him to the Animos thing and you’re gonna be a winner and wear their stupid uniform until you die if you have to. Dad’s gonna be proud because you wouldn’t be doing this if you could think of anything else. This is what matters. Don’t let tonight get in the way of—”
Movement behind her pulled her gaze from her own face to the reflection of her bedroom in her mirror. Thomas sat on her bed, the picture of comfort.
“How long have you been listening?” she asked, lipstick hovering over her mouth.
“Long enough, Sam.”
Chiming of the grandfather clock down the hall saved her from any further embarrassment. Thomas checked his own watch, his face deepening into a frown and his wrist shaking in displeasure.
“Is that the time? Damn watch isn’t working again.” He rose and offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Sam rushed through her lipstick application and stole a glance in the mirror. Those YouTube women knew what they were doing when it came to tutorials. She didn’t look half bad.
She might have even looked bea
utiful.
Sliding her arm through her brother’s, she added one last layer of makeup to her face, though this was an invisible one. It required no brushes or paint, no primer or base. It was the mask she’d been constructing ever since she moved here, the mask protecting her against Daniel. And maybe even herself.
“Here goes nothing.”
Chapter Ten
There was something his grandmother always used to say. Don’t aim too high, boy-o. People get themselves into real trouble these days by trying to rise above. Thinking they can get the moon by wishing hard enough. Focus your eyes down here. Where the attainable things are. Then, when you look back on your life, you’ll be happy and accomplished, not bitter and empty.
His father’s mother, Gran, not Nan, was ever the optimist. Daniel had always written off those pearls of wisdom as the best attempt at encouragement an English woman could offer. She had an old-school, Imperialist, Dickensian way of thinking, one not even a cell of Daniel’s body could accept. He rejected it like a virus, expelling it as soon as it got near him. He was one of those rare creatures who fell asleep every night easy, knowing in his heart of hearts even better things would befall him tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.
Standing in the Grand Ballroom (because apparently Ashbrooke Manor was distinct in the county for having a Grand Ballroom and a Not-So-Grand Ballroom, otherwise known as the Petit Ballroom) on Friday night, Daniel wondered what Gran would do if she could see him now. He started the week as the family’s hired help, nothing more than grease monkey with the fancy title of Curator of Antique Vehicles and was ending it in their ballroom as their personal guest, just like he’d started the week as a starving artist and was only a few days away from possibly signing with a real record label.
Take that, Gran.
“Champagne, sir?” A uniformed waiter with bright orange curls offered him crystal glasses on a silver tray. Not any uniformed waiter, it was—
“Ifan, how are you?” Daniel couldn’t help but breathe a slight sigh of relief. The ballroom was glittering, opulent, and filled with strangers who seemed to smell the poor on him. He was overjoyed at the friendly face. He and Ifan ran in most of the same music circles, playing open mics and sharing pints for years now.
