My Cousin Mocked My 5 Years As A Wallflower — Until The City’s Wealthiest Man Walked Past Her To Me

Part 1

I sat alone at the edge of Linda’s ballroom and counted the painted roses on the ceiling for the fourth time that night.

There were thirty-two roses in all, pale gold on cream, each with six leaves curled around it like careful hands.

I always counted them when the room grew too loud or the laughter too sharp.

It was my absolute shield.

When the violins climbed high and the ladies laughed like silver bells struck too hard, I just kept counting.

My gloves were a little too tight at the fingers.

I tugged each one smooth, thumb to wrist, until the seam sat perfectly straight.

Then I turned one thin page in the little book on my lap, though I had not read a single word for the last hour.

No one noticed me.

They seldom did.

I was not plain, and that was the truly bitter part.

If I had been plain, the matter would have been easier to name.

Rooms like this simply did not know what to do with a woman who would not shine on command.

Five years.

Five full years of city seasons and winter assemblies.

Five years of standing near flowers taller than my shoulder while mothers looked through me as though I were part of the wall.

Five years of hearing men ask for the hand of the girl beside me, behind me, across from me, and never mine.

My cousin Megan sparkled in pale green silk near the center of the room.

Men moved around her the way moths fluttered frantically around a bright lamp.

She tilted her head, let her pearls catch the candlelight, and floated through the room as if all the music had been made for her alone.

Megan was not cruel all the time.

She was worst when she smiled.

I turned another page I did not read.

Then the air in the room changed entirely.

A footman near the door straightened as if a string had been pulled sharply along his spine.

A murmur moved through the crowd like wind rustling through dry leaves.

Craig, the city’s wealthiest and most elusive bachelor, had finally arrived.

I did not look at once.

I had learned long ago that the first look belonged exclusively to girls who hoped.

Hope was a very poor use of breath.

But I felt him before I saw him.

He took up space without seeming to ask for it.

His coat was stark black, plain where others wore bright, flashy trim.

His jaw looked entirely made for silence.

Linda went toward him with both hands open in eager greeting.

He bowed slightly and kept walking.

Two eager girls drifted near, but he did not stop.

He moved as though he had his own map and no one else had seen it.

Then he looked across the entire room.

Not at Megan.

He looked directly at me.

For one strange, slow breath, it felt as if the room had gone far away.

The scrape of slippers and clink of glass muffled heavily behind thick velvet.

He watched me for far too long.

I felt it like freezing cold water down my back.

Then, to the utter shock of half the room, Craig walked straight to my chair.

Silk whispered frantically as women turned in their seats.

Even the musicians faltered for one single, confused beat.

He stopped right before me.

He bowed, not deep, but with incredibly exact care.

I closed my book on one finger and looked up at him.

He glanced down at the closed book resting on my lap.

I told him I was counting roses, and that reading was strictly for when the violins grew too cruel.

For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved.

It was not quite a smile, but something much rarer, as if he had found an answer he had not expected.

Before I could say another word, Linda swept near with a voice bright enough to cut glass, absolutely desperate to draw his attention away.

He bowed once more to me and left.

The noise in the room rushed back at once, sharp, hot, and frantic.

Megan’s fan snapped wide with a sharp crack.

Two girls whispered furiously behind their white gloves.

Brenda looked as if she had swallowed a giant fish bone.

I told myself it was nothing but a passing, completely inexplicable whim.

Weeks passed, and the highly anticipated spring ball finally arrived.

The evening was warm enough that the tall windows in the upper hall were cracked open.

Music swelled, hot wax dripped, and fresh white lilies filled the air with a heavy, sickeningly sweet smell.

Megan wore pale pink and a look of absolute, smug triumph.

I sat by a stone pillar, silently counting the spaces between the large mirrored panels.

I had reached the eighth round when Megan crossed the room and stopped before my chair with three ladies and a pair of grinning young men closely in her wake.

She tilted her head and looked me up and down with mock, exaggerated care.

“Five years on the wall, cousin, and still not one man has thought you worth the walk.”

Her words were light, but the room’s answer to them was a greedy, terrifying stillness.

I heard the silk rustle of bodies turning to watch the spectacle.

The whole room seemed to wait for tears, or anger, or total collapse.

I looked at Megan for one long, perfectly calm moment.

Then I stepped forward, took the fallen edge of her trailing ribbon where it had slipped loose, and tucked it back beneath her pearl bracelet with completely steady fingers.

I told her that if a woman seated in silence frightened her so much, she must be far less admired than she appeared.

Megan’s smile completely, instantly cracked.

I did not stay for the rest of the fallout.

I turned and walked from the center of that bright, hard room, heading straight for the dark, empty terrace outside.

The stone beneath the terrace was damp and cold.

I put one hand flat on the wall and let the rough chill of it bite sharply into my palm.

I would not cry.

I tasted copper metal in my mouth as if I had bitten my own tongue.

Then I heard heavily measured footsteps approaching.

Craig stopped right at my side, not too near, smelling of damp wool and a clean hint of wood smoke.

He told me that Megan had struck because she saw something shifting in the room.

I stared at him in the weak, flickering terrace light.

I told him that if he intended kindness, he really should practice.

He replied that he did not intend kindness at all.

He said he had followed me out there because I was hurt and did not beg the room to know it.

The very next afternoon, wild rumors flew that Craig would attend Diane’s grand, upcoming assembly.

He seldom danced, and mothers sharpened their smiles all over the entire city.

I had no wish to go, but Brenda insisted that staying away would look like total defeat.

I chose a chair near a massive stone pillar.

I smoothed my gloves and counted my ragged breaths.

Megan arrived fashionably late, glittering on the arm of a man with soft hair and absolutely no spine.

The first dance began, then the second.

I remained exactly where I was, my small dance card blank and white as winter linen.

Then the stiff footman at the door announced Craig’s arrival.

The air shifted violently once again.

I kept my eyes firmly fixed on my glove seam.

I heard his steps, incredibly slow and certain, coming nearer.

He did not pause for Diane’s pretty niece.

He did not bend toward Megan.

He stopped right before me.

Around us, the room still moved, but much thinner now, as if all sound had drawn back to see what he would do.

His face gave absolutely nothing away.

In one hand he held his own formal dance card.

In the other, he held my completely blank one, which he had taken from the little table beside me without my noticing.

I rose slowly.

For one stretched, incredibly bright moment, absolutely nothing happened.

He leaned in, just near enough that his words fell for my ears alone.

His voice was low, like the rough brush of velvet over wood.

He told me that every single dance tonight was his.

Before I could even process the shocking words, he straightened up.

In full view of the entirely, breathlessly silent room, he took the pencil from the ribbon on my card.

He wrote his name heavily beside the very next dance.

And the next.

And the next.