Sea Of Treason, Pirate's Bluff #1

High Society

***(I added a bit more to this chapter, instead of making it a new one. Next chapter will be from Bluff's POV)***

Whitely

I lay my cheek against Jeb's shoulder, cheek rubbing the stiff fabric of his navy blazer. My arms wrapped around him, sincerely relieved to have someone I trust near me.

But my heart is broken.

 I want to hide my sadness. Don't want him to see how much I had changed in only a matter of weeks. Inside, my whole self is shifting. My soul twists and turns like it can't quite figure out how to be comfortable in a place that was once my only comfort.

This huge building, cold and stiff but intricately decorated into a juxtaposition of classic and modern fashion, was the one place I imagined my life leading to something resembling happiness.

Now when I close my eyes all I picture is the sea.

"Are you okay?" he whispers into my hair.

I know this much closeness makes him uncomfortable, but I refuse to pull away and show him the tears in my eyes. We barely touched the entire time we courted, and I could never quite figure out if it was due to fear of retribution—his mother was severe in her expectations of modesty and propriety—or if he was sincerely put off by intimacy all together.

That never really mattered though, because the value of our relationship was never in the physical, nor even the romantic. We were friends. We confided in one another. I was a shield against his parents harshness (they loved me and my father, though why was difficult to tell) and he was an escape, a way out.

My father's obsession with infiltrating high society led him to... extreme measures on occasion, and I knew those measures would include me sooner or later. A pretty daughter was a huge asset. I would be married to someone of high standing. It didn't really matter who.

More than once he'd implied a desire for me to becoming friendly with Mr. Robinson, a man older than my father and twice as cruel—if the rumors were true (and the expression on his servant's faces told me they were).

More than once, I'd considered running away. When I turned ten my father made enough money to buy a flat downtown and hired a maid who told me stories about girls living on the streets of New York, and they were not kind. But even those threats were favorable to the threat of marriage to an awful man.

Then, when he learned my childhood friend, who I spent too much time 'rolling around in the mud' with was the heir to his parents old money and well established estate, my father's focus shifted. And the moment his interest in courting me was established all that stress fell away like dirt in a warm bath.

My father's countenance changed, for a time. He was... proud. We had tea in the big house while she schmoozed Jeb's father, bonding over cigars and scotch, while Jeb and I played hide and seek and truth or dare in his massive home.

Just to have a future with someone I cared for, somewhere I felt comfortable, while still pleasing my father—was a dream I had thought lost to me.

That's why I loved Jeb. He was my hope.

But that was until I saw that there was so much more to life. So much more to this world.

And now I couldn't get it out of my head.

I finally loosened my grasp of Jeb's shoulders and he pulled away.

"Tell me what happened. I was very worried."