Star's Crossing

37: Hers

Mare emerged from the wood as Mayor Phelps took his place on the cliff to address the crowd. Her mother caught her elbow, pinching punishingly and narrowing her eyes.

"Where were you? How impertinent to abandon your charge thus! He has been patiently awaiting your return ever since!" Her mother's voice was a low hiss, issued from behind a tight, toothy smile. She jerked Mare close. "Do not throw away your only opportunity to—"

Mare pulled her arm free. She noticed Camden beside her father nearby, and Alison and Lilith some distance away, peering at her curiously. Mare wished she could break free and run to them and fall into their arms and tell them everything. About Teddy and Camden and their fathers and the foolish, aimless cruelty of it all.

Teddy appeared at her side some feet away, his father in close tow and chatting with Graham Gilbert. Teddy must have sensed Mare's gaze, for he glared directly ahead at Mayor Phelps, his jaw taut and quickly bruising.

How dare he! She'd overstepped certainly, but in the name of his own protection. His safety, his dignity! Now he shunned her? After...

After what? After they'd bonded? After they'd shared some secret parts of themselves—Mare's letters and Teddy's doubts? Was Mare a fool for thinking there was something between them after all, a strange kinship, an unlikely allegiance?

"He is not my only anything," Mare snarled at her mother, crossing her arms and stepping beyond her reach. She felt her mother's glare, ferocious and unbridled, through the entirety of Mayor Phelps's blathering introduction.

Like everyone present, Mare required none. Diana's Hunt was a favorite of Star's Crossing's youth, an opportunity for the fervor of play and the absence of chaperone eyes. Mare and the other girls would be given leave to vanish into the sprawling woods as they saw fit, only to be pursued, after an allotted amount of time, by the men. Those already sworn to one another would be sought by their counterparts, but those without a promise were free to seek who they wished, and stumble upon who they might.

The aim of the game was to secure a moment alone and shine a light upon the man's determination in pursuit. But there was a secret prize for those who caught their charges in the woods, far from prying eyes and decorum and civility.

It was rumored a kiss awaited whatever man found his lady.

For the first time in her life, the mere notion set Mare's veins ablaze with fury. Once she'd fantasized over nothing more than this day, than the coy hiding in the trees, than the shining appearance of a man in search. A kiss, a kiss; let lips do what palms do.

Yet now, Mare wished for no one. No kiss. No man. She wished for solitude and for freedom, not this game of quarry and hunter.

Let us hope you are the one taking aim, and not the one falling.

Mare bit back her humiliation and rage, hungry for the sharp crack of the pistol. When its bullet sang through the air, she hoisted her skirts and without a backward glance strode furiously into the woods. Let them come after her. All of them! Her mother and her sister and Alison and Lilith and Geoffrey and Camden and Teddy and their vile fathers! Let all of Star's Crossing pursue Mare, for all she gave a wit.

There were no prescribed limitations on how far a lady might travel. The idea was to escape nearby courtiers and procure a moment of solitude for whatever the young mind might wish. One wouldn't like to remain too near the starting point, lest she pose little challenge to her hunter. And one would likely not wander too far, lest he never find her.