Star's Crossing

49: Atwoods, Drama, and Masks

Mare sat beside Matilde with Medley opposite. Medley had been on for ages now about her 'departed' husband, which of course meant he was gone again on business and had abandoned Medley to rot in her Lady of Camelot tower.

"At least you were given leave to instruct the erection of so vast a holding," Mare commented, sipping her wine to hide her smile.

Medley shot her another perfectly venomous stare. "It was to be filled with parties and later, children. Not ghosts."

Mrs. Lambert, Medley's personal attendant who had the look of someone who was frequently eating very sour lemons, loomed out of the darkness. "My lady should be indulging in the largest, most opulent of celebrations. Yet she is directed to sit in the dust and dark and await the return of her husband."

Mare raised her eyebrows and resisted exchanging a look with Matilde. At least Medley was in like company. "Why not throw parties without him?" Suggested Mare.

Medley, surprisingly, flashed a grin. "Or might I go with you to yours, sister?"

Mare balked. "Mine? I've no parties to attend."

"Oh," said Matilde with a wry smile, "but don't you?"

"The masquerade, sister," said Medley, clapping her hands together with a flourish. Summoned, a pair of maids entered the dining room with an elaborate gown of gold and amber spread over their arms. One of the maids carried a pair of lovely beaded slippers, the other a pair of silk gloves the color of butter, and an ornate mask complete with white feather plumes and freshwater pearls. "I have invited myself."

Mare coughed on her wine, hoping neither of her sisters perceived the noise as the ill-disguised laugh that it was. "To...a courting ritual?"

"Don't be so dour," scolded Matilde, but Mare heard the amusement in her sister's voice. She and Medley were about as polar as could be, but all of the Atwood girls, it seemed, possessed a desire for the dramatic and possibly unseemly. Mare felt gravely misguided. How had she ever imagined she did not belong among them? "I think it's a fine idea."

Mare shot Matilde a glare. "Then I suppose you, too, are in search of an invitation?"

Matilde paled slightly. "Oh, I—"

"Please," snapped Medley, dismissing the maids with a wave of her hand. "Matilde will be my date."

Matilde choked on her wine, and Medley gave her an unsavory look. "Your date, Medley?" Matilde sounded winded as she dabbed at her lips with a linen napkin. "I don't believe that would be an entirely couth—"

"And who's said a thing about couth?" Medley waved off Mrs. Lambert's offer of more wine, clasping her hands beneath her chin and appraising Mare and Matilde with eyes like twin gold flames. "I am going utterly mad here, sisters. I can't think what I might do. What I might be capable of."

Mare shook her head, bewildered. "Mother will be there," she cautioned. "She is on the board."

Medley laughed, a bright cold tinkle. "As am I, sister. I may not have a child in the courting games, but I've got a sister, haven't I? I've been prohibited from attending the events by my husband, but I do host the meetings now and then in the garden. I've a lovely garden. I've devoted my focus in the meantime to breeding every kind of flower in black. I've already got the dahlias, but the rose is giving me trouble, and—"

"Medley," Mare interrupted. She was quite curious about the black rose, however, and made a mental note to double back and ask after it. "I hate to disappoint you, but I won't be attending the masquerade."

The light in the room seemed to dim, and both Matilde and Medley, and of course Mrs. Lambert, turned to Mare in calculated surprise, like vipers questioning wasting their venom on her.

"Mare," said Matilde, her voice uncharacteristically soft, "you can't mean that."

"Of course I can. That's not to say you two shouldn't go. I think you might give mother a heart attack." Mare looked at Mrs. Lambert. "I do so hate to be a bother, Mrs. Lambert, but is there to be desert? Or brandy, perhaps, to soak up all of this wine?"

Mrs. Lambert's eyes sparkled. She inclined her head and left the room.

"That woman chills me to the core," said Matilde, watching the door close behind the attendant. "What would it cost to beg her off of your service and into mine, sister?"

"Blood and bone, I'm sure." Medley watched Mare without blinking. "Mare. I can't imagine what's gotten into you. Of all the dreadful traditions of Star's Crossing courtship, the masquerade is by far the most Shakespearean. I thought you'd leap at the chance."

Mare smiled, but she knew it was false, and she knew Matilde would see through it easily. Medley's expression didn't change, and Mare realized how transparent she was to her sisters. She allowed the veneer to fall away, loosing a sigh and pushing away the dregs of her wine.

"Once, I thought I would, too." The truth was that Mare was still unerringly bewitched by the splendor of masks and secrets. She was beginning to feel that the ache of betrayal from her three beautiful boys was fading, the wound vanishing into a scar. "I think I am tired of drama."

Medley gawped. "Tired of drama? Mare, you sicken me." Mrs. Lambert entered with a maid in tow. "Mrs. Lambert, did you hear my foolish sister? She says she tires of drama!"

Mrs. Lambert stood at Medley's shoulder like a knave as the maid began to dole out bread pudding and steaming coffees. "She shall crave it again in due time, as all lords and ladies secretly must."

Mare was surprised less by the answer than the grin that rose to her lips. "Now I believe I must poach your Mrs. Lambert, sister."

Mrs. Lambert looked pleased.

"Do you think I've not heard of your exploits, Mare?" Medley narrowed her amber eyes. Her pale hair caught the candlelight like spun spiderwebs. "Do you think I do not read your letters in The Gazette? Do you think my silence is stoicism and not bitterness?"

"Ah," said Matilde, sipping her coffee black. "There it is."

"Hush, you," snapped Medley in Matilde's direction, turning her gaze back to Mare. "I keep my silence hoping you shall write. Your sister visits me. Your sisters write to me. Lord above, even our mother from hell finds time to correspond. Why do you cast me off?"

A pang of guilt pressed like a needle into Mare's heart. She gazed down at her hands, resting on the veneered, unscarred surface of the vast table. Like her it was made pretty and fine, but it was untouched and unloved. A thing, not a lady, not a knight or a knave. Something to be placed somewhere, collecting dust until its usefulness has waned and its polish has dulled.

"I thought to hate all of you," Mare finally said, her voice soft and frail. "I thought to be different."

Matilde sounded slighted, placing down her coffee a bit too roughly. "As though we are the same?"

Mare grinned at that, though it tasted of self-loathing. "I was...selfish."

"Now you must be selfless," said Medley, ironically for rather self-centered reasons. "For us, your sisters. Put on a mask one more time, Mare. Take us to the ball."

Mare looked into her coffee. "I don't know if I'm ready to face them."

"Who?" Medley looked puzzled, but Matilde only smiled.

"We've got a book for you to read," she said, sipping her coffee. She looked at Mare over the rip of her teacup. "And don't fear, Mare. We'll be there beside you."

"Nothing sets a man's boots trembling quite like the Atwood girls." Medley lifted her cup in toast. "To the Atwoods."

Matilde saluted her. "To drama."

Mare took a steadying breath, and though she was not ready for the compromise she was about to make, she thought to leap off of the cliff and concern herself with wings later. "To masks."