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IF BASH HADN'T gripped my body with such vigour, I wouldn't have known I had still been standing at all. My kneecaps trembled like clinking glasses, almost shattering with fear as I could only watch my mother stroll through the large doorway. Her gown enveloped her curved body perfectly, clinging tightly like it had been two pieces of a puzzle slotted against its partner; her curly hair trailing down her shoulders like puddles of gold.
Surprisingly, it hadn't been Mother's arrival that has stirred such controversy within myself, and the gasping observers surrounding her. It had been Cosimo, my bastard brother accompanying her, his arm slid comfortably in hers as he escorted her into the magnificence of the hall. My mother had already been painfully aware of my father's endless supply of mistresses for many years, refusing to acknowledge Cosimo as one of us had been a withered topic that we had exhausted many times before.
Only, my shock hadn't merely been of their presence together either. It had been from the notion that the very moment my eyes fell upon my brother, he had been nothing but an image of Vincenzo. The same piercing eyes peering back at me haunted me, just like Vincenzo had never left to begin with.
"C–Cosimo?" I whispered, though I doubted my voice had been audible to either my brother, or mother.
"What are they doing here?" Bash whispered, refusing to stop dancing through the distracted eyes that fell upon my mother like her own spotlight.
I shrugged my shoulders slightly, allowing our bodies to rhythmically move, in order to conceal myself from my family. However, Bash appeared to have other ideas. The man quickly curled his hand around my waist, halting our dancing in place as Cosimo finally took sight of me. His eyes widened upon noticing my gown, but I hadn't recognised such a gleam in someone's eyes since Vincenzo's passing. It had been pride.
Bash slowly escorted me over, however reluctant my feet proved. We finally halted before them—my mother's crystalline eyes peering into mine with as much force as her power. Somehow, even she had a power over my father that he did not recognise.
"Rosalia..." she nodded, her lips twitching with the desire to smile, but never quite made it.
"Mother," I mumbled, curtsying politely to her arrival, as well as Bash, raising her hand to meet his lips.
Her eyes seemingly spilled as she trailed them along the bruises on my wrist, leaving me to uncomfortably fiddle with the hem of my sleeve. Cosimo cleared just throat, easing the intoxicating silence befalling us. His hand slowly pushed against mine, taking it in his hand as Bash's narrowed eyes valiantly watched him.
"Do you care to dance, sister?" Cosimo inquired, a devious smile growing on his lips.
My head shook slowly, unable to move from my cemented feet in the ground, "I think the dance with Sebastian wore me out."
Before I could speak another word, Bash quickly rushed out of the door without a moment's reassurance. His feet hastily followed after Mary and Francis, conspiring covertly with their own indiscretions, leaving me alone with the disturbance of my family. I had prayed that on his way, Bash would spin on his heels, and his eyes fall upon me begging for my presence. Only, it never seemed to come.
