My breath is shallow and I can’t quite catch it. I take a step in his direction, then another, then I pause. Because his expression is so unreadable.
Without breaking our gaze, he thunks the glass down on the nearest side-table, and then turns his back, walking to the open veranda doors. He steps into the night, and I desperately want to follow him.
Not just because I want to be with him, but because it’s away from here, away from Eleanor, away from the prying stares of the people who are wondering who I am.
But I’m stopped by well-meaning snobby people who want to chat.
Where are you from?
Will you be attending Cambridge?
Will you be at the polo match this weekend?
Will you come to tea?
Eleanor, I see, manages to skirt the crowd and sit alone in the corner with a cup of what looks to be tea. I wonder if it is spiked. Then I wonder what the purpose of this party is at all… other than to force me into interacting with people.
Why would she do this? She has to know I’m not ready.
Dare’s words come back to haunt me.
The hawk is coming, and you’re going to get eaten.
Who is the hawk? Him?
I twist to find him, and he’s still on the veranda, joined by a blonde girl. She knows him, that much is apparent. She’s holding onto his arm and my belly tightens, bile rising in my throat. She’s possessive and he doesn’t push her away.
I turn my back.
Eleanor is watching Dare, too, a look of mild distaste on her face, but it’s the same look she always has with him. She hates him for some reason, that much is apparent. But why?
I’m being watched, and I scan the sea of faces to find Sabine shuffling along the back, dressed in black.
Her eyes have found me in the madness and we’re all a bit mad, aren’t we?
I swallow hard, and turn away. There’s no one here I can trust.
No one.
No one.
No one.
I make a run for the bathroom.
Because I need to hide.
Once inside the quiet powder room, I sink to a seat on a velvet bench, my breath shaky.
I don’t belong here.
I don’t belong here.
“You don’t belong here, do you?”
It’s like the calm voice reads my mind.
The voice belongs to the voluptuous blonde who was hanging on Dare’s every word.
Startled, I look up at her.
She stares back at me coolly, but not unkindly.
“You’re wearing my dress.”
My heart hammers. This dress was made for Miss Aimes, but we can make her another.
“Uh,” I stammer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”
She shrugs and adjusts her lipstick in the mirror. She’s wearing a black dress instead, something that hugs her curves. She didn’t need this red dress. She’s perfect in anything she wears. I can see that much.
“I’m Ashley,” she tells me, and she smiles in the mirror. “And I hate these things too. I can help you, you know.”
“You can?”
She nods.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ll show you where I hide during these horrid things.”
Her smile is one of camaraderie, and any port in a storm.
I follow her right out of the ballroom, and I feel Dare’s eyes on us as we go.
When we’re in the driveway, she turns to me.
“Maybe you should’ve brought a wrap. You might get cold.”
But she puts the top down on her car anyway, and the breeze is cold as we speed through the night, away from Whitley.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask her, relieved to be so far away.
She glances at me.
“Someplace you should see. If you think you want to be with Dare, you should know all about him.”
There’s something in her voice now, something rigid, and I startle, because maybe I shouldn’t have chosen this port.
She turns down a dark road, a quiet lane, and then we pull to a stop in front of an old, crumbling building.
“Come on,” she calls over her shoulder, traipsing up the steps in her black high heels. I feel clumsy as I follow, and she doesn’t slow down. The sign by the door says Oakdale Sanitarium and I freeze.
“What is this place?” I whisper as she opens the door.