The Gleaning (11 page)

Rose’s own foray into magic was a carefully guarded secret—something she and her mother acknowledged only in glances and never discussed outright. So when her handsome, yet peculiar, escort, William, confessed that his father had chosen her to be his companion because she was an ordinary human, Rose grew even more perplexed about what was expected of her. Charming one minute, intimidating the next, William made her feel as though she was walking a tightrope.

But as I read further, I realized William already knew she was far from ordinary. In her description of their first dance, it seemed clear to me that their attraction was fate.

When the driver opened the door and waved me inside, my escort glanced up for only a second, a small sardonic smile playing on the corners of his mouth. I was immediately self-conscious that I’d become the butt of a private joke. After smoothing my heavy skirts beneath me, I entered the cab without the aid of his hand, and sat on the plush leather seat to his right.

When he greeted me, his voice was low but much like his lips, it curled at the edge, as if he might be disguising a friendlier voice behind this purposeful gruffness.

Suddenly, I was aware of my inadequacies. He was surely judging me. And why shouldn’t he? A boy of stature and wealth escorting me, the daughter of a seamstress, to a ball?

Perhaps, with these ill manners, he is not my intended companion after all? Perhaps he is only a stable boy and my real escort is tied up in a stall full of horse droppings waiting to be rescued.

As if hearing my thoughts, he smiled wider, the polite smile of a gentleman greeting a lady, a tiny dimple curved into his cheek.

“That’s better,” I said out loud.

But his eyes didn’t match his smile. They were hard; even in the dark, I noted the ice shivering on the surface of the blue. Not blue, really. An almost lavender, if that could in fact be a true color for eyes. The violet irises were iridescent, translucent almost, and polished like the ribbon of his top hat, like the crystals that hung over Mother’s bed frame, dancing in the light.

In comparison, the sleeves of my dress felt crumpled and tight. My skirts so thick they felt foreign.

Whereas this boy, with his broad nose and full lips, seemed so comfortable in the fitted black tuxedo, he wore with the precision of a fine painting in a custom frame. A puffy silver tie was pulled tight around his collar. I believed it to be an ascot, but didn’t want to shame myself by asking. Yet there he sat with an air of casual grace that was something akin to boredom; I guessed there were few things left in the world that held excitement or novelty for him.

The boy leaned forward and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, cupping his palm over the end to light it. He leaned back and inhaled slowly, studying me with those strange eyes. When he exhaled, I watched the smoke circles expand and diffuse into darkness until a gauzy haze settled in the air between us.

“These carriages are abominably cold, especially in the dead of winter,” he said. His tongue ran over his lower lip as if it was mopping up a spot of ash.

Had he noticed me shivering in my dress? I did my best not to show it. If only I wasn’t so willow-thin, I wouldn’t chill so easily. That’s what mother was always saying, as she spread more butter, poured more milk, and piled more bread. “Eat, Rose, eat.”

“You don’t care for the cold?” I asked, my voice wavering. They were the first words I’d spoken since the initial greeting, and what a witty choice they were, I groaned. He glanced out the window, where frost crawled across the glass like spider webs.

But he answered sincerely. “I prefer the heat of the summer months.”

I nodded. I did, too, which was odd. Mother always preferred the cold. Most of our family did. But I froze in the winter. Couldn’t wait for the first buds of spring to cut through the frozen dirt and gift me their perfumed wisps of summer hope.

The boy gestured for me to sit across from him. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my jeweled pocket book clutch that mother had borrowed, so I hung onto it on my lap as I made the awkward jump from the seat to his left to the one across.

But instead of asking me the same question, which would have been the polite thing to do, the boy looked down at his shoes, and I didn’t get to say the line about the spring and the flowers as I’d hoped. I didn’t know what to do next, so I looked at his shoes, too. Like everything, his were polished to perfection, and shone brightly in the moonlight streaming through the window.

Again, the fierce agony of inadequacy coursed through what little vanity I managed to possess.

I felt entirely out of my element.

Yet I did not want to get out of that carriage. I’d always longed to go to a magical ball. They were out of the question for a poor, human girl like me, so when an invitation appeared on my pillow, with golden cursive and my name, Miss Rose Garrett, I ran downstairs to show mother. How thrilled I was! I riddled mother with questions about my escort. But she knew nothing more than I. We just knew he’d be of a magic sort as they were the only ones with permission to go to the ball.

She seemed both excited and nervous and…frightened by the prospect, but in the end, she let me go. She didn’t have another choice; when you were invited, you went.

But now, I thought how odd it was to be so entranced by someone who’d rather look at his own shoe buckles than look into his evening companion’s eyes.

We sat there in chilly silence for what seemed like hours, but could only have been minutes, when, abruptly, the driver, a scruffy looking fellow with strange buggy eyes, peeked through the door and asked if we’d like to take the scenic route. My terse companion replied, “I like the way the fields look at night.” The driver responded swiftly with the snap of his whip across the beasts’ backs. I felt the sting, too, as the horses neighed and bucked into the crisp ink air.

I was jerked back into my seat as the mighty hooves pounded on the frozen dirt road, and the carriage took off once again into the night.

“You alright there, Rose?”

“Yes, thank you. Just a swift rush I hadn’t anticipated.”

The boy watched me from under thick dark lashes as we bounced along. When I could no longer bear looking away, I caught his eye and his amethyst eyes flashed so briefly I thought I might have imagined it. But I knew I hadn’t. He was a warlock after all. He was capable of much more than that. Why had he chosen this scenic route? Why would he spend more time alone with me when he seemed to care not a bit about getting to know me? Or, shivers ran down my spine, was he planning something dangerous? I’d heard rumors that warlocks weren’t as kind and righteous as they appeared; that they manipulated the witches who loved them with their charms.

I’d hoped the rumors weren’t true, but this boy had a darkness about him that was both seductive and frightening.

I smiled agreeably, trying to even out the energy. His brow furrowed as his curious eyes tried to sum me up, too.

Everyone knew warlocks were only to court witches, and I, though I practiced small oddities, was certainly no witch.

I imagined he was as curious as I was about the meaning of tonight’s arrangement.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning from the window, “I do not know your name.”

I flushed, ashamed. “But you wrote it on my invitation?”

“Ah, yes.” He lied. “Right, it’s…”

“Rose,” I said. This strange creature possessed an air of authority that I’d never observed in a boy his age, a boy who couldn’t be much older than I was, much more than sixteen.

The carriage rambled on through a dark and barren wood. We rode in silence. He stared at me for a moment, before looking back out the window. I suspected these were the fields he wanted to see. The corn reflecting in the moonlight did create a pretty picture.

“And you are William Gavin Jefferson the Third.”

“Ah, you did your homework.”

“It, too, was on the invitation,” I smiled shyly. “And besides, my mother wouldn’t let me out of the house with a nameless boy in a strange carriage now would she?”

“Wouldn’t she?” He looked me straight on.

He knew as well as I did. She didn’t have a choice.

“Though knowing my name isn’t exactly to know me.”

“Well, the Jeffersons are well known and proper and I suppose she felt that was enough.”

“I suppose,” he repeated, as if he didn’t agree. “It’s nice to meet you, Rose.” He took my hand in his left and shook it gently, the proper meeting of a gentlemen. My stomach burst into a fit of butterflies as he lifted it to his lips, but then lurched when, instead of pressing his red mouth to my hand, he froze. His handsome face twisted into disgust. “These gloves won’t do” He frowned.

Shame blushed my cheeks. “Why?”

“This mark here?” he said, turning my hand over in his palm. “It is stained. A lady should never wear stained gloves.”

I wrinkled my nose and brought my hand closer to my eyes. I saw nothing but pure white, and I had excellent vision. The eyes of a hawk, mother was always saying. “Have Rose find the thimble, she has the eyes of a hawk.” If nothing else, I was secure about my eyesight. Besides, Mother spent so much time bleaching and preparing my gloves. Everything I wore might be hideously uncomfortable, but it was perfectly clean right down to my shoes. My gloves were snow white.

“They are lily white,” I said. “You are blind as a bat.”

He laughed suddenly, and then stifled it, not wanting me to feel I’d made an impression.

“Look closer,” he insisted, “there’s a yellowish tint on the index finger.”

“Pardon me!” I said. “There most certainly is not!”

His dark eyebrow rose along with my voice as if I amused him. “There is, if you look closer.”

“But it is so dark in here!” I protested.

“I have a feeling you can See if you try, sweet Rose.”

Sweet Rose.

I detected a note of what my mother calls sarcasm in his tone.

I was not amused.

I focused my eyes on the glove.

Sure enough. White blurred into…gold.

Gold dust glittered across the fabric.

He was right!

Mother. This had to have been her work. What was this all about?

“You see it now. The dust,” he said.

“Perhaps it’s gold powder is all,” I said. “Mother had a wonderful time fussing over me this evening,” I said, and then let my voice trail off, embarrassed at my girly confession.

I frowned and tried to get rid of the bothersome stain. Blowing on it didn’t help. Rubbing it didn’t either. In fact, it only made it worse. Smeared gold across my princess-white gloves!

“Do you wish to turn the carriage around and take me home,” I said, disappointment haunting my voice, “if I’m not dressed properly?”

I held my breath. I didn’t want him to take that bait.

This boy was a bit of a snob, but I wasn’t having a terrible time. In fact, compared to my normal evenings of helping mother with her mending, it felt like a dream. A bit of a frosty spider-webbed dream, but a dream nonetheless.

“Now that would be a shame wouldn’t it?” William responded. “To waste that pretty dress on a dull evening at home?”

At the compliment my lip raised at the edges.

His lips almost did the same, but then his eyes iced over again. He held his palm out. “Please.”

He took my small hand in his palm, cradling it almost. My heart stood still, and I didn’t dare breathe as he slowly peeled the silky fabric from each of my fingers, gingerly, as if he were unwrapping a bandage.

Heat rushed like a volcanic river from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.

I was frozen to my seat. I thought of a million things to say, yet could say nothing.

Time stopped.

When he was finally finished with the artful untangling, he dangled the limp glove from his two fingertips as if it was a rotten fish, then he balled it up and stuffed it into his pocket.

Aware of the distaste on his etched face, I sat quietly for the remainder of the journey.

I had never seen so much beauty in all my life.

As our wheels crunched up the long, graveled drive, I watched stunning couples escape their carriages and stroll up candle lit paths that intertwined like a labyrinth before disappearing through wide open doors into the ballroom of a majestic mansion. The gowns sparkled and glittered as they swirled around the ankles of angel-lovely creatures, eyes hidden behind masks attached to little wands over their eyes. I turned to my escort with a question in my own eyes.

“It’s a Masquerade ball,” William said in a cloying tone. “Let me guess, you are not prepared for Bal masque?”

“Masquerade?”

The boy sighed, but I could see amusement in his eyes. “Where did Father dig you up?” he drawled with his almost Southern lilt. I wondered if his family had moved north recently. I made a note to ask him later should he be willing to talk. “A Masquerade. Disguise your eyes?”

I shook my head. I knew not of the term, and I hated how his tone made me feel inferior.

“Worry not, pretty girl. I’m nearly positive they will have extras once we are inside,” he said with a smile.