Page 13 of Red Masquerade

I didn’t hear what she’d said. I had been deaf to the world, sucked back into the recesses of my mind.

Setting down my teacup, the ceramic tinkling against its saucer, and I pulled my lips back into a smile that didn’t meet my eyes. “Of course.”

She scoffed. “No one’s going to want a wife who can’t listen, either, Helena.”

“Well, then, perhaps I won’t marry.” The words nearly snapped out of me, despite knowing better.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’ll marry.”

We’d had this conversation so many times. It felt like a script from a play.

“Every respectable woman marries.”

I bit my lip.

“Can I not be respectableandstay unmarried?”

Mother looked exasperated. “No, Helena.” She set her fabric down on the table and stared at me for a moment. I couldn’t read her—couldn’t read anything in the furrow of her dark brow, the dullness of her gray eyes, other than a deep tiredness that had become a disease. A tiredness for not only me, buteverything.

The woman she was, the woman she wanted me to be, was killing her with exhaustion.

“What is it you want?” she demanded.

I blinked, the backs of my eyes aching at the midday light. “What?”

She scowled even further, if that was possible. “You always refuse. No matter what I say, you have to fight it.”

“Perhaps we’re just different people,” I said gently.

She shook her head, and I didn’t know if it was a refusal of my answer or further exasperation. “You must have some goal, then. What is it?”

“A goal?”

“Yes. To be so…contrary.”

“You think I’m contrary?” I scoffed, though, if I were honest with myself, was it a surprise she thought of me so?

“Yes,” she said again. “You’ve always been this way.”

I crossed my arms, feeling a sudden chill in the room, the window open just a crack. The breeze from outside raced downmy arms, lifting a curl off my cheek. I stood, making my way over to the window so I could look at anything other than her.

If I’ve always been this way, then why do you try to change me?

“I’m sorry we cannot be in agreement, then,” I said, but I wanted to take the words back almost immediately, because no, Iwasn’tsorry. I wasn’t sorry that I liked to spend my evenings with Flora and Dixon, and whomever else we found. I wasn’t sorry that I wanted to experience what the night had to offer. Ilikedflirting, grabbing a man’s attention for the night, making him so absolutely mad with his want for me that he’d think about me for days. Ilikedwhen my feet ached because I couldn’t stop dancing the night before. I liked coming home at all hours, because when the sky turned just a slightly lighter shade of indigo, the night coming to its end, that was when it was most quiet, and anyone still up was the most honest they could ever be.

I was just sorry that she wanted me to change.

She picked up her fabric and resumed her embroidery. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice a little more resigned.

“It doesn’t?” I turned toward her. She was again focusing on her fingers, her brow arched in concentration.

“No. Your brother will figure it out.”

I wanted to laugh. “Lucas?”

“He is coming at the end of the week to straighten this out.”To straightenyouout,I knew she meant.

My stomach instantly dropped, the breath sucked out of me. “But—surely he’s busy. He doesn’t need to come—”