A/N: Wow it's taken me so much longer to finish this than I thought it would! I'm so sorry it's been such a long delay but I'm hoping when you see that the word count is close to 40,000 that it will a) explain why it's taken me so long to write this and b) make up for the wait. I almost gave up so many times writing this and just posted it half-finished just because every time I thought I was close to finishing it I realised that I had to add in more sections. But I remembered all of you and your incredible support and I knew that you deserved better than that so I kept on going and I'm so happy I did because it feels like a massive achievement to have it all finally written. It turned out so much longer than I thought it was originally going to be that I did think about posting it in two halves but I couldn't find a good place to split it and I figured you deserved it all in one go rather than having to wait any longer. Just as a heads up before you start reading, I'm really sorry to say to all the Brooke fans that she isn't in this chapter except indirectly through conversations. I did have a section planned for her to be in this chapter but I couldn't make it work within the wider framework of the chapter as it was all about the ball and it just seemed unnatural to take a break from that and go to her halfway through and I didn't want to place her bit at the beginning. So, I'm very sorry for that but I promise you that even before I made that decision my plan for the next chapter was very Brooke-centric so I hope that will make up for her absence here. Anyway, as always big thank you's to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, your comments kept me going when I wanted to give up and bash my head against the keyboard. Sorry this has been such a long note but there was so much I needed to explain, hope you enjoy this chapter and that it makes up for the wait!
'Luke! Nate! Look at me!' a small, high-pitched voice called out excitedly from the top of the stairs.
The group of adults assembled in the atrium - namely the Scott brothers, their parents and their aunt and uncle - turned to look in the direction of said voice and saw Lily standing at the top of the staircase leading down towards where they stood. They were all ready for the ball and dressed in their costumes for the evening - the older four members of the family having arrived, with Lily, earlier that afternoon. Lily, who was going through her 'pink phase' was kitted out like the sugar plum fairy in a cupcake pale pink dress that was embellished with flowers and butterflies in various shades of the colour and with little pink fairy wings sticking out from the back of her dress. She looked adorable as she half-jumped down the steep steps, her hair piled up on top of her head in a mass of dark curls. Her face held a look of quiet determination as she focused on navigating the stairs in her poofy skirts and petticoats.
'Lily, you look beautiful,' Nathan smiled up at her.
'You really do, petal, you'll be the belle of the ball,' Lucas agreed, grinning at his little sister as she hopped down the last couple of steps.
She beamed up at her brothers, before flinging herself at Nathan, crying, 'Catch me!'
Despite how sudden the move had been, both brother were so used to it by now that Nathan simply laughed, putting his arms out and catching her effortlessly. He lifted her up and settled her around his waist, her skirts splaying out in all different directions in an explosion of lace and layers.
'Oof!' Nathan gasped, pretending to be winded from her flying at him, 'I'm surprised you can even move in this thing, let alone jump on me!'
He picked up the corner of one of her many petticoats and gave her a mock-disapproving look to which she 'hump-ed' and pouted before breaking out into a beaming smile seconds later, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him.
Karen looked on at the interaction with a suppressed smile, 'I really wouldn't say anything bad about that dress, you know; she's obsessed with it.'
'Yeah, it's the only dress she'd try on out of the dozens that we'd picked out for her in the store,' Keith said with a tone of exasperation that was marred by the adoring look he was giving his daughter.
'Well that just means she has excellent taste in fashion because that dress is gorgeous on her,' Deb chimed in, earning a wide grin from her niece.
'It's such a shame that Hannah and the boys couldn't make it tonight,' Keith said, referring to Dan and Deb's children, 'I would have loved to have seen you trying to get the boys into costumes!'
Deb laughed, 'Yes, I think that's exactly why they made it so that they were 'unavailable' tonight. But I do know that they were very sad not to see you all again.'
'We're sad not to see them too,' Karen said, 'how's Ben getting on with looking at colleges?'
'Dragging his feet, as usual,' Dan shook his head disapprovingly, 'he does this for every big decision. No motivation.'
Deb shot him a look before saying, 'He'll get there, it's just a big milestone and it's scary thinking about the future. We just need to give him time.'
'Time is all we've ever given him. I'm telling you we've spoilt our children bringing them up with everything available to them, living in luxury. They have none of the ambition, none of the fire that Keith and I had when we were growing up,' Dan said, his family attempting not to roll his eyes at his preaching.
'Well, Lucas and Nathan have also been brought up in 'luxury' as you call it and they've both got their fair share of ambition and motivation: a published author and a star NBA player at the age of twenty-two,' Keith interjected, instantly feeling the need to defend his boys at even the slightest hint of any kind of an attack on them from his brother.
'Yes, well we can't all be as lucky as you to have such perfect children, can we?' Dan shot back, raising the glass of scotch he was holding to his lips and taking a swig, 'You can bet they wouldn't have achieved half the things they have if they hadn't had the Scott name behind them or if we hadn't been as successful as we have been.'
Lucas and Nathan did their best not to look offended, knowing it was best to leave it to their father and their uncle to ride out their little spat by themselves. They were a regular occurrence at family gatherings and they were usually short-lived.
'Hey, my boys are talented and gifted in their own rights,' Keith objected, 'and don't forget they're also the golden boys of your show - you woudn't have made half the money from this show if you hadn't roped them into it and you know it.'
Dan opened his mouth to issue a retort, but Karen stepped forward slightly, hands outstretched and palms open in a gesture of peace, and said calmly, 'I think what Keith was trying to say is that Lucas and Nathan have turned out alright, all things considered and that Ben will too. He's still just in the process of growing up and maturing, like all teenagers.'
She turned her eyes to give Keith a pointed look and he dropped some of the tension from his shoulders, stepping forward to put one arm around his wife's waist and to pat his brother on the shoulder with the other, 'Yes, that's right. He'll be fine, Dan.'
'Thank you, Keith,' Deb said, cutting in before Dan could say anything and then nudging him slightly.
Dan sighed tiredly, rubbing his eyes, 'You're right, of course, I'm sorry. I'm just tired, is all, and preparing for this ball has been more stressful than I thought it would be,' he turned to his nephews, 'I didn't mean to offend either of you - you've both achieved great things in your own merit and we're all very proud of you - I'm very proud of you.'
'Thanks, Uncle Dan,' Lucas smiled, grateful that it hadn't turned into a full-blown argument before their guests had arrived.
'Yeah, thanks,' Nathan mumbled, feeling that his recent behaviour probably meant that the familial pride was tipped far more in Lucas' favour than his.
Before they could say any more, one of the butlers that they'd hired for the occasion approached them, 'Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but the first of your guests are arriving.'
'Excellent,' Dan smiled, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, 'show time.'
'Now remember, boys, you only have to stay to greet the first few guests, then you can go off and have fun,' Karen said, turning to her sons, 'I want you two to be able to remain as anonymous as possible. Your father, aunt and uncle and I aren't going to be able to have that 'cause we have to stay here and be good hosts and make announcements.'
'But we all want you two to be able to enjoy tonight without being hounded for once,' Keith added, 'you too, Lily, though you haven't experienced quite as much of it as the rest of us.'
'Are you talking about those funny men with cameras who follow us all the time, Daddy?' Lily frowned.
'Yes, petal,' he chuckled, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead.
'They're annoying and they all talk funny,' Lily wrinkled her nose in displeasure.
Lucas laughed, 'Hit the nail on the head there, Lil.'
Lily's expression turned to one of confusion, 'But Daddy won't let me hold the hammer when he's hitting nails. He says I'm too little.'
Karen reached over and ruffled Lily's curls, though not enough to ruin her hairstyle, 'It's just an expression, petal, it means you made a good point.'
'Okay,' Lily accepted easily.
Suddenly, two of the butlers opened the double doors to the left of them and the first few of their guests stepped tentatively into the foyer, their eyes widening instantly as they took in the grandeur that surrounded them. Few people in Tree Hill had ever visited the manor before as Karen and Keith felt that to invite people into it looked too much like they were showing off. The Scotts split off into two lines - Dan, Deb and Nathan (still holding Lily) on one side, Keith, Karen and Lucas on the other - with a large gap between them to let people come through. The hosts then did their best to put their awed and star-struck guests at ease as they greeted them, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, complimenting and charming as they went. Eventually, when the older adults had felt that enough people had arrived to make the boys relatively inconspicuous, Karen sent them off to drop Lily off at the children's room.
'But I wanna stay with you two!' Lily protested loudly as Nathan carried her down the corridor with Lucas next to them.
'Sorry, petal, but you're much too little to be in with the grown ups,' Nathan told her, chuckling at the look of outrage on her face and holding her a little tighter in case she tried to make a break for it.
'Am not,' Lily protested, 'I'm super grown up.'
'Maybe in terms of intelligence but unfortunately not in terms of age, petal, and I'm afraid that's what counts for tonight,' Lucas laughed.
'Why not?' she pressed.
'Because you're only six,' Lucas told her.
'No I'm not, I'm ten times older than that,' Lily insisted.
'So, you're sixty, then?' Nathan asked, suppressing a laugh.
Lily looked aghast, 'No, that's gross! I meant...,' she paused, trying to work out the sum and phrasing of the sentence properly in her head, 'ten years older than that.'
'Well, much as that's good maths, I'm afraid that would still only make you sixteen and that's still too young to be in with the grown ups,' Nathan smirked triumphantly.
'But sixteen's ancient! How is that not old enough to be a grown up?' Lily complained.
'Hey! Luke and I are a lot older than sixteen, thank you very much,' Nathan said in a mock-offended voice.
'Yeah but you two are old grandpas,' Lily teased.
'Enough of that, missy! Or you can miss out on the party altogether,' Lucas said sternly, but a twitching at the corner of his mouth gave his lack of sincerity away.
Before Lily could protest any further, Nathan cut in, 'Besides, Luke and I aren't even dads yet, let alone grandpas.'
This brought a pensive look to Lily's face and she was quiet for a moment before asking, 'When you and Luke are dads what will I be?'
'You'll be our children's aunt,' Nathan told her.
'Like Aunty Deb?'
'Yes, but Aunty Deb's only our aunt because she married Uncle Dan. You'll be like Uncle Dan when we have kids,' Lucas explained, 'you see, if you're a boy and your brother or sister has a baby, that makes you that baby's uncle and if you're a girl, then that makes you that baby's aunt. So that'll be you. If either of us has kids, that is.'
''Course you'll have kids, silly,' Lily said, as though to suggest otherwise was unthinkable.
'Luke's already made babies with a certain someone,' Nathan said casually, fighting back a smile as he saw the confusion on his brother and sister's faces, before adding, 'in his head.'
Lucas shoved his brother, but not hard enough to dislodge Lily from his arms, 'Hey! Not in front of Lily.'
'What's not in front of me? What did that mean, Nate, what you just said about Luke making-?' Lily began to probe curiously.
'It's one of those 'we'll tell you when you're older' things, Lil,' Lucas told her, laughing under his breath at her pout.
'I hate those things!' Lily sulked, 'Which girl was Luke making babies with in his head, Nate?'
Nate gave her a curious look, 'I thought you said you didn't know what that meant.'
'I know enough,' Lily shrugged, 'so who is it?'
'Oh look, we're here!' Lucas said loudly to stop Lily from asking any more questions, pointing to the door through which they could see the room the children's ball was being held.
'Boo, you're no fun,' Lily muttered, sticking her bottom lip out.
Nathan laughed, kissing his little sister's cheek, 'Too right, Lil. Bye for now, have a good night.'
He set her down on the floor, flexing out his arms to rid them of the ache from having held her for so long. Lily turned to Lucas and hugged his legs as it was the only part of him she could reach.
Chuckling, Lucas bent down to hug her properly, 'Bye, petal, go and make some friends.'
'What if they don't like me, Luke?' Lily mumbled into his shoulder, her small voice suddenly becoming vulnerable.
''Course they'll like you, petal, just go in there and be yourself and everyone will want to be your friend,' he assured her, holding her a little tighter.
'You sure?' she asked, peeping one eye up at him.
'Yeah, you're gonna be fine, Lil,' Lucas said, 'right, Nate?'
'Oh, definitely,' Nathan nodded, earning himself another hug from Lily, 'and if you're really struggling and aren't liking it at all you can always ask one of the grown ups to come and find one of us, okay?'
'But how will they know you're you? Everyone's dressed all funny and got things on their faces,' Lily pointed out.
'Just ask them to make an announcement in the ballroom - one of us or one of the crew is bound to be in there all through the evening so we'll get the message somehow, got it?' Nathan told her.
Lily nodded, burying her face in her brother's shoulder once more, 'Got it.'
'Okay, then, you go and be a big, brave girl now,' Lucas said, gently nudging her away from them and towards the doorway.
'Yeah, show us just how grown up you are,' Nathan nodded, waving her on.
Lily still looked unsure but as they ushered her on, she stepped through the doorway and took a few more steps further into them room. She stood awkwardly for a moment, looking around herself in uncertainty as she tried to find someone her own age. Just when Lucas and Nathan could bear watching her from the doorway no longer and were about to step in and introduce her to somebody, a couple of girls who looked like they were Lily's age approached her. They fell into conversation quickly and easily and then led her off to where the rest of their friends were, with Lily seeming to fit in perfectly. Both brothers inwardly sighed in relief as they walked away from the room.
'She'll be fine,' Lucas said, half to reassure himself.
''Course she will be, and if she isn't then she knows to get an adult to get one of us,' Nathan nodded.
They exchanged slightly worried glances, before continuing on and trying not to get themselves too worked up about their sister as they knew she would disapprove of it and just tell them to stop treating her like a baby. Even so, this was easier said than done when she was their baby sister, who had almost not even made it into this world.
Back at the front door, their parents and aunt and uncle were preparing to leave their posts in the foyer so they could make their opening announcements now that the majority of their guests had arrived. They were just waiting for the last of the freshest wave of people who were making their way from the car park towards them before they left. Walking up the gravel to the manor now were three women, obviously a mother and two daughters from the apparent ages of them. The mother was dressed in a black gown that was much too low cut for a woman of her age and appeared to have eight thin metal spider's legs protruding from underneath the bodice at the sides of the dress. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a bun so tight that it pulled the skin on her her face more taut than any botox would have been able to; affixed on top of her head was a black fascinator, with a net veil, made to look like a spider's web that came down to cover half of her face, with a silver and black mask beneath it. Dark red lips and pale skin set off the whole, somewhat terrifying look. To her left was the more dowdy of the two daughters, dressed in an entirely dark brown outfit that was deliberately simplistic, clearly designed to help her to blend into the background and when matched with her hair colour made her look like a piece of driftwood. To the woman's right was her other daughter, resembling what can only be described as a human fish. Her dress was silver and far more figure-hugging than its Regency style should have allowed. The skirts of the dress were covered in layers of triangles of shiny silver material, which, whatever the designer's original intention might have been for them, only served to make her look all the more like a fish. Her red hair fluttered out around her in the breeze where she had chosen to have it down, with a silver tiara pinned to the top of her head. On her face she was wearing a thin lace mask that concealed little of her features and they guessed that she was one of their few guests who had decided not to play by the set rules of the evening and wanted to give as much of her identity away, rather than hiding it as she was supposed to.
The odd group reached the doormen at the front of the house and handed over their invitations to them for inspection; they were nodded through and so continued on into the foyer, looking at their surroundings with a kind of satisfaction that made them look like treasure hunters who had just uncovered the find of the century. Turning to the Scotts, they each gave sweeping curtsies before the mother held up their invitations to Dan.
'Ah, Mrs Sawyer and two of the Miss Sawyers,' Dan smiled at them, after having peered at the piece of card, 'it's wonderful to have you joining us tonight.'
'Here are your aliases for tonight,' Deb said, handing them three notecards, 'from this moment on, you are not allowed to use your real names, take off your masks or reveal your true identities in any way until midnight. You may invent any back stories or information you want to in order to make your characters more credible but please don't give away who you are as it will ruin the whole point of the evening. The cards are in case you forget who you're meant to be.'
'Of course, we wouldn't want to do anything to spoil such a perfect evening,' Claudia simpered sickeningly, before casting her eyes over her name card, 'Lady Augustine Tremaine? How delightful.'
Her expression of subdued distaste hinted otherwise but she quickly turned to her daughters to cover it.
'Anastasia Tremaine,' Beatrice mumbled, her voice remaining neutral and her eyes fixed on the floor.
'Drizella Tremaine?' Megan cried indignantly, horrified at the name she'd been assigned, 'But that's hideous! How come Beatrice gets a nicer name than me? I want to swap!'
She went to snatch the card from her sister's hand but had her own swatted away by Claudia, who hissed, 'Nonsense, darling, it's a lovely name, isn't it?'
She gave a quick glance towards the Scotts to remind her daughter why she had to keep her composure and Megan instantly caught her hint and rearranged her face into a smile, 'Of course it is, Mother, it's just so...unusual that it caught me by surprise, that's all.'
'I'm glad to hear that you like them, because those names have been specifically assigned to each of you, and you alone. Swapping them is completely forbidden and inventing a new one will result in your expulsion from the ball,' Dan informed them sternly, 'my wife and my sister-in-law spent hours inventing pseudonyms for everyone and making sure they were all correct and I would be very upset to hear that anyone had altered them in any way.'
'We understand completely,' Claudia nodded, bowing her head slightly as a show of acceptance.
'Good,' Dan said, fixing them all with a look that spoke of the consequences they would face should he find otherwise.
'Now, ladies, tell us about your...fascinating outfits,' Deb stepped in, turning to Claudia first, 'you are...?'
She let her voice trail off and Claudia smiled hollowly, 'A black widow.'
How appropriate, thought Karen but aloud she said, 'Wonderful,' then looked at Megan inquiringly.
'I'm Queen Elizabeth I,' Megan said in a tone that showed she clearly thought this was obvious as she pointed to the tiara on top of her head, 'or rather her when she was a princess.'
Karen frowned, floundering for a moment as to how to respond before saying slowly, 'Forgive me, dear, but Elizabeth I was a Tudor, not a Georgian.'
'So? I don't get what the big deal is - like, it's all just in the past and stupid dresses, right?' Megan shrugged, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
'The Elizabethan and Georgian eras were over a century apart in British history, dear, and the dress styles are very different,' Karen explained, trying her best not to sound patronising but finding it difficult in the face of such ignorance.
Megan opened her mouth to retort but her mother beat her to it, elbowing her sharply in the ribs, 'I believe what Megan was trying to say was that she was going for a Georgian interpretation of one of her great female idols. Isn't that right, darling?'
The last part was said through gritted teeth and a forced smile but again Megan caught on and did her best to smile and nod like that really was what she had intended with her outfit.
'Well, it's very...clever, then,' Deb said smoothly, making Megan smirk smugly as she missed the fact that Deb was clearly lying.
'And what are you, dear?' Karen asked, turning to Beatrice who didn't even look up until Claudia nudged her.
She went to speak but Megan cut across her, 'A turd.'
Megan instantly burst out into loud laughter, while Beatrice's eyes became once more drawn to the floor and Claudia looked at her eldest daughter aghast as she saw the unimpressed faces of their hosts.
'Hmm,' Keith muttered disapprovingly.
There was an awkward silence before Karen spoke again, this time addressing Claudia, 'Where are your stepdaughters, Mrs Sawyer?'
'Elise arrived earlier than us - she was coming with a group of her friends,' she replied, trying to make it sound like she cared about Elise's whereabouts.
'Oh, yes, I remember seeing her now - she was in a blue dress, wasn't she?' Keith smiled.
Claudia hesitated, clearly having no idea what it was that Elise had been wearing, before eventually nodding, 'Sure.'
'And Peyton? Where is she?' Karen pressed.
'She chose to stay at home,' Claudia said quickly.
'She's not a very big one for parties, or people in general, really,' Megan told them, fighting back a wicked smile and trying her best to fake sisterly concern, 'most nights we can barely get her away from the kitchen and we joke sometimes that she's more friends with mice than she is with people.'
'Not that we have mice living anywhere in our house, of course,' Claudia cut across her swiftly, letting out a rather fake laugh.
Megan imitated her laugh, 'Of course not.'
'Okay...well, you go on and enjoy the ball now,' Deb said, anxious to be rid of the strange group in front of them, 'we hope you all have a lovely evening.'
The rest of the Scotts uttered similar sentiments, while the Sawyers gave their thanks, then moved on and into the recesses of the manor.
'Shall we go and make our announcements, then?' Dan asked, offering his arm to his wife.
The group turned to leave and saw Lucas standing a few metres away from them, partly hidden by the shadows cast by the dying sun. His face was set in stony frustration and Karen knew instantly that only one thing could have brought such an expression to his face. He must have overheard Claudia saying that Peyton wasn't coming. He turned and stormed away from them before any of them could ask him any questions or Karen could offer her comfort, kicking a plant pot in frustration on his way.
'What's wrong with him?' Deb asked, frowning.
'Haven't the faintest idea, darling,' Dan replied with a shrug as they all looked after Lucas.
Karen remained silent, only turning to Keith and mouthing 'Peyton' to him behind her hand. Understanding dawned over her husband's face and he nodded. They walked down the corridor leading to the west wing and quickly caught up with the crowds of guests that they had sent on in that direction. As they turned into the hallway that lead down to the ballroom, they caught sight of the Sawyers (or Tremaines for the purpose of that evening) walking ahead of them. While everyone else recognised them instantly and had moved out of their way to let them through as they could tell from their expressions that they had somewhere important to be, the Sawyers had their backs to them and so kept walking, unaware of their presence behind them.
'I need to go back, Mother,' Beatrice said dully, 'I'm not old enough to be in this part of the party. There's another room I have to go to.'
'Ugh, just go already,' Megan muttered, 'it's not as if we actually want you with us. You're ruining our whole look with that ugly dress.'
'You can go, Beatrice, just remember to meet back up with us in the entrance hall at quarter past midnight, okay?' Claudia reminded her.
'Why, Mother? The ball doesn't even finish until one,' Beatrice asked.
'Because we're going to get back early and surprise that little sneak Peyton - I can bet you anything you like she won't be waiting up for us. She'll probably be asleep and I want to catch her, so don't be late or we'll leave without you,' Claudia warned.
'Yeah, whatever,' Beatrice said, turned and sloped off back in the direction of the children's room.
It was at this point that Claudia looked back for a second and saw the Scotts walking behind them, gasped and pulled Megan to the side of the corridor to let them pass, curtsying as they did. Karen shot them a weak smile, her thoughts focused on Peyton as she knew she had to warn her of their plan should she decide to come to the ball that night, as she couldn't bear the thought of her having to take any more torture from her stepfamily than she had doubtless already had that evening.
XxX
Golden light shone out from every one of the windows of Hillcrest Manor, bathing the grass and driveway outside it in buttery tones of colour. The gravel drive was lined with old-fashioned glass lanterns hanging on wooden stakes that had been driven into the ground to keep them stable as they showed the way for guests to go to either the house or to park their cars in the makeshift car park that had been created in one of the fields belonging to the estate. Sounds of music and chatter floated out from the house and into the evening's dimming light that had started to shroud the now silent town of Tree Hill at the foot of the hill below in gathering darkness. Currently, almost all of its residents were socialising inside the manor, delighting in the cultural feast for the senses that the Scotts had arranged for them to enjoy. By the time the black Raven pulled up just a few metres away from the front doors of the house, the party was already in full swing and the time was close to 8.30, meaning that sunset had spilled its rich palette of colours fully across the sky. A painted canvas of vibrant reds, oranges and yellows provided the perfect backdrop for what promised to be the night of a lifetime, a night to remember and treasure forever.
The two guards who stood statue-like on their sentry duty on either side of the entrance to the house watched as the glossy car stopped close to them and then heard its engine being turned off. They silently glanced at one another with puzzled expressions as they both wondered whether or not they should go down to the car and tell its driver that it couldn't just park in the middle of the driveway and that they would just have to go and park around the side of the house with all the other guests' cars. With any one of the other many cars that they had directed to the car park already that evening, they would have done so without a hesitation. However, while a few expensive models of car had turned up so far (owned mostly by the guests that had been invited from outside of Tree Hill), the only ones that had been Ravens had belonged to members of the Scott family. And, seeing as it was their house and their party, the bouncers were understandably reluctant to give orders to any one of the Scotts as to where to park their car. On the other hand, they were reasonably certain that all of the Scotts who were meant to be attending the ball had already arrived and were inside, adding to their confusion over the Raven with blacked-out windows sitting in front of them.
Before they could come to a decision on the matter, the driver's door opened and a chauffeur stepped out, adjusting his hat and sunglasses before walking a couple of paces to the next door along on his side of the car. He opened the door and then stepped to the side, waiting for his passenger to get out like a palace guard standing to attention. And then she stepped forth from the gloomy depths of her luxury carriage, a bright beacon of glowing white that outshone the dying sun as it sank ever lower in the sky. The woman ducked her head and shoulders elegantly as she emerged so as to avoid hitting her head on the door frame and then stood before them, with her straight posture and reserved demeanour hinting that refined, cultured blood ran through her veins. Quite how it was that the bouncers were able to deduce all of this from her, though, was quite beyond them as there was very little of the mystery guest available for them to see. Her body and face were shrouded by a long, white muslin hooded cloak that was trimmed with white faux fur, though it looked so realistic that it could very well pass for the real thing. Why anyone would wish to wear such a cloak on a warm September evening also escaped them but the guest pulled it off with ease and such confidence that it made anyone looking at her instantly wish for some form of warm outerwear as well, even if they had previously felt their body to be at optimal temperature. From beneath the hood, the gentle breeze beckoned a few blonde ringlets out into the evening air, their strands catching the light and becoming filled with hues of amber and gold. Her face wasn't visible from beneath said hood, nor her dress from under the folds of her cloak but it was apparent to the guards that both were incredibly beautiful nonetheless.
She moved towards them now, floating across the gravel as the chauffeur shut the car door behind her and then stood by it as he waited for her to be accepted into the manor. As she drew near to the guards, a hand pushed its way free from her cloak holding a cream parchment envelope, the likes of which they had seen hundreds of already that evening. One of the guards took a slight step forward to meet her before she had to walk the full distance to them and felt her pass the envelope into his hand. He slipped out the rectangular card within it and his eyes widened as he read the name written neatly on it. Clearing his throat and bringing his gaze back up towards her, he handed her back the envelope and the invitation.
'Good evening, Miss, it's a pleasure to welcome you to Hillcrest Manor. Please come inside; our hosts invite you to make yourself at home and enjoy yourself as much as possible tonight. The ball is taking place in the west wing of the house - there are signs and members of staff that will show you the way. If you show your invitation to the Master of Ceremonies at the ballroom door, he will announce you as you enter. We hope that you have a good night.'
Even from within the shadows of her cape, the woman's smile was still somehow visible as she said quietly, 'Thank you, gentlemen, I hope that you have a good night, too.'
She inclined her head slightly and passed them and into the manor with an almost silent tread, save for the slight whisper of fabric that her cloak made as she walked. The guards both found themselves turning unconsciously to watch her as she walked through the doors and disappeared into the foyer as though she had been nothing more than an optical illusion triggered by the balmy warmth of the dying sun's rays.
XxX
Peyton breathed a quiet sigh of relief as she made it past the bouncers and into the house, as part of her had been convinced that, despite Karen's assurances and her invitation card, she would still somehow be denied access to the ball. She paused for a moment, her cloaked figure casting a shimmering reflection upon the marble floor beneath her feet, as she tried to gain her bearings. She knew that she ought to know instinctively where the west wing was, as she had been there just that morning, but the unexpected and somewhat surreal turn of events within the last hour or so had disoriented her and she found that she had momentarily forgotten where she was meant to be going. She had discovered after having gotten dressed that Karen's generosity to her had extended even beyond granting her exclusive access and paying for her entire outfit, to hiring a car for her which had turned up outside her house once she was ready to leave and escorted her to the manor. The driver had told her that he would be waiting outside in the car park so that if she should wish to leave early he would be ready and available to take her home.
Peyton was keenly aware that her list of things that she owed to the kindness of her employer was growing by the minute and she was anxious to find her and thank her before the crowds of guests made it impossible. However, first she had to meet up with Haley as she had texted her as soon as she had finished unpacking her gift from Karen to inform her of the change of plans and that she would, in fact, be attending after all. They had arranged to meet up as soon as Peyton arrived at the house and so she had sent Haley another text just as the Raven had pulled up outside the doors, telling her to meet her in the atrium. Looking around at the room, she quickly spotted the signs directing her towards the ball and positioned herself in front of the corridor down which they pointed so that she would be able to see her friend when she came. She carefully pulled down the hood of her cloak, feeling like any sudden movements might ruin the fine fabric or cause it to tear.
Just as she was starting to feel uncomfortable at waiting alone in the hall for so long, Haley appeared at the other end of the corridor, with a large smiling lighting up her face even from underneath her mask and carrying two full champagne flutes. Haley looked every bit the part of a Georgian courtier, in a long sleeved dress with scooping square neckline and full skirts. The dress was cream with dusky pink roses and their vines trailing and twining across it and lace bordering the neck and sleeves; the skirts split in the middle to reveal a faded pink underskirt, beneath which her high heels could just be seen peeping out. Haley wore an eye mask covered in rose petals of the same hue that set off the blush that the evening had brought to her cheeks. Her hair had been pulled back into a high bun and there were small roses scattered throughout her tresses. She was undeniably beautiful and the more simplistic nature of her outfit (in comparison to what some of the other guests had chosen to wear) only served to make this stand out more amidst the sea of extravagant and, occasionally, garish costumes that she had already encountered during the evening.
As soon as she saw Peyton waiting at the other end of the corridor, she quickened her pace to a brisk walk - to run in the amount of petticoats she was wearing was a near impossible feat - calling out as she went, 'I can't believe you're here!'
Peyton started walking towards her, making up the distance between them, 'I know! This whole evening has been surreal from start to finish.'
'Well, it's nowhere near finished yet - we still have four and a half hours left of the biggest party of the century and there's already been so much drama already!' she gushed excitedly, catching her best friend in a hug as they reached one another.
Peyton squeezed Haley back before releasing her and looping her arm through hers as they began to walk back down towards the sounds of the party, 'Okay, fill me in, what's happened so far?'
'Hmm, okay...let's see...,' Haley murmured as she tried to remember, passing Peyton a champagne glass as she did so, 'oh yeah! Someone showed up wearing the same dress as Deb and she threw a massive fit - she wanted to have them chucked out but Keith insisted that the woman should be allowed to stay. They had a pretty big stand-off about it, but eventually, Keith won because, well, it's his house so he gets the last word on who visits it.'
'That's funny - Deb never really struck me as the kind of person who'd get into a strop over someone wearing the same outfit as her. Remember that happened before on the show and she just laughed it off and said that the other woman looked better in it than her anyway?'
'Yeah, I know, I think everyone was a bit taken aback by it but apparently, the gossip is that her and Dan had a huge row just before they arrived and that was what Deb was actually upset about - the dress clash was just the final straw,' Haley leaned in closer to her friend and lowered her voice conspiratorially as she gave this news.
'That would make more sense,' Peyton nodded thoughtfully, 'what else?'
'Someone spiked the punch that was being given to the kids in their room,' Haley replied, 'thankfully, one of the chaperones realised before any of the little ones could get a hold of it and they had to throw the whole batch away. They're still looking for the culprit but who on earth would want to get children drunk?'
Peyton smiled at how aghast Haley looked at the thought of it, 'Do you think it might have been one of the older kids there? I know the age limit for the main party is seventeen - maybe it was just some of the teenagers trying to have some fun...albeit misguidedly.'
'Well, whoever it was they're in danger of being thrown out - word got back to the Scotts and they are fuming. Lily's in there and, understandably, they weren't too happy about the idea of her potentially waking up with a hangover tomorrow morning.'
'Wow, it really has been eventful, hasn't it? Anything else?' Peyton asked.
'Yes, you missed your darling stepsister going around every man she could find, checking their hands for wedding rings and then trying to find out their annual income - both in ways that were far less subtle than she probably thought they were. And Claudia's been draped around some high-flying businessman for the best part of an hour - I swear, that woman has a homing device for anyone with a big bank balance - she found him almost straight away and zoned in on him,' Haley told her, her face wrinkling up in displeasure.
'Gross,' Peyton mirrored that expression, 'I know I should be used to my stepmother throwing herself at any man with a pulse and a wallet by now but you'd think that my dad's income would be enough to keep even her satisfied.'
'Well, it must be enough for her - she's stayed with him all this time, hasn't she? You'd hardly expect a woman of Claudia's calibre to stay married to someone who couldn't pay for all of her expenses - not to mention Megan and Beatrice's. But, still, you'd think she'd exercise some restraint with all the cameras around the place - what if they put footage of her flirting with some old guy into the show and you father sees it?'
'I hope they do - maybe that would finally get him to divorce her and then we could be free of her forever,' Peyton muttered.
'I'll drink to that,' Haley laughed, raising her glass and clinking it against Peyton's. They both took sips and then Haley said, 'let's not think about them for now, okay? Tell me more about how you managed to end up here - it all sounds very mysterious!'
Peyton shrugged, 'There's no mystery, really, as it turns out it was just Karen being an amazing friend yet again. She guessed that Claudia might not be too pleased about me going tonight but she was also determined that I should come, partly because she wanted to see me again and also because she wanted me to have this experience with everyone else. So, she bought me an entire outfit - literally, everything I'm wearing right now apart from my underwear is a gift from her and you know Karen doesn't do anything by halves. It's all so expensive - I have no idea how I'm ever going to pay her back for all of this - it probably cost more money than I've ever earned in my whole life!'
Haley patted her friend's hand reassuringly as she heard the worry in her voice, 'Peyt, it's Karen: she won't expect you to pay her back for it, in fact, you know she won't want you to or let you. She meant it as a gift because she loves you and cares about you and the whole point of a gift is that the giver doesn't expect anything in return. Just accept it for what it is and thank her, that's all she'll want.'
Peyton chewed her lip, 'I know you're right but it still feels so wrong letting her pay for all this stuff for me - and just for one night when I'm probably never going to have an opportunity to wear it ever again - I feel like I'm robbing her, somehow.'
'How? Peyt, between them the Scotts have made more money than they could ever possibly need and Karen and Keith have chosen to share that with the people they love rather than keeping it to themselves, which is a good thing and a choice they've made as adults. You didn't put a gun to their heads or threaten them or even ask them for anything, the only thing you've done is be friends with them. And, surely, the whole point of Karen getting you all these clothes that you're only going to wear once is that this is a once in a lifetime experience and she wanted you to be part of that.'
'Mmm,' Peyton murmured, and Haley could tell that while she knew that what she was saying was getting through to her and making sense that Peyton was still always going to feel a little guilty about the whole thing - it was just in her nature.
'Besides,' Haley smiled, lightening the tone, 'if you really feel that bad about the waste, you can always do your cleaning and waitressing in that costume.'
The attempt at humour worked and Peyton laughed, some of the tension visibly easing off her, 'Can you imagine? I should take pictures of myself scrubbing out the toilets and carrying plates of fries in this outfit to all of the designers to show them how well I'm using their creation. I'm sure the shock of it would probably give them all heart attacks on the spot!'
'There's the Sawyer smile we all know and love! That's more like it,' Haley grinned, then paused momentarily to take in their surroundings, 'speaking of Sawyers, the room where the kids are having their party is just off here down that corridor - do you want to drop in on Elise before we get too lost in the crowds to find our way back again?'
Indeed, there was a welcoming, ambient light was glowing at the end of the corridor they were currently walking down and through the archway that led to the rooms the ball was being hosted in they could see a very small portion of the overall amount of guests mingling and sipping their drinks, and even that small number seemed like a large group to them. Closer to them and just a few metres down a corridor branching off to their right, was the sound of the higher-pitched voices of children laughing and chatting. Peyton nodded her agreement to Haley's proposal and they turned off down that hallway and, presently, into a large assembly room.
The room was a long, rectangular shape with wooden panelled walls that were painted white with gold motifs carved and embossed on each panel. A glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling in the centre of the room, casting light and refractions all around the space, and a large white marble fireplace stood against the left wall though the night was too warm for a fire to be lit within it. Other than that, the room had been mostly cleared of furniture to make space for all the children and teenagers, save for a few chairs that had been placed against the walls and a couple of long trestle tables upon which food and drinks were being served. About half a dozen watchful adults stood stationed around the room, keeping a close eye on the goings on of the young people within it. Despite the fairly large number of children and teenagers in the room, its sheer size meant that it only felt like it was half full. There was plenty of room for everyone to move around in between the various social groups that had formed and even space enough for them to dance to the music that a small band at the back of the room was playing without knocking into one another.
Pushing herself onto her tiptoes, Peyton craned her neck as she scanned the room for her little sister. She located her a few moments later standing with her group of friends just a few metres away from where she and Haley were stood in the doorway. She watched Elise interacting with her friends for a moment, enjoying having the chance to see her so happy and carefree away from Claudia's controlling presence. Elise was very much at the heart of her friendship group, laughing and talking with everyone, and always making sure that the more shy members were included and made to feel wanted as much as the more vocal of her friends. Peyton felt a burst of pride as she saw, not for the first time, what a kind and conscientious young woman her baby sister was growing into. Glancing up at where a stationary camera had been set up on top of the mantelpiece of the fireplace, she quickly worked out that they were currently standing in its blind-spot. She figured that if she could get Elise to come over to the doorway then they could converse without being caught on film, as they were also out of sight of the only camera in the hallway outside. While she knew that there was very little chance that Claudia, Megan or Beatrice would recognise her if a clip of her was used on the show, they knew what Elise's outfit looked like and so she was worried that if they saw her talking to her little sister that they might become suspicious. On her own she was fairly inconspicuous amidst the sea of masked faces, but if she then appeared on the show as a random stranger pulling Elise from the room to talk to her then she could very easily become noticeable to them once again. Of course, it was also highly unlikely that they would use any of the footage including both of them anyway as it would hardly make for interesting viewing or even hold any significance for anyone outside of their family, but she wanted to be cautious, regardless.
Making sure that none of the chaperones were looking in their direction, Peyton took a tissue from her purse, scrunched it up and threw it Elise's head to get her attention, as she doubted that her voice would be able to be heard over the din in the room. Elise's hand shot up to touch the spot where the tissue had hit her and they watched as she turned and looked down to where it was lying on the floor. Frowning, she bent down to pick it up and unfurled it to see if there was a message written on it; upon finding that there was none, her expression of confusion grew and she looked around the room to work out who had thrown it at her. When her gaze fell on the doorway, Haley waved to her to keep her attention there, then pointed to Peyton. For a moment, Elise only continued to frown at them as she tried to work out who the person next to Haley was; then realisation hit her and her expression became one of joyful shock. Peyton put her finger to her lips as she could see that Elise was about to call out her name in her excitement, and then beckoned her over with the other hand. Some of the happiness left Elise's face as the understanding that this visit from her sister was a secret became apparent to her and she nodded to them, holding up a hand as a sign for them to wait. She turned back to her friends and made some excuse that they were unable to hear, before moving away from her group and walking towards them at as normal a pace as she could manage.
When Elise reached them, her face was full of wonder at seeing her sister there and a wide smile broke across her lips, 'Peyton! I can't believe it's you! How on earth did you get here?'
Peyton glanced at the adults momentarily to ensure that no one was watching them, before taking Elise's hand and drawing her under the cover of the door frame before answering her in as hushed tones as she could given the noise inside the room that she had to make herself heard above, 'Karen managed to get me a way in, and an outfit.'
'Karen as in your boss? As in Karen Scott?' Elise clarified, matching the volume of her voice to Peyton's.
'The very same,' Peyton nodded.
'Wow, if anyone was going to sneak you in I'd thought it was going to be Brooke,' Elise murmured, almost to herself.
Peyton shook her head, 'I deliberately didn't tell Brooke that there was any chance that I might not be able to come tonight so that she couldn't pull something like this. She's already done enough for me lately, what with sorting out the garden for me.'
'And Karen? How did she know?' Elise asked.
She frowned, 'I'm not sure - she said she'd just guessed that it might be a possibility but now that I think about it, maybe Lucas told her. I told him that I might not be able to make it so maybe he mentioned it to her...'
'It's entirely likely that he could have done,' Haley mused, 'I mean, he said that he wanted both you and Elise to be there so Karen could see you and Elise could meet Lily, so he might have told Karen what you'd said in the hope that she might be able to do something he hadn't already tried to get you here. When it comes to his mom, if Lucas knows that something's important to her he'll do whatever he can to make it happen and he must've known that seeing you again after four years would be important to her. On the other hand, though, this is all just conjecture and Karen could have just made a well-informed guess based on what she already knows of your relationship with Claudia.'
Haley deliberately chose not to mention that, had Lucas told his mother that Peyton might not be at the ball in the hope that she might be able to get her to come, it would have been as much for his benefit as for hers.
Peyton looked thoughtful for a moment, before waving her hand to dispel their theories, 'Anyway, let's not worry about that for now, the point is that Karen made it so that I could be here tonight but the whole thing has to be top secret so that no one from our lovely stepfamily finds out. So, you can't tell anyone that you've seen me here - not even your friends - just in case they mention it to someone and it gets back to Claudia or Megan. I shouldn't even really be talking to you right now in case someone sees us but I just wanted to see you and let you know that I was here and not sitting moping at home.'
'I'm glad you did,' Elise grinned at her, 'I kept thinking about you at home all alone and I couldn't concentrate on anything properly 'cause I just wanted to be with you.'
Peyton drew her sister in for a hug, kissing the top of her head, 'Well, now you'll be able to enjoy yourself properly. I probably won't be able to risk coming back in to see you again, so I'll see you tomorrow, okay? We'll swap stories.'
'Sounds great,' Elise beamed, hugging her a little tighter before letting go and turning to Haley, 'you'll be there too, right, Haley?'
'Of course I will, kiddo,' Haley smiled back and reached out to squeeze the younger girl's hand, 'we'll have to Skype Brooke as well and get her involved.'
'Oh, definitely,' Peyton chuckled, 'she'll be dying to hear all the gossip and she's got that dinner party tonight too that she can tell us about.'
'I should probably get back to my friends now,' Elise said, a little sadly at having to leave them, 'I'm meant to be in the bathroom and if I stay away any longer they might think there's something wrong with me.'
'Okay, go and have fun,' Peyton smiled, bending down and kissing her sister's cheek, 'remember, button, not a word to anyone.'
'I won't tell anyone, I promise,' she told her solemnly.
'I know you won't,' Peyton said, gently squeezing her shoulders before giving her a little push back towards her friends, 'be good.'
Elise rolled her eyes but grinned at her at the same time, then gave her a little wave before turning and walking back over to her friends. Peyton and Haley watched her for a moment longer, as she effortlessly blended back into the group and joined in the conversation with ease. Peyton felt a sense of relief that she knew she could count on Elise's friends to take good care of her and that she needn't be worried about her being left out. They slipped silently away from the room and rejoined the main corridor that they had been walking down before to get to the main party.
'Speaking of Brooke,' Haley began, thinking back to the conversation they'd just had, 'have you heard from her at all in the last few days?'
Peyton shook her head, frowning, 'No, not since just after the FOTAs, have you?'
Haley shook her head as well, 'Same. It's not like her not to check in with us at least once a day. I thought it was just the strain of how busy she's been this week but even when she's had tough weeks before, she's always stayed in contact - even if it's just to let us know that she wouldn't be able to speak to us much for a while.'
'I know, it's strange,' Peyton agreed, biting her lip as she suddenly felt sick with the idea that something might be wrong with her best friend, 'I hope she's alright.'
'I'm sure she will be,' Haley assured her, keeping her voice bright for both their sakes', 'we'll Skype her tomorrow. She's probably just been overwhelmed with people all wanting to talk to her and get her to advertise their stuff.'
'True,' Peyton nodded, though neither of them were as sure of themselves as they would have liked to have been, 'let's try not to worry about it too much for now 'cause there's not really all that much we can do about it until tomorrow - Brooke's at that dinner party so she won't answer her phone if we call her, so we'll just have to wait for now.'
'Well, we're here now so what do you want to do first?' Haley asked, gesturing at the archway that they were now stood in front of which offered them a glimpse of what the party was like on the other side of it, 'There's food, drinks and dancing, of course.'
Peyton peered into the reception room ahead of them cautiously, as though she was afraid to enter it, 'Actually, I think I'd like to try and find Karen first - to thank her for all of this. I just...I know I won't be able to relax properly until I have, but if you want to go get something to eat then please feel free to - I don't want you to feel like I'm dragging you around.'
Haley waved her hand dismissively, 'Meh, food can wait. I want to catch up with Karen too, you're not forcing me to do anything I don't want to. Besides, you're one of my best friends and I want to share this with you, it wouldn't be the same otherwise.'
Peyton smiled in relief, 'Good, 'cause I really wanted you to come with me but I just didn't want you to think I was being super bossy or anything.'
'Never. Brooke on the other hand...,' Haley deliberately let her sentence trail off and they both laughed, 'come on, let's go find Karen. Last time I saw her was when she was standing on the dais in the ballroom with Dan, Keith and Deb when they were making the opening announcements for the ball, and it was pretty crowded in there so she might not have been able to get very far.'
'Sounds good to me,' Peyton nodded, looping her arm through Haley's again so they wouldn't lose one another and together they stepped over the threshold and into the room in front of them.
The reception room wasn't quite as crowded as it had seemed from outside and they were able to negotiate their way through it with relative ease. The passageway leading out from the room towards the ballroom was lined with doors leading off to various other rooms and corridors, all of which were open to the public. This hallway was more congested, as the rooms in which food and drink were being served fed off from it, so it was with some difficulty that they began on their journey down it, especially as they had to stop at each doorway to check to see if they could see Karen inside.
'Do you remember what she was wearing?' Peyton shouted to Haley over the noise of the conversations that were being held in the room they were just passing.
'Of course, she was dressed up like the Georgian version of the Queen of Hearts - kind of hard to miss,' Haley yelled back.
'Okay, let's hope you're right about that 'cause it's crazy in here! They really weren't joking when they said they invited the whole town and more,' Peyton frowned in frustration as she elbowed her way through the near constant stream of people in the corridor.
'Wait! I think I've spotted her,' Haley called to her over her shoulder as she reached the doorway of the next room, craning her neck and pushing herself up onto her tiptoes.
Haley pulled Peyton by the hand over to where she was standing, pointing into the room to where a group of woman were gathered at the back, all centring around one specific woman. In place of a normal hairstyle was an enormous wig sitting on top of her head that was black with crimson streaks positioned throughout it, with the hair being a wild mass of frizzy curls sticking out in all directions. Pinning part of this forest of hair down was a circular golden crown topped with ruby hearts that was nestled at an angle on the left side of her head. The top half of her face was obscured by a black metal filigree mask that had been cut into various hearts of different shapes and sizes but beneath this her red painted lips were clearly visible. Her dress was made of alternating red and black panels, with a white central panel on the skirt that was covered in hearts and in her hand she held a golden sceptre with a heart on top of it. At first glance, it was hard to see anything other than a woman of terrifying beauty from the way she was disguised but, upon longer inspection, it was just possible to identify her as Karen Scott.
Faces set with determination, the girls entered the room - a small dining room with a long table covered with food dishes, as it transpired - and pushed their way in as ladylike a manner as they could manage in such a confined space with so many people all intent on piling their plates as high as possible. The other guests paid them little notice, as they were all far too focused on which of the tempting plates to try next. Karen and her gaggle of friends - or aspiring socialites trying to gain her backing, it was unclear as to which they were - were standing at the back of the room, set apart slightly from the diners. After some struggle, Peyton and Haley managed to fight their way over to them and then stood, suddenly uncertain, looking at the backs of the women in the circle closest to them. While they both knew that Karen had never been one to flaunt her wealth or status and that she certainly never acted superior to anyone, they found themselves a little daunted at the sight of her in this role of wealthy, socialising hostess that they had never seen play before.
Peyton turned to Haley and said as quietly as she could, 'Maybe we should come back later when she's less...in demand.'
Haley took Peyton's arm firmly and turned her back towards the group of women, 'Nonsense, this is Karen Scott we're talking about: one of the richest women in America and she's hosting a televised ball - there's never going to be a time tonight when she isn't in demand. It's now or never.'
'Right,' Peyton nodded, then murmured almost to herself, 'now or never.'
She took a step forward, Haley moving with her, and did her best to dispel any lingering worries that Karen might not want to be seen associating with them in this context.
Clearing her throat, she called out over the sound of the women's conversations in front of them, 'Karen?'
Instantly, the room quietened with all eyes fixing on the pair of them in hushed, curious expectation. The circle of women before them parted at the centre, revealing Karen standing as regally and as imposing as a queen in the middle of it. The silence lingered as Karen surveyed them, lips pursed and eyes squinted slightly in their scrutiny. For one dreadful moment, Peyton and Haley wondered if Karen would recognise them under their costumes and excuses began to form themselves on their tongues.
Then, mercifully, Karen sprang to life, a huge smile gracing her face and transforming it instantly from one of impassive, stony hostess to welcoming friend. She rushed forward, stretching out her arms to them.
Gathering them both in as tight an embrace as she could with two of them to wrap her arms around, she cried, 'Hal- I mean, Miss Harris and Miss Lancaster,' she caught herself quickly and corrected her blunder by using the pseudonyms that they had adopted for the evening to protect their identities, like everyone else present, 'I'm so happy to see you both here!'
'Karen, it's so good to see you again,' Peyton smiled, her voice being slightly muffled by the hug.
'Yes, it's been far too long,' Haley agreed.
Karen released them and stepped back from them, sending them a delighted smile, before turning back to the women behind her to address their inquisitive looks, 'If you'll excuse me, ladies, I'm afraid this is going to be a conversation that really can't wait. It's been lovely meeting you all and I hope you have a wonderful evening.'
With that, she took Peyton's arm and looped it through her left arm, then did the same with Haley's and her right arm and lead them out of the room.
'I'm sorry, should we not have called you Karen in front of everyone? I forgot we're meant to be using fake names,' Peyton apologised as they walked.
Karen waved her concerns away, 'We are, but it's fine. I figure when you stand up on a platform at the beginning of the evening and welcome everyone to your home and the party that it kind of lets the cat out of the bag pretty quickly. Besides, you saw all those people crowding me just now - they wouldn't have been remotely interested in me if they hadn't known who I was, but it is very important for everyone else to keep up their aliases, especially you two.'
She took them a little further down the corridor outside and stopped by a seemingly ordinary wooden panel that looked just the same as the others that lined the walls. Glancing around them, she checked that no one was looking at them and then pushed on the panel, causing it to swing open. Karen pulled them quickly into the room and shut the door again behind them before they could be seen by anybody. Inside was a small meeting room furnished with a low table and several chairs; several plates of food were already laid out on the table waiting for them.
'Phew! That's so much better to be away from all that noise and all those people,' Karen breathed in relief, then gestured to the chairs and the food, 'please sit down and help yourselves - unless you've already eaten, that is.'
'We haven't actually, thank you,' Haley told her, sitting and gratefully starting to fill an empty plate with food.
Peyton followed suit, turning to Karen when she was seated with them, 'Is all of this for us?'
'Yes, I hoped that you two would find me at some point during the evening and so I got this room ready before the ball started for us so that we could talk away from anyone who might be trying to listen in and away from the cameras. Only Keith and I know about this room - not even Dan or the boys - so there are no cameras in here; we should be safe to talk here for a while, though obviously I can't stay away too long or people will notice,' Karen explained.
'How'd you and Keith find out about this room?' Haley asked, looking around them at the perfectly normal seeming room.
Karen smiled, 'Keith found it when he was a child and he kept it a secret from everyone so that he could come here and just be alone when things were getting too difficult with his father. There are tonnes of other secret rooms and passageways hidden away in the house and he showed all of them to Dan so that he would have somewhere to find refuge too. But he kept this one to himself and only told me about it so I could use it if ever I needed some time to myself. Pretty cool, huh?'
Peyton nodded her head in agreement as she swallowed down her mouthful of food, 'Very. This house is always full of surprises; speaking of surprises, before we speak about anything else I have to thank you for everything you've done for me tonight. The dress, the mask, the cloak, the Raven, the shoes - everything, it's all incredible and I'm so, so grateful.'
'I wanted you to be here,' Karen stated, making it all sound so simple, 'you have nothing to thank me for, though I know you will anyway, but I want you to know that there's no debt or anything like that. You being here and being happy for one night is all the thanks I need, really.'
Peyton felt her eyes stinging with tears of gratitude despite herself and she leant over, wrapping her arms around the older woman's neck, 'Thank you, Karen, you don't know how much it means to me.'
'That's quite alright, sweetheart,' Karen smiled, hugging her back, 'that's the last I want to hear of this, though, no guilt or feeling obliged to do anything for me. You're thankful and I've accepted that, that's all there is to it, so please, be happy and just enjoy the gifts.'
'I will,' Peyton promised, pulling back from the embrace, 'I am - enjoying them, that is.'
'Well, you look absolutely perfect. I'm glad the dress fits so well - I had to call Brooke to get your measurements but they weren't as up to date as I would have liked them to be. How are the shoes? There the part I'm most excited about - they're an experiment, the only pair in the whole world.'
Peyton lifted the hem of her skirts to reveal her feet underneath, clad in almost liquid-seeming shoes that glimmered like opals in the light. They were unlike anything she'd ever worn before: when she'd taken them out of the package that Karen had sent her, they'd looked like a pair of rather thin ballet shoes, though without a strap across them. They'd been a nude colour and somewhat boring and ordinary looking in comparison to the other magnificent pieces of clothing and jewellery she'd already got out of the box. But all that had changed when she'd put them onto her feet: the colour and appearance of the material of them had changed instantly upon contact with her skin, becoming see-through and shining like clear-cut glass. The previously baggy and shapeless form of the shoes had moulded themselves perfectly to the shape and contours of her feet so that they fitted her like a second skin. They felt so light and comfortable that it felt like she wasn't even wearing shoes at all and that her every footstep was taken on the deepest, softest carpet imaginable. Of all the things Karen had given her, they were the item that most intrigued her and she was still completely baffled by them.
'They're incredible,' Peyton told her, 'they just seemed to melt onto my feet so that they fitted perfectly and they feel like I'm walking on air. Wherever did you get them?'
'A friend of mine's been working on prototypes of them for years and told me about his idea ages ago. He invented the material himself and he's been trying to perfect it ever since he managed to get the formula for it right. That pair are the first proper ones he's ever made - he promised me that I could try them out for him when they were done to see if they worked like he hoped they would. But when I got them I decided to give them to you for tonight and when I asked him he said that was fine, just to let him know how it went. He'll be so pleased that you like them and that they work,' Karen said, looking down at the shoes, transfixed.
'Well, you must have them back then after tonight so you can have them or give them back to him. I can't keep hold of something that's obviously so precious,' they could all tell that by 'precious' she also meant 'expensive'.
Karen shook her head, 'Even if I did want them for myself, I can't take them from you - they won't work for me. The material is activated by using the DNA of the first person to try the shoes on, so they won't fit anyone else - try it out.'
Frowning in disbelief, Peyton slipped one of the shoes from her foot and watched as it quickly turned back to how it had looked before: skin-coloured and shapeless. Perfectly ordinary. Amazed and a little stunned, she handed it over to Haley, who took off her own shoe and replaced it with the slipper. They all watched to see what the shoe would do.
Nothing happened.
The material stayed its same beige colour and it hung limp and saggy on her foot. No magical transformation. Haley looked at the shoe in awe before taking it off her foot again and handing it back to Peyton, putting her own shoe back on. Peyton held the shoe for a moment, staring at it in stunned silence, before pulling it back onto her bare foot once more. The change was just as quick as it had been before and they all saw it become the same as the other glassy shoe that was on Peyton's other foot.
'Incredible,' Haley breathed in wonder.
'Oh, Karen, this is too much! They must have cost you a fortune - I can't-,' Peyton began to protest.
Karen held up a hand to stop her, 'Peyton, sweetheart, we already spoke about this: they're a gift that I've given you out of my own free will. Maybe they were very expensive, maybe they cost me nothing at all, but whatever those is the case it's no concern of yours - it's my money and I want to spend it to bless the people in my life that I care about and love. Do you have any idea how many pairs of shoes I already have and that I never wear? This way, they're being put to a far better use than I ever would. Anyway, as we've already seen, they're useless to anyone other than you now.'
'Yeah, but they're not just any kind of shoe, Karen, they're amazing and unique and something that you...shouldn't have wasted on me,' Peyton ended the sentence with a mumble and lowered her eyes to the floor.
'Oh, sweetie, this was not a waste,' Karen cried, grasping hold of Peyton's hand, 'you of all people deserve to have nice things that you can keep for yourself every once in a while. Don't get me wrong, it's great that you're so willing to put everyone else's wants and needs before yours and, believe me, it makes you a wonderful person to know, but every now and then you just have to let other people put you first because they love and care about you. You are so precious, Peyton.'
It was a moment before Peyton could trust herself to speak without her voice betraying her emotions, 'Thank you, Karen, really. I don't ever want you to think that I don't appreciate everything you've done for me and I love the shoes and the whole outfit, really I do. I guess I just feel like a lot of people have been doing me some pretty big favours and giving me lots of amazing but very expensive gifts and...well, you know I've never been very good at coping with that kind of thing.'
Karen smiled and patted Peyton's hand in comfort, 'I know, sweetheart, and if it's going to make you feel any better about the whole thing I promise I'll order myself a pair of those shoes too.'
She winked and Peyton laughed, 'Okay, that'll have to do then.'
Karen turned to Haley and said, 'Haley, sweetie, I don't want you to think that I've forgotten about you in all of this. I wanted you to have this.'
She reached under the table and pulled out a gift bag, pushing it across the table towards Haley, who tutted in mock disapproval, 'Karen, you really shouldn't have.'
'Oh, hush, you haven't even seen what it is yet,' Karen rolled her eyes but a motherly smirk hung about her mouth.
Haley peered into the bag curiously and rifled through the layers of tissue paper inside it until she was able to take hold of the present inside. She pulled it out and held in front of her so she could examine it properly. It was a bell jar made of thick glass and inside it, set and preserved within the centre of the glass, was a flawless red rose that had been captured in full bloom without a hint of a blemish on it.
A small gasp escaped Haley's lips, 'Oh, Karen, it's beautiful! Thank you so much!'
She got up and walked round the table to hug Karen, who grinned, 'I'm glad you like it, sweetheart. I know how much you love roses and I thought this would be perfect for you. You don't have to carry it around with you for the rest of the party either - you can leave it here and then pick it up again when you come for your next tutoring session with Nathan next week.'
Haley chuckled, 'That's very thoughtful of you, but I might just leave it in here for the moment and then pick it up on my way out tonight - I don't want to forget about it. It's lovely, really, the perfect gift but you didn't have to get me anything - I wasn't expecting it and now you're just showing me up!'
Karen laughed, 'You two really need to get over this phobia of being given gifts. We haven't seen each other in four years, these are just gifts to celebrate us meeting again after all that time - I've sent one to Brooke too.'
'Well, you're very generous and even though it was unnecessary for you to get me anything, I'm still very grateful and touched by the gesture and I'm sure Brooke will be as well,' Haley smiled.
'How is Brooke doing? I was so happy when I saw that she'd won the FOTA, she completely deserved it,' Karen said, 'it's such a shame that she couldn't be here tonight.'
'I know that she was incredibly upset not to be able to make it,' Peyton told her, 'she normally wouldn't have missed it for the world but Kathy had organised the whole dinner party just to celebrate her so she really didn't feel like she could ask her to reorganise the whole thing. But she's good, very good, just busy with all the extra attention she's getting now.'
'I can imagine,' Karen nodded sympathetically, 'someone important gives you an award and suddenly everyone and their mother wants to be your best friend - or, in my case, your husband and brother-in-law start up a billion dollar business and a and you get the delight of being famous by association. Don't get me wrong, I'm so very grateful for everything that I've got in my life but it can get a little frustrating sometimes when you can tell that people only want to speak to you because of what they think they're going to get out of it. If Brooke's career continues to go as well as it has so far then she'll probably have more of that to look forward too.'
'From what she's told us it sounds like she's already sick of it,' Haley said.
'I don't blame her,' Karen murmured before turning more towards Haley, 'and how did your first tutoring session with Nathan go?'
Haley froze like a deer caught in the headlights, trapped between not wanting to lie to Karen and but also not wanting to cause trouble by telling the truth. She had just decided to sugar coat her experience a little when Karen chuckled and shook her head a little.
'That bad, huh?' she smiled knowingly, 'It's okay, you don't have to hide it from me, Haley, I've known my son for twenty-two years now. I know he can be...difficult with people he doesn't know very well.'
Haley kept her eyes glued to the table in front of her nonetheless, 'It wasn't anything too bad, really, I spoke to Lucas about it and he said it was fairly standard practice where Nathan was concerned. He just wasn't very...polite.'
Karen let out a laugh, 'I'm sure you're being far too kind about him, Haley, but I won't press you on it any further if you feel uncomfortable discussing it with his mother, which I completely understand. What I will say though is that Nathan has a hard time trusting people; I had hoped that seeing as you were one of Lucas' friends and kind of a familiar face that he'd go a bit easier on you but...just give him time, okay? And be patient, he'll come around...eventually.'
Haley raised a sceptical eyebrow, remembering what Lucas had said about Nathan not really having any friends, 'Is that a promise or a wish?'
The older woman chuckled softly, 'Perhaps a bit of both - I am his mom, after all. I always want to hope for the best for him and want to see it in him. But he is a good boy, deep down.'
'I'll remember that,' Haley nodded, not for a second doubting Karen's judgement or her faith in her son.
'Good,' Karen murmured, setting her mouth in a kind of grim satisfaction as though she were still preparing herself for the worst. Then her face became more animated as she remembered what she had to tell Peyton, 'Peyton, sweetheart, there's something you need to know - about Claudia.'
A look of panic came over Peyton's face, 'What? Does she know I'm here?'
'No, no, nothing like that, sweetie. Your secret is safe,' Karen rushed to reassure her, 'but I overheard her saying she's planning on leaving the ball early with Megan and Beatrice so she can catch you out. She thinks you'll be asleep and so won't be waiting for them; they're leaving here at twelve fifteen, sharp, so you must have left here by midnight at the latest, okay?'
Peyton nodded, 'Midnight, got it. Thank you, Karen, you're a lifesaver - really, I don't know what she'd do if she got back and I wasn't there.'
'Doesn't even bear thinking about,' Haley shuddered.
'Well, now you know so you can be prepared. Please don't forget, sweetheart, I don't want you getting into trouble tonight. I want you to be able to remember it for good reasons only,' Karen pleaded, her concern for Peyton obvious in her tone and expression, 'Haley, if you're with her at midnight you must remind her to leave.'
'I will, don't worry,' Haley vowed.
Peyton puffed out a mouthful of air through pursed lips, 'Wow, what on earth would I have done if you hadn't been there to hear that?'
'It doesn't matter, I did and she won't ever have to find out you're here, that's all that counts,' Karen smiled.
'And now, if you'll excuse me, I really have to go to the bathroom,' Haley informed them rather abruptly after a moment of silence, pushing herself up from her chair.
Peyton put down her cutlery and looked set to follow suit, 'I'll come with you, Hales.'
'Do you actually need to go?' Haley asked her, looking at her doubtfully.
Peyton chuckled, 'No, not really.'
'Then stay here and finish your food,' Haley told her kindly, 'I'll be fine to go alone.'
'Are you sure?' Peyton squinted a little at her.
Haley laughed, 'Yes, I'm fairly certain it's only Brooke who seems to need an escort. If you're still in here by the time I'm done then I'll come back and find you, if not then text me where you are and I'll come and find you, okay?'
Peyton nodded, 'Okay, see you in a bit then.'
Haley turned to Karen and smiled warmly, 'Thank you so much for everything, Karen, for the food, the rose, the party - it's all wonderful! And it's been so lovely seeing you again. Hopefully, I'll get to see you again tonight but I doubt it somehow given how crowded you were before, so maybe we can meet up some other time? Depending on how long you're in town for, of course.'
'I'd love to, sweetheart,' Karen smiled in return, 'unfortunately, Keith and Dan have a business meeting on Monday so we're only here for the weekend, but I'm sure we can work out something.'
'Great, let me know then,' Haley said, bending down to kiss Karen on her cheek.
'Bye, Haley,' Karen said, squeezing her hand affectionately.
Haley slipped out of the room into the hallway outside and shut the door behind her, leaving Karen and Peyton in the small room.
'So, tell me, how're Lily and Keith?' Peyton asked her, finishing off the last remnants of her food.
'They're both good - Lily's just about to go into first grade,' Karen told her.
'Wow, she's getting so old!' Peyton gasped, 'When you guys left here she was so little - I can't believe she's in school now! How's she finding it?'
'She's doing great: she loves art so you two would get on well, and she's going to be a smart cookie just like her brothers,' Karen said proudly, and it didn't escape Peyton's attention that in her motherly bias that she chose to include both her sons in that statement of their intelligence when everyone else would have instantly labelled Lucas as the far more academic of the two, 'and she's so beautiful already, she's going to break her fair share of hearts when she gets older.'
'Just like her brothers,' Peyton added in and Karen laughed.
'Yes, they definitely share that in common too,' she nodded with a grin, 'and, of course, she loves her big brothers and they both adore her. If she wasn't so sensible and practical she'd probably be so spoiled!'
'Sounds like she's going to be a force to be reckoned with,' Peyton smiled, 'hopefully I'll get to see her before you guys leave.'
'I'm sure you will - I'm planning on coming into the cafe tomorrow to check up on how it's going so I'll bring her with me then. You're still doing the Saturday shift, right?' Karen checked.
'Of course,' Peyton nodded, 'it'd be great to see you both in there.'
'You two, sweetheart,' Karen gave her a warm smile, 'now, tell me about Elise - how's she doing?'
'She's good, too, just about to go into middle school, which she's very excited about. She always seems in such a rush to grow up but I'm always trying to stop her!' Peyton gave a slightly horrified laugh at the thought of how quickly her baby sister was growing up.
'She wants to be like her big sister,' Karen nodded in understanding, 'that girl loves you so much and you've done an amazing job in raising her.'
Peyton chewed anxiously on her lip as she thought of recent events but decided that they were too difficult to get into at that time, 'There's more that I need to tell you about all of that but it's gonna take too long so it should probably wait until tomorrow; your guests will be missing you by now.'
'Of course, we'll talk more tomorrow. After all, we've got a good four years to catch up on,' Karen said, rising from the table and Peyton following suit.
Out of sheer force of habit, Peyton began to stack the used plates and cutlery but stopped when she felt Karen's gentle hand on her wrist and she looked up to see her looking at her with a half-amused, half-loving smile.
'Tonight is your night off, remember?' she said, carefully prising the fork Peyton was currently holding from her hand.
Peyton gave her a sheepish smile and nodded, 'Right. Kinda forgot about that.'
Karen laughed and looped her arm through Peyton's as they walked towards the door, 'Only you would look guilty about cleaning up the plates at a ball. Now, before we leave, there's something I need to ask you to do for me.'
'Anything,' Peyton said immediately.
Karen smiled at her eagerness to help, 'I need you to go and tell Lucas that you're here. He overheard Claudia saying that you weren't going to be here tonight and he seemed quite upset about it, so I'd just like for you to put his mind at ease. I would do it but we're trying to make sure that the boys can stay as anonymous as possible tonight and I'm worried that if I go up to him that it'll draw too much attention to him.'
'Of course, that's fine. I promised him I'd try, I think he wanted me to be here for you so we could catch up,' Peyton told her.
Karen fought back the urge to tell her that there was a much more important reason as to why Lucas had wanted her there and instead said, 'Thank you, sweetheart.'
'No problem, any idea where I might be able to find him?' she asked.
'I'd try the ballroom first, if he's not there then one of the filming crew will be and they'll know where he is. Just tell them I sent you if they don't want to say,' Karen said.
'Okay, ballroom. Got it,' Peyton nodded and Karen pushed the door open.
The door swung open into the corridor, which was, at that moment, mercifully almost empty and no one saw them as they slunk out. Karen had just turned to Peyton to say goodbye when an approaching group caught sight of her and called out her name excitedly. Karen closed her eyes momentarily as though mentally preparing herself for what was to come, then opened them again and mouthed 'sorry' to Peyton.
And then the group engulfed her, clamouring for her attention and to be the first to introduce themselves to her. Peyton turned to go, but Karen's voice calling out over the sounds of the cluster of people around her made her pause.
She turned back to see Karen waving at her, 'Don't forget: midnight!'
'I won't,' Peyton shouted back over the people who were apparently oblivious to the fact that the woman they were trying to talk to was not currently paying them any attention.
She went to go again before realising that she had no idea what costume to look out for by which to identify Lucas in the mass of people inside the manor. However, when she looked again Karen had been fully surrounded by sycophants and she could no longer see her. Deciding against any attempt to fight her way through them to ask Karen, she carried on down the corridor towards the ballroom. She figured that there was probably a fair chance that he'd been in there or, if not, that someone in there would know where he'd gone. She quickly tapped out a text to Haley to let her know where she was headed before continuing on.
And so she walked towards the ballroom with no idea what that grand room might have in store for her.
XxX
Megan Sawyer, nee Megan Findlay, was born on a stormy October night to parents that were engaged in an even stormier marriage. Though her mother had never divulged the full details of how she'd met Megan's father, it was clear that they had, at one point, been very much in love with one another. Unfortunately, by the time Megan was born, this had somewhat deteriorated into a love-hate relationship whereby her parents would switch between being at one another's throats, ready to send for the divorce papers, to being unable to take their hands off one another. Megan had never been sure if it was her arrival that had caused this change or if they had already been well on their way to that tumultuous state of affairs before that. Whatever the case might have been, by the time her sister was born four years later, her parent's marriage was almost beyond repair, with arguing having become their main form of communication. Their moments of passion were few and far between but it was during one of those rare occurrences that her little sister was conceived.
In the months leading up to her sister's birth, Megan had been eager with anticipation for the due date, desperate to have someone to talk to and to hold onto during the endless fights. When she arrived and Megan was allowed to see her, she felt as though everything would at last be alright: their mother and father would stop fighting - as surely they must now they had two children to care for - and she would have a companion and friend. She was not given much time to see if this would be the case as barely a month after Beatrice had been brought into this world her father left it. Claudia never told them how he died or even if she knew the circumstances surrounding it; to Megan and Beatrice it was simply that one day he was there, warm and real and tall, and the next he was not. Whether their mother ever mourned the loss of her husband, Megan never knew. They attended his funeral, bleak in their black attire against a grey, unforgiving sky, and none of them shed a tear - Megan and Beatrice because they were too young to fully understand the weight of the grief that hung over the occasion, as heavy as the clouds in the sky above the casket as it dropped six feet down into the earth, and Claudia through choice. Though why she chose to remain stony and impassive was a mystery to everyone but her.
The only thing after his death that Claudia ever told her daughters about their father was that he had left them penniless and in huge amounts of debt. A few days later, they sold their house to pay back some of the amount they now owed to various people and moved thousands of miles away to a small town in North Carolina. Megan and Beatrice were passed between day care, babysitters and nannies as their mother worked as many hours as she could in a local diner. For four and a half miserable years, their small family struggled to simply to survive, frequently going to bed starving and squeezing into clothes that were years to small for them. The only water they could wash with was at best tepid and their threadbare clothes did little to protect them from the cold winters out on the playground at school. The other children would whisper and giggle behind their backs but were frequently prevented from saying or doing anything worse by the presence of their teachers.
Megan was the big sister to Beatrice that she'd always wanted to be: protective, caring and always available to play with or listen to any problems. Within their own little bubble, they were happy; it was only when their mother would appear, exhausted and disshevelled for the few hours that she actually made it home each night, that this fragile peace would be shattered. Most nights she said nothing to them, too tired to speak so she just kissed them both on the cheek before stumbling into the bedroom section of their shabby one room apartment and collapsing onto the bed. However, on the nights that she did have the energy to talk to them her words were always filled with bitterness at their situation and poverty, with the ghost of their father ever present behind her speech, unspoken but tangible all the same. This would then be laced with promises that one day they would be rich beyond their wildest hopes and their current destitution would seem like nothing more than a dream. Such sentiments were too strong and too difficult for children of their age to fully grasp, but they understood that their mother was unhappy and that was enough to rob them of whatever illusion of happiness they had managed to build around themselves.
Together as they played, Megan and Beatrice would envision and enact this magical future, turning their battered couch into a castle and their worn-through pyjamas into fancy ballgowns. In this future, they lived in luxury with a doting father who loved their mother and brought the joy back to her face. And then, one day the game they'd been playing suddenly became a reality. For a couple of months, their mother had been coming back from work with something almost resembling a sparkle in her tired eyes and she kept saying that their way out was coming soon, soon. Not knowing what their mother was talking about and thinking that her ramblings were nothing more than her usual promises of a better life and wasted no time puzzling themselves about it.
Then, one morning their mother waltzed into the apartment in a white dress saying that she was getting married that day and that as soon as the ceremony was over they would leave and move into their new home with their new family. When the girls asked their mother whether they needed to start packing their few belongings, she told them not to bother, that their new father would buy them all new things and that they would never have to want for anything ever again. And so they went with her to the registry office, where they watched her exchange some serious sounding words with a tall stranger with greying hair and a sad, drawn face. It turned out that those words must have been very serious indeed because the lady who stood in front of their mother and the man said that they were bound together for life now. Then, the man turned round and walked over to where they sat, squatting down so he could look them in the eyes. And even though his face was so desperately sad that he might as well have been crying even though there were no tears in his eyes, it was also kind and so was his voice and his words. He told them that he was going to be their stepfather now and that he would take care of them and their mother, that she no longer owed money to anybody so they could start life afresh with him and his two daughters, who would now be their stepsisters. They would move in with them into his house, which had more than enough room for the both of them, and they would live in a new town and go to a new school. They would all be a family together and everything would be okay.
When they got to their new house, there was an older girl waiting outside for them, tall, skinny and with crazy, curly blonde hair, who was holding a baby girl with the same hair. The older girl looked at them curiously, her face solemn but when the man told her the same things he'd told Megan and Beatrice in the registry office, she offered them a small smile. She told them her name was Peyton, that the baby in her arms was her little sister Elise and that they would be their stepsisters. For a few days, their new, mismatched family was, if not happy, then content. Then, their new father, whose face still looked so sad despite his new wife and new daughters, left them and didn't come back until months later.
And everything changed.
Their mother came home with armfuls of shopping bags and dressed them in brand new clothes for the first time in years that felt different against their bodies. Then, she took them out to the mall and said they could go into any shop that they wanted to and have anything they wanted. Soon, their new rooms were filled with new furniture, toys and clothes to go with their new family and new life. Perhaps they weren't quite living in a castle and maybe their doting father was more absent than he was present but one thing was the same as they had pictured it: their mother was happy, at last. And they could both see the reason why: she had money; they were rich. The sisters reacted to this revelation of wealth in different ways: Beatrice was bewildered and scared by their new lifestyle and began to turn down her mother's offers of new things, gradually withdrawing into herself and away from the attention that money had brought them. Megan, on the other hand, saw her mother's happiness, saw the cause of it and wanted it for herself.
Never again did she want to have to wear old clothes, or own outdated things. Never again did she want to have to hear other children laughing at her and whispering cruel things behind her back. She was through with being poor, through with being rejected, through with being told what she could and could not have or do; from now on, she wanted everything her own way and she wanted live the life of fame and riches she felt like she'd been born to live.
Claudia observed the changes in her daughters and while they repelled her from her younger daughter, they drew her to the older daughter, determined to mould her into the version of herself that she'd always wished she could have been. Overnight, Megan became fashionable, popular and filled with selfish ambition. She discarded anything from her personality that she regarded as a weakness and thus a hindrance to success, making her cold, cruel and disloyal. She switched allegiances within her friendship group, if it could be called such, depending upon what best suited her purposes and cast aside anyone she didn't deem worthy of her time. When she saw that her mother had truly meant it when she'd said that she could have anything she wanted, she demanded that she be given Peyton's room as it was the largest and that, rather than Peyton moving into her room, she be sent to sleep up in the draughty attic simply out of spite because a boy who lived down their road had said she was prettier than Megan.
And, just like that, it was done.
Peyton moved her things out from her room that very same day and up into the attic and Megan claimed the now vacant room as her own, yet insisted that her old room (which was next to it) be converted into a walk-in wardrobe and an en-suite bathroom. Of course, whatever Megan wanted, Megan got as far as her mother was concerned and so the renovations were completed within a month. As Beatrice was unwilling to follow in her mother and sister's footsteps, she drifted further and further apart from them and Megan wouldn't allow herself to despair over the deterioration of their once close relationship as she now viewed her sister as someone who would only hinder her with her lack of drive and talent. When, within a year of her new marriage, her mother began to treat Peyton as a maid, cook and general emotional punchbag Megan barely batted an eyelid and followed her mother's example, as always, revelling in the feeling of power it gave her.
As the years had passed, Megan had become more and more spiteful, selfish and shallow, always putting her own wants first, never stopping to think how her actions or words might affect those around her as she saw them as beneath her. She grew further and further away from the shy, sweet girl she had once been, who made do with cardboard toys and who loved her sister, until she was nothing more than an embarrassing blemish on her otherwise perfect life, something to be scrubbed away and hidden from the world, no matter what. Aided by her mother, Megan constantly sought bigger and better things, always wanting to be ahead of every trend and ever seeking to be beautiful, popular and successful. When she graduated from high school, she scorned the idea of college, seeing it as an unnecessary diversion from her goal to become world famous and instead filled her days with shopping, gossiping and working as a model. Everything she did was with the express purpose of becoming part of the social elite and famous. With the exception of the first eight years of her life, Megan had not been told 'no' or denied anything that she wanted and this mentality had become so ingrained into her that she chose to rewrite her past so that it looked like her present, forgetting all the hardship and struggles. All this meant that, by the time she was twenty, Megan Sawyer was a spoilt brat who was used to getting her own way in everything.
And the ball held at the Scott manor, complete with filming crew and the chance to become an instant celebrity, was no exception for her.
Claudia had instilled it into her from a young age that working was for the weak and the poor, that all that was needed in life was to make an advantageous marriage to a rich man, regardless of his age, looks or personality. Divorce settlements and wills were always wonderful things when one was dealing with the wealthy and wedlock, she always said. Fame was fleeting but marry an old guy with pocketfuls of cash and you'd be set for life. Now, as much as Megan always took her mother's advice to heart, she was not and never would be satisfied with riches alone. It was not enough to live in a mansion if no one knew your name and your face was not instantly recognisable. Megan viewed the ball as the chance to succeed where her mother had failed: find a rich, handsome and famous boyfriend (who would, naturally, soon become her husband) and begin her destiny of gold and glory.
The Scott brothers' arrival in Tree Hill and the filming of their TV show there was something of a stroke of luck in terms of her being able to further her career (if you could call it that) much faster than she'd anticipated. Them simply coming back to their hometown would have been sufficient for Megan to convince one of them to fall in love with and marry her, making her a celebrity by way of marriage. However, the presence of cameras and the opportunity to appear on TV and to endear herself to the public on one of the nation's most popular reality programmes was the cherry on top of the proverbial cake. Here, at last, was the chance to make herself noticed, propel herself towards fame and fortune and snag a hot celebrity boyfriend whilst she was at it. When it came to choosing a brother to put this plan into action, Megan wasn't particularly fussy - they were both incredibly rich, handsome and famous in equal amounts and so either would fit the bill just fine. On the one hand, Lucas' recent break-up made her job easier in terms of starting a relationship with him and his status as a best-selling author certainly didn't detract from his appeal; he was the more stable of the twins and so more likely to be an easy, quick and reliable bet. Nathan, on the other hand, had the whole 'professional basketball player' thing going for him as well as a 'bad boy' image that would do wonders for her own if she could be seen to be the one to tame him, though it did also make him the more volatile and less certain of the two choices. A bit of a gamble to risk her future on. However, she reminded herself, she could always switch to the other brother should one prove unsuccessful.
As her eyes scanned the vast ballroom, sweeping for any sign of either of the elusive Scott brothers, she kept her plan at the front of her mind, filling herself with the drive to succeed. Allowing the fire of ambition to be stoked in her gut and to fuel her in her quest. No matter what, she was determined not to leave Hillcrest Manor tonight without at least the promise of a date with one of the brothers.
Suddenly, a figure caught her attention and her eyes span back towards him, her gaze settling on his form with immense satisfaction. His tall, handsome profile left her in no doubt as to who he was, despite his disguise. She slunk towards him with feline movements, stalking down her prey and feeling the thrill of the chase begin to throb in her veins.
The game was on.
XxX
The queue for the ladies was longer than Haley had anticipated, though, given how many women were currently occupying the manor and being supplied with endless free drinks, not nearly as long as it could have been. Given that there were clearly far too few toilets within the west wing, let alone the rest of the house, to accomodate such a large volume of people, facilities had been provided just outside one of the wing's exits. Though, of course, this being a party thrown by the Scotts they were not just any ordinary, run-of-the-mill port-a-cabins. From the outside, they looked like rows of chalets with porches going all the way around them to provide a waiting area; flower boxes lined said porches so as to provide those waiting with a pleasant fragrance, as opposed to any other one might expect in such a situation. On the inside, the toilets were more hygenic, spacious and welcoming than many of the guests own bathrooms in their homes. Indeed, so inviting was the whole experience that Haley found that a good number of women had stayed in or around the toilets long after they had taken care of their bodily urges simply to talk where it was slightly less crowded and loud. After having fallen into conversation herself with a couple of women just outside the house, Haley found that when she returned to the manor that a good fourty minutes had passed since she had left Karen and Peyton. Taking out her phone from her purse and extracting her phone from within it, Haley found a text from Peyton saying that she was on her way to the ballroom and that she would wait for her there.
Gathering herself to prepare for the inevitable crush of people that would be in and around the ballroom, Haley squared her shoulders and walked further into the house. Out of the three friends, Haley was the most shy around new people; Peyton was usually reserved and distant through choice (albeit one that had by now become so ingrained that it was mostly unconscious), and Brooke was outgoing and chatty. In the past, Brooke had always been the life and soul of the party, always making sure that everyone was having a good time and that no one was being excluded even if she wasn't the host but since she'd moved to New York, she had been going to fewer parties as she claimed they tired and bored her. Unlike Brooke, Haley didn't have a very wide circle of friends but a smaller set of people she was very close to and had built up the relationships over time. This was what she preferred and while she knew that Brooke had a similar group of good friendships, she also knew that she had a lot of people in her life that could only be called friends in the very loosest terms and that was not for her. Brooke often complained to them about how fake people were in the big city and that she was sick of false friends and hangers-on and this only served to remind Haley why she didn't want that kind of lifestyle.
It wasn't that she didn't enjoy parties or meeting new people but she found herself overwhelmed by how many now surrounded her, all made faceless by their masks. And, as most of the guests had entered into the spirit of the evening and were honouring their hosts' wishes, few of the people that she'd spoken to so far had told her any true information about themselves. That was fair enough, as she had done her best too to conceal as much of her identity as possible, but it made it difficult for her to feel like she was making any kind of lasting connection or friendship. While perhaps a lot of people might not go to a party hoping to make friends or to strengthen already existing relationships, Haley enjoyed hearing other people's stories and getting to know them in such settings, so that she could at least make some kind of meaningful connection to them that would last longer than one evening. However, she could already tell that this particular ball was not going to be one such occasion and so she set out to find one of the only people she was sure was who they said they were and who she already knew almost better than herself.
The journey to the ballroom was, as expected, for the most part obstructed by people milling around in the corridors and by those entering or exiting rooms along the route but, with some much needed elbowing and pushing, Haley found that she was able to make it to the room in fairly good time. In all her many trips to the manor in her childhood and adolesence, Haley had never seen the west wing and though she had heard snippets of information about the ballroom from Karen and Keith, nothing had prepared her for the scene in front of her as she entered the grand room. Amidst the gilded walls, painted ceiling and costumed guests it felt like she had stepped back in time and that she should expect a King or Queen to be holding court somewhere within the room. At the very least, there should be a prince and a princess to make the whole picture complete, she thought, though it was too noisy and packed to have the air of a fairytale but she felt it was not far off.
She pushed herself onto her tiptoes and began to scour the room for any sign of her friend, sifting through the mass of masks and wigs for a costume that was familiar. In the end, it didn't take her long to spot Peyton despite the how crowded the room seemed. A large rectangular space had been cleared in the centre of the room to create a dancefloor and a myriad of couples were spinning on it. At the heart of those pairs was one that stood out for Haley in particular: it was Peyton, held in the arms of a stranger as they danced like there was no one else in the room. Apparently, she had found the prince and princess.
Pushing her way closer to the edge of the crowd that surrounded the dancefloor to get a better look, Haley positioned herself so that when Peyton and her mysterious partner passed her she would be able to get a proper assessment of the situation. As a rule, she knew that Peyton hated dancing, especially in public and primarily with strangers. So, for her to be doing all three at once was quite a sight to behold. Scrutinising their body positions, Haley found to her surprise that Peyton was holding herself slightly back from her partner so that there was a small gap between their bodies as they moved. Usually, Peyton would avoid all physical contact with anyone whilst dancing, as she claimed it made her feel awkward and that she didn't want some skeezy stranger rubbing his hands all over her while she was trying to make the best out of an already undesirable situation. However, given the theme of the evening and the style of dancing that accompanied it, not touching one's partner was impossible and so Peyton had clearly had no choice in the matter. Quite how the gentleman had been able to convince her into dancing with him in the first place was beyond Haley - the man must be nothing short of a trained negotiator or, at least, a salesman.
Aside from all of this, what was strange about Peyton's posture while she danced was that normally - if she was forced to dance with a guy and touch him in the process - she would put as much space between them as possible, holding him at arm's length so that he couldn't get any ideas and get overamorous. And, to many an observer, that might appear to be what she was doing now, though to a lesser extent seeing as she had actually allowed him much closer to her than she usually would. Such viewers, however, hadn't known her for nineteen years. Given what she knew of Peyton, Haley could tell that, rather than holding the man back from her, it was rather Peyton who was holding herself back from her partner. It was clear in the way that she was pushing back ever so slightly against his arms to keep that slim gap between them even though the tension in her arms made it clear that it was only this that was preventing her from being plastered against him. Peyton was having to fight against her instincts to keep that protective wall she'd built up so well around herself over the years and, aside from when she was around her, Brooke, Elise or her father, Haley had only ever seen Peyton come close to doing that once before. This could only mean one thing.
Whoever this tall, graceful stranger was, Peyton liked him.
She liked him enough to lower her guard as much as her naturally cautious disposition would allow her to and Haley marvelled at this: at the most they could have only been in one another's company for less than an hour and it had taken Peyton's ex-boyfriend, Jake, a solid year to get to that point with her. What on earth had he done to get her to look so...carefree? And, watching them dancing ever closer to where she stood, Haley saw that she hadn't seen Peyton look so light, relaxed and comfortable in a very long time. She was talking with this man like she'd known him for years and he was making her smile and laugh in a way that Haley had never seen before. They span past Haley and Peyton was so caught up in her partner that she didn't notice her. Haley could see from the way they were gazing at one another that this wasn't a moment she should intrude upon and any thoughts of trying to regain her smitten friend instantly left her mind. She slipped away from the dancefloor to leave them to it, figuring that if Peyton wanted to meet up with her later she would call or text her. She had no wish to interrupt whatever spell that mysterious gentleman had cast over her friend.
Suddenly becoming aware of how thirsty she was, Haley began to make her way towards the ballroom doors to find one of the rooms that was being used as a bar for the evening. As she stood in line at the bar, she became aware of some jostling and pushing up ahead of her. Seconds later, the unrest had turned into a full-blown fight and punches were being thrown by two men near the front of the queue, with a shocked woman standing nearby who was yelling at them to stop. From the shouts that they were issuing, it was clear that the disagreement was something to do with her and though she seemed highly distressed by their fighting, she made no physical attempts to stop them. They were both clearly a little drunk and so the fighting was sloppy and most of the punches they were trying to land on one another were missing and so Haley felt that the woman wouldn't be in too much danger if she decided to intervene. As time went on, however, no one seemed inclined to step in and the men were growing increasingly rowdy and out of hand in their frustration, Haley thought that she might as well try to put an end to it.
Stepping out of the line, that was now bunched up so as to avoid the brawling men, Haley walked forward, calling out, 'Hey! That's enough now! You both need to calm down.'
Both men stopped and stared at her, then at one another, in confusion as though they couldn't remember why they had been fighting or where they were. One of them mumbled, 'Yeah, sorry. You're right.'
The other dropped his eyes to the floor and said, 'Sorry for disturbing everyone. We'll just go outside then.'
He stepped back and took hold of the hand of the tearful woman behind him, starting to lead her away from the silent and staring crowd.
'That's right: run away, just like you always do!' The man behind Haley shouted after them.
The other man stopped walking, turned and charged at his adversary, forgetting that Haley was standing in the way. She raised her hands in front of herself and stretched out her arms to try and stop him before he reached his opponent but he was too unsteady on his feet and too fuelled with anger and alcohol to assess the situation properly. He shoved her out of the way, slamming into her side and causing her to lose her balance. As the sounds of the fight resumed behind her, Haley felt herself falling sideways and she saw the hard stone floor rushing up to meet her, lifting her arms up to brace herself for the impact.
But it never came.
Instead, two arms hooked themselves around her waist and pulled her away from the floor she could hit it. She felt herself being lifted upwards into a standing position as though this was no bother at all to whoever was doing it; the arms remained locked around her middle so that she was leaning back on the owner of said arms. Feeling her heartbeat pounding in her ears and the familiar cold sensation spreading through her limbs as her body dealt with the sudden surge of adrenaline and processed her shock, she allowed herself to remain where she was, half-slumped against a stranger's front.
'Are you alright?' a deep voice next to her ear asked, startling her and reminding her that she needed to move.
'Y-yes, I'm fine, thank you,' she stuttered, cursing her voice for sounding so weak and shaky.
She pushed herself forward so that she was fully bearing her own weight once more and she felt the arms drop from around her once she was steady. Looking down, she saw the hands that were attached to the arms were lingering a couple of centimetres away from her waist, fingers splayed open and ready to catch her should she stumble. Haley stepped forward a little, pressing a palm to her now pounding head, and turned so she could thank her saviour. Behind her was a tall man, who towered over her by a good foot or so, dressed in a red tailcoat fashioned in the style of the militia of the era, with white trousers tucked into black leather boots that came to just below his knees. He wore a simple black piece of cloth with eye-holes cut out that was tied around the back of his head and a black tricorn hat with a gold trimming; the whole look reminded Haley of a cross between a soldier and a highway man. It was hard to tell the colour of his hair from under his hat but she was fairly certain that it was dark; his eyes, however, she could easily see: they were a pale blue, made all the more striking by the black material surrounding them.
'Are you sure? That was quite a fall,' though it was hard to tell with the mask in the way, Haley thought she saw him raising a doubtful eyebrow at her.
'One that I was saved the impact of, thanks to you,' she returned with a smile, 'you must have very fast reflexes.'
He shrugged, 'I was near where you were in the queue and I could see the way it was going - those two are only interested in fighting at the moment. Nothing you could have said or done would have stopped them: they seem determined to hit each other as much as possible, no matter who gets caught up in it.'
Haley opened her mouth to thank him again but was interrupted by a series of loud shouts and squawks from the men still tustling behind them, unaware of the result of their actions.
Rolling her eyes, she half-turned to rebuke them again, 'Hey! Stop it now! You're both being ridiculous,' she paused to see if her words would take effect. They didn't. Sighing heavily, she said, 'Right, that's it then!'
She started forward, grabbing the nearest of the two fighting men by the shoulder and tried to haul him away from the other man. He grunted at the intervention and shoved her away forcefully. Unwilling to let that deter her, she tried again, only to find herself once again toppled over by one of their flailing limbs. She tottered backwards, stumbling to regain her balance but again found that she was prevented from falling by the soldier/highwayman (she was unsure as to which look he'd been aiming for). His hands latched onto her arms from behind and held her until she was firmly on her feet again.
'Right! That is enough, both of you!' he yelled, letting go of Haley and storming in between the two men, pulling them apart and holding them at arm's length apart, 'This is not some bar or club, this is someone's house, which they have invited you into and you're treating it like it's some alleyway you can punch each other in. Not only have you disturbed everyone here and embarrassed yourselves, you've also hurt this woman,' he pointed to Haley, 'who was only trying to help both of you not once, but twice. Now, I want you to apologise to her and then go outside and cool off. If you decide to continue fighting out there, then that's your choice but please show some respect for your hosts and fellow guests and keep it out there. Got it?'
Looking thoroughly ashamed and a little more sobre, the two men hung their heads and uttered profound apologise to Haley. They then trudged out of the room, the woman who had apparently been at the heart of it all rushing after them.
The gentleman turned back to Haley with a small smile, 'There. That's better, isn't it?'
'Much, thank you,' she smiled in return.
'Now, are you sure you're alright? Can I get you a drink?' he asked, looking at her with some concern.
'I'm fine, honestly, but a water would be great, thanks,' she said.
Again, came that impression that he was raising an eyebrow at her, 'Just a water? After that ordeal you'd be completely within your rights to have something a bit more...alcoholic.'
'Yes, and much good it did those two,' she laughed, 'water will be fine, thank you.'
'Suit yourself,' he shrugged, extending an arm to gesture for her to approach the bar and thus bypass the queue.
Either the man just gave off a natural air of authority or those waiting in the queue had seen enough of his character to be sufficiently impressed by him, as no one made to stop them or even so much as tutted as they walked straight up to the bar ahead of them all.
The bartender turned to them with a smile, trying to appear as though he hadn't just been gawking at the scene like everyone else, 'So, what'll it be then?'
'A glass of your cleanest water for this charming lady and a whiskey on the rocks,' the man replied with an effortless sophistication.
The bartender nodded, 'Coming right up.'
It seemed that no sooner had he said this then they were having their drinks pushed into their hands. They said their thanks and moved away from the bar, Haley looking down aghast as she heard a clinking sound and saw that the ice in her glass was tapping the side of the glass as it sloshed around in the clear liquid. She hadn't even realised that she was shaking until then and she desperately hoped that her companion wouldn't notice.
'You're shaking,' he stated seconds later, sounding very matter-of-fact about it, 'come and sit down.'
'I'm fine, really,' Haley insisted.
'So you keep saying, but your body seems to be telling me something different. You may feel alright but your body is still processing the shock; you should sit down and rest a little until you recover,' he said firmly, leading her over to a couch on the other side of the room.
A simple look from him was enough to send the occupants of the couch scuttling away and they took their seats.
'You don't have to wait with me, you know, I'm not going to keel over and faint any second and you've already helped me a lot tonight. I'm sure you have people you want to speak to and have better things planned for your evening than sitting with a girl who falls over far too easily,' she told him.
He leant back against the couch, 'Later on, perhaps but right now I want to check that you're okay and I'm in no rush to be anywhere or to see anyone. I'm enjoying this whiskey far too much to down it too quickly.'
'Well, you needn't worry about me. I could have dealt with those two by myself - not that I'm not grateful for your help, of course,' she added quickly, not wanting to seem rude but also not wanting to him to think she was a weak woman who needed a man to swoop in and save her at the first sign of trouble.
He raised his glass to his lips with a suppressed smile, 'Of course. But I'm afraid they were in no mood to listen to you. They wanted to fight and nothing you were going to do was going to stop those three idiots.'
'Oh? And what makes you such an expert on breaking up fights and getting people to listen to you? And there were only two guys fighting,' she said, looking at him with curiosity as she tried to figure him out.
'Look, no offence, in any normal circumstance what you did would have been enough to stop those two from fighting but in that particular case they needed someone who was obviously physically strong enough to break them up. Only the threat of being beaten up themselves by someone else was going to get them to stop and you're a little on the small side to fit the bill. And I was counting the girl too in that statement,' he clarified.
It was Haley's turn to raise an eyebrow, 'What made her an idiot?'
'Come on, any rational person would have seen - just like you did - that those two were far too drunk when they started out fighting to do any real damage to either themselves or to anyone trying to stop them. The rest of the people in the queue just wanted a show so they weren't going to stop them, and it was only as the fight went on longer that they became angry and frustrated enough to be a danger to anybody. So, you step in like the decent human being you seem to be to try and talk some sense into them, which takes some courage when you're as short as you are and when they're as drunk as they were. But does the girl do anything to stop them before that, or to help you once you've stepped in? No. She just stands there and does her best to look afraid and upset but she doesn't even make a proper attempt to say anything to get them to stop.'
'You sound as if you don't believe her crying and moaning to be genuine,' Haley surmised.
'Of course it wasn't!' he scoffed, 'She obviously had no real feelings for either one of them. The first time when you broke them up she was perfectly happy to be lead off meekly by who I assume must have been her boyfriend, but you could tell she was sad that they weren't fighting over her anymore. She wanted them to be hitting each other in her name so that she could seem more desirable. She's stringing them both along, enjoying the attention of having two men fawning over her like lovesick fools but when she's done toying with them she'll dump them both without a backwards glance.
'It seems from the way you're talking that you have a pretty low opinion of women in general, not just this one in particular,' Haley pointed out.
'Maybe, most of the women I know are as superficial as that. But I've just had a lot of experience with relationships of that sort and seen it happen first-hand time and time again, with both men and women playing that role,' he said.
'Let me guess then, you were in one of those kinds of relationships and some cruel, heartless woman broke your heart and you've been bitter and angry towards them ever since?' Haley ventured.
He shook his head with a chuckle, 'No, it's actually always been me who's been the cruel, heartless one, me breaking the hearts.'
'But you spoke about that woman with such judgement and hatred...does that mean that you've seen the error of your ways and changed and want other people to do the same?' Haley asked, feeling some confusion as she tried to work out this man that had come to her rescue but seemed anything other than a knight in shining armour.
'Nope, I'm still the same cold bastard I ever was, I'm just good at recognising a kindred spirit when I see one. I'm still disgusted by it, though - the stringing people along, the cheating, the lies - and I do want other people to change' he said.
Haley frowned, 'But how can you be so disgusted by it and yet not want to change yourself?'
'Because I know that I'm beyond redemption, but they aren't. Well, most of them aren't, anyway. I can still look at the things I do and hate them, though, and myself for doing them, for that matter. I screw people over, I never said that I felt good about it,' he told her.
She shook her head, 'I don't understand it, but then, I don't think I ever will.'
'Of course you don't,' he gave a low laugh, 'look at you: you're young, beautiful, and this sense of innocence about you is so strong that you might as well be wearing it as a perfume. Just be grateful for that and spare a though every now and then for poor, twisted souls like myself.'
Without thinking about it, Haley leant forward and placed her hand over his, 'No one is beyond redemption. And people can and do change.'
There was a long silence where they both sat and stared down at where her hand was resting on top of his. Then, seeming to shake himself from whatever contemplative state he'd been in, the man looked back up at her and flashed her a wicked grin, 'And now, ma'am, I'm afraid I have to go and find those incredibly important people that you cleverly predicted I would have to earlier. It's been a fascinating chat, though, thank you for keeping me out of trouble.'
'No problem,' Haley laughed, 'thank you for stopping me from falling on my ass...twice.'
'My pleasure,' he grinned and winked, standing up and bowing to her, 'it was truly lovely meeting you.'
As she watched that mysterious stranger who seemed to be a walking contradiction walk away and disappear into the crowd, Haley found that she believed he meant it and that the feeling was entirely mutual.
XxX
The girl paused just shy of the doorway that led into the ballroom, craning the upper part of her body forward in an attempt to see anything of it other than people milling around near its entrance, their bodies twisting and turning as they navigated the narrow paths that ran between them. Behind her mask, her eyes gave away a look of subdued enthralment, mirrored in the upturning of the corners of her mouth and the slight parting of her lips, and yet despite this awe at the sights she beheld, the woman appeared unwilling to enter the room. Settling herself back into a fully upright position, she lingered a moment longer before taking another step forward so that her foot brushed the threshold.
Out of nowhere it seemed, a hand shot out in front of her, stopping just short of touching her body, to halt her progress. The woman looked up and saw a man standing next to the door holding a staff; she gave him an inquisitive look, cocking her head to one side as she regarded him.
'Excuse me, Miss, but perhaps you would like to remove your cloak before entering the ballroom?' the doorman suggested politely, pulling back the arm he'd put out to stop her so that he could gesture to her attire.
Looking down at her cloak, the girl seemed surprised to find that she was still wearing it as though she had forgotten that she needed to take it off, 'Oh! Yes, thank you. I'd quite forgotten that I was still wearing it!'
Two hands appeared from beneath the folds of her cloak and reached up to untie the ribbon that secured it around her collarbone. The material seemed to slide off her body and she caught it effortlessly, 'Where should I put it?'
For several seconds, the doorman was too stunned by the revelation of her full costume to reply to her as he took in its effect and how much more beautiful it made its owner seem. Rousing himself like a professional, his eyes snapped back up to hers and he smiled, holding out a hand, 'If you give it to me, Miss, I can see to it that it gets sent to the cloakroom and you'll be able to retrieve it at the end of the night.'
'Thank you, that would be very kind,' she smiled graciously, handing over the cloak to him which he held carefully as though it was made of the most precious material in the world, 'may I go in now?'
He blinked at her momentarily, 'Yes, of course, Miss. Have a good evening.'
'You too,' she said before sweeping past him.
The doorman was hardly surprised when, just seconds after having entered the ballroom, the woman had managed to reduce its occupants to silence. No one was quite sure how it had started, but someone had happened to glance over at the door and had seen the woman entering through it. They had then nudged and called to their friends to get them to look, and the reaction had swept through the room like a ripple cast on a still lake's glassy surface. People in one group had noticed the sudden quietness in the group next to them, had turned to see the cause of it, then seen them looking in the direction of the door and pivoted in that direction to see for themselves and thus had all conversation stolen from their lips as well. This had then been repeated by the group next to theirs, then the next group along, and so on until the whole room was stood motionless and silent, staring at the vision of beauty that was in the doorway. Even the band, curious as to why their whole audience now stood like mannequins facing away from them, had glanced over to the doorway and found themselves unable to play another note. The camera crew stationed in the room had their cameras trained on the newcomer and the reaction to her but otherwise also remained still.
The girl wore a white ballgown with elbow-length sleeves, from the ends of which a cascade of lace spilled down so light and fine that it was appeared to have no more weight to it than the droplets cast up by a waterfall. The bodice of the dress had a heart-shaped neckline that cut down low enough to make the most of her cleavage and which was fitted close enough to her waist to accentuate her figure before it was lost under the wide skirts and petticoats on her lower half. The skirts flowed out enough to give the dress some body but not so much as to render movement a difficulty; at her waist was a section of lace, parted in the middle, that sat atop of the skirts. Beneath this, the skirts separated to reveal an underskirt that was covered in hundreds of individual strips of pearly voile that had been shaped and layered on top of one another so that they looked like feathers. In case anyone was in any doubt as to what her costume was meant to represent, her mask gave the answer: it covered the majority of her face, coming to an end just past her cheekbones but projecting from the right half of the mask at an angle was an intricately carved white gold filigree swan. Pearls were inlaid throughout the swan's wings which stood out against the pale grey background of the mask. Her straight, pale blonde hair had been pulled away from her face and up on top of her head in a bouffant style and, fastened at the back with a couple of feathers, were several thick ringlets that swept down to graze her collarbone. A string of pearls hung around her neck and twin pearl droplets glimmered where they swung from her earlobes. The woman, without a doubt, outshone all others in the room; her skin seemed to glow as though it was lit from within; her dress fitted her so perfectly that its layers and skirts appeared just to be an extension of herself as she moved.
Perhaps the secret of her beauty lay in the sheer simplicity of her costume: it was not gaudy or excessive like so many others in the room, but pure, unique and naturally graceful. Or perhaps it lay in the fact that she appeared to be completely unaware of how utterly captivating she was to behold, standing shimmering in the doorway like a fairy queen, resplendent in all her glory.
The spell she had cast over the ballroom showed no sign of breaking, until somewhere from within the depths of statue-like revellers there came a movement. No one was quite sure where he'd come from, except from within their ranks, but as he came walking steadily towards the back of the room people parted silently to let him pass. Again, no one was quite sure why everyone in his path cleared instantly as he came near them, in the same way that no one could quite recall how they'd all come to be staring at this one woman. Regardless of the reason, the first few people had stepped out of his way and the ripple effect had spread until it overtook his progress so that soon a clear road had opened up within the crowd that led straight to the girl still standing motionless just inside the doorway. Seeing the man coming towards her, she adjusted her gaze from where it had been flitting around the people surrounding her, clearly wondering if and when any of them would move, to meet his stare across the marble floor that divided them.
The man was dressed in a Regency mid-grey tailcoat, embroidered with a lighter grey swirling pattern along its collar and cuffs; a simple white cravat had been expertly tied around his neck, the bottom of which was neatly tucked into a pale blue waistcoat. Below this, black leather boots had been put on top of dark grey breeches, reaching just underneath the knee. Half his face was covered by a mask that was half silver, half ebony, with segments of old fashioned writing scattered across it. His dark blonde hair had been tied back into a short ponytail with a black ribbon. His stride was steady yet determined; his gaze never faltered from the woman in front of him, keeping her as his focus throughout his procession towards her.
The assembly watched him approach her with silent, almost torturous anticipation. If the glimmering vision of beauty by the entrance of the ballroom was the fairy queen, then here was her king coming to greet her. No one knew what would happen when they eventually met, nor even what to expect but no one was willing to forego finding out. There was the feeling that they were all standing at the brink of something wonderful and that any moment they might witness something truly magical. And so the silence stretched on for what seemed like a century, broken only by the steady rhythm of footfalls on the floor which echoed around the hushed room.
And then he was standing in front of her, tall and poised like he had stepped straight from the pages of a Georgian novel into vivid reality. For what seemed like an age to the expectant onlookers, the couple simply remained where they were, a foot or so apart, and held one another's gaze with neutral expressions.
The gentleman was the first to make a move, pressing his right hand to his abdomen and bending his lower half in a sweeping bow, yet all the while he kept his eyes locked on the lady before him. Hesitating at first, she reciprocated the gesture by picking up the edges of her skirt and ducking low to the ground as she curtsied, tilting her head to the floor as she did so.
When they had both risen back into their original upright positions, the man addressed her in a deep, carrying voice, 'My lady, please may I have the pleasure of being your partner for this next dance?'
Starting slightly at the sudden reappearance of noise when there had only been silence in the room for the last few minutes, the woman composed herself and replied in a fairly deep voice with a Southern twang to it, 'It is very kind of you to offer, sir, but I didn't come here to dance.'
A playful smirk appeared on the man's lips and one might have been able to imagine that beneath his mask his eyebrow was quirked, 'Oh? And why else, pray tell, does one enter a ballroom?'
She pursed her lips momentarily before answering, 'To find someone.'
'And who might this someone be?' he asked, the light tone to his voice remaining.
'A friend,' she said simply.
'Ah, I see, and you know exactly where they are at this precise moment, do you?'
She sighed with a hint of frustration, 'No, but I figured that this might be a good place to start.'
'Well, there are, I'd guess, currently a few hundred people in this room alone, plus a couple more hundred spread throughout the house, which makes your chances of finding your friend pretty slim if the only way you have of finding them is by searching every single person in every single room. So, I tell you what, if you give me the great honour of one dance then I'll help you look for your friend,' he offered.
'If I needed your help I would have asked and if I wanted to dance with you I would have said yes the first time you asked me. So, again, thank you for the offer, but no,' she said bluntly.
'Wow, is the prospect of dancing with me really that terrible?' he gasped in mock-hurt but the way that his mouth was still tilted slightly upwards gave away his continued amusement.
'Not you as a partner per se, just the prospect of dancing in general,' she told him, her voice softening a little, 'it's awkward and embarrassing and I haven't been to any of the dance classes that the Scotts put on during the week so I'm afraid I'd make a very poor, clumsy partner.'
'Very well, no dancing it is then,' he nodded, 'but may I repeat my offer to assist you in your search for your friend?'
She gave him a half-puzzled, half-sceptical look, 'Why are you so desperate to help me?'
All traces of teasing vanished from his face and all pretensions were lost from his tone and words as he took a very deep breath and said earnestly, 'You captivate me. I don't know what it is about you but from the moment I saw you standing across the room, looking like you'd stepped straight off the pages of a fairytale yet so baffled by all the attention you were receiving, I just knew that I had to speak to you. And when I look at you I get this feeling like something's just fallen into place and I scared that if I let you walk away now without me that I'll have lost what could have been the best thing to have ever happened to me. And I'm sorry if this is too full on, given that we only met a few minutes ago, but I had to say it and give it a shot.'
There was a long, drawn-out silence where she simply stared at him, her face expressionless and the man felt panic building up inside him that he had scared her away or that perhaps he hadn't come across as sincere enough. Finally, she asked slowly, 'What makes you so sure you can help me find my friend?'
He hesitated for a moment before answering, unsure as to what kind of a reply she had just given him, 'I'm friends with some of the guys on the camera crew and I know some of the staff and if anyone's spotted your friend and knows where they are it'll be them.'
She was quiet again for a second before she said cautiously, 'And if I have one dance with you then you'll help me find my friend?'
He shook his head, 'No, no dancing - you've made it clear how you feel about it and I don't want to make you do anything that would make you feel uncomfortable - so I'll do it just for the pleasure of your company and to see you reunited with this friend.'
She glanced around them momentarily at the sea of staring faces all watching her to see what her next move would be, before turning her eyes back to him, 'Do you know how to dance?'
Frowning for a second, he nodded, 'I'm alright.'
'Good, then I would love to dance with you,' she said with a shy smile.
'You really don't have to, you know,' he told her with an edge of concern to his voice, 'I-'
'No, it's okay. I want to,' she assured him, cutting him off. Then, moving half a step forward and leaning a bit closer to him, she said in a low voice, 'I'll explain why when we're a little less...watched.'
Looking around himself for the first time since he'd approached her, the man took in the mass of spectators they'd gathered and nodded, 'Okay then, would you allow me to escort you to the dancefloor?'
She smiled again, wider this time, 'Of course, though I think I can see it for myself from here.'
He nodded thoughtfully, 'True, but one can never be too careful. You never know what dangers might be lurking on the way, waiting to trap a beautiful young woman such as yourself.'
She laughed, coming forward to take his outstretched arm, 'Yes, I'm sure this ballroom is just packed full of thieves and bandits.'
Laying her forearm on top of his and resting her hand over his, they began to walk down the still clear aisle that their fellow guests had created for them when the amorous suitor had walked up it. Aware of the steady, collective gaze of several hundred people following them as they moved, the couple kept their attention on one another and didn't allow themselves to be daunted by their audience. The rectangle of floor that had been cleared for dancing had since become crowded with people cramming together to get a better view of the couple but upon their approach, those congregated there shuffled back to create space for them even if it was not as large as it previously had been.
Walking to the middle of this area, the couple stopped and turned to face one another. The man looked at his partner and asked with a grin, 'So, do you know any dances that would be appropriate for this setting or should we break out the macerena?'
She laughed softly then looked a little embarrassed as she admitted, 'I think I could just about manage a waltz but that's about my limit. All the rest of that twirling and swapping partners is out of my league, I think.'
'Well, then of all the dances for you to be able to do I think that is probably the best at this moment, seeing as it would appear that our fellow guests are intent on leaving the dancing to us and being spectators so none of those other dances would really work with just the two of us,' he told her, his tone sounding conspiratorial as he leaned in a little closer to her and winked. Then, turning to the expectant band assembled on the dais to their right, instruments poised to provide them with music for their dancing, he called out 'A waltz then, my friends, for myself and this fair lady, if you would be so kind.'
One of the musicians nodded in reply; a hushed exchange then occurred between the group as they discussed which piece to play for them. Having decided, they each picked up their instruments and then waited until all their members were ready to begin. In those last few seconds the silence in the ballroom was a palpable force within the room, weighing down on its occupants with expectation.
Then, the first few notes of music shattered the stillness, filling the room with the melody and bringing back some sense of reality to the situation. In the centre of the floor, the man bowed low while the woman curtsied gracefully. Once they had both risen, he held out his hand to her and she stepped forward to take it. Placing his other hand on the small of her back, he drew her in closer but still maintained a marginal gap between them for courtesy's sake; she reached up and put her free hand on his shoulder so that they were correctly positioned. They looked at one another for a moment, taking in the music that swirled around them, waiting to carry them away, until they had somehow, silently, decided that they were ready.
Around them, the music swelled and the man pushed one foot off the floor and propelled them forwards, allowing the flow of the piece to pull them along and turn them like driftwood in the tide, floating and free. The chords filled the empty air, forming a bubble around them that shielded them from the curious gaze of the crowd.
'So, do you have a name for the evening that I can call you?' the man asked after they had been dancing for a couple of minutes in fairly content silence.
'Eleanor,' she informed him, 'but Ellie is fine. What's yours?'
He gave a small smile, 'Thomas Brenton. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ellie.'
'Likewise, Thom,' she smiled in return, then faltered, 'is Thom okay?'
'Perfectly acceptable,' he chuckled, 'now, is it safe now for you to tell me why you changed your mind about dancing with me?'
As she had before, Ellie glanced around at the people surrounding them, remembering their presence, before answering, 'I felt like if we went straight from standing there chatting to going around asking the staff if they'd seen my friend that everyone would still be staring at us and I didn't want them eavesdropping any more than they already had.'
'Why? Is your friend in the secret service or something?' he asked.
She smiled and shook her head, 'No, nothing like that, I just don't like other people staring at me and I think we've had more than our fair share of that tonight. So, I figured if we started dancing then eventually people would get bored of watching us and carry on with their lives and then we'd be more free to search without everyone sticking their noses in.'
'Ah, I see,' Thom murmured, then looked around the room as she had done and grinned, 'well, they don't seem to have given up just yet so we might have to ask the band to keep playing until they have.'
'But why are they so interested in us?' she pursed her lips in a mix of confusion and displeasure, clearly frowning behind her mask, 'I don't even get why they all started staring in the first place.'
'Probably because you're the most beautiful woman here tonight and you're entrancing to look at,' he told her, his voice as sincere and direct as his gaze was, then added, 'and to talk to, for that matter, but none of them would know that seeing as I stole you away before any of them could find that out.'
She averted her eyes from his and he could have sworn that he saw the edges of a deep blush creeping out from under the sides of her mask, tinging her pale skin with a wonderful rose colour, 'You can't possibly know that - that I'm beautiful, I mean - you can hardly see any of my face under this thing.'
She gestured to her mask and, unthinkingly, he removed the hand that was holding hers and ran the back of it lightly down the cheek of her mask to the small corner of her jaw that was exposed, 'Yes, I can. I don't need to see the whole of your face to tell that you're beautiful; I don't even need to see any of it. It's there in the way you move, the way you talk, the way you hold yourself - it's in the air around you like it's in your pores. I don't even have the words to describe it or how I know it to be true, but it is. It's a fact, like the earth orbits the sun, Shakespeare is dead, Britain has a Queen, and you're exquisitely beautiful.'
The pink hues emanating from under her mask increased tenfold, then her eyes lifted slightly and narrowed a little, 'If you hadn't thought I was beautiful when you saw me, would you have come over to ask me to dance?'
'Of course,' he said without hesitation, and when she seemed to scoff in disbelief, he insisted, 'I meant what I said before: you captivate me. Yes, I think you're gorgeous but even before I spoke to you it was more than that that drew me over to you. I don't even think that I can describe it properly, but it was like...I saw you and that was all I could see. I didn't even know I was walking towards you until I was halfway there.'
She shook her head slowly, disbelieving that anyone could think those things about her, and said in a small voice, 'There's nothing captivating about me. I'm perfectly ordinary.'
He chuckled softly, shaking his head, 'Ordinary? You're about as far from it as it gets. Take the way you came into the room tonight: you had every single person in this huge room all staring at you in silence - a lesser person would have turned and run straight back out the door. But not you: you stood your ground and, even though you were clearly completely baffled as to why you'd caught everyone's attention, you didn't look down at the floor like you were ashamed or embarrassed. You kept your head up and stared right back; it takes a lot of guts to do that. Or, take the way you handled me walking up to you and asking you to dance: it would have been perfectly natural for you to accept my offer straight away out of some misplaced sense of obligation, what with everyone staring at you - myself included - waiting for your answer. But you stuck to your instincts and remained true to yourself because you knew that you didn't like dancing and some strange man coming up and asking you to in front of a whole room full of gawking strangers wasn't going to change that.'
The flush on her skin was even stronger now, having crept down her neck and her eyes flicked away for a moment before she regained her composure and smiled, 'Well, in all fairness, you must be very brave yourself: coming up and asking me to dance in front of everyone and then still trying to help me when I'd rejected you. A lot of people would have just given up.'
'Put it down to belligerence then, rather than bravery,' he laughed, 'I could put it down to the lighting, or the atmosphere, the fancy costumes or just the general buzz that's going round but, honestly, I'm just a hopeless romantic.'
'Well, then here's to belligerence,' she grinned, raising their intertwined hands in a mock toast.
In the air, the music began to die down, the tempo getting slower until eventually it finished altogether. They stopped dancing where they were and Thom made a move to let go of his partner to signal the end of the dance but she tightened her grip on his shoulder and hand, pulling herself closer to him. Her eyes darted about the room, 'One more. If you want to, that is.'
Around them, people had shuffled back further to regain the previous neat edges of the dancefloor, giving the couple more room. However, while some had overcome the novelty of the situation and had turned back into their groups to discuss the events of the last quarter of an hour or so and only swivelled to look over at the couple every now and then, many were still staring at them. For the most part, they were whispering to their neighbours or making comments so at least the silence had ended but they were still eyeing them like hawks.
Averting their attention away from their still captive audience, Thom gave a heart-stopping grin, 'Ellie, I would spend the rest of my life dancing with you if I thought that our shoes would never wear out.'
They began to move again, continuing on in the wide circle they had been following before they stopped. The band, seeing their movement, picked up on their cue and music once again filled the room, fitting their pace.
She laughed loudly, half to cover her embarrassment at the sentiment underlying that statement, 'I think we'd get tired before it ever came to that.'
He shrugged, 'Depends on the quality of your shoes, love. By the way, you were quite wrong about being a clumsy dancer.'
'Maybe I just needed the right partner,' she said with a grin, though her voice sounded shy and self-conscious, clearly unused to making such statements.
'Very true,' he laughed.
'So tell me, where did you learn to dance so well?' she asked curiously.
He pulled a face that was mostly obscured by his mask, so it lost some of its efficacy, 'Believe it or not, my mom used to make me take dance lessons. Her and my dad would always have to go to all these charity events for work and when I was old enough, they'd drag us along - me and my siblings - and we'd have to dance with all these adults. Everyone thought it was adorable, of course, but for us it was the most embarrassing thing our parents could have done to us.'
'That sounds pretty cruel of your parents,' she commented.
'Perhaps, but they didn't know it,' he said.
'How would you not know that forcing your kids to go along to some gala and making them dance with a whole bunch of strangers is cruel?'
'Well, they spent a fair bit of time away from home when we were little and they were worried that we'd all grow apart and they'd lose us as soon as we got old enough to move out because we'd felt neglected as kids or whatever. So they found a compromise which was bringing us along to their work things as much as possible. And they never thought it was cruel because we never told them that we hated it,' he explained.
'Why not? If you disliked it that much, surely you could have just told them, about the dancing at least. Your parents sound like they would have understood and done something about it.'
'You're right, they would have done,' he nodded, 'but, for one, it would have made them feel terrible that they'd put us through that, and also because otherwise they might have gone back to leaving us behind again. And, as awful as those galas were, we got to be with our parents. They never tried to leave us in a crèche or with the other kids unless we said we wanted to, they involved us and treated us like we were grown-ups. For kids who look up to their parents as much as we did, that was a huge deal; it made us feel important. Also, because the only other alternative to just leaving us with a sitter would have been one of them staying behind with us. They tried that for a while and they'd take turns but they both hated it - they loathed being apart from each other, even if it was just for a couple of nights. And we didn't want them to be unhappy, so we made the best of a tough situation and stuck together as much as possible.'
'Sounds like you have a very close family,' she said, her voice holding the barest hint of sadness but he picked up on it nevertheless.
'Sounds like you don't,' he replied quietly, his tone making it clear that he didn't expect her to answer his unspoken request to hear more about this if she didn't want to.
She shook her head, 'Not completely, part of it is good...but the other part...it's complicated.'
She gave a small, apologetic smile as though sorry that she couldn't explain it properly, or at least wasn't willing to. He nodded in understanding, 'Well, I'm happy that at least part of your family life is good, even if the rest isn't. It gives you something to hold onto.'
'It does,' she agreed softly, her smile growing slightly, 'there are people with far worse situations than mine, at least mine's not all bad.'
'Maybe one day it will become less complicated,' he suggested.
She shrugged, her expression doubtful, 'Maybe, maybe not.'
'Sounds like you think it's the latter,' he pointed out.
'I just know what certain parts of my family are like and I don't think they're likely to change any time soon. But I could be wrong,' she said, making her expression lighter, 'should we talk about something a little less...depressing?'
'If you wish,' he smiled, then paused to think of other, brighter topics. By now, other couples had joined them on the floor and were dancing around them, glancing at them occasionally as they passed. Angling his body to shield Ellie from their stares, he said, 'I suppose there's no point in me asking what you do for a living, seeing as we're not meant to be giving away much about our private lives.'
'If I asked you what you do for a living, would it give away who you really are?' she asked.
He laughed and nodded, 'Definitely! What about you?'
'Not entirely,' she mused, 'there are others who have the same job as me, even given how small Tree Hill is.'
'So you're a local then?'
'Not necessarily,' she said, deliberately evasive, 'are you?'
He grinned, 'No matter what I tell you, I doubt you'll believe me.'
'True,' she chuckled, 'if you tell me you're local, then I'll assume you're from out of town, and vice versa. Or you could be double-bluffing...but then that just leads to triple-bluffs and everything just gets confusing if you follow that route.'
'Hmm...best not to go down that rabbit hole,' he agreed.
'Was that story you told me - about the dance lessons and your parents - was that real?'
'Yes,' he told her simply and honestly.
'Good,' she murmured, believing him, 'perhaps it would be better for us to stick to things that aren't facts, then, just our opinions or tastes. That way, we can be truthful without revealing our identities.'
'Okay,' he nodded, 'I've got one: what would your dream job be?'
'How do you know that I'm not already doing it?' she countered playfully.
'Instinct,' he returned, 'besides, if you really are doing your dream job already then you can just say the name of it and I won't know if it's what you're doing now or what you want to do.'
'Excellent logic, sir,' she laughed, 'very well then, my dream job would be either an artist or a music producer. Or both - I can't decide which one I'd like more!'
He nodded thoughtfully, 'Good choices, ma'am.'
'Same question to you, then.'
'A writer.'
'Fiction or non-fiction?'
'Fiction, easily. Or at least non-fiction with a great deal of creative licence. My mind embellishes too much on fact; I like to imagine too much and if I tried to go for non-fiction I'd probably get all kinds of complaints about me twisting facts and inventing history.'
'I think you already sound like a writer in the way that you speak. Your words...they're more than just words, if that makes sense. It's like the things you say have so much hidden meaning behind them that it would take hours just to fully understand all the little things you're expressing without the listener even realising. And that's what people want in a writer: someone with depth, whose words mean more and make them feel in ways they've never felt before. So, if you're not a writer already, I think you'll make a great one if you ever get round to it.'
'Thank you,' he smiled warmly, 'if I ever write anything I'll be sure to send it your way.'
'If you can ever find me again after tonight,' she pointed out.
'I will, and we'll go on a date - a proper one, without masks and costumes. Just you and me,' he vowed, 'unless you don't want to, of course, I don't want to be a stalker.'
She laughed, 'No, I think I'd like to go on a date with you - the real you - and maybe then I'll actually be able to find out what you do as a job.'
He smiled and chuckled in reply. By now, the piece of music they had been dancing to had finished a while ago and all the other dance partners were taking part in a cotillion dance, set to a different piece. Before that week, no one in Tree Hill had had the first clue about Regency dancing and, guessing this, Dan had insisted that his nephews arrange dance classes every evening that week so that people could learn before the ball should they wish to. Surprisingly eager to get into the spirit of the occasion, the turnout to these classes had been fairly high and those now dancing, as well as many more of the guests, were more than willing to show off their new skills. For some, the presence of the filming crew at the dance lessons might very well have also been a contributing factor to their attendance. However, as Ellie had previously mentioned that she had been unable to go to said classes and so couldn't possibly know the difference between a Scotch reel and a quadrille, let alone the steps to them, there was one couple on the floor who was not taking part in this new dance. Instead, Thom and Ellie continued in their waltz around the room, oblivious to the other couples and even to the change in music, as they danced to their own made-up rhythm and pace. Everyone else on the floor left a gap around the edges of their group for them to pass through but otherwise seemed unphased about this break from convention.
Eventually, a couple more dances in, Thom looked down at Ellie with an almost imperceptible sigh and said, 'Well, I guess we'd better go find your friend now.'
Ellie blinked rapidly, clearly having forgotten about that particular quest, 'What? Oh...um maybe just a little longer? People are still staring.'
Thom looked around them: yes, there was still the occasional glance or whisper in their direction but everyone had finally returned to their own business and forgotten about them, for the most part, 'Hardly. I don't think they'd notice if we slipped away now to look.'
'Oh,' she said in sad voice, pulling away from him, 'okay then.'
Sensing her reluctance, Thom kept his hold on her, drawing her back in again with a grin, 'Or, you know, maybe just one more dance wouldn't hurt. We've still got until one o'clock to find them, right? That's plenty of time.'
'Midnight,' she whispered, her eyes sweeping away from him.
'What?'
'Midnight. I have to leave at midnight. I can't stay until one,' she said softly.
'Why?' he asked, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice.
She cast her eyes down and chewed her bottom lip for a moment before replying, 'I have to. I can't explain why, not properly, so anything I told you would just be a lie and we're trying to steer clear of those tonight, right? I'm sorry, I wish I could stay.'
His silence in response to this lasted long enough for her to lift her eyes back up to him in worry. Then, he pulled himself from his thoughts and smiled, 'Well then, we'll just have to make the most of the time we do have left together, won't we? And, besides, it's only just ten o'clock now - we've still got a good two hours to find your friend.'
'Right,' she nodded, 'no need to rush.'
Yet, as the evening wore on and the couple continued to dance until their feet and arms ached, Ellie found that, despite her best efforts, all thoughts of finding her friend simply slipped away from her mind. Her conversation with Thom, his arm around her waist, his hand clasped around hers and the ever decreasing gap between their bodies all took up too much of her mind and the new-found, somewhat unfamiliar feelings coursing through her veins pushed all rational thoughts from her head. She had tried to remain practical and impartial throughout their interactions, tried to resist the surge of unwelcome emotions his presence brought, but the longer she was held in his embrace and the more he revealed truths about himself, the more her softer, more sentimental side began to win out. She found herself feeling things that her brain was trying desperately to tell her she shouldn't be given how little she knew this virtual stranger but its advice went unheard: her heart, it seemed, only had ears for the deep rumble of Thom's voice as it vibrated though their now touching chests.
For his part, Thom, though being understandably less invested in finding Ellie's friend than she was, had - after some initial deliberate attempts to distract her from her mission so he could spend more time with her - genuinely tried to keep reminding himself of her need to find this friend. While he would have much rather been the sole object of her interest for the purposes of that evening, he understood that it was important to her and so had endeavoured to keep bringing up the topic. However, he had found to his delight that every time he did so, she seemed as reluctant to stop dancing with him or to part from him as was was. Even so, he did not want her to think that he was preventing her from finding this friend or not respecting her wishes and so he would let the issue drop for a while so they could speak of other things and bring it up later. Despite these attempts, her response was still the same and eventually he forgot that they had ever been meant to be doing anything other than enjoying one another's company.
And so it was that, an hour after they had started dancing together, they were still on the dancefloor - though rotating much slower now - with all thoughts of searching for Ellie's elusive friend completely lost from their minds.
'Okay, I've thought of another one,' Thom smiled down at Ellie as they circled round the other couples who were presently engaged in a lively jig.
'Shoot.'
'What's your favourite place in the world? Outside of America.'
She smiled sadly as she confessed, 'I've never left the US. I've never even left the state.'
Unphased by this setback, Thom nodded thoughtfully, 'Alright then, if you could travel to any place in the world, where would you go?'
Sighing wistfully at the thought of far-off lands and exotic vistas, Ellie replied, 'I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. The pictures and videos of it look beautiful and everyone who's been there says it's so peaceful...I'd like to go there and just...be, you know? Look up at the mountains and out over the lakes and feel the stillness of it all. No demands, no people shouting...just quiet and nature.'
'New Zealand's beautiful,' he agreed, 'and people are right when they call it peaceful. It's a wonderful place to go to just collect your thoughts and get inspiration. If you ever get the chance, you should take it.'
'You've been there?' she asked, her voice full of wonder.
'Yeah, a couple of years ago now,' he nodded, 'it's definitely towards the higher end of my top five.'
'You've been to a lot of countries, then?' she surmised, her tone tinged with envy.
Nodding again, he said, 'I've been to my fair share: those charity events my folks dragged us along to were sometimes in other countries and I've visited a few more since then.'
'Okay then, Mr Airmiles, where's your favourite place outside of the US?'
He paused for a moment to consider it, 'Well, like I said, New Zealand is up there with my favourites but I'd also have to say...Prague - the buildings in the city centre are just incredible - and Madeira. It's an amazing island and the plants there are wonderful to look at.'
'Wow,' she murmured, 'you've been so many places and seen so many things and I...well, I've done nothing and been nowhere for my whole life. Pretty lame, huh?'
He tucked a finger under her chin and raised her face to look at his, 'Hey, there's a whole world out there, just waiting for you to discover it for yourself, and you've got a whole lifetime to explore it. It doesn't matter if you jet off tomorrow or in forty years' time, it's not going anywhere and when you're ready to go you'll make your own discoveries and memories that will be unique to you. Nobody else will have experienced those places in quite the same way you will and nobody ever will. And, until that day comes, down despise your own life for its small beginnings; your life is just as important and meaningful as anyone else's. And, if nothing else, know that you have stolen my breath away and made my heart hammer more than any mountain view or sunset ever has.'
Her blush reappeared with a vengeance. While her head remained tilted upwards through his finger propping it up, her eyes avoided his gaze once more by fixing on one of the buttons on his jacket.
Sensing her discomfort, Thom changed the topic quickly, 'You know, we've been dancing for over an hour now; you must be tired - would you like to go outside for some fresh air?'
'That would be great, thanks,' she smiled, grateful for the move away from exchanging sentiments.
That having been determined, they stopped dancing mid-way round their route and he let go of her, stepping back to bow to her which she returned with a curtsey. Then, he offered his arm out to her and she looped hers through his and they began to walk in the direction of one of the open sets of French windows that led out into the garden. Their departure from the dancefloor caused a number of heads to turn and a fair few people to leap out of their way to make the path clearer for them. The mutterings and sideways glances started up again but the couple merely straightened their spines and persevered, drawing strength from being united together against the gossip.
As they stepped out of the ballroom and into the cool night air, the feeling of relief that broke over them was as refreshing as the breeze that lifted up to greet them. Shutting her eyes momentarily to savour the feeling of being away from the public eye at last, Ellie paused just outside the doorway and turned her face up towards the sky, revelling in the soft touches of the wind on her skin. Allowing her a moment of peace, Thom turned back slightly, still keeping their arms locked, and shut the doors behind them to give them a little more privacy. Having recovered properly, Ellie reopened her eyes and gazed about them, taking in their new surroundings that she had only seen the briefest, distorted glimpses of whilst inside.
Stepping into the garden was like entering a different world entirely. The whole place looked alive with enchantment: lights twinkled from every tree and bush, lanterns were dotted along the paths, the air was filled with the fragrance of a myriad of flowers and, somewhere in the distance, the sound of gurgling water could be heard.
'Oh,' she breathed out in wonder, turning her head this way and that trying to take it all in, 'it's...magical!'
Thom, whose eyes were not fixed on the vista but on his companion, murmured, 'Yes, it is, isn't it? Shall we explore it?'
She turned to look at him, her face visibly glowing with excitement, and nodded her head vigorously, 'Of course! It must've taken them ages to make it look like this!'
'It certainly is impressive, isn't it?' he agreed, 'They've made the perfect place to get away from everyone else.'
They set off along the path, choosing at random to walk left. Flowerbeds appeared alongside them, with different coloured lights illuminating them. The gravel crunched softly beneath their feet and the muffled sound of the music from inside the ballroom floated out into the air.
'Hmm, it's so nice to be away from all those people,' Ellie nodded, her eyes still drawn to the different sights of the garden, 'it's hard to relax and enjoy yourself fully when you've got hundreds of people all around you.'
'You don't like large gatherings then, I take it?'
Shaking her head, she replied, 'No, I mean, I can handle them but if I had the choice I'd much prefer just to be with my friends with no pressures to act or talk a certain way because people are forming first impressions about you, but just being able to be myself. I don't like having to put up a pretence just because a bunch of strangers might get the wrong idea about me.'
Thom was quiet for a moment, before asking softly, 'Have you been doing that tonight? Putting up a pretence?'
Her hand squeezed his arm a little tighter, 'No. Everything I've told you and how I've been with you...it's me.'
'Good,' he murmured.
'Do you want to know me?' she asked hesitantly, 'The real me, I mean, after tonight? Do you want the who truth about me - even if it's not what you want to hear?'
He turned towards her, stopping them in the middle of the path, 'Of course I do. I want to know the real you now, to find out who you are. I want to know your hopes, your dreams, what annoys you, what makes you uncomfortable...everything, even if it takes me a lifetime to learn it all and it probably will do. How could I come away from this incredible evening with you and not be desperate to know you more?'
She turned her face away from his and bit down on her lip, the corners of her mouth drawing down in displeasure. Her free hand was grasping tightly onto her dress, the tension showing up her arm.
'Hey, what is it, Ellie?' Thom asked after her silence had stretched out more than he could bear.
Her head snapped back to him, her eyes full of a swirling mix of anger and confusion, 'You! You're what's wrong!'
'What? Why?' his voice sounding taken aback, 'What have I done? Just tell me, sweet, so I can fix it.'
'That - That's exactly what's wrong!' she retorted, snatching her arm free from his and running her other hand frustratedly through her hair, 'The way you talk and the things you say and just the way you are with me - people don't act or speak like that, they just don't! It's not real! The words you use and the way you look at me...it's all just too good to be true and I've learnt the hard way that in life if something seems too good to be true, you can be damn sure it is. You're too perfect to be genuine in this and I just don't have time to waste on another illusion so maybe we should just leave it here.'
Pursing his lips (and, undoubtedly, frowning under his mask) Thom stepped forward and placed his hands gently on her shoulders, 'Ellie...hey, look at me,' he paused until she raised her eyes to meet his, 'maybe you're right and maybe people don't talk or act like me but I assure you that nothing I've told you tonight has been a lie - apart from my name but you knew that already. Maybe the way I speak is sometimes unrealistic or overly sentimental but I told you: I'm a hopeless romantic and so when I find something or someone that brings that part out of me I can't help myself. Look, I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strong here and if that's scaring you off but I promise you that I'm not faking anything. I like you, Ellie, I really, truly like you and I would never lie about something like that.'
She looked back into his eyes, searching his face - hidden though it was - to find any hint of deception or mockery. Eventually, having satisfied herself that he was, indeed, telling her the truth, her shoulders relaxed a little and her guarded expression dropped, being replaced by a small, apologetic smile, 'You're right, I'm sorry. I've just never...met anyone like you before and you just...take me off guard, I guess. Some of the things you say...no one's ever said anything like that to me before and I just...I have a hard time trusting people. Sorry.'
'Hey, that's okay,' he chuckled softly, 'you don't have to apologise for who you are.'
His hands had, at some point during their exchange, slipped down from her shoulders to hold her hands and now he found himself leaning towards her, the gap between them closing. The crickets chirped in the shrubbery, the moon glowed down from among a host of glittering stars, the perfume of the flowers drifted around them and Ellie felt herself lean forward in kind, drawn on by the magic of the evening and the warmth of his touch. Dipping his head towards hers, Thom felt her breath fanning onto his face and he felt his heart beat in double time.
'Ahem,' Ellie cleared her throat, breaking the moment and glancing away to hide her blush, 'should we turn down here?'
Snapping back upright, Thom glanced to their right and saw that the path on that side was flanked by tall hedges on either side, with fairy lights among the leaves illuminating the way. Not letting his disappointment at the change in tone show, he nodded, 'Looks interesting.'
His deflation in mood was buoyed once again by Ellie placing her hand in his and leading him towards the walkway. As they walked down the hedge-lined path, she ran her fingers lightly along the fronds, feeling them brush her skin while they talked. As they walked on, they found that the track began to spiral inwards, leading them towards something yet unseen at the centre of this topiary.
Eventually, they followed the bend of the path to its end and suddenly the walls of hedges on either side of them ended and they found themselves in a circular clearing. At its centre was a large fountain, with a statue of three men in its middle, their backs facing outwards and their arms raised above their hands to support a large, flat disc from which streams of water jetted upwards before falling into the pool of water below. Floating on the water's surface were lily-pads, with small lights placed within the flowers and a few lanterns also bobbed among them. Thom and Ellie walked over to the water feature and sat down facing one another along the edge of it that had been designed to be wide enough to serve as a seating area.
The tranquillity of the setting and the gentle lapping and splashing of the water behind them momentarily brought a comfortable lull in their conversation as they sat, taking in their surroundings with their hands still clasped together.
'Do you believe in love at first sight?' Ellie asked suddenly, causing Thom to jolt a little.
He hesitated before answering with a grin, 'I swear if you follow that up with the line 'or should I walk by again?' I may have to reconsider my opinion of you.'
Ellie threw back her head and laughed, 'No, no, I'm being serious! I know it's a bit out of the blue...but I'd like to know what you think about it.'
Growing serious again, he considered her question, 'I think I'd like to believe that it could happen but I don't think it's very likely. But who knows? I could be wrong, I hope that I'm wrong. I think I'd like for it to be true. What about you?'
Her expression was less thoughtful than his had been, her mind clearly already having been made up, 'No. I don't think it exists. I think that in order to be in love with someone, you have to know them, I mean really know them. You have to know all their flaws and shortcomings so you can love them through all of those things and accept them for them. You have to have knowledge of one another to bind your hearts together and you can't know someone you've never met...so you can't love them the first time you see them. I guess I'm just too practical and too sceptical to believe in it but, having said that...,' she paused and snuck a sly glance over at him, her cheeks reddening again, 'but then there's nights like tonight and...there's you and it makes me want to believe in it.'
Thom felt his heart skip at her words and he breathed her name, 'Ellie...'
Once again, he found himself leaning in towards her and she was responding in kind and it didn't seem like she was going to pull away this time and he was getting closer and closer and the scent of her perfume filled his senses and the heat from her skin was just a breath away and-
'What's your name?' he whispered, stopping himself just centimetres away from her lips.
'I...what?' she murmured in confusion, her pupils dilated from his proximity and her breathing hitched up.
'What's your real name, Ellie?' he pressed.
'Do you really have to know it now?' she asked.
'I...yes,' he said firmly, 'call me old fashioned, but I can't kiss someone I don't know the name of. And I don't know your name, not your real one.'
Chewing on her lip, she kept her eyes down, her fingers twisting in his in discomfort, 'I...I don't think I can...not yet. I'm sorry.'
'Ellie, I get it if you're not ready but I am. I'm tired of hiding behind this mask, I know we're meant to wait until midnight to do with but I don't think I can wait anymore. I want you to know who I am,' he told her, reaching up to untie his mask.
The mask fell away from his face and she saw-
'Lucas? Lucas Scott?'
Ellie gasped at the revelation, her free hand flying to her mouth in shock as she recoiled instinctively from him. He kept a hold of her hand, stroking it soothingly while she shook her head in disbelief. His attempts to reassure her were drowned out by the loud chiming of the clock in the ballroom that rang out around the garden, reaching them even in their secluded spot as loudly as if they were inside.
The first of the consequent eleven chimes began to follow and Ellie stood suddenly, attempting to pull away from Thom - Lucas' - grasp but he clung onto her desperately.
'I have to go,' she murmured, 'I'm sorry.'
'No, please, Ellie,' he begged, standing with her, 'just let me explain.'
'No, I can't. I have to go,' she shook her head vigorously.
His hold on her hand was too strong for her to break but eventually she tugged herself from him so harshly that he stumbled backwards. The backs of his legs hit the lip of the fountain behind him and, before he could stop himself, he had fallen backwards into the deceptively deep waters with an almighty splash.
Ellie gasped and hesitated for a split second, guilt causing her to delay but, regrettable as it was, his fall had given her an opportunity to escape and she took it.
She turned and ran, calling over her shoulder as she went, 'Sorry, sorry!'
She was gone in a flash of white and a flurry of material, vanishing from the clearing faster than a bolt of lightning.
XxX
As his back hit the fountain's surface, the water was colder than Lucas had anticipated. It had seeped into his clothes and drenched him thoroughly in seconds. He had managed to push out his hands behind him to absorb most of the shock of the fall and he winced at the twinges of pain that were shooting up his wrists, though slightly numbed by the water. Other than his head, his calves and feet were the only part of him not submerged in the fountain: they lay across the edge of the fountain that he had been sitting on just moments before, his legs forming right angles as he languished in shock in the water. Had the potential love of his life not just run away from him, he probably would have been able to see how comical the whole situation was. In his head, it vaguely registered with him how much Nathan would mock him for this incident later when he found out.
As it was, appreciation of comedy wasn't a luxury he could afford at that moment and, now that his shock had mostly worn off, his mind moved on more keenly to the girl currently fleeing through the grounds of his house, perhaps never to be seen again if he didn't try and catch her now. His clothes were soaked, his body ached and throbbed from the fall and the night air was chilling his already cold body and garments even further but the thought of Ellie drove him from his position in the fountain.
He was up and on his feet on the paving stones that surrounded the fountain in seconds. Not wasting a moment to wring out his clothes or rid his boots of some of the water they had collected from his breeches dripping into them, he set off after her. His boots squeaked against each other, he made squelching noises with every movement and his muscles at first were unwilling to work due to the cold but he forced himself onwards through the hedged spiral and out onto the open path. His feet hit the gravel in a rapid beat as his eyes scanned his surroundings for any sign of Ellie.
A sudden flash of white material up on the path ahead caught his attention. Hindered by the many layers of her dress - even though she was holding them as far up as decency allowed - Ellie hadn't made as much progress as he thought she would have. Quickening his pace, he sped up, gaining on her rapidly.
'Ellie, wait, please! Just wait!' he called breathlessly after her.
Ellie turned to look over her shoulder and saw the decreasing gap between them with an expression of horror, 'I'm sorry, T-Lucas, I really am! Please just let me go!'
'I can't, Ellie! I have to know who you are,' he shouted back.
Shaking her head, she turned to face forwards again and chose not to waste further precious seconds or breath in replying to him. The clock inside let out its last chime, marking the hour. Seconds later, she tugged a pair of the windows open and disappeared inside the ballroom. Unwilling to lose her in the crowds, Lucas pushed himself to go faster, reaching the door just moments after she had passed through it. His luck ran out on the other side of the door, however, as he was faced with a wall of people through which he could just make out Ellie escaping through the ballroom doors. Craning his neck so as not to lose sight of her, he began to push people out of his way. Eventually, the majority seemed to catch on and a route cleared for him to the doors. Ignoring the quizzical looks he was receiving due to the fact he was still sopping wet, he sprinted across the marble floor and out of the room.
He tore down the corridor outside, not bothering to check in any of the rooms off to the sides. The hallways was less crowded than it had been earlier in the evening as most people had grown tired and had tried to find places to rest for the remainder of the party and those remaining moved over to the sides as soon as they saw him coming. The route out from the west wing was relatively easy as there was only one main way out and he doubted that Ellie would know any others or would waste time trying to hide from him. He guessed that she simply wanted to get away from the manor and from him as fast as possible and so, even though he could no longer see her ahead of him, he stuck to his course. Lucas was vaguely aware of the sound of someone following him from the footfalls behind him but he guessed it would most likely be one of the cameramen and so didn't waste time in turning around to check.
He burst out from the corridor that connected the west wing to the rest of the house and out into the foyer to see one of the doormen just closing the door. Racing over to him, he called out, 'Have you seen a blonde woman in a white dress running through here?'
'Yes, sir,' the doorman nodded, already opening the door again to anticipate his move, 'she just came through here. I gave her her cloak - she seemed like she was in a bit of a hurry like you, sir. Did I do the right thing in letting her out?'
'Huh? Oh yeah, of course. Which way did she go out of the door?' he asked, hesitating at the door to find out the answer.
'Towards the car park, sir.'
'Excellent, thank you!'
He shot out the front door and down the steps outside, tearing down the path outside. Gravel spurted up from underneath his feet only to bounce off his boots and fall back to the ground again. A glimmer of white up ahead made him pump his limbs even faster, ignoring the faint burning sensation that was building up in his calves from having sprinted for so long. There was a pain in his chest too as his lungs struggled to fill themselves with air properly; it had been some months since he'd exercised at such an intensity for a prolonged period and the effect on his body was obvious. Regardless of his fitness levels, he refused to let his recent laxness be the reason that Ellie got away. A flutter of white material caught his eye seconds before it disappeared again around the corner of the house. With the speed he'd picked up, Lucas reached said corner in a matter of moments and came in sight of the makeshift car park to the left of the house.
For a moment, he felt panic grip him as he couldn't see Ellie anywhere. But then he saw one of the cars in the lot moving forward slowly and a girl running towards it through the gaps in-between the cars. His feet left the path and hit the soft grass of the verge leading to the car park. Knowing that if she got into the car he would never be able to stop her, he ran as fast as he physically could towards her.
Even as he was closing the gap between him and the girl of his dreams, she was closing in on the gap between her and her getaway vehicle. The black Raven pulled to a stop a few metres away from her and the passenger door nearest to her popped open ready for her jump in. But he was now a matter of paces away from her and so, just as she flung herself inside the car, he threw himself forward, trying to get some part of his body in the way of the door so it couldn't shut. His body slammed into the grass but one of his flailing hands managed, impossibly, to grasp hold of the one part of her body that hadn't yet made it fully inside the car: her foot.
'Ellie, please don't go!' he wheezed hopelessly from the floor, trying to keep a hold of her squirming foot with all his might.
'I have to, I'm so sorry. Please just let me go, Lucas!' she begged from inside the car, everything but her voice obscured from him.
She gave one last, hard kick of her leg and he fell backwards, his grip failing him. The car door slammed shut and vehicle shot forward, leaving Lucas lying on the grass, exhausted, breathless and damp. He knew that he didn't have it in him to chase after the car and he hated himself for that. It was several moments before he was even aware that he was holding something in his hand. He looked down, opening his fist that was clasped around the object, and saw a scrap of flesh-coloured material. It felt a little thicker than a sock but not thinner than a shoe but it was definitely shaped like a foot. Frowning as he turned it over in his hands, Lucas realised that it was the same shape at the shoes that Ellie had been wearing but those had been transparent and glimmered like glass whereas this just lay flat and dull in his hand.
It was undoubtedly Ellie's and logic told his tired brain that it had to be one of her shoes as she had definitely been wearing them as she leapt into the car and she'd had no time to remove them. Suddenly, he realised he was chuckling quietly, the tremors running through his exhausted body without him being able to stop them. The humour of the situation, apparently, wasn't lost on him that he had just met and lost what could very well have been his soulmate all in one night and all he had to find her with was a weird looking shoe.
The sound of running footsteps made him force himself to sit up, alight with the hope that it was Ellie coming back to him. Instead, from the darkness of the night, appeared one of his friend and cameramen, George. He was carrying his camera and panting heavily; stopping just in front of Lucas, he put his hand to his stomach as he tried to catch his breath but - ever the professional - kept his camera trained on Lucas, doubtlessly still filming.
'I...saw you guys running and...followed you,' he said eventually, still struggling to breathe normally, 'then I saw you taking that fall...and her taking off in that car...so I ran after them to see if I could stop her or get them to close the gates so she couldn't leave.'
He trailed off, so Lucas (trying not to get his hopes up) prompted him, 'And?'
George shook his head sadly, 'I'm sorry, dude, she's gone.'
XxX
Haley waved goodbye to a group of her friends that she had found inadvertently whilst playing cards in one of the side rooms. She had recognised their voices instantly and they had known hers. They were old school friends who had moved away from Tree Hill after graduating but had returned for the evening after having been invited by the Scotts. They had then spent the last hour or so catching up and reminiscing about their high school days and discussing the Scott brothers' fame and the appearance of their show in the sleepy town. Aware that it was almost midnight by now, Haley had said her farewells to her friends, with promises to stay in touch, to go in search of Peyton to remind her that she needed to leave soon.
Hoping she would still be dancing with her mystery man in the ballroom, she set off in that direction. She stopped along the way to look into all the rooms branching off from the corridor to check briefly that Peyton hadn't moved into one of them but quick scans around each of them showed her this wasn't the case. By the time she had finished working her way down the corridor and was actually in the ballroom, midnight was a just a couple of minutes away and she looked around the vast room frantically, hoping that Peyton had already gone home. There was no sign of Peyton's distinctive costume or even of the man she had seen her dancing with.
Pulling out her phone, Haley tapped the screen until Peyton's number showed up. She was about to press the call button but paused, her finger hovering over it as she realised that it was far too noisy in the ballroom for her to be able to hear Peyton properly and that she would likely have to shout over to make herself heard. With Claudia pressed up against a man in a rather expensive-looking costume just a few metres away from her, she didn't want to take the risk that she might overhear her conversation. She turned and walked back out to the corridor where it was quieter, stopping just outside the doorway to one of the rooms.
Just as she was about to press dial, a loud clatter came from inside the room. Glancing up, she looked into the room and tried to see through the crowd of people inside what had caused the noise. Then she noticed that most of the people inside were looking over into one corner with faint looks of distaste and a few of them were whispering to one another and giggling. Stepping forward slightly to get a better look into the room, Haley craned her neck to see the corner properly. On the floor, obviously having been dislodged from its place on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, was a large, decorative metal plate. Next to it, was a couple engaged in a rather heated kissing session, who - from their flailing limbs and forceful moves - had clearly caused the plate to fall down from the mantelpiece.
Haley found that she was completely unsurprised to see that the woman who was currently pinning her partner against the wall was Megan. She had pressed herself as close to him as was humanly possible and was trying to undo the buttons on his waistcoat. Haley had seen her multiple times throughout the night, each time chasing after a different man and each time unknowingly degrading herself even further than Haley had originally thought possible. Haley was by now well acquainted with Megan's questionable conduct but her complete disregard for the other people in the room and lack of understanding of what wasn't appropriate behaviour at this kind of formal social gathering still left her feeling a little shocked that she could really be that blatant.
Rolling her eyes, she was about to turn away when Megan moved her head for a moment and Haley was able to see the profile of the man whose face she was currently attached to. With a cold, sinking feeling in her gut she saw the black mask of the man who had come to her defence earlier that evening and the tricorn hat now somewhat lopsidedly perched on top of his dark hair. Haley would have been lying to herself if she'd said that she hadn't been thinking about that mysterious stranger and their conversation on and off during the night and she wasn't proud of herself for it but there was something about him that had intrigued her. From what he'd told her about his relationships - or lack thereof - with women earlier she supposed that she shouldn't really be surprised at seeing him in such a position but she still felt a pang of disappointment that it should have been him that had been pulled into Megan's web.
Then Megan's hands worked their way up into his hair and the black cloth masking his face fell away as a result of her manhandling and suddenly Haley knew exactly why Megan had chosen him in particular to be her next conquest.
Because the man that Megan presently had backed into a corner and had glued her lips to was, of course, Nathan Scott.
At first, Haley looked on in shock, trying to get her head around the fact that the man she'd spoken to perfectly cordially earlier on in the evening was the same man who had treated her with such contempt during their tutoring session and that that same man had been foolish enough to fall for Megan's fluttering eyelashes and heaving cleavage. But then, as her mind adjusted to this new information, she realised that it made perfect sense: Megan's interest in Nathan was obvious, though quite how she'd discovered his identity was a mystery, but she the epitome of the type of women that Nathan had been telling her about earlier. She was vapid and conceited and was clearly only interested in him for his money and his wealth, so she fitted his type perfectly but she had a feeling that Nathan could more than hold his own against Megan and that she might have actually met her match.
The clock in the ballroom let out a loud chime, breaking her from her reverie and reminding her that she had far more important things to attend to than Megan and Nathan's tryst. She turned away from the room and rushed back down the corridor to the ballroom, knowing that it would be too late to try and call Peyton now to remind her to leave as it was already midnight and the sound of the clock would doubtless drown out her words anyway. In her mind, she hoped that the sound of the chimes would bring Peyton out from wherever it was that she might have been and that she would get home safely. It was her job, therefore, to keep an eye on Claudia and try and stall her leaving for as long as possible to give Peyton a fighting chance of getting home and changed in time for their arrival.
As she reached the ballroom, people began to cheer and take off their masks, pointing at one another as friends recognised each other and strangers put faces to voices. The band played on through the increased chatter, though most of the dancing had stopped whilst people revealed their identities. Above all this, the clock kept on calling out the hour with more tolls that rang out over the room.
Then, before the chimes had finished, a couple of the French windows to Haley's right burst open and Peyton ran through them, her skirts hitched up out of the way of her feet and her hair coming free from its style in wisps. She looked around the room in panic but wasted no time in stopping and carried on running through the crowd, dodging past people until they opened up a pathway for her. Haley's eyes darted over to Claudia to see if she had noticed her stepdaughter's entrance but, mercifully, she was still too distracted by the rich man whose bicep she was squeezing. When Haley had turned her attention back to Peyton, she just had time to see her passing through the ballroom doors before she disappeared.
No sooner had she gone from the ballroom, then another person ran through the doors she had entered through. It was the man Peyton had been dancing with earlier but that was not who Haley recognised him as first. Lucas pushed his way through the crowd frantically and it took Haley a moment to put two and two together and remember him as Peyton's mystery gentleman. She gasped as the realisation hit her and she didn't know if she should be happy for one friend that he had just unwittingly had the romantic liaison with the girl he'd been pining after for years or concerned that she had just seen the other friend running away from him looking like a deer caught in the headlights. She was desperate to know what was going on but, unfortunately, both parties who would be able to tell her were otherwise occupied and so she knew she'd just have to wait to find out.
Lucas ran through the doors Peyton had just exited through, followed by a cameraman who had undoubtedly been discharged by Dan, as even though Haley couldn't see him at that moment she knew he would have been watching his nephews like a hawk for the whole evening.
Unsure as to what she should do next in the face of such unexpected circumstances, Haley glanced over at Claudia again, who had taken a break from flirting to look up at the clock as apparently the twelve deafening peals it had just emitted hadn't informed her of the time. She began to draw back from her partner and Haley started moving towards her, desperately trying to think of ways to delay her going off to look for her children.
A tremendous roaring noise above them saved Haley the trouble of thinking of strategies. The room seemed to shake from the sheer force of it. In the relative quiet caused by the events of the past few minutes, the sound filled the room. Many of the guests pressed their hands over their ears and stared up at the ceiling as though if they squinted at it hard enough they might somehow be able to see through it to the cause of the racket. Haley kept her eyes rooted onto Claudia, relieved to see that she, like everyone else, was rooted to the spot by the noise. Then the warm glow of the ballroom created by the grand chandelier on that hung from the ceiling was invaded by a bright white light bursting in through the windows on the right-hand side of the building.
One of the cameramen, that Haley saw to be Skills, broke free from the ranks of terrified guests and ran through the open windows to investigate. Slowly, people began to move forward to follow him outside, filing out cautiously as they were unsure as to what awaited them in the garden. Haley ignored them and carried on staring at Claudia, waiting for her to make a move as, no matter how intrigued she was as to what was going on outside, she wasn't going to go and investigate it at the expense of letting Claudia out of her sight. For Peyton's sake, she had to stay and stop her from leaving for as long as possible, so she silently willed Claudia to follow everyone else outside.
To Haley's immense relief, curiosity got the better of Claudia and she began to head for the doors that lead outside as well and Haley followed her at a distance. Once outside, Claudia wasted no time in pushing her way through the crowd of onlookers towards the front and Haley trailed on in her wake, slipping past people as inconspicuously as she could, all the while keeping Claudia in her field of vision. The light was stronger and more blinding out in the open so Haley had to squint against it to see properly but once she was close to the front of the crowd, she could make out the shape of a helicopter against its spotlight that was pointed at the ground, flooding the garden with light.
The helicopter hovered just above the ground and those gathered outside jostled to get a better look at it without having to get any closer to it. For a moment, nothing more happened and people began to wonder aloud just what the helicopter was doing at the ball and if perhaps it could be part of some surprise the Scotts were putting on.
Then, the door of the helicopter slid open with a metallic groan and a person half-jumped, half-fell from inside it onto the grass below. The stranger staggered forward, their hair and clothing being whipped into a frenzy around them by the wind the helicopter's blades were creating. A gasp went up from the crowd as the beam from the spotlight illuminated the blood splatters that covered the person from head to toe and the clumps of it that were matted into their hair.
Haley found herself moving forward unconsciously, breaking free from the edges of the crowd and getting closer and closer to the helicopter and its grisly passenger. Her eyes were no longer fixed on Claudia but on the spectacle before her, her stomach filled with a sickening dread as her body knew with certainty who this blood-soaked stranger was before her brain would let her admit it.
Then, the person lifted their head a fraction so she could properly see their face and all doubt was lost. Haley knew who it was and her heart contracted within her at the knowledge.
With a shaking voice, she called out to her dishevelled friend, 'Brooke?'
A/N: Boom! I'm so happy this is done and posted, it's such a relief! I apologise again for the lack of Brooke in this chapter but as you can see from the ending that she's going to be a big part in the next one. Because of the length of this chapter, I've skimmed through it but I honestly didn't have it in me to check it properly for mistakes so I'm very sorry for any errors in it. The next one definitely won't be this long so hopefully I'll have it posted a lot faster than this one. Hope you liked this chapter and if you review it would make my day!
