A/N: Posting early because I'm reading a fantastic book at the moment (Constellations by Sinéad Gleeson, for anyone curious) and I want to devote my attention to that tomorrow when I'm awake enough to properly appreciate it, and not be battling with my laptop.
On another note, we're now officially into the second half of this fic. This chapter is another one that I am particularly fond of. Low-key inspired by 'The Lady is Dancing With Me' by Chris LeDoux, though the storyline of the song has no bearing on the chapter. It is simply where the idea of a Cattleman's Ball came from.
I hope you enjoy this update, and please do review!
Dawn is just breaking when at last he makes it home. It has been a reasonably quiet Fourth of July, only a handful of idiots shooting at things other than the sky and three brawls, two knifings. A thousand times better than the carnage of last year.
Still, the day has been too long. Was too long even without Darius' bridle and stirrup strap breaking during the race. But they were not simple breaks, were they? If they were, he wouldn't feel so out of sorts now, so on edge as if there is someone waiting in every shadow.
(The ruling was that he was still on the horse as he crossed the line in front of Luther Jones' bay mare, and so the consensus is that though he was half-off at the time, he still won. He tried to give half of the money to Aman, to cover the damages, but Aman refused, looking faintly green.)
He checked the bridle in the morning, and the saddle, and so did Aman. Both were in perfect condition, and Aman has always kept his tack to the highest standard. So how could they simply break?
They didn't. He knows that, saw the evidence of it with his own eyes. The breaks were too straight, too neat. The underside of the leather straps must have been sliced with a knife, between morning and tacking up for the race, when he was running late after pulling Josiah Donovan off that German fiddle player and had no time to give things a last once over. If someone had wanted Darius to lose, there were other forms of sabotage. A small piece of sponge up his nose, a sharp kick to his shin. A pebble jammed into the frog of one of his hooves. No. If someone had targeted Darius, there were better ways than sabotaging the tack.
And everyone knew it was not Aman due to ride the horse, but him.
The peace that fills him with the realisation that someone tried to kill him, someone hoped the bridle and stirrup would snap in the thick of the race and he be trampled, is a relief.
Someone trying to kill him he can deal with.
So long as that someone doesn't harm a hair on Christine's head.
His heart twists at the thought of the girl, his wife, and lips tingle with the memory of her kiss. She kissed him. She really kissed him. It was not his imagination. Why would she do a thing like that? Clearly it means she likes you and was happy to see you safe. Aman's words echo in his ears from barely twelve hours ago (God, has it been half a day already? And Philippe just cocked a brow and gave him an I told you so look) and he swallows.
She likes him. She really likes him enough to want to see him well. He will admit he suspected as much with the way she was always there when he was confined to bed, but suspecting it and having her kiss him on the mouth are two very different things.
And kiss him on the mouth she did.
They have not spoken of the kiss, but he still feels it as if it is fresh-pressed to his lips again. There was too much to do, too much to see to. Darius, and the fallout of the race, and Aman, and keeping the peace. He let her go with what he hopes was a smile and not some distorted grimace (he wants it to have been a smile, doesn't want her to think she made a mistake), and with trembling hands turned his attention back to the horse.
Christine is sleeping quietly, now, face pale in the watery dawn light. She has neglected to close her curtains again, and it woud hardly be right to let the bright sunlight bother her. As silently as he can, he slips across the room and pulls the curtains closed. They rattle on the rail and a whimper comes from the bed. He darts back to the door.
It would not do, to be discovered in her room as she sleeps. She might think he was spying on her. But he glances back to the bed, and she hasn't stirred, one hand still curled on the pillow beside her head, fingers pale and still.
For a moment, one mad moment, he wants to kiss her on the forehead. His lips burn with longing, but he purses them tight. It is one thing for her to kiss him in celebration of his survival. But she would hardly appreciate it if he kissed her in her sleep.
However chaste a kiss it might be.
He closes the door softly behind him as he retreats, and resolves himself to try to sleep.
They have twenty minutes to get to the hotel for the Cattleman's Ball, and the walk takes fifteen on a good day, never mind when his legs are aching from the long night and the race and he'll have Christine on his arm, but she's still not ready. What she and Beth could be doing in there that could take this long he has no clue and he's not sure he really wants to know. Does it always take women this long to get dressed?
Granted, he hasn't seen the dress. She gave him one of the smiles that make his heart flutter in that odd and troubling way, and told him he would have to wait. Maybe it has to be tied in a complicated fashion.
Women's clothes are an unfathomable nightmare.
Thank God he's never had to know to undress one of them.
(His cheeks burn at the very thought.)
He consults his watch. Nineteen minutes. Taps his fingers against his knee, turns his hat in his lap, forces himself to take his hands off it. It wouldn't do to crease it.
He's gone to the trouble of buying himself a new suit for the occasion, a very fine dove grey with a matching frock coat. He's paired it with a burgundy cravat that he's always been fond of, and a silk shirt in pale pink. The silver cufflinks were a gift from the Cattleman's Association for helping them with a rustling situation, and with his white mask he is reasonably certain that he looks better than he ever has before in his life.
Philippe certainly would think so, but his hip is giving him too much grief after the excitement of yesterday for him to be here. Aman took one look at him and passed his presentation more than sufficient.
He might look well now, a proper candidate for marshal, but he'll look even better with Christine on his arm.
If she's ever ready.
Eighteen minutes and there is a knocking on the door. He loops his watch and settles it carefully back into his pocket, stands and checks his gun at his hip. He is the only man who can attend the Cattleman's Ball openly heeled (though he suspects any number of derringers and small knives will be present), but he's not taking any chances and he know the ranchers respect that. A couple of them, Malley and Eldridge, are committed Democrats, but possibly this endeavour and his solution to the rustling will help to sway them.
He settles on his hat, and reasons that any man who might attack him in his own home is unlikely to knock first.
Sure enough the door opens, and Max steps in, badge shining pinned to his chest. "I thought you might want the buggy," and his smile is knowing. "It'll get you there faster than walking, but you'll have to walk home. Jones claims he needs it."
Erik is almost ashamed that he never thought of the buggy, but in fairness it has been an exceptional few days. "Thank you, Max."
Sometimes, he wonders what he would ever do without his men.
Max's eyes twinkle. "I'll even drive it for you, so you can show off your wife."
Erik fights a snort. "You truly do think of everything."
A shrug. "Beth might have made a suggestion."
The mention of her name seems to act as a summons, and as if on command the door to Christine's room clicks open behind him. He turns in time to see Beth step out, and she smiles at him, a smile that becomes a grin when she looks over his shoulder at Max, before her attention turns back to him. "Your lady awaits," and her eyes dance.
Those words must be the cue, and from behind her comes Christine, gliding out. Her teal dress, and the hint of make-up about her face bring out her eyes (were they always so blue?), her golden hair curled in neat ringlets, a shimmering blue wrap around her shoulders. She comes towards him, and he offers his hand, feeling oddly disjointed, his mouth dry as her fingers curl around his own, heart hammering in his chest.
God but she's beautiful. How did he not notice how beautiful she is before?
She is a jewel, truly.
He has never been so dazzled. It is all he can do to focus, to act and not to stare, but it feels as if half his brain has ceased to work. He smiles weakly at her, tells her she looks wonderful, helps her outside and upd into the buggy, sits beside her and holds her gloved hand as Max drives them through the street, and all the time feels as if he is looking at the world through water, as if he is not himself. They arrive at the hotel, and he helps her out, and leads her in on his arm, and introduces her as, "my wife, Christine Lamonte" to Henderson and Jones and Eldridge and Patterson and Larson and McAndrews and their wives and the others, and still feels as if he is somehow outside himself, as if he might be dreaming.
It is only when he takes his first sip of bourbon, and she has been taken in by the growing circle of ladies, most of them praising her dress and her looks, that he feels as if he is coming back to himself.
"Congratulations are in order," Jones says, lighting his cigar, and the other ranchers make noises of affirmation, "I'm sure you'll be very happy together."
The words are music to Erik's heart.
There is politicking and it is exhausting and dull. Every time he looks, Christine is talking to one or more of the ladies, but he brings her glasses of champagne when he can (three, in total) and every time he does she smiles that smile at him. He is thankful that the ladies are being good to her, and seem to believe the story he put around town that they met in Cheyenne when he was on business, but that she was forced, for a time, to return to New Orleans. Better they believe that than the truth. If it got around that he chose her out of a catalogue, they'd look on her as if she were a whore.
They dance, twice, and each time he can barely follow the steps though Trev drilled him on them, and he knows Trev also helped Christine. She is so light in his arms, so unbelievably dainty, and he has not danced with a woman since his days as an officer during the war (and once with Aman, when they were both young and drunk), and she leans into him at all the right places, her body warm pressed into his, and it's all he can do not to shiver, all he can do not to pull her closer.
He would slow down time if he could, reduce it just to this. Christine in his arms, smiling, blue eyes shining. The noise of the crowd fading to a hush around them. The violinist playing a soft waltz that rings out solitary and haunting, piercing straight to his heart so that his throat is dry and his pulse is racing and his head is light. Her hip warm beneath his hand. Her hand light on his shoulder. The way she presses, just a little closer, (or does she? Is it his imagination?), her lips parted. And her lips are so soft. Were soft after the race in that rush when he was finding his feet, and had to steady her in his arms, but they look even softer tonight, as soft as rose petals and he might kiss her, but a kiss in the moment like the one they shared is so very different to a kiss while dancing, and he holds himself back, swallowing the remembered taste of her on his tongue, and musters a smile.
Letting her go is unthinkable, yet for all she is smiling at him she would surely not appreciate being held even closer, and if she was closer, if he held her longer, he might weaken and give in to the tingling in his lips that tells him to kiss her.
The Ball is still ongoing when they take their leave, and will be until dawn or later. But no one questions his leaving early with his new wife, not when it is known how busy he has been, and he pleads that he feels a headache coming on, the result of overexertion on his injury that is not yet fully healed. And if they believe him he can't know, but he suspects they've formed their own conclusions, especially when Eldridge quirks his brow and wishes them a good night, his eyes seeming to sparkle.
He suspects he knows what those conclusions are. But the ranchers need not know that he has no intention of such things, and certainly not tonight when his body is crying out for sleep.
They walk home arm-in-arm, beneath the sky of stars. The streets are quiet, the Milky Way strung across the sky like a string of pearls. He should buy her a string or two of pearls. They would look very delicate around her neck, and when he voices the thought her laugh fills the air, and makes his heart swell. What has gotten into him? What are these strange feelings? He wonders, again, for what must be the hundredth time since she stepped down off that stage, if he might be ill. But all of the times he has been ill before, and shot, and feverish, it has never felt as heady as this, as strangely intoxicating.
It's better than alcohol. Better than opium. Better, even, than Vin Mariani.
They part in the parlour, with him pressing a light kiss to her forehead, wishing her sweet dreams. For a moment he considers kissing her lips, leans closer as if he might brush them, just lightly, just the faintest pressure. His heart is throbbing, blood racing in his ears, mouth dry and just as he is about to touch her, about to feel those sweet lips beneath his, his nerve fails him, and he draws back.
She gives him a slight smile, and releases his hand, and it is as if something inside has withered as he watches her slip into her room, and then, shoulders slumped, goes into his own. Aman is taking care of the office for the night, and as he hangs his frock coat, and takes the silver studs from his cuffs, he wonders, again, if he should have kissed her.
It would have been nice, just to feel her, like the way she kissed him after the race, the way her lips parted his, and she sighed softly into his mouth, and he could taste her all day, every time that he swallowed.
Would it be too forward to kiss her like that?
Might she want him to?
Should he go to her now, invent something to ask her, maybe about the other ladies, and kiss her as he leaves?
He could blame it on the champagne…
He has just turned back to the door, fixing his cravat so he will not look dishevelled as he goes to her, and comes to an abrupt halt, heart racing, as it opens. For a moment, one utterly glorious moment, he thinks he has been spared the walk, thinks she has come to him to kiss him once again, but he blinks and the blond figure resolves itself from Christine into—
—into De Chagny Junior.
It is on the tip of his tongue to say something about how he left express orders not to be disturbed, but then he sees how pale the boy is, as pale as the night Philippe was wounded, and there is blood on his hands, staining his shirt sleeves, blood so brightly red in the gas light, and his heart lurches, his head spinning.
Not Aman. Please God not Aman.
Raoul's voice is rough before he can ask.
"Trev has been attacked."