Dix: Argent

The single candle flame guttered; the pen nib scratched across the paper in ever more desperate circles. Its rasp was the only sound in the room as row upon row of faceless, exquisitely bound books looked down, disapproving of such frivolity within their sanctum. Bare golden arms with fingers stained black from strain stretched up toward the painted ceiling, fingertips pushing, pushing towards an unseen God. As their possessor looked back down to scatter sand over the wet ink, she could but hope that He would answer her prayers.

She could but hope for a miracle.

"In my experience, it does not do well to interfere with affairs of the heart."

"If the course of true love will not run in my favour, I have no choice."

~#~

Lady Lillian van der Woodsen humbly requests the pleasure of

The Honourable Miss Blair Waldorf

Lord Charles Bass, Marquis of Winchester

Lord Marcus Beaton, Viscount Shrewsbury

at

A small tea party to be given at the family residence

on

Friday the twenty-sixth

~#~

Blair tried to restrain her mutinous expression to a mere quirk of the lips, instead smoothing down the skirt of her dove grey gown before resuming both her teacup and her part in the conversation. All summoned had, naturally, replied in the affirmative to the invitation, and as such fallen directly into Serena's beastly trap. For the life of her, Blair could not comprehend why her friend would choose to afflict her in such a way; it appeared that affianced women lost their minds as well as their rights to keep their ring fingers unburdened when they became glassy eyed – as she knew without a doubt Serena had, for even the saccharine novels young ladies of the ton so favoured and Blair so disdained were enough to make her squeeze out a few tears – and sobbed out some sibilant sound which in no way resembled a 'yes'. Nevertheless, she was here now, and faced with the indignity of having to take tea with a person whose lifestyle made the most decadent days of the Roman Empire seem comparable to this supposedly innocent tea party.

"Lord Marcus," said Lily pleasantly, and the fish turned his head away from silent contemplation of a vase of flowers on the sideboard and widened his watery blue eyes to indicate sentience. "I do not believe I have yet had the pleasure of meeting your lady mother. Lord Beaton, of course, I knew in my youth –" She let out a light, insincere laugh which made Blair's eyebrows itch with the desire to become better acquainted with her hairline. "But not the duchess. How does she do?"

"My stepmother," replied The Lord, regarding Lily with so much consternation that it seemed as though, in his own mind, she had asked him to recite from the encyclopaedia rather than in regards to a simple matter of health. "Is very well, thank you." He blinked wetly. "She prefers to reside at our country estate, where the air is cleaner. She is of a...that is to say...in rather a delicate condition."

"How lovely!" Serena exclaimed, and then winced as Blair's fingernails dug deeply into her arm beneath the concealment of one gauzy sleeve.

"Indeed."

Blair shut her eyes and bit her tongue as the resonant drawl of those two syllables conveyed everything – arrogance, narcissism, disdain, amusement, boredom, frustrated pleasure – to her, and yet seemed nothing more than a cool observation to all others present. When she resumed her austere gaze upon the room at large, however, he was not looking at her; instead, his eyes were focused upon Lord Marcus with the kind of anticipation usually seen in the eyes of a snake before it strikes the life from a helpless rabbit. Blair felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise as she sensed the blow even before it was ready to fall, and braced herself for it.

"Lord Shrewsbury," Chuck began, in a tone which was innocent enough to convey none of his usual cynicism and therefore verging on seraphic for him personally. "You and our dear Miss Waldorf –" This lugubriously, with a look in Blair's direction which she deflected with an expression of stone. "Have had an undeniably short acquaintance, and it was just occurring to me that, as such, she may not have had a chance to share her favourite works of literature with you. The Bride of Lammermoor, naturally, by Sir Walter Scott, Mr Dickens' Bleak House and...what was it?" The look in between them intensified in strength and, on one side, antipathy. "Ah, yes. Persuasion. Such a tragic tale at the outset, with poor Anne already forced out of the arms of her lover by the thoughts and wishes of others."

But you do not love me, Blair accused him silently. And Captain Wentworth loved Anne utterly for herself, even though he tortured her publicly with words on inconstancy. You love no one so much as yourself.

"And yet," she said aloud, in a guileless tone which was meant to express as much to the company. "They are reunited when the bonds of love between them prove too strong to break, even over the course of so many years. He was her white knight, her true heart's breath –" His dark golden eyes narrowed as she quoted his words of that night in the carriage back at him. Blair had the instincts of a killer, gifted to her by a mother who believed that the only true joy in life was the decimation of others. "Their passion for one another was no game, and no other maiden would have suited the good captain save the one whom he loved."

Chuck gave one curt nod as he acknowledged the hit and then stood, abrupt and impolite in the centre of one of the most elegant drawing rooms in London. "Lady van der Woodsen, if you would excuse me." He made a stiff bow in Lily's direction and another in Serena's before stalking from the room with his coat tails following on like a sleek black ghost behind him. Almost immediately, Blair rose with only a little more decorum, and swept their hostess one of her finest.

"Lady van der Woodsen, pray excuse me also."

"A headache," Lily supplied helpfully. "Take a turn in the garden my dear, before you rejoin us."

Blair shot her friend's mother a veiled smile at the tacitly conveyed information, then made sure her spine was ramrod straight and her steps measured as she turned towards the door of the drawing room, made a quiet and dignified exit and then, once out of view of those still within, dropped any semblance of calm still remaining, picked up her skirts and ran down the polished hall to the door which she knew would open onto the garden. Her heart was suddenly racing, and she knew not why; or more, she did know, but the fear which accompanied that frantic heartbeat was too great to allow her to express it. A maid started in alarm as Blair passed, then eyed her askance as she wrenched open the door by its elegant golden handle, rushing out into a rain and wind ravaged garden where the late afternoon sun hung low and blood red in a leaden sky. Almost instantly, she was drenched. Shaking tendrils of hair out of her eyes and shivering with a chill which seemed to penetrate to her bones, she looked around for Chuck.

He was standing beneath a tree – but of course he was. She was only surprised he was not beating his head against the trunk like Heathcliff and moaning 'Blair' at regular intervals. This thought, however was scotched by another realisation which laced the drumming in her breast with another, deeper poison: that was another love story, and hers...hers was not.

He was speaking even as she approached, the pins in her hair loosened by the wet and beginning to tumble into the sodden grass, though his eyes were fixed upon the tree bark as though it might afford him some answers. "Your lord...do you truly feel the same for him as Anne did for Wentworth? As Serena does for Nate?"

Blair insinuated herself in the space between tree and Chuck, and despite the proximity could feel nothing but the deepest cold running through her veins. When he looked at her, he looked with eyes that were not hard and frozen but soft, desolate; eyes which held the look of a lonely child, abandoned by its peers, and the tears rose to Blair's own eyes as she looked back into them. He was an empty husk, standing there before her, dark hair plastered flat to his skull in the rain. This sodden, heart rending scene was set for some glorious declaration of love and healing, Blair observed, before her mind returned automatically to their wager and the consequences if she were to forget herself enough to lose.

"I...I do."

The words fell like a hammer blow in the otherwise silent garden, and Chuck looked back at her as if it were he who had been struck. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if in too much pain to bear the grey twilight of the deluge which seemed ripe to drown them. Then, as gently as a cat chastising the most recalcitrant of its kittens, his fingers closed so softly, so lightly around her throat. They were still for a moment, as Blair too closed her eyes and relished the sensation of his cool touch on her flesh. She recognised the message in the caress; his words only affirmed it.

"Goodbye, Blair."

And yet it was as if he had gripped her with the hand of a monster and squeezed the breath from her body. The damp grass soaked Blair's skirts as her knees gave out beneath her, dropping into a deep genuflection as his hand fell away from her throat. He had won, it was beyond protestation – when she was his to command in every way, falling at his feet like a concubine whose only wish to please her master even if it cost her life and her dignity to do so. His steps were silent as they took him away from her, and for that she was grateful. She was grateful for the small mercy of not having to hear the end begin over, and over, and over again, as she was sure it would every empty night for the rest of her life.

When Blair re-entered the drawing room, her face was a smooth mask of composure. Serena followed behind, surreptitiously tucking the remainder of the pins she had saved from the garden mulch into the reticule at her waist. The grey gown Blair was now wearing had been lent, and was too long in the skirt and in the sleeves and of a different style to the one she had come to tea wearing, but it was enough to fool The Lord. He gulped as they came in.

"My lord Marcus," Blair said dully. "I find myself tired. Would you perhaps accompany me home once more?"

All in the room knew what his wet amorous looks towards the darkly handsome young woman meant, and all knew what question would be asked and answered – in the affirmative – in the dark closeness of the carriage. Lily watched the blank face of her almost ward, and her heart went out to the wreck that Eleanor's indifference, Serena's vanity and Chuck's hapless and equally helpless cruelty had created. She was looking at a priceless jewel, she knew, into the heart of a diamond of incalculable worth which had been cast out from its setting and now lay in the mud, waiting to be picked up by any adventurer simply in the hope of being useful if it could not shine.

She only wondered how long it would take for misery and self loathing to turn Blair to dross.


Sorry for the long wait, loves, and thank you for your patience. My dissertation is now finished (squee!) and will hopefully be judged fit for purpose when I showcase it in a few weeks. I'm now back at school and in my final year, so life will hopefully run pretty much linearly from now on. Now, the usual felicitations, gratitude, love and worship goes to: BiteMeBass, violetka, Star-crossed92, BassKingdom, Seriouslyhappy, JustRaeInc, Maudie, LovelyAmanda, comewhatmay.x, Infinitywr, Itconsumesme, SaturnineSunshine, TriGemini, abelard, chuckandblair2456, Krazy4Spike, CBBW3words8letters, vivalachair, annablake, tvrox12, Guardian Izz (sorry, more 'I...I'ing in this chapter ;-)), animeLCgrl, odyjha, niinjjakiitten and RedheadObsession. I wish everyone a fantastic new academic year, and special thanks goes to those who fought through wind and rain to doubly review me, even anonymously. Each and every person who reads this story deserves a Chuck in the hand, one in the bush, and one in a soaking wet shirt.