I have no clue where this came from and it's the weirdest pairing ever. Well, almost. But it was fun and angsty to write!
Story Fourteen
Title: Liberated
Rating: K
Summary: Why was it so stifling in there?
He's trapped. There aren't many young ladies not dancing, and he has no one to talk to. He's never even met the gentlemen lining the walls, the older women sipping champagne by the doorway, waiting for the clock the strike ten-thirty so they can get out of here without seeming foolish.
He's trapped, and he's going to have to dance with me. If he doesn't, he'll seem inconsiderate to everyone in our acquaintance. Rather like a Mr. Darcy of the Victorian era or a Romeo who only has eyes for Rosaline and barely notices Juliet, not that I ever fancied books and plays.
"Miss Worthington, may I…?"
Gemma's brother bows slightly, all formality but not making it past the beginning of this query. I don't answer him. I just take his hand and let him guide me to the ballroom floor. A waltz is playing. We move around lazily yet stiffly, eyeing other couples and frowning.
I know why he doesn't like me. It's apparent, really, and I'm not going to say anything, except he brings it up first. "How did you know Miss Bradshaw, again?" He says it as if Ann has passed away. As if she's long gone and nearly forgotten.
"We went to Spence together," I say.
"It was quite unfortunate…" He trails off again. I finally manage to look into his eyes and am surprised to see that he can barely hold my gaze steady. Gemma always makes him out to be so witty and confident and infuriating, but he definitely seems like none of those right now.
"It was all my idea," I tell him, even though he knows. "Blame it on me."
He meets my eyes now—brownish green, like the earth, glancing at a stormy gray. "It was nice of you, I suppose," he eventually concedes.
We nearly stop moving as we look at each other. I think that he's a pompous bastard for letting Ann go like that and caring so about Gemma's reputation. I can only begin to imagine what he thinks about me, and although I tell myself not to care, I do.
When the dance ends, we break away immediately. All formalities are ignored. I'm out of his reach within seconds and out the nearest exit, hoping to catch a breath of fresh air. Why was it so stifling in there? is all that I can bring myself to think. Why was it so closed in?
One simple footstep causes the endless outdoors to seem stifling and closed in. I hear Tom's step behind me, a clearing of the throat. I will myself not to turn around. I will Tom to not be Tom, but somebody else. Someone who will take me away from here and from every conflicting feeling that I have. Someone like…
But that someone isn't who I turn around to see upon giving up. It's Tom, of course. Perhaps he's good-looking, maybe. He doesn't seem to know a thing about how to woo a woman, though, sneaking up on me in the darkness like that. I'm about to tell him so when he says, "It was nice of you."
"I'm not nice," is the only think I can manage to say, and immediately I regret it.
"You could be," he says, offering something, although I'm not sure what.
I want to prove him wrong, though. I want to close the distance between us and kiss him passionately or perhaps viciously. Not because I'm attracted to him or because I want him to make it all go away or because I want to make someone jealous or to make someone actually want me. I want to prove him wrong. I want to kiss him and then slap him. To hold his hand and then disdain him. To dance a waltz with him and then run away, although I've already done that.
I do none of those things, though. Instead, I head towards the door, passing him on my way. An involuntary shiver runs down my spine, but I blame it on the cold, running my freezing hands up and down my ice-cold arms. "Perhaps," I say, and then I'm inside and liberated once more and that is that.