Chapter two

Disclaimer: This is a retelling of the story of The Luxe by Anna Gobberson, using the characters and locations of Vampire Diaries, that belongs to L.J Smith. In other words; I own NOTHING.

Cloakroom one o'clock

BB

Bonnie Bennett saw her mother ascend the twisted marble staircase on the far side of the ballroom, supported by some big older fellow whom she felt sure she knew. Their family friend and accountant, Stanley Brennan, trailed behind. Just before they moved out of view and toward some surely lavished second story smoking room, Mrs. Bennett looked back, caught Bonnie's eye, and gave her an admonishing glance. Bonnie cursed herself for being spotted and then briefly considered staying in the grand central ballroom to patiently wait for one of her cousins to ask her to dance. But patience was not in Bonnie Bennett's nature.

Besides, she had been so proud of her cunning writing the little invitation during a freshening up in the ladies' dressing room earlier in the evening. She then slipped it to the architect Webster Youngham's assistant who was stationed near the arched entryway in order to explain the many architectural references that had been incorporated into the Gilbert family's new home. She had pushed her way through the crowd, curtsied, clasped his hand, and palmed him the note. "You truly are an artist Mr. Youngham." She said, knowing full well that Mr. Youngham was already drunk on martinis and lounging in one of the card rooms upstairs.

"But I'm not Mr. Youngham," he told her, looking adorably confused. As soon as she saw that look, Bonnie knew that she'd hooked him. "I'm Ben Miller, his assistant."

"Nevertheless." She winked before disappearing back into the crowd. Ben had broad shoulders and dreamy gray eyes, and if he was just an assistant he seemed like someone who had gone places and done things. She hadn't seen anyone nearly so nice looking in the intervening hour.

So Bonnie picked up her skirt and moved quickly between the enormous planters and the wall. She looked behind her once before leaving the ballroom to make sure no one was watching and then slipped into the cloakroom. It was massive and overly ornamented, Bonnie thought, especially for a room that was chiefly occupied by coats. It didn't matter to them that the room was Moorish-themed with a colorful mosaic floor and antiqued displayed in the turret shaped alcoves carved from the walls.

Bonnie looked around her, trying to locate her French lieutenant's coat. She had come dressed as her heroine of her favorite novel, Trilby, who appears for a first time on a break from her job as an artist's model in a petticoat, and slippers, and a solder's coat. Bonnie had not been allowed to wear a petticoat without a skirt, but she had the thrill of having gotten away with something, just wearing the rest of the costume at all. Her mother had even had a shepardess costume made for her so that she would match her older sister, Katherine, which would have been hideous in addition to humiliating. Instead here she was in a satisfyingly bohemian red and white striped skirt and a simple white cotton bodice that she had ripped in a few places on the sly. No one got it of course; all the other girls her age were conformists at heart and seemed to have dressed up as themselves, only with more powder and artificially narrowed waists.

She was just beginning to wonder if one of the servants hadn't mistaken a perfectly shabby gray coat for her own, when she was startled by one single clang from the clock in the corner she gasped surprised and stepped back –a little unsteadily from all the champagne she had been sneaking- and when she did she felt the chest of a man and a pair of hands on her hips. Her whole body rushed from the adrenaline.

"Oh hello," she tried to make her voice flat and indifferent, even though this was by far the most exciting thing to happen to her all evening.

"Hello." Ben's mouth was very close to her ear.

Bonnie turned slowly and met his eyes. "I hope you brought the cigarettes." She said, trying not to smile too much.

Ben had short straight eyebrows set far apart, which made his eyes look open and earnest. "I didn't think ladies of your class were allowed to smoke."

Bonnie affected a pout. "So you didn't bring ciggies?"

He paused, his eyes lingering on her in a way that made her feel not at all like a lady. "Oh no, I brought them. It's just that I'm not sure I should give you one or not…" Bonnie noticed a little mischief in his eye, and concluded that it must be the glimmer of a kindred spirit.

"What do I have to do to convince you?" she asked, turning her head jauntily.

"This is serious, what you are asking me to do." He replied, with an air of put on gravity. Then he laughed. Bonnie liked the sound of it. "You're pretty." He told her smiling unabashedly, now.

Bonnie and her sister could not have shared more physical characteristics and looked less alike. Like Katherine, she had the small features and round mouth of the Bennett woman, although she still had the softness of her baby fat. She liked to think that her dark hair added a certain mystery, although it was in truth a sort of medium brown and untamable. Her eyes were always described as vivid. And of course she and her sister had e same chin, -her mother's-. She hated her chin. "Oh I'm all right." She answered him, glowing with false modesty.

"Much better than all right." He continued to observe her as he pulled a cigarette out of his breast pocket. He lit one and handed it to her.

Bonnie took a drag and tried not to cough. She loved smoking –or the idea of smoking- but it was hard to practice with her mother and the staff always watching her. She was pulling it off though; at least she thought she was, exhaling little puffs into the air. It felt right, especially with all the metallic and turquoise detail in the room suggesting some hazy far off locale. She raised an eyebrow, wondering how Ben Miller was going to make his move. "So if you're an architect, does that mean you're an artist?"

"Depends on whom you ask," he replied lightly. "Some of us like to think that we make the most monumental and lasting kind of art."

"That's very nice." Bonnie said blithely. "Because you see, I have been trying to find a real artist."

"Whatever for?" He asked, leaning into the coats and putting his cigarette to his mouth.

"Well, to kiss, of course." Bonnie drew her breath in after she spoke. Even she was occasionally surprised by the audacious things that came out of her mouth.

Ben exhaled thoughtfully; the smoky sweet smell of tobacco surrounded them. For a moment, Bonnie felt like she could have been a million miles off in a tent hidden away in some shack in Tunis or Marrakech, arranging for secret deals in magic powders.

"It occurs to me," Ben started, the hard edges of his southern voice reminding her that she was still in Mystic Falls on a street as familiar as Fifth Avenue, no less. "That you are being a very naughty girl."

"You think so?" Bonnie asked, dragging on her cigarette amusedly. She too, sank into the soft wall of coats, moving closer to Ben.

"Well how often, do young ladies of your class, meet strange older men in closets with all of society a few heartbeats away?"

"What makes you think that there us any comparison between me and the girls of my class?" bonnie pronounced the last two words in disgust. The girls in her class were slaves to the rules, going about life –if you could call it that- like bloodless mannequins. "I told you I was looking for an artist," she went on impatiently. "So if you're going to go on thinking conventionally and just like everyone else, I way as well leave."

Ben smiled and dropped his cigarette onto the black and white marble tiled floor. He stepped on it before shooing it to the corner with his toe. He looked very old to Bonnie all of a sudden, even though he couldn't have been more than twenty. Then he was moving towards her fast. As soon as their lips touched, she knew there wasn't going to be any magic. This was not the heart stopping touch that she had been waiting for all evening, and it didn't help especially that his style of kissing, was mashing one face against another. Her whole body went slack with the disappointment.

Bonnie kissed him back, just to make sure her instinct was correct, but she had been kissed before and she knew what it felt like when it was good. Ben ranked far below Luka Marten, whom she had kissed several times in Saratoga over the summer, and only slightly better than her first kiss, at age thirteen, which had been so acrid an affair that she had vanished the boy's identity from even her own memory.

Bonnie was finally accepting the fact that Ben Miller, architect assistant, was not the kind of artist she was looking for when the door creaked and a foot sounded at the threshold.

"Miss. Bonnie…?" Said a male voice more hurt than shocked.

Bonnie felt Ben's grip tighten momentarily as they turned toward the door. Bonnie noticed Stanley Bennan's long tired face immediately. He was on twenty six –he had taken over from his father as Mr. Bennett's accountant- but his constant anxiety gave him a prematurely aged appearance.

"Your mother. She sent me to check on you." He said haltingly. "To make sure you weren't getting into trouble.

Ben let go of Bonnie's waist and stepped back. He didn't look especially pleased by Brennan's entrance but he kept quiet. Bonnie felt freer instantly, rejoicing as she was in having Ben's rough chin off her face.

"Thank you Brennan." She said. "Would you like to accompany me back to the ballroom?"

Brennan stepped forward cautiously, reaching towards the rips that Bonnie put in her costume. They had widened during the poor excuse of a tryst.

"Oh stop its fine." She lifted an arm for him to take. "Thank you for explaining the Islamic references in the Jonathan Gilbert's coatroom to me. I will remember it always."

She looked back once, and imagined that the grimace on Ben's face was the beginning of his life of a briefly broken man by a disappointment. It was her fate to leave such causalities in her wake, she thought as she and Brennan exited and walked in the direction of the main ballroom.

"I won't tell your mother," Brennan whispered as their shoes shuffled along the gleaming marble corridor. "Though I feel, as you late father's friend that I should remind you that that kind of behavior could be your ruin."

"I'm not afraid." Bonnie said gaily.

"You're like my little sister almost, and it is my responsibility to look after you. Your mother thinks so anyways." He stopped walking as if to convey his seriousness. "If she found out what you have been up to and that I knew about it that would be the end of both of us."

"Well, that is very true." Bonnie paused next to him. They could already hear the shouting and music from the ballroom, and in a moment they would be swept back into the bright lights. Bonnie had turned the corners of her mouth down in a fake pout, even while her eyes shone with flirtation. "But would that really be so bad?"

Then she laughed, grabbed Brennan's hand, and pulled him back into the center of things. She was searching for an inexpressible something, and she wasn't about to let one sour little kiss slow her down.

A/N: Tada! Yes I know now Bonnie is acting like Katherine, but for good reason. I always think Bonnie as the rebellious stubborn type and I always found Katherine the nice little girl before turning. Now tell me what you think.

Review!