Spotted: Mrs. Grimaldi holding a tete-a-tete with Mister Bass at Lord Beaton's ball. Words of war or words of love? Either way, the conversation looked heated, and I for one am looking forward to the devil going up in flames.
For over two weeks, Blair managed to avoid every member of the small party she attended the ill-fated opera with. The same could not be said of Lord Marcus Beaton, who joined her family's dinner party once and called upon her twice.
The first of his visits had been a rather awkward encounter. Her mother sat on the opposite side of the room, mentally planning their wedding right down to lace of the dress her daughter would wear. Blair tried to play the perfect hostess, tried to keep the conversation moving by utilizing her extensive experience as the Ambassador's wife. But hearing Lord Beaton drone on and on about the dogs he breeds at his estate in the northern part of the country turned her into a rather unengaged conversationalist. She had been glad to see him leave and wished he would never return.
Her hopes were dashed when Marcus returned in two days' time with his stepmother for another visit. Their appearance at Rosewood sent the tongues of the society matrons wagging in discussion over what the visit could mean, in discussion over how unpleasant Lord Beaton's stepmother is. Her ability to turn her nose up at everything is rivaled only by that of the Dowager Duchess of Constance.
Still, Lady Catherine Beaton is willing to recognize her stepson's need to marry sooner rather than later. With no son in the nursery, the lineage of their family remains insecure and, although not nearly as important, there is the matter of Marcus' three daughters. Comely girls aged seven, six, and three who will not grow to become refined young ladies without the firm, guiding hand of a mother.
Her impeccable manners and untarnished reputation would have made Mrs. Blair Grimaldi an ideal choice to become the next Lady Beaton. Hesitation for Lady Catherine derived entirely from Mrs. Grimaldi's apparent lack of fertility, confirmed by the presence of neither a son nor daughter in tow upon her return from France. Still, an invitation to the Beaton's ball arrived the day after Lady Catherine and Marcus's visit, and Eleanor had immediately started sketching out the dress she would order for her daughter to wear.
The deep red is a great departure from the solemn colors Blair has become accustomed to seeing on her frame, and she pulls at the fabric in discomfort over the way it clings and accentuates.
"If all goes well tonight," Eleanor twitters. Blair sighs and focuses her gaze on the scenery passing by outside the window. Cyrus touches Eleanor's arm lightly in an attempt to silence her, in an attempt to get her to notice her daughter's displeasure. "I am merely reminding Blair that if all goes well tonight, things could become very advantageous for us."
"My dear," Cyrus entreats gently. Eleanor huffs in reply as she moves her gaze from her husband to focus on her daughter. Her lips purse as she drinks in Blair's appearance, as she notices the poorly masked dark circles under her daughter's eyes.
The carriage slows as it reaches the front steps of the Beaton's estate, and the doors open to expose the opulent house draped in light from the soft glow of candlelit lanterns. Cyrus climbs out first, assists his wife and then his stepdaughter out of the carriage before escorting the pair of lovely ladies towards the ballroom.
Eleanor's eyes take in every aspect of the house and mentally calculate the costs. The Beatons are not as wealthy as the Roses, but their lineage is slightly more prestigious than the name Eleanor gained with her newest marriage. Lord and Lady Rose greet their hostesses upon their entrance to the estate. Eleanor beams at her daughter's perfect pose, narrows her eyes at the way Lady Catherine seems only a trifle pleased with Blair. Cyrus immediately excuses himself to join some of the gentlemen on the far corner of the room, and Eleanor uses the opportunity to speak with her only daughter.
"Only two dances tonight, my dear," Eleanor reminds Blair as they move across the ballroom to join Lady Lillian van der Woodsen, Lady Serena, the Dowager Countess, and Anne's daughter-in-law. "No more. No less."
"I know, Mother," Blair replies icily behind her mask of false serenity. She follows her mother's lead and graciously greets Serena and Lily, hides her flinch of displeasure as Jenny and Anne offer their own salutations.
Blair sits out the first three dances, watches Serena whirl about the ballroom with her full dance card as the four married women beside her discuss the merits of each partner. She scoffs at the way Jenny offers Lily false hope with each pairing, scoffs at the way every woman around her hangs on the word of the former Miss Humphrey. Yet all the while Blair marvels over how Serena has managed to keep her liaison with Mister Daniel Humphrey as secret from everyone, how Serena continues to appear so effortlessly beautiful and happy.
Blair moves through the opened doorway, moves past the men and women clustered about the room as she searches for a safe place to hide. Heavy footsteps – the kind that arise at the failure to pick up one's feet – follow behind her, overpowering the first strains of the set drifting over the crowd's head and replacing the soft music with a thudding annoyance in her ears.
"Where are we going?"
Blair glances at the man following behind her, at the man whose boots snag her slippers with each step as he walks too close to her heels. She did not ask him to join her, and she finds herself becoming increasingly annoyed with his presence. Her mother had insisted he accompany her out of the crowded ballroom following their horrific dance where he stepped on her toes over and over again, although Eleanor had been quick to caution her daughter not slink in dark corners in search of solitude.
"I want to see what lies beyond here," Blair lies through her gracious smile as she leads him into the nearly empty gallery. "The air in the ballroom is so stale."
Blair heads towards the series of long windows overlooking the garden, brushes past the handful of couples holding tete-a-tetes without the watchful gazes of their mothers in her quest for fresh air. The summoning strain of the music encourages the few other couples in the room to rejoin the festivities in the other room. The realization that she had been deserted to remain alone with a man again could have become a suffocating prospect had not her accompaniment been Lord Beaton.
Marcus – being the gentleman he is – frowns at the solitude, pauses in the middle of the narrow room to contemplate the consequences of joining her. Blair is standing at the window, gazing out at the darkness cloaking the gardens from view and he vacillates between his options until a deep voice interrupts his meditation.
"Beaton."
She freezes at the voice, sees Chuck strolling out of the shadows shrouding the door from her peripheral vision. The niceties expected of him as a gentleman are not given. Chuck neither bows nor scrapes in the presence of a Lord, and Blair is unsurprised to find that Lord Beaton is offering more respect than he is being given.
"Mrs. Grimaldi is engaged to me for this dance," Chuck informs Marcus icily, forcefully. Blair opens her mouth to rebuke his lie, but Chuck pushes forward and gestures to the woman by the window with a jerk of his head.
"Since she feels the need for a quieter surrounding, I will wait with her here. No doubt you have engagements of your own in the ballroom."
Blair watches Lord Beaton hesitate for just a moment, glancing once more at Blair before nodding his head in agreement with Chuck's wishes. His decision to leave her alone accompanied confounds her, and she snorts in derision at the words of comfort Chuck offers her.
"Mrs. Grimaldi, I assure you, will be safe with me," Chuck drawls out with a smirk only detectable to the female in the room. "I will return her to Lady Rose at the conclusion of the dance. Until then, I believe her time is mine."
"You do not have to leave, my Lord," Blair calls after Marcus. He glances at her briefly, and the look of terror on his face causes her to furrow her brow in confusion. Marcus could not be foolish enough as to believe she would be safe alone with a man of Chuck's reputation, and she contemplates the extenuating circumstances that might push him into such a belief. Marcus turns on his heel, leaves the pair alone, and shuts the door behind him.
"You might want to find a stronger suit of armor," Chuck informs her. "He left us alone quite quickly for someone so esteemed."
The faint amusement in his voice stirs the anger inside her, and she lifts her chin in dismissal as he moves to stand in front of her.
"I never said I would dance with you," Blair reminds him sharply as she moves to cross her arms, to put up barriers to his advances. He reaches out, catches her hand, and holds it lightly in his own as he raises her fingers to his lips.
"If this dance is not to your liking, we can always join the next set," Chuck replies as his lips skate over her gloved knuckles to his lips. She frowns, yanking her hand out of his grasp.
"I do not dance with men who embarrass me."
"So then why waste a dance on Beaton?" Chuck asks with quirked lips. He speaks as though his comment is a statement rather than a question.
"Lord Beaton," Blair huffs, "is a gentleman. Dancing with him would not be an embarrassment to me or my family."
"A gentleman, you say?" Chuck arches one brown eyebrow as he questions her. "I've never met a gentleman who leaves an unmarried woman alone with a notorious rake."
She falters for a moment, remembers the way Marcus had looked at Chuck before he left her alone with him. Her mind races towards the only logical conclusion, connects the dots so quickly that she seethes with anger.
"Did you threaten him? Or bribe him?"
"I thought knights couldn't be intimidated into compliance," Chuck says with a baiting smirk, with delight over the way she simmers and glares and acts as though she knows everything.
"Lord Beaton is not a knight," Blair replies, exasperated with Chuck's complete lack of decorum or respect for the organization of society. A typical nouveau riche who thinks money rather than class or bloodlines determines one's station in life. "Don't you know anything?"
Chuck pauses for a moment before leaning forward and exhaling his response with a hot, tickling breath against her cheek.
"I know a suit of armor makes for a cold bedfellow."
She closes her eyes at the suggestion, commands herself not to move as a shiver runs up and down her spine. His lips quirk into a smile at the way she reacts, and he slides the back of his hand down her arm leaving a prickle of skin in his wake as he moves to grasp her fingers again.
"Come," Chuck extols. "The music is ending soon, and I would like to claim my dance."
Her eyes fly open, flare in anger as his assumption. She removes her fingers from his grasp yet again, and steps backwards into the large window in order to create distance between them.
"I have not agreed to dance with you," Blair rebukes. "And I do not know what game you are trying to play, but I am not a pawn to be used and then cast aside at your leisure."
"Enough," he demands. His tone is neither drawling nor cynical, but rather sharp and overlaid with a myriad of emotions she cannot detect. "If you are a pawn, Blair, than so am I because I am not in control and it is some higher power that moves us."
"God," she answers incredulously. She has never known Chuck Bass to attend church services; although she is quite sure he would burst into flames if he ever tried. The Lord would not allow the devil incarnate into his home.
"Fate," Chuck corrects as his lips twist into a half-smile, half-grimace. Blair considers his response for one minute then draws a deep breath and rejects the heretical suggestion. Neither fate nor destiny determines the outcomes of one's life.
"You disagree with me?"
"I don't…"
Blair trails off uncomfortably as the already muffled music begins to fade further, as the set culminates, as the dance ends. Her eyes widen in panic, and her gaze shifts to the door. Chuck follows her line of sight, glances back at her and then again at the door before he steps aside and creates an appropriate amount of space between them.
"I look forward to enlightening you during the next dance, then," Chuck replies as the door to the gallery is wrenched open.
He does not wait for her reply, moves towards the sideboard in order to investigate the contents of the decanter sitting atop it. He uncorks the decanter, begins to pour himself a drink into one of the glasses placed atop the sideboard. He pretends not to notice the way she scurries out of the gallery, the way she tries to hide her face from the prying eyes of those couples that have decided to reinvade the space. He swallows the amber liquid in a single gulp before following after her intent upon claiming his dance.
Chuck finds her seated between Lady Rose and Lady van der Woodsen. He greets them both corrigibly enough, doesn't fail to miss the way Lily beams at him. Even though they had been parted for mere moments – certainly not long enough for her to forget – she feigns ignorance at the way he tries to claim his dance. Her stepfather intervenes, encourages his stepdaughter to honor her commitment despite the twin icy glares from both his wife and stepdaughter. He takes Blair's small hand within his own, leads her out onto the dance floor.
"Shall I enlighten you about the truth of fate?"
His question is a soft whisper against her ear, a dangerous invitation to invite him in further than necessary. She ignores him as they revolve around stately figures, as he draws her in and captures her attention until the dancers around them, the crowd, and the room itself fades from her mind.
"Or should I enlighten you as to the benefits of a warm bedfellow?"
"Enough," she snaps. She affixes her gaze on his deep eyes, even though she knows it would be prudent to affix her attention on something else entirely. Prudence, however, stands no change against the magnetism between them, and curiosity stands no chance against Blair's resolve for answers.
"I received your note."
"But not the flowers?"
"Dorota," she pauses, amends her statement at the quizzical quip of his eyebrow. "My maid threw them away. You cannot be sending me flowers."
"I should not," he corrects. "There is a difference."
She looks away from him at his correction and pretends to focus on the steps of this dance. There is no need, though. He matches her skill step for step. The tone of the music changes and instructs the pair to move separately about the room in an exchange of partners for the next few moments. She encircles Mister Collingsworth, passes by Lord Beaton and Nate before rejoining her partner.
"You read the note, though?"
She answers him neither verbally nor with a nod of her head. Rather, he reads her eyes and sees the acknowledgment in their dark depths. He watches her curiously, watches her mouth opens and closes as she struggles to find the words.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you send it?"
"Because," he muses on the exhale of a breath. He entrenches her eyes with his own, tries to make her see him the way he sees her. "Because I hurt you."
The end of the song underscores his point, forces her to move away from him before she is ready. She feels like sinking to the floor, but pride keeps her upright as she forces herself to draw a deep breath and he escorts her back to her mother's side. Blair manages to keep her face as impassive as possible; thanks him politely for the dance and watches him return to the shadows of the room.
The weight of the entire room is upon her as eyes stare and voices titter in excitement, compounding the insecurity Blair feels tonight. Her mother hisses her displeasure over the wasting of a dance in her daughter's ear, hisses about how Blair cannot allow herself to be singled out by Charles Bass for his only dance of the night.
Blair finds herself murmuring an apology more to herself than anyone else. Too busy mulling over his words, she loses to him the shadows almost immediately and loses herself to thoughts of the note buried in the box of mementos hidden under her bed back at Rosewood. The note that arrived the day after the fiasco at the opera attached to a bouquet of peonies and containing only two words before the flourished signature of two initials. The note that kept her awake and plagued her thoughts until the wee hours of the morning as she tried to figure out what the cryptic message meant.
Mrs. Grimaldi — CB