Chapter Text
Miss Cane will be the death of him. Figuratively.
His eyes have traced her languid steps across the ballroom since she’d step foot into the manor with her sister, enraptured by her blasé smirks; the way her ocean-blue hair, tied up in white silk ribbons fashioned into delicate birds, curls at the nape of her long neck. Her gown is soft and light blue, with red trimming laced around the edges and a lovely bow sitting at her bodice. She is radiant.
And when she catches his gaze – catches him staring shamelessly, panting after her – all she offers is a sardonic roll of her eyes and a rather rude gesture, before she merely shrugs and walks toward him with a pep in her step.
The other debutantes and their chaperones gasp, scandalised. The other lords seem torn between object amusement and judgement…depending on where their mamas are standing.
Perhaps his dearest friend may be the death of him after all.
“Do you realise that half the Ton saw you curse Janna above?”
Ekko falls into step beside her when she reaches him, smiling sarcastically. She ignores the tut-tutting of the mamas, choosing to snatch her pink lemonade from the refreshment stand instead.
“And did you tire of basic etiquette already?” he remarks, trying not to stare at her lips as she downs the drink – in a rather un-ladylike fashion, might he add.
“I did, and I do,” she replies curtly. “What of it?”
“The night has only just begun,” he mutters under his breath.
Jinx scoffs. “The season has only just begun. Must I suffer under yet another dull round of balls and inane gossip?”
Ekko smirks. “If you are to find a husband, then yes.”
She shoots him a piercing glare. “Don’t you start, Ekko…”
She reaches up to pinch his ear, a mischievous grin pulling at her cheeks.
“And besides, you simply cannot be lecturing me, when you – you rake – have batted away every eligible lady of the Ton, despite declaring your intent to marry. Hypocrisy at its finest.”
“I am merely stating the obvious,” he protests, swatting her hand reflexively. “Vi would have my head if I said otherwise.”
“Vi need not know,” she pouts. “If you insist on continuing to be my good friend, then you had best keep it that way.”
“Who said we were friends?” he muses. She does not hold back when she promptly stomps her heel on his shoe. Ekko hisses. “Hey!”
Jinx turns her nose up at him, ignoring the curious glances around them, and storms off.
Ekko only chuckles, watching her light blue gown trail after her as she ducks and weaves her way through the hoard and lands herself, rather unceremoniously, in the middle of a crowd of young Lords and their ravenous smiles.
Her shoulders tense. Her lips purse when one of them places a gentle kiss on her hand.
By the time he catches up to her, she’s turning down her third invitation to dance by the arrogant Lord Finn, and on the cusp of what appears to be a rage-fuelled punch targeted at the most favoured part of his body: his elegant nose.
Ekko catches her mid-throw, smiling tersely when the other Lords greet him. She grumbles at his side, looping her hand through his elbow instead.
“Lamar,” Finn says, too amiably, “why am I not surprised to see you with the season’s finest?”
“He does have a way with them, doesn’t he?” Another Lord remarks with a laugh. Jinx shifts beside him uncomfortably.
“She is my dearest friend,” he responds, and the word falls on his tongue like lead. “Whom you appear to have disgruntled.”
“My apologies, Miss Cane,” Finn says with a smirk. “I only meant to enjoy the pleasure of your company this fine evening. Ladies of your calibre are difficult to find.”
“Do not insult my kind in an effort to win me,” she gripes. “Though I suppose any woman may steer far from course from your attentions.”
Finn’s face appears torn between insult and confusion. A few of the others laugh, Lord Kayn chief among them. Ekko’s eyes narrow at him, ever so slightly. Lord Finn scowls at them, cheeks flushed with ire.
“Nevertheless,” Ekko adds, trying to smooth over the sudden, awkward tension. “I believe she has made her decision clear.”
The string quartet marks their first verse. Jinx catches the music swelling behind her and begins fidgeting at his sleeve. He needs no further instruction.
“You cannot always come to my aid,” Jinx mutters, her blue eyes regarding him with a quiet intensity. He finds it difficult to look away.
Dancing with Jinx has always come easy. They’ve been doing it since they were children, running to each other’s’ homes, rolling their eyes and giggling in their lessons while Vi and Mylo and Claggor scuffed their ears to stop misbehaving…lest the governess report back to their parents and dismiss them from afternoon tea again.
While their lessons diverged, eventually the seasons had reunited them. At every ball, he always saves a dance for Jinx – always the first, sometimes the second if no one is watching. Someone always is. There isn’t a single mama who hasn’t shaken her head at him, pushing their daughter into his arms to gain the Lamar name.
He wishes he could tell them it is all for naught when his heart truly only lies in one place. Even in Eton, surrounded by beautiful men and women who have taught him to relish in the pleasures of the flesh, every vessel in his body only ever ran blue.
If only she returned his affections, instead of egging him on for wicked, salacious stories of his time away. If only she showed even a hint of returning them, rather than her utter disdain for the entire institution.
Maybe then his hand wouldn’t be prickling at the mere hold on her waist, waiting for the day he can finally feel her soft, supple skin beneath his fingertips.
“I came to help my friend,” he corrects. “Finn is a brute, and you were ready to sock him.”
“I could have easily been reaching for his hand.”
“With your fist?” Ekko looks at her pointedly. She scrunches her eyebrows in annoyance. “Who taught you that, anyway?”
She tilts her head at Vi, who’s laughing raucously with her brothers amongst a round of drinks. No surprise there.
“Ah.”
“You need not defend me,” she reiterates, pulling back a little when he moves closer, pulls a little more at her waist to draw her in.
The dance permits it – this close, close proximity – but even then he feels his pulse quickening at the sight of her flushed cheeks.
“I am not a child anymore.”
His eyes linger at the shimmering silver necklace lying at her neckline, drawing his eye to the valley of her breasts.
“No,” he admits, licking his suddenly dry lips. “You are not.”
She catches him, though it must not have been difficult. For a moment, he thinks she may swat his arm as she used to, playfully grinning at him and brushing off the moment with a well-worded jab. She may even draw away completely, shaking her head in disbelief, refusing to speak to him for his err in judgement.
He dreads the latter. Usually, Ekko is so careful to veil his true feelings.
It never comes.
She leans in closer; so close he can feel her warm breath fanning over his lips.
“Ekko,” she whispers. Her voice is a low, silken purr.
His lashes flutter. His breathing quickens.
“You are a rake.”
She pulls back. Ekko blinks a few times, wrenched from his intoxication, and finds his arms bereft of a companion. The music has ended, and Jinx is already walking away, looking over her shoulder at him with a mysterious smirk.
Not for the first time, he stands in the midst of a ballroom surrounded by a swarm of mamas pushing their daughters at him, and all he can see is Jinx.
Calling on Jinx is difficult, for a myriad of reasons, and most of all because no one seems to take him seriously at all.
It cannot help that he has known Jinx since they were mere infants, nor that Vi treats Ekko's romantic endeavours as yet another rakish attempt to woo the fairer sex. Then again, if she had realised his intentions, he may not have even made it past the front door.
That being said, Ekko is welcomed into the parlor room far too easily. The footmen are already trading jabs by the door, the butler barely spares him a second glance, and he bypasses Vi and Mylo and Claggor so quickly he barely has time to say ‘hello’.
Lady Felicia Cane is a tall woman, with Vi’s strong chin and Jinx’s sharp eyes. She greets him happily, asking after his parents (they are well), his time at Eton (it was good), and how he’s settled in this past year.
“Very easily,” he responds, then gestures his chin down to the bouquet – blue peonies, Jinx’s favourite, a fact only privy to a select few – and the treats nestled in his arms.
He’d held onto them with great difficulty. Vi had assumed the treats were hers, to which he’d plucked them out of her hands and evasively responded the other. Mylo and Claggor had been confused by the flowers, citing an allergy that Ekko cared little about.
And then, “I am here to call on your daughter. Jinx,” he stammers out the last part, because suddenly three heads have popped up from behind the door in unison, bearing matching expressions of shock (disgust, more so on Mylo’s part).
Lady Cane beams at him, so brilliantly he may be blinded by her light.
Vi almost crashes to the ground, sending Mylo and Claggor sprawling below her. Her mouth is agape, her blue eyes staring murderously at him.
“What?"
Ekko sweats.