More fragile blue petals fell from her gown.
Tella took a steeling breath. She didn’t know what she would do if she failed, and she wasn’t quite sure what she’d have to do to succeed in convincing the entire ball they were in love.
The thick bars of the cage smelled of metal and royal ambition. The air was almost too thick to breathe, sweltering with warm bodies, perfume, and whispered seductions. Jacks’s fingers tensed as they entered. Briefly Tella imagined he didn’t like cages either, but it was far more likely he was trying to keep her from running off.
There were even more dancers clustered inside the cage than she’d realized. Overlooked ladies and the occasional couple rested on the raised satin cushions strewn about the edges, while colorful skirts and suits twirled atop the marbled green dance floor as if they were flowers being tossed by the breeze.
Tella spied a few familiar faces.
First she saw Caspar, who’d played the role of Legend in the last game, as well as the role of her fiancé. Dressed in a tawny suit that make him look foxlike, he appeared to be whispering secrets to another handsome young man, who probably had no idea Caspar was a performer. Just beyond, lounging on a cushion, Nigel frightened off nobles and made them blush all at once as he traced the barbed-wire tattoos inked around his lips.
Then there was Armando. An attentive courtier in a scarlet gown pawed at his white coat with her red fingernails. But rather than enjoy her attention, Armando’s gaze fixed on Tella. The cage grew warmer as his emerald eyes followed her. This wasn’t the mocking way he’d looked at her earlier. His interest clung to her as if she were the night’s first act of entertainment.
And he wasn’t the only one staring.
No longer was everyone only looking at Jacks. Tella swore their intrigued gazes and painted eyes had all jumped to her. Tella liked attention, but she wasn’t sure she enjoyed this level of scrutiny. It made the stifling cage feel suddenly small. The light inside had turned from whiskey colored and celebratory to unnerving shades of brassy plum. She especially felt the women, judging her freshly mussed curls and her nearly backless gown as they whispered to one another words that Tella didn’t need to hear to imagine. Few things were quite so brutal as critical ladies.
A trio of girls around her age, all dripping jealousy, actually tried to trip her as she passed.
“Relax,” Jacks murmured. “We’re not going to convince anyone we’re engaged if your eyes keep darting around as though you can’t wait to escape.”
“We’re inside of a cage.” Tella tilted her head toward the dense bars above, where iron chandeliers crawled with blue and white vines that swayed back and forth as if they, too, wished to flee.
“Don’t look at the cage. Keep those pretty eyes on me.” Jacks took Tella’s chin in his fingers, cold, even through the gloves. Around them, hissed words and torrid conversations mingled with softer sounds of flowing liquor, hushed laughter, and animal rumbles. But when Jacks’s lips parted a second time, Tella only heard the melodic sound of his voice as he whispered, “I know it’s not just the cage that’s scaring you, darling.”
“You’re giving yourself far too much credit.”
“Am I?” He dropped his hand from her chin to her neck, soft leather resting against her pulse. He stroked slowly, just a delicate brush of his gloves, which unfortunately made her cowardly heart beat faster.
“Relax,” he repeated. “The only thing you should think about is that you’re more desirable than anyone else in this room. Every person here wishes they were you.”
“You’re definitely giving yourself too much credit now.”
His laughter was surprisingly disarming. “Then tell yourself everyone wishes they were me, dancing with you.” With a grin he must have stolen from the devil, Jacks looped an arm around Tella’s hips and swept her onto the dance floor.
For someone who’d made it sound as if he was concerned about his reputation, it surprised Tella how much he acted as if he couldn’t care less about what everyone else thought. Another dance was currently under way and he cut directly through all the other couples. He was completely disrespectful, yet far more skilled than anyone she’d ever danced with.
Jacks’s every movement was carelessly graceful, matching the musical cadence of his words as he murmured in her ear, “The key to a charade like this is to forget it’s an act. Invite the lie to play until you become so comfortable with it that it feels like the truth. Don’t tell yourself we’re pretending to be engaged, tell yourself that I love you. That I want you more than anyone.” He reeled her closer and ran a hand up the back of her neck, toying with the ribbon around her throat. “If you can convince yourself it’s true, you can convince anyone.”
He spun her around the floor again as thick berry-red ribbons twirled down from the top of the cage. Each one dripped feather-clad acrobats who tossed out handfuls of stardust and cut-glass glitter, covering the world in imitation magic as Tella and Jacks continued to whirl and twirl until everything spiraled into gold-dust and haze, flower petals, and fingers weaving through hair. And for a moment Tella dipped her imagination into the treacherous fantasy that Jacks had described.
She remembered the first time they met. She’d thought him insolent and indolent yet distractingly handsome. If he’d not been such a beast she might have wondered if he tasted like the apple he kept biting, or something else a little more dangerous. Then, for the sake of their charade, she imagined he’d felt the same attraction, and that from the moment Jacks saw her in that carriage, he knew he wanted Tella more than he’d ever desired any other person in his life.
This dance wasn’t about keeping his murderous reputation so he could win the throne; this was about winning her.
It was why he’d given her such a gorgeous gown.
Why he danced with her now.
Tella pretended love was a place she wanted to visit, and tested out a flirtatious smile.
Jacks dazzled her with an uneven grin.
“I knew you could do this.” He brought his mouth to her ear and kissed the tip of it tenderly, as soft as the brush of a whisper. Her chest fluttered as his mouth dropped lower, and he kissed her again with a little more pressure, lips lingering at the delicate corner of her jaw and her neck. Tella’s fingers curled into his back.
The music around them surged, violins dancing with harps and cellos in a decadent and debauched rhapsody, threatening to transport her to another time and place.
Every person inside the cage was still watching them spin with rapt interest. The ballroom teemed with eager eyes and sneering mouths as Jacks’s lips continued to dance over Tella’s throat the way their steps waltzed over the floor.