Maire had not been let out of the house for a month following her ill-fated attempt at elopement with the Lord Julian. Her father had neared apoplexy, and she could not entirely say she blamed him. He thought she had come close to ruin, and in fact she had; she'd lost more than her virginity, besides. She had lost the respect of not only her father, but her mother, who held to the old Jewish teachings about obedience to family... and the deeper value of thoughtfulness. But Maire was not naturally thoughtful. She lived on passions that flared and burnt out.

Unfortunately, it seemed her passion for Julian remained a dormant ember somewhere in her chest. She had painted, without seeing him, six separate portraits, capturing his face and body in her memory. She'd burnt three for fear of their being found, and kept the other three locked away at the bottom of her clothes-chest.

In the first month after her father had brought her home, she had pined, painted, and eaten little. In the second month, she'd lessened her pining and gotten back her appetite, and put on more weight than she had lost. This irked her, and made her father look at her suspiciously besides, until she had assured him that she was not pregnant. It had shamed her that she'd even had to allay such fears, and the rift between herself and her father would likely never heal. But that, she had come to believe (with the help of her mother) was not only her fault. It was his, because he had never learned the virtue of forgiveness.

Her father had stopped speaking to her, in fact, in more than a monotone mumble, and he had mentioned nothing of arranging a marriage. It looked as though Maire, in a backwards way, had what she had wanted, but too late. Too late: Lord Julian, she heard, was marrying someone else, and besides. She hadn't been sure he was the one. She had regretted her rashness.

But it had not prevented her heart leaping at the thought that she might see him at the ball. She had dressed her best, in a silver-gray silk and deep-green velvet gown. The tight bodice plumped up her breasts and held in her waist, and she wore a matching mask, the silver of a molting birch, with embroidered leaves in deep green. The colors were a feast for her eyes in and of themselves, and she had to stop herself snatching off the mask so she could marvel at the sheen of the fabric and finger the careful stitches of her own embroidery. Not that her identity was much in question... her hair was too vibrantly, profusely red, her figure too emphatically rounded, for her to be misrecognized.

Julian did not stand out so much, but she recognized him nonetheless. Still, she kept her eyes demurely downcast, even as her breath sped up and her pulse raced, and she twined her hands together as she lingered in a corner, desperately attempting to distract herself. Desperately hoping that she was not hoping he would approach.

He had. She looked up, a blush starting in her fear-paled cheeks.

Julian had tried quite diligently not to think about her. He had failed, of course, but at least he had tried. He could recall the smell of her bright hair, the softness of her skin, and the taste of her kiss; as every soft curve of her had branded itself into his memory. With the news of his erstwhile engagement coming so quickly on the heels of her loss, it had been an even deeper blow, which he knew deep in his heart had been his father’s point. A point he had finally felt deeply. Years of ignoring his family, and trying to shake off the pain of their desertion of him, and it had come to this to make him truly despise them. He had seen his sister, in a garish dress, that looked as though it cost a fortune, and most likely had, and even though he was doing as they wished, she still turned her back on him.


Tonight he had met his fiancé, and she was a lovely girl, if you liked the blonde, golden, angelic type. She had some spirit, but in truth he just wasn’t moved much by her, not like with… Maire. Oh sweet lord, there she was. His heart skipped a beat as he saw her standing in the corner, nearly hidden by the soft shadows cast by the light of hundreds of candles. Emotions ripped through him one after another in such a dizzying succession it was nearly impossible to keep up with them all. But among all the ones that faded away quickly in the rush the lingering sense of need remained; the need to talk to her, to be in her presence once again, if only for a moment.


That was what he told himself as he crossed the room. Just a moment, a word, a dance, to bring about the closure he desperately needed, and excise her from his mind. A lie, all of them were nothing but lies. All he wanted deep down in his heart…the truth he still could not completely face, was that he just wanted to touch her again. Within moments he stood in front of her, his eyes locked on her face. It was fuller then it had been before and his eyes flicked down to her waist before he rejected the thought. Surely if she had been pregnant her father would have relented, he would not have tried to conceal it and marry her off to another man.


He watched the blush creep up her cheeks to disappear behind the mask she wore. Her face seemed even paler next to the crimson heat of the blush. Did she not want to see him? Did she regret everything they had shared? These were the things he told himself that he needed to know, ignoring, or at least attempting to ignore, the gnawing feeling in his stomach at the thought of the answers. He opened his mouth to speak but it had suddenly gone bone dry. Taking a sip of the wine he held, he attempted once again and this time managed to whisper her name.


“Maire.”

"Julian," Maire said, a little faintly, her voice gone high-pitched from anxiety. She realized her hands had buried themselves in her skirts and were picking nervously at some raveling threads, and forced herself to let go. If only all her feeling were mere nervous compulsion. It did not cross her mind to call him Lord Kesteven, because to her, it was now, and had probably always been, nonsensical to call him anything other than Julian.

"I've painted your portrait, you know. I said I would." Her gaze was almost defiant now. Looking at him, she saw that the brush of her memory had added shades of difference, but the feeling--the spirit--behind his features was just as she had recalled, and just as she had recreated. "I had thought you had more of a chin, but--don't worry, it's not bad." She caught the direction of his gaze, and trailed off, her blush fiercer than ever. "Don't worry," she said, her voice trembling a little. "I'm not, you know. My father would have hunted you down at swordpoint, believe me. So that's lucky, isn't it?"

Wariness hit her now. The yearning in his eyes was clear--she had painted in that expression a half-dozen times, an answering glow in her own--but she couldn't let herself be pulled in again. "I hear you're--you're engaged," she said carefully, her hands going back to tug at her skirts. "Congratulations. I myself appear to have gained that much-vaunted, much-maligned thing--freedom--my father's given up finding a marriage, you see." She tried a smile. "So your parents... you're reconciled?"

She was nervous, he could almost feel he anxiety rolling off her in waves, obvious in the height of her voice, and the way her fingers twisted in her skirts. It pained him to think that he could be the cause of such a thing. Nevertheless, his name on her lips sent a shiver through him, shattering for all time the lies he had so carefully constructed for himself. It was not closure he yearned for, it was just her. He wanted to reach out to her, to soothe her in some way, but the barriers of acceptable behavior and his engagement made that virtually impossible.


“I wish I could see the painting, I know you said you don’t often paint portraits, so I feel honored you were so moved to paint mine.” She had painted him, and it was with envy that he met her defiant eyes. Did you miss me Maire; his heart screamed into the silence, did you work to place my face down on the canvas because you could not bear to forget me? Questions he could never ask, and words that would forever lie between them, if only she could read them in his eyes.


Her talent had given her something she could keep, some memento she could look upon and remember him, long past the time when memories would begin to fade. Although he was sure that she would blush, a deeper crimson then she had previously managed to attain if she knew exactly which memory he desired most to capture forever. Lucky? Was it lucky to have the one thing you desired most forbidden from you, and the one way he could have attained it washed away? He supposed to some it would seem a lucky thing, but he could not feel that way. “I would not have been hard to find.” He replied softly.


Her words twisted the dagger in his chest, and wrenched it out letting his hearts blood flood out of him in a rush. His hand nearly rose to staunch it, but he knew the pain was not real, or at least not corporal. “Thank you, it came as quite the shock to me I can assure you.” Keeping his voice even was a far more difficult task then he had imagined it would be. The pain dulled his tongue and he felt like a babbling fool. “Not exactly, but I believe this is their way of trying to bring me to heel.”

“I would not have been hard to find.”

At his words the bottom seemed to drop out of her stomach, and Maire had to swallow hard, shutting her eyes against the sudden pain of hope. But she wouldn't have been happy if it had come to that, she reminded herself desperately. This was only a spell--that was all. A sort of spell cast over her by his nearness. Once she'd drawn away, reality would reassert itself. She would soberly judge for herself what might make her life complete and virtuous. And she was absolutely certain that was not a hasty marriage to a man she truly didn't even know.

But didn't she? Maire had always been inclined to drift away from people. Indeed, in the past few months the gulf between herself and her father had grown unbridgeable. So what was it to know something? In painting him, she had thought she'd captured some spark of his soul. Some of that faintly illuminating internal light that could not be tied to personality or affect or anything but the person himself--Julian. Perhaps he hadn't thought so much on her. Perhaps he only wanted to have her again, bodily. But absence and distance had put that to the test, surely? And he had been the one eager for marriage. She'd had reservations. She'd wanted freedom. She had wanted choice. Well--now she had it. And knew it for what it was, too, the most ironic of paradoxes, just a choice not to choose.

She'd tugged the stem of an embroidered flower entirely free of her skirt now, and she rolled the thread between her fingers, making a tight ball of it, feeling her heart knot in tandem. The anguish he felt over his family's control was palpable.

"Julian, I--" Her mask--not the bit of silk, but the stern guard she had kept on her face and emotions--dropped. She reached out a hand to tough the faint roughness of his cheek. "I'm so sorry." Maire couldn't think precisely what for, but it was something. Something deep in her core trembled, stirred to life at his nearness.

"Julian, I-- I'm so sorry."


Julian’s eyes closed as her fingers grazed his cheek. He groaned deep in his throat, a soft nearly tormented sound. It took every ounce of will he possessed not to step forward and sweep her into his arms. He yearned to feel her against him. Her body with its lush curves had fit so perfectly, at least they did in his memory. However to do so would likely cause a scandal that even a year of isolation for her would not fix, let alone a month, and he was no longer free.


His body seemed to tremble on the precipice of doing the right thing, and the action he desired so fiercely, and then he moved. He took a small step backward placing a bit more distance between them, and taking her hand in his. He covered it with his other hand, stroking over the soft skin with his fingers as he met her eyes. The rational part of his brain noticed that her eyes were the same color as Helen's, it had always been a favorite color for him, that stormy bluish-gray, but the eyes of his fiancé did not affect him the way Maire’s did. They did not draw him in, and tug at the strings attached to his heart as the ones before him now did.


His voice was soft and would have most likely been completely inaudible had it not been for the pause in the music. “Maire…I” He stopped. What could he say? That he wished things could have been different? That he cared for her deeply… loved her even, and wanted nothing more then to steal her away again. But no… none of those words would help, and most would only hurt them both more to speak. “Would you care to dance with me?” There… that was safe, he hoped.

"Of course." The words tumbled from her lips unbidden, and she had a moment of guilt. She shouldn't dance with him, he was engaged, and if Eavan told her parents--she wouldn't, though. Maire let her gaze drift toward her sister, but she was taken up with a man she didn't recognize.

She heard the noise he made in the back of his throat, and she snatched her hand back as if burned. He looked so inward, so caught up in something. It broke her heart. She had spent months tucking herself away inside herself, and it had only bred a gnawing hole of pain. It was so clear that Julian was miserable at his family and at his engagement...

"I just hope you're healed from th last time we danced. I think I might have done permanent damage when I stepped on your feet." She smiled sideways at him in her habitual nervous manner, then grabbed at his hand and tugged him onto the dance floor. It was less that she was a bad dancer and more that she was unsure as to how she could possibly concentrate. "That wasn't a very good joke, was it?" She looked up at him. Her body longed to lean forward and mold against his, but she didn't dare.

"On the bright side, my painting's really improved. I may start doing court portraits now my father's letting me out. How's your business going?"

“Your dancing never damaged me…” Julian replied, adding in his head as he looked down into her storm colored eyes. At least not half as much as your leaving me did. The words he would never say, and in all honesty, could barely admit to himself. He was still trying to deal with the fact that he had lost her. That he had lost. It was difficult to say which had hurt him more, the loss of her or the loss it’s self. He had never taken loss well in any form, and this was no different. He loved her, or at least he thought he did, and now she was lost to him, she was far too good a person to be relegated to the kind of life he could offer her now. No matter how much he wished he could offer her what she deserved, he knew there was no chance. If only he could get out of the engagement, if only they had not been found, when they had run away… if only… if only.


No. He could not keep tormenting himself like this. There was nothing he could do, even as his body ached for her, and he longed to pull her close and tell her everything he felt. It was no use at all. “As brilliant as you were before, I can imagine that you would make a wonderful court painter, perhaps you should do a portrait of the king. Flattery usually goes a long way to getting you the favor of those in power, and it would suit your father to have you enhance your families influence… it is what he wishes for the most, it seems.”


Julian could not keep the faint bitterness out of his tone, not that he tried very hard. He shook his head and sighed trying to regain his composure. “Business is going rather well; at least the money is good.” Which was the reason his parents were pulling this on him, they wanted to force his hand into upping the allowance he gave them. At least that is what he thought it was, there was really nothing else that came to mind other then the flexing of a sadistic streak, that if he were being honest with himself he would realize he must have inherited the one he had, and used in business deals, from his father.

"It's not." Maire automatically blurted out a defense of her father. She thought he was talking about his own family, and he hand tightened on his nape as they danced, in sympathy and anger. "I mean..." She looked away, gnawing at her lip. Her father had always seemed to have her best interests at heart. Her virtue and her happiness went hand in hand. She was unused to thinking of the popular code of morals as a tool.

Discomfittingly, they seemed that way more often than not.

"I don't think that's how he is," she said at last, though her voice trembled. She drew closer to him, not out of desire, merely out of intensity of emotion. "I can't see life like that, Julian. I don't see how you can live like your family wants--I don't mean--I don't mean to be selfish, it's just--I can't think like that. I have to believe he really cares about me, don't you see. I don't want to advance. I just want to be happy, and it's."

She paused and drew in a long, shaky breath, stumbling a little in the pattern of the dance, and almost bit through her lip. "There are very few people who understand that. I will be very sad, Julian, if you're no longer one of them." Maire looked up at him, yearning for something that wasn't physical at all (though she yearned for that too). She wanted, she realized, to save him--and to save herself. Somehow it had all gotten tangled up.