The Lemonade debacle

It would’ve been nice to say, that Wendy turned around and ignored the strange man. But then, there wouldn’t be a story to tell.

« I’m sorry Sir, have we met ? » voice more shaky than she intended.

He takes a few steps in her direction. From up close she finally sees his features- strong jaw, clean shaved and high cheek bones framed by deep green eyes. Mesmerizing eyes truly. He’s very close to her now. Something a gentleman would know to avoid.

« Interesting, you did introduce yourself to me, Miss Wendy Moira Angela Darling » he shot back, in a deep tone.
His eyes, unashamedly, set on her mouth. She’s very conscious of it, feeling a blush creep on her neck. The way he said her name is unsettling, she’s never introduced herself with her full name. At least, in society. A swift wind, blows away snowflakes, making her shiver against the cold.

« Well I don’t recall meeting you sir. It ’s quite improper of you to make assumptions » she quips back.
Wendy regrets saying it immediately. How imprudent to show some cheek with a strange unknown man who has her isolated. Yet it just came out of her. She shivers some more and decides to head out of the balcony.

« Where do you think you’re going Darling ? » He angles himself in front of her. Now, she’s upset. She’s already dealing with the most stressful evening of her entire life, and now she’s accosted by some petulant man.

« Sir, as I said before, I don’t know you and this situation is highly improper. Now, would you, please, let me leave ? » Her eyes searching those deep green pools, that were threatening to swallow her hole.

« Why ? Afraid to be caught with me ? » His mouth stretches as a wicked grin.

« Not afraid of anything, only it is quite cold and it’s unbecoming of a gentleman to prevent me from rejoining the party. » She’s trying, desperately, not to lose herself in his elegant features.
His gaze is now fixed on her hair, for some reason. Exasperated she huffs.

« And I don’t remember you introducing yourself. »

Instead of doing the rational thing and finally answer her, he crowds her, against the balcony railing. Surprised, scared and somewhat curious, she stares at him. His face is so close, she can count his blond eyelashes. She’s standing, a breath away from his mouth.
She feels her body heat up with anticipation. His clever mouth stretches in a smile. Bending to whisper in her ear, mouth ghosting her cheek on his way to her ear.

« You’ll soon remember Darling. Just know this, that buffoon you danced with, will never be your husband ».

The heat of his breath rolls off her nape, giving her full body goosebumps. She’s shocked and frankly flabbergasted by her body’s response to this stranger. With a shaky inhale, her hands push find the strength to push away his, very solid, chest. She rushes out of his reach.

He let’s out a full body laugh, that echoes in the dead of the night.
Cheeks red with frustration, Wendy doesn’t look back. What was that about ?
She’s trying to find her, soon to be, fiancé in the vast room. That stranger might be right, she doesn’t seem anywhere near to getting that proposal.
She locates her little brother Micheal by the lemonade table.

« Micheal have you seen Sir Clifford ? I went to take some air and he just, vanished.»

« I think you missed the most awesome part of the night- her cheeky little brother grins - when you left, he fell against the lemonade table, you should have seen his face ! So red and drenched on lemonade, he pretexted something and just went. »
Frowning Wendy asks more precisions, what does it mean fell ? Micheal hasn’t seen what made him lose his footing, but for sure he did see the results. To his opinion it was the greatest moment of the season.

There goes another suitor, thinks Wendy. What does she have to do to make them propose ?
Of course later in the night she gets an earful from Aunt Millicent, who’s listing in alphabetical order her great many faults. How the ton was shocked of that display, how some had immediately tied it to the older Darling, to her fortitude in driving away, in shame one has to add, any suitor.

She hoped Sir Clifford might magically come back. Maybe he possessed another coat in his automobile. Well, turns out he really didn’t prepare to get soaked in citrus, on the night of his proposal. The evening stretched and Wendy felt thin. She had put every effort in this night. And everything had went absolutely wrong.
That man, with his wicked grin and green eyes was responsible, of it she was convinced. Before backing her against the balcony railing, she was this close to tying the knot. She wasn’t naive, for some reason that man wanted her, in what capacity she didn’t know. And Barons don’t end up in evening beverages by mistake.
She has the uneasy feeling that, somehow, he’ll come back to upset her life. Wendy isn’t going to let some, Mister Hovering-too-close, mess her biggest opportunity. He’s not in sight at least and seems to have vanished, along with her chances on the marriage mart.

The Darlings make their way home. The cold air is biting in her décolletage, she shivers some more. The weather is adding to her dismay, in a spectacle of frozen wold under snow, dread fills her.

Tomorrow, she decides, she’ll call on Sir Clifford, surely a little lemonade shower isn’t enough to destroy her efforts. The Baron appeared quite resolved to meet her at the altar.
Almost deaf to Aunt Millicent’s diatribe, she excuses herself, kissing her very confused parents good night.

In the intimacy of her room, the former nursery, Wendy let’s her guard down. She reaches for the back of her dress, and starts the arduous process of undressing.
Each layer falling to the floor is like a weight lifted out of her. She takes out the pins that were digging sharply in her scalp, letting her long hair ease down. All this, is her armor, now displayed on the floor.

She gives the window a long stare. Since her disappearance, Wendy was always told to never, under any circumstances, open the window at night. Her younger self had longed to open it. To let the fresh, nightly, air in the bedroom. How the simple fact of opening the window could be so obsessing. A woman resigned to marry for reason, desires, more than anything, to open her own window.

Shaking off her irrational thoughts, she gets in her bed. An adult bed, that doesn’t have cute hearts, just plain and too cold for her. There she lays, eyes wide open in the dark, reliving the moments of the day. No, she’s lying, she’s only revisiting one moment. Why didn’t she get out of that balcony sooner ? He was very scary, she reasoned, so broad and tall. No, she was lying again. He had let her leave, he never really forced her into staying inches close to his mouth. Tossing and turning in the dark, Wendy tries to forget those damned green eyes and the hunger she had seen in them.

Drowning in a deep sleep an old memory edges her consciousness, like a forgotten flavor in her mouth.

Asking «You won’t forget me ? Will you ? ».