“Senator Dubois has filled you in?”
He grinned, nodded, and slipped a white rose into her fingers, then retreated back to his place. Another boy behind them darted out to present another heir with a rose.
“You’re not to speak to them, Lila, you know that. You’ll get him into trouble,” the chairwoman murmured, fingering her own rose as they continued on their way.
“That’s a myth.”
Her mother turned a questioning brow to Lila. “Is that so? I’ve always wanted to know all the frivolous bits of trivia about Bullstow. Senators never answer direct questions about this place, and I can never get a good read about what goes on inside. It’s maddening.”
“You misunderstand Bullstow if you think any of this is frivolous.”
“I suppose it’s from all that sneaking about that you used to do. Still do.”
Lila felt the tug of her palm. Make sure he’s kind and a good conversationalist. Funny too. Neither of us want to endure a jerk or an insufferable bore for the next…
“Oracle’s light!” Lila muttered.
“What is it?” The chairwoman read the palm’s screen and barely restrained a chuckle. “Ah, how adorable. Your father thinks he’s helping.” She pulled out her own palm and tapped on her screen, far faster than Lila could ever hope to follow, then slipped it into her clutch.
Lila did the same.
The pair did not have to stand in line for very long at the ballroom’s entrance. The valedictorian of last year’s class at Bullstow, now a page for Senator Forrester, stood ramrod straight at the door, announcing each guest as they stepped forward. He was dressed in gray breeches and a finely tailored golden coat. A gray vest peeked from underneath, and a silken cravat completed the look. His brunette waves reached to his chin. He’d already started growing it out in preparation for his entrance into High House. All in all, it was a good showing for the boy, so long as he did not misspeak during his duties, for every chairwoman and her daughters would know his name before the night was out.
If he was lucky, he’d have a partner for the season if he caught the eye of one of those young daughters.
He had more of a chance than Shiloh, at least.
Lila shook her head at her mother before she could even say a word. A boy of nineteen was far too young for her.
The boy seemed to understand, though he still blushed charmingly. “Heir or chief?” he asked politely, confused that Lila had not worn her usual blackcoat and formal uniform.
“Neither.”
The boy nodded and cleared his throat. “Chairwoman and CEO Beatrice Ophelia Masson-Randolph of Wolf Industries, and daughter, Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph,” the boy called out over the chatter. His voice filled the ballroom without a microphone and rang with perfect elocution.
Several New Bristol and Saxony senators turned at the announcement, likely wanting proof of the gossip that Chief Randolph had set aside her blackcoat for the season. The rest of the room stirred and turned toward the pair with shocked eyes and wide mouths. They were either so new to politics that they had few contacts who mattered, or they were slipping out of the senate due to the lack of them. The rest of the crowd was a different matter. The din hushed, and Lila tried not to laugh at how many important families had been thrown into a feverish whispering.
It made for quite a segregated ballroom.
Lila’s eyes trailed across the groups of senators, their tailored coats and breeches in the color of their respective city senates. Silver medallions displayed the towns’ symbols around their necks. Scattered among them were the black Saxony coats and gray vests of the state High House. Burnished antique silver roses dropped to their chests in place of city medallions.
The men hung apart from the women, but only because the latter clustered together into groups by hue. The ballroom was a field of color, dotted by an assortment of whitecoats and silvercoats, donned atop dresses that spanned the spectrum from red to yellow to green to violet, and every shade in between. The monochromatic coats of those who were neither chairwoman nor prime matched their family’s color or complemented it.
Starlight filtered inside the ballroom from the glass ceiling. Waiters carried trays with crystal wine glasses and champagne flutes from group to group, and tables laden with pastries and fruit crowded in the back. Thousands of roses lent the air their scent, for bouquets had been stashed on every surface.
For once, roses could not outshine their surroundings. Artists had painted the walls inside the grand ballroom with the same motif as outside. The painted couples had forgone most of their clothes and, in some instances, beds. Even the balcony overlooking the dance floor had not escaped such treatment, though most of the lovers tarried there with no clothes at all.
It
was all highly inspirational.
Lila ignored the art and the fevered whispering, for somewhere in the press of bodies and color lurked the Red Baron, the one man who would seek her out before the night was through.
And she had no idea which one he’d be.
The only thing she did know was that he’d be eager and impatient.
He wouldn’t be the only one, though, especially if she added irritated into the mix. The New Bristol heirs stared at Lila as if she had betrayed them in some way. She focused on one particularly harsh expression, the new chairwoman of Web Corp.