The ugly Luna

If she only could

*Polly*

I'm trying very hard not to think about Luna Corning’s ball, which was held last night. But, as is often the case when I try to avoid a topic, the only thing my mind sees fit to review is a scene from that ball.

The Young she-wolves I overheard chattering about my resemblance to a boy weren’t even being particularly unkind. They weren’t saying it to me, after all. And I wouldn’t have minded their comments so much if I didn’t have the distinct impression that the gentlemen at the ball agreed with them.

But what can I possibly do about it? I stare despairingly into my mirror. My mother’s fear of just that assessment… though Mama refuses to acknowledge it… has led to my hair being turned to ringlets with a curling iron. The gown I wore, like everything else in my wardrobe, is white and frilly and altogether feminine. It’s picked out in pearls and touches of pink, a combination that does nothing but emphasize the decidedly unfeminine cast of my profile.

I loathe my profile almost as much as I loathe the dress. If I didn’t have to worry about people mistaking me for a boy… not that they really do, but they can’t stop remarking on the resemblance; at any rate, if I didn’t have to worry about that… I would never again wear pink. Or pearls. There’s something dreadfully banal about the way pearls shimmer.

For a moment I distract myself by mentally letting my wolf rip my dress apart, stripping it of its ruffles and pearls and tiny sleeves. She likes that, my wolf is proud and strong.

Given a choice, I would dress in plum-colored corded silk and sleek my hair away from my face without a single flyaway curl. My only hair adornment would be an enormous feather…

a black one… arching backward so it brushes my shoulder. If my sleeves were elbow-length, I could trim them with a narrow edging of black fur. Or perhaps swansdown, with the same at the neck. Or I could put a feather trim at the neck; the white would look shocking against the plum velvet.

That leads to the idea that I could put a ruff at the neck and trim that with a narrow strip of swansdown. It would be even better if the sleeves weren’t opaque fabric but nearly transparent, like that new Indian silk my friend Lucinda was wearing last night, and I would have them quite wide, so they billow and then gather tight at the elbow. Or perhaps the wrist would be more dramatic. . . .

I can see myself entering a ballroom in that costume. No one would titter about whether I look like a girl or a boy. I would pause for a moment on the top of the steps, gathering everyone’s gaze, and then I would snap open my fan… No, fans are tiresomely overdone. I’ll have to come up with something new.

The first man who asks me to dance, addressing me as Miss Svane, would be treated to my slightly weary yet amused smile. “Call me Polly,” I would say, and all the matrons would be so scandalized they would squeak about nothing else the whole night long.

Polly is key: the name plays to all those infatuations men form on each other, it is more playful, a little naughty at least to me, all those men would be at my feet.

I'm so caught up in a vision of myself in a severely tailored jacket that at first, I don’t even hear the pounding on my door. But an insistent “Poppy!” finally breaks through my trance, and I push myself up from the settee and open the bedchamber door.

“Oh hello, Fennec,” I say, unable to muster much enthusiasm at the sight of him. The last thing one wants to see when in a melancholic fit is a friend who refuses to attend balls even when he knows perfectly well that all three weeks of my first mating season have been horrific. He has no idea what it’s like. How could he? He’s devastatingly handsome, rather charming when he isn’t being a beast, and a future Alpha prince, to boot. This embarrassment of riches really isn’t fair. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

“How could you not realize it was me?” Fennec demands, pushing open the door and crowding me backward, now that he knows I’m decent. “I’m the only person in the world who calls you Poppy. Let me in, will you?”

I sigh and move back. “Do you suppose you could try harder to call me Polly? I must have asked you a hundred times already. I don’t want to be Pollyanna, or Anna, or Poppy, either.”

Fennec flings himself into a chair and runs a hand through his hair. From the look of it, he’s been in an ill humor all morning, because half his hair is standing straight up. It’s lovely hair, heavy and thick. Sometimes it looks black, but when sunlight catches it, there are deep mahogany strands, too. More reasons to resent Fennec. My own hair has nothing subtle about it. It’s thick, too, but an unfashionable yellowy-brown mixture.

“No,” he says flatly. “You’re Poppy to me, and Poppy suits you.”

“It doesn’t suit me,” I retort. “Poppys are pretty and fresh, and I’m neither.”

“You are pretty,” he says mechanically, not even bothering to glance at me.

I roll my eyes, but really, there’s no reason to press the point. Fennec never looks at me close enough to notice whether I’ve turned out pretty… why should he? Being only two years apart, we’ve shared the nursery practically from birth, which means he has clear memories of me running about in a diaper, being smacked by Nurse Wiggan for being smart.

“How was last night?” he asks abruptly.

“Terrible.” I sigh.

He looks at me,“Trevelyan didn’t make an appearance?”

“Geoffrey was indeed there,” I say gloomily. “He just never looked at me. He danced twice… twice… with the cow-eyed Claribel. I can’t stand her, and I can’t believe he can either, which means he’s just looking for a fortune. But if he is, then why doesn’t he dance with me? My inheritance must be twice as large as hers. Do you think he doesn’t know? And if so,” I say without stopping for breath, “can you think of some way of bringing it up that wouldn’t be terribly obvious?”

“Absolutely,” Fennec says. “I can hear that conversation now. ‘So, Trevelyan, you flat-footed looby, did you know that Pollyanna’s inheritance comes to tens of thousands of pounds a year? And by the way, what about those matched grays you just bought?’ ”

"I can think of a more adroit way to bring it up," I say, though I can’t imagine it myself. "Geoffrey isn’t flat-footed. He’s as graceful as a leaf. You should have seen him dancing with cretinous Claribel."

He frowns. "Is she the one who was brought up in India?"

"Yes. I can’t understand why some helpful tiger didn’t gobble her up. All those plump curves... she would have made a lovely Sunday treat."

"Tsk, tsk," he says, and I notice the glimmer of laughter in Fennec’s eyes for the first time. "Young she-wolves in search of mates should be docile and sweet. You keep coming out with these appallingly malicious little remarks. If you don’t behave, all those matrons will declare you unfit, and then you’ll be in a pickle."

I sigh again, "I suppose that’s part of my problem."

"What’s the other part?" He ask.

"I’m not feminine or dainty, nor even deliciously curvy. No one seems to notice me."

"And you hate that," he says with a grin.

"Well, I do," I say. "I don’t mind admitting it. I think I could attract a great many men if I were simply allowed to be myself. But pink ruffles and pearl trim make me look more mannish than ever. And I feel ugly, which is the worst thing of all."

"I don’t think you look like a man," he says, finally inspecting me from head to foot.

I look at him, "You know that opera dancer you’ve been squiring about?"

"You’re not supposed to know about Bella!" He mumbles.

"Why on earth not? Mama and I were in Oxford Street when you passed in an open carriage, so Mama explained everything. She even knew that your mistress is an opera dancer. I have to say, Fennec, I think it’s amazing that you got yourself a mistress whom everyone knows about, even people like my mother."

He rolls his eyes, "I can’t believe Mrs. Svane told you that rot."

"What? She’s not an opera dancer?" I ask.

He scowls. "You’re supposed to pretend that she-wolves like that don’t exist."

"Don’t be thick, Fennec. We know all about mistresses. And it isn’t as if you’re married. If you carry on like that once you are married, I’m going to be terrifically nasty to you. I’ll definitely tell your mate. So beware. I don’t approve."

"Of Bella, or of matrimony?" He asks.

"Of married Alphas who run about London with voluptuous she-wolves with hair the color of flax and morals that are just as lax."

I pause for a moment, but Fennec just rolls his eyes again. "It’s not easy to rhyme extempore, you know," I tell him.

He obviously doesn’t care, so I return to the subject. "It’s all very well now, but you’ll have to give up Bella when you marry. Or whatever her replacement’s name is by then."

"I don’t want to get married," Fennec says. There’s a kind of grinding tension in his voice that makes me look at him more closely.

"You’ve been quarreling with your father, haven’t you?"

He nods.

"In the library?"

He nods again.

"Did he try to brain you with that silver candlestick?" I ask. "Cramble told me that he was going to put it away, but I noticed it was still there yesterday."

"He demolished a porcelain shepherdess."

I grin, "Oh, that’s all right. Cramble bought a whole collection of them in Haymarket and strewed them all around the house in obvious places hoping your father would snatch those as opposed to anything of value. He will be quite pleased to see that his plan is working. So what were you rowing about?"

"He wants me to marry… now."