Summer 1888 — Private Ball

When he first caught sight of Mrs. Yaxley across the ballroom he started something of a mental countdown in his head. How soon was too soon to approach her? Obviously if he rushed the entrance the moment she arrived someone would notice and speak of it, and while during their first meeting he had been ambivalent to rumors that might start he felt more hesitant about the idea now. On their first interaction he'd thought rumors might prod her husband into showing up to some of these events and showing her off, being more affectionate in an attempt to stave them off. They still might, and it still might turn out well for her, but Don Juan was less certain that he wanted that now. They'd interacted in some depth on a handful of occasions since meeting, and he enjoyed her company; it would have been a detriment to him to have it unceremoniously cut off by a jealous husband.

On the other hand, he'd been hoping to see her all week, so it was difficult to hold back too long. The last time they'd talked at a party he'd goaded her into teaching him a few words of German, and then on a whim after the event he'd dropped into a bookstore and bought a German phrasebook. He was eager to show off his progress. He'd attacked the book with the fervor he often had for new whims and hobbies, but hadn't the opportunity to practice with anyone, which left him with — he presumed, anyway — a wealth of vocabulary and only a rudimentary idea of implementation. But he'd gleaned enough of the grammar from the appendices in the back of the phrasebook that he thought he could string together a sentence or two, and he was — in the manner of a dog who has learned a new trick — keen to be praised for it.

When he judged he had delayed long enough to be respectable, he made his excuses to his current conversation partner and approached her. "Dance with me?" he asked. When she accepted and he'd taken her hand to lead her to the dance floor, he observed, "Mr. Yaxley fehlt nochmal." This was his favorite of the phrases he'd learned in the book, because while its translation was factually accurate — Mr. Yaxley is absent again — to his English ear it sounded like what he really wanted to say: Mr. Yaxley fails you again.

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Elfrieda Yaxley

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Her arrival at the ball had been about half an hour ago, and already Elfrieda's eyes flitted impatiently across the room in between polite dances with inconsequential gentlemen, whose faces were as uninteresting to her as hers must seem impenetrable to them. Their attempts at conversation barely registered with her. She was waiting for someone; was looking for something that she would never venture to tell them about; she had not even confided in her girlfriends.
"May I—" asked someone, but she smiled apologetically and ducked away.

Then he finally approached across the ballroom and asked for his turn. Her heartbeat seemed to accelerate ever so slightly. Elfrieda felt warm. She cooled herself with her fan and nodded at him in a coy manner, as if he were just an acquaintance whom she indulged for a social dance. But her gaze, ever her traitor, lingered too long on his face.

"In der Tat, er fehlt [indeed, he is absent]" she replied, and now a smile spread across her face. He had been working on his German, it seemed. Last time they met, she had taught him a few phrases, but this was not one of them. "Er fehlt, und das ist sein Fehler allein, as you would tell me."
He has failed to appear, and that is his failure alone, she had just told him, playing with the German expression of "fehlen," a word that encompassed the concepts of failure, missing, and absence, as Don Juan had done.

"It is really not bad that you understand the complexity of the word 'fehlen,'" she told him, committing to the German habit of using an inversion for a compliment. 'Not bad' meaning high praise in her culture, akin to 'really good and impressive.'
"Sehr gut, is what I mean by that."
The music picked up, and she looked at him.
Let us dance, then.

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"Sehr gut," he echoed, preening over the praise. The words may have been tempered, but her expression was enough of a compliment in itself. He'd been able to follow her remarks, too, though only just.

"It was a deliciously fortuitous doubling," he remarked as the dance began, then wondered if this might come across as though he were pleased with her misfortune rather than with his own luck at having found such a fitting word. "That is," he added, once the steps of the dance had seen them briefly part and then return together, "That it seemed a word too well-fit to circumstance. But it is sehr gut for me that niemand versteht Deutsch, isn't it? Forgive my intemperance, my dear lady?"

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Elfrieda regarded with amusement how pleased he was with the continued absence of Clifford, who at this moment surely was doing something of utmost importance for the ministry.
Amusing was likewise that with every instance of attending another event on her own and finding Don Juan's happy countenance among the crowd, the perceived emptiness at her side stung less. It was amusing in the sense that it heightened her mood, and further she dared not think.

"Niemand außer uns," she said when the dance had her return to him, their fingers entwining.
"Forgiven," she smiled at the lightness of this.
"If you keep up the pace of learning my language," she said, upon returning to him once again, "we soon shall talk of anything we like. Dann wäre ich so frei."
Translating to "I would feel free," it also served as a double entendre, meaning "to take a liberty." She glanced mischievously at Don Juan, anticipating if he would understand this one.

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The overladen definition of freedom wasn't unique to her language, and the look in her eye made it clear she intended the ulterior meaning. Don Juan's eyes lit up in recognition, though he managed to keep the smile off his face for the moment.

"Surely it needn't wait on my sluggish tongue," he remarked. He let his fingers linger on hers half a beat too long when the music drew them apart again, forcing his next partner to hold their hand in midair to wait for him.

"Have you been here before? This house?" he asked when they came together again. Superficially it might seem a change of topic, but he expected she would be able to piece together where he was going easily enough. "The library is quite impressive. And they've a centerpiece you would certainly appreciate. Do go take a look, if you have a chance."

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"I do adore centerpieces," she replied with a smile that was meant to match his bravado but was not real. It was really there to hide her nerves. Her gaze remained transfixed on Don Juan for a few moments while they parted. She remembered she ought to at least look at her new partner, or it would be obvious where her mind was going. The gentleman smiled at her, and she returned it politely.
She thought about many things while they danced: She wondered if she would dare to go to the library. In her mind, she tried to picture how far her daring would extend if she went. She thought about dark rooms and prying eyes. She thought about Clifford and the things they used to do when they were freshly married. And how she now resented that he could never look into her eyes when he came to her room and turned her to face away from him. At the breakfast table, he looked at his papers; his kisses at the door were an afterthought. Was that to be her life?
Don Juan returned to her, and the lights of the chandelier created a halo around his head from her point of view, looking up to him. She regarded his animated countenance and noticed the slight tremble to her hands when he took them back into his. "This dance is almost over," she said. "Thereafter, I shall go wandering around this house to cool myself down."

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Cool herself down. He liked the implication that their dance had stirred something in her that needed time and space to resolve itself... though if things went according to his plan, she might find that her adventures through the house moved her internal temperature in the other direction.

"I hope you find what you're looking for," he said, smug and coy in the same breath.

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She shot him a look, and then the dance was over, and she retreated to the side of the ballroom. Don Juan—could she trust him? He thought he was hard-headed and shrewd perhaps, and that she was very naïve. Elfrieda sat down in one of the chairs for a moment and fussed with her silken gloves. She felt warm and nervous. She was being foolish, surely. And yet, she got up and headed for the corridor. In a quiet moment, she snuck up the stairs. Around the first corner, she was out of sight of any guest that might go through the entrance hall. Then she walked through the dimly lit and quiet corridors until she found the library. Elfrieda looked around for any wayward ballguests and finally entered.

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Don Juan found someone else to dance with after he separated from her, though his attention never left her for more than a minute. When he eventually looked for her and didn't find her, he started planning his own departure from the room.

She was already in the library when he slipped in. He shut the door behind him with practice stealth, but made a point to clear his throat before he came further into the room. He wasn't trying to startle her; rather to mask any noise from the rest of the house.

"Have you seen her yet?" he asked, eyes alight. He didn't wait for a response before reaching out to take her hand — a bold gesture, but one he didn't have to second-guess if they were alone in a library together. He pulled her deeper into the room. The room was divided into two main areas; the larger space the door opened into, lined with shelves, and a recessed alcove about half the size that featured a chaise and a few armchairs flanked by end tables for reading. In this secondary space, mostly shielded from the door, was the sculpture he'd been referencing as the centerpiece (though it wasn't exactly central to the library, as the word implied).

"Erato. The Muse of lyrical poetry," he explained. She was made of white stone, in the Roman fashion, and naked except for a bit of draped fabric that covered one shoulder, one knee, and a few spaces in between. She was in a half-reclined position with a lyre leaning against her stomach. Her fingers moved soundlessly against the strings; a rhythmic enchantment. Her head lilted gently to the music she wasn't making. Her eyes were closed in peaceful concentration, her lips slightly parted.

"What do you think?" he asked Mrs. Yaxley in a hushed tone, as though he was reluctant to disturb the Muse.

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She turned on her heels at the noise and watched Don Juan close the door behind him. Her heart started beating rather loudly now, and she looked at him, unsure of herself. He approached quickly with his glowing smile and eyes and took her hand at once to pull her along deeper into the library. "Her?" she managed to ask, then they stood before a marble statue of a nude woman.

Elfrieda stood beside him and looked at the white body of stone before her. It was detailed, and she thought that the lyre and the fabric looked rather like the sculptor had added them last and with the least enthusiasm. She smiled and extended a hand, brushing her fingertips lightly over Erato's marble thigh and bizarrely had to stifle a giggle.

"I think it is impressive, just as you said. I also think it is amusing how art like this ceases to be controversial as soon as it is made of marble and looks Greek," she answered his question. "Do you remember, there was a socialite they banished from polite society because she was painted in a revealing dress with a fallen shoulder strap? She left town. A few months ago. The painting was on exhibit in one of the grand salons around here; before they had to take it down because of the scandal."
Elfrieda was intruiged by this woman. She was rich and an art patron and, according to rumors, had many lovers. The painter had not alerted her before he exhibited this particular work of his. Elfrieda had managed to see it and had marveled at her beauty.

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Don Juan frowned slightly. He knew which woman she meant, but hadn't expected her societal downfall to be a relevant topic of conversation at a moment like this. Elfrieda Yaxley hadn't brought her up by accident. Maybe she was trying to communicate something to him, or maybe she wasn't quite conscious of the message she was sending, but it clearly wasn't a coincidence that such a theme was on her mind. So now his task in formulating his response was to address both the words she'd actually said and what lay beneath them... but then, they'd been talking in double meanings all day.

"Perhaps not entirely uncontroversial," he remarked. "They did choose to display it in the library rather than the ballroom. But that's always the way of these things — everyone likes to think they have a secret, even if really their secret is the same as everyone else's. The crime of the woman with the fallen shoulder strap was that the gallery display was too public for everyone to pretend not to notice, the way they usually do," he continued. "Or that's my speculation, anyway. I didn't see it, but I find it hard to imagine a shoulder so hideous it would see one ousted from society." This last was intended to lighten the mood; dwelling on the fate of fallen women was not going to lead this interaction in the direction he'd been hoping.

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She noticed at once the frown on Don Juan's face; she had strayed away from his plan for this moment. In his head, she ought to have said something else. And that displeasure was an acute pain to her. Elfrieda at once redirected her being to align with the direction he was heading towards; for Don Juan was one of those people who were always headed somewhere. She was not. Her life consisted of waiting and watching, and she did not want to fall out of his regard, now that he had come to pull her along.

So she smiled and kept to her heart alone what this exposed shoulder and its meaning and erotic potential and the dignified posture of the womans neck had made her feel, standing in the exhibition.
"You are right," she said. "The shoulder was not hideous. It was very pretty. As is this statue."
She nodded towards Erato, to bring the conversation back to where he had anchored it, before she had led them astray.
"Thank you for showing it to me. I would have missed it otherwise."

She turned towards him and watched his strong profile. It contained a lot of his character in its lines. She liked that about him.

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She turned towards him and Don Juan reflexively mirrored her movement. They'd already been standing close — the small enclave of this reading nook allowed for nothing else — but facing each other now he could feel the closeness. The air between them taut like the strings of Erato's lyre. "Of course you would have." He smiled. "She's meant to be a secret; the typical guest never would have stumbled upon her, tucked away like this. But she is very beautiful," he continued. He glanced to the statue for a moment, but only for a moment. Then his eyes returned to her, with an intensity that hadn't been there a moment before.

"You are very beautiful," he said. He wanted to touch her but was cautious of being too presumptuous; she'd never explicitly asked for this, at least not yet. So his hand found her elbow, something innocent and eminently forgivable should someone question it, but still enough to bridge the space between them and provide the contact he wanted. Enough, he hoped, to make his intentions obvious if his next words somehow failed to do so. "And I am very good at keeping secrets."

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She looked up at him, felt his touch at her elbow. Slowly, she let her right hand settle on his chest. Her fingers brushed against the fine fabric of his jacket, just about at the height of his heart, then she let them fall to her side. It was a tentative gesture, unsure of itself.

Elfrieda studied his smile and the glow inherent to his face, just beneath the darkness of his features.

"You brighten my days, Don Juan," she said softly, and it felt like an admission of guilt. "It is true. Even though I should not feel this way. I feel it, every time one of your letters arrives or when I see your face appear among a crowd. And I know, that you will come and ask me to dance."

She fell silent. There was something melancholic about her blue eyes, and something very determined. There was a terrible willingness in her to yield to him; let it be his doing. Or at least, that was the story she could tell and almost believe.

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They both knew why he'd invited her back here. He'd asked the question, with his comments just now. He could see her answer in the depths of her eyes, in the brush of her fingers against his coat. She was hesitant, that was obvious — but the answer was yes.

"Why shouldn't your days be brighter?" he challenged. He took half a step closer to her; inappropriately close now, even for the small room. "Don't you deserve the same happiness everyone else does?" He leaned in, a breath away from her now. "I look for you everywhere I go. I think of you when I'm alone. In my mind I have already memorized the taste of your lips." He paused here, letting his eyes fall to her lips while he whetted his own. He brought his other hand up and framed the side of her face as he met her eyes again. "Elfrieda," he said, with a sultry intensity — then leaned to kiss her.

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MJ made this <3

Don Juan closed in on her, and she let it happen, allowing her body to remain turned towards him and her cheek to lean into his hand where he placed it. She felt tears form in her eyes and blinked them away. Elfrieda bid her notions of what her life should have been like goodbye, and she let her lips be parted by his as he leaned down to kiss her.
His scent was all around her now, and she felt his body approach in the dark more than she saw it. Her heartbeat quickened, and she put her hands underneath his jacket, which was too cold and rigid, and placed them on his chest over his shirt, where it was warm and she could feel him move with his breath. She did not hurry to break their kiss. It was too late. It was set in motion. All that was left to do for her was to stifle any sound that would call attention to them and ask herself, anxiously and excitedly and with wide eyes, how far he would dare to take her.

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