Elegant Sins - Stasia Black Page 0,28

her neck, I heard, “Montgomery Kingston, have you chosen your belle for the Initiation?”

I took a step back from the belle in blue and nodded.

“I have chosen.”

8

Grace

Ten Minutes Earlier

You will stay calm, cool, and collected, I told myself as they paraded us into the white ballroom, and I got my first glimpse of the silver-hooded members of The Order of the Silver Ghost.

My heart was pounding about a jillion beats per minute though I prayed it didn’t show on my face. Calm, cool, and fucking collected. I wasn’t going to let any of these men intimidate me.

At least that’s what I told myself after Mrs. Hawthorne’s lackeys finally finished polishing and spritzing me into perfection hours earlier.

I had still looked like myself when I was finally allowed to glance in the mirror as Mrs. Hawthorne herself lifted the string of pearls and cinched the clasp behind my neck. But it was like I was walking around with an Instagram filter on. My skin was flawless. My eyes had never seemed so large or luminous.

I thought that the pearls were just the topping on an elegant cake. When I finally met the other belles in contention for the “gentleman,” that was what I was reminded of—beautiful cupcakes. We were tufted with layers of silk frosting all for the sake of being beautiful to look at. But it was an illusion. Really we were just here to be eaten up and devoured.

It was another test.

I didn’t know how many would be chosen tonight, but some would go home empty-handed. How many, I also didn’t know.

What I did know?

If I was going to go through with this, it had to be with the right man.

They paraded us in front of them, round and round, the eerie stomping of wooden canes the only noise. It felt like a pagan ceremony, a throwback to something ancient but very, very primal.

Keep your head, Grace. I just had to be analytical in my choice of a man. They thought they were choosing, but this was my choice, too, damn it.

I could do what they would ask of me. I hoped I could, anyway. But only with the right man. There would have to be trust. Otherwise, I didn’t think I could endure three months of being mistreated and come out all right on the other side okay. What woman could?

I wanted the future I glimpsed this afternoon when I described it into the recorder. Speaking my dream out loud had made me want it more than ever.

But I wasn’t so confident as to pretend I couldn’t be broken.

Yes, I could only do this if I chose the right man.

My gaze was drawn to one man standing among a group of young men.

I immediately dismissed him. He was too good-looking. Jaw-droppingly handsome, actually. And okay, yeah, I stared at first. But seriously, how often do you see guys like this in real life?

His blue-gray eyes were so light, they almost went translucent when light caught them. He had casually mussed blond hair but heavy, dark eyebrows that shadowed those intense eyes. All the other men had carefully groomed and slicked-back hair, but his was stylishly unruly. Was it an act of rebellion, or was he so rich that even amongst the most elite of the elite, he was still allowed to break the rules?

Surely, he had to be a jerk. Nobody rich enough to be here and also that gorgeous could be a good guy. He never would have had any reason to be. He must’ve been given every single thing in life and how could a man develop compassion when he’d never known need?

I searched every other face. Mostly it was white guys, but there were some men with actual melanin there, too. From what I could see, it was the younger men wore white tuxes, and then the rest of the older men leered on from beneath their silver hoods. How many men were being initiated tonight? I couldn’t tell and no one had explained the specifics of this “choosing ceremony”.

Surely there’d be more than just one man for so many women to be presented tonight.

Some of the guys watched as if they were already undressing me. A few looked bored.

I tried to focus on one of the other men. There was a shy-looking one standing behind the others. He wasn’t handsome but he wasn’t ugly. Plain. I could handle plain.

But my gaze was pulled toward the blond Greek god. For some reason, I felt as