Read Online Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare - Free Book Online Page A

added, eyes sparkling. “You must be careful of him, Miss Carstairs. He has a reputation .”
    Lucie began to turn an angry shade of pink.
    â€œWe should guess who James will ask to dance first,” said a fair-haired girl in a pink dress. “Surely you, Rosamund; you are looking so lovely tonight. Who could resist you?”
    â€œAh, yes, who will be graced by my brother’s attentions?” drawled Lucie. “When he was six, he threw up in his own shoe.”
    The others girls pointedly ignored her as the music began once more. Someone who appeared to be Rosamund’s brother came to claim the fair-haired girl for a dance; Charles left Alastair and came across the room to take Ariadne’s hand and whisk her onto the floor. Will and Tessa were in each other’s arms, as were both sets of Lucie’s aunts and uncles.
    A moment later Matthew Fairchild approached the table. He was suddenly startlingly close to Cordelia. She could see that his eyes were not dark, as she had thought, but a deep shade of green like forest moss. He bowed slightly to Lucie. “Might I have this dance?”
    Lucie cast a glance back at the other girls that Cordelia could read as clearly as words on a page. She was not concerned about Matthew’s reputation, the look said. Head held high, Lucie sailed out onto the dance floor with the Consul’s second son.
    Which was commendable of her, Cordelia thought, but it did leave Cordelia alone with a group of girls she was not sure liked her. She could hear a few of them whispering that she seemed terribly pleased with herself, and she thought she caught her father’s name, too, and the word “trial”—
    Cordelia stiffened her spine. She had made a mistake in mentioning Paris; she would not compound it by seeming weak. She gazed out upon the dance floor, a smile glued to her lips. She caught sight of her brother, now in conversation with Thomas Lightwood. The two boys sat casually on a rout-seat together, as if they wereexchanging confidences. Even Alastair was doing a better job of charming the influential than she was.
    Not far from them, leaning against a wall, was a girl dressed in the height of fashion—men’s fashion. Tall and almost painfully slender, she had dark, dark hair like Will and James did. Hers was cut short and smoothed down with pomade, the edges finger-combed into careful curls. Her hands were long, ink-and-tobacco-stained and beautiful to look at, like the hands on a statue. She was smoking a cheroot, the smoke drifting up past her face, which was unusual: fine-boned and sharp edged.
    Anna, Cordelia realized. This was Anna Lightwood, Lucie’s cousin. She was certainly the most intimidating person in the room.
    â€œOh, my,” said Catherine, as the music rose. “It’s a waltz.”
    Cordelia glanced down. She knew how to dance: her mother had engaged an expert instructor to teach her the quadrille and the lancer, the stately minuet and the cotillion. But the waltz was a seductive dance, one where you could feel your partner’s body against yours, scandalous when it had first become popular. She’d never learned it.
    She very much wanted to dance it with James. But he probably didn’t even wish to dance at all; he probably wanted to talk with his friends, as any young man would. She heard another spate of giggles and whispers, and Catherine’s voice saying, “Isn’t she that girl whose father—”
    â€œDaisy? Would you like to dance?”
    There was only one boy who called her that. She looked up, incredulous, to see James standing in front of her.
    His beautiful hair was disorderly, as it always was, and more charming for that: a lock of it fell over his forehead, and his lashes were thick and dark over his pale gold eyes. His cheekbones arched like wings.
    The group of girls had fallen into a stunned silence. Cordelia felt as if she might be floating.
    â€œI