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Phichit’s brother stared at him when he came down. “Is that what you’re wearing to the ball tonight? Really? If you don’t get dressed properly, Mom won’t take you!”
“And if Mom doesn’t take me, and the queen finds out, then the whole family’s in huge trouble, and I’m curious to see which way Mom decides to go.” Phichit looked down at himself. His father and brother were in crisp white suits decorated with pale blue trim. They looked great, but boring. They’d be lost in the crowd of white suits at the ball. Everyone wore white suits to the ball.
Phichit hated wearing the white suit. For one thing, it made it hard to stand out. For another, it made him feel like he was someone else. Someone formal and stiff and boring, someone who could manage to keep a white suit spotless through a ball. That wasn’t Phichit.
Instead, he was wearing a dark red suit with gold trim. It was eye-catching, and he’d stand out easily among the crowd. There was no law or rule that said you must wear white – every year, a handful of young men and one or two of the older men showed up in colorful outfits. Traditionalists hated it, and their behavior was scrutinized for anything that could be used to create a scandal. Phichit was not the best behaved of men to begin with, so there would almost certainly be talk about him. Exactly what Phichit wanted, tonight.
Phichit’s mother pursed her lips when she saw Phichit. “Always pushing. You insist on doing this?”
“Yep! I go in this or I don’t go,” Phichit said. “We don’t have time for me to change.”
“If you weren’t right about that, I would argue, but you are. Don’t think I’m going to forget this. You will pay.” She swept outside and into the waiting car. Phichit followed. He might pay, but it wouldn't be tonight.
Phichit wasn’t the only man there in a color – quite a few blues, a couple greens, and one guy who Phichit admired for showing up in the brightest pink he’d ever seen. It suited him perfectly, and the confidence was strong without being overwhelming.
None of it mattered, really. He took the hamster mask he was given and headed out into the crowd to make himself visible. There was a plan, and he was going to make it happen. Step one: get out there and get seen. It didn’t take long before he found someone to dance with – the guy in the pink suit, in fact. His mask was a poodle, which Phichit loved. “Do you like your mask?”
“I love it! It actually looks just like my actual dog. Perfect!”
“I need to introduce you to my friend. I have no idea who you are or what you’re like, but my friend needs to have another dog in his life to pet.” Pink Suit Poodle let Phichit drag him along by the hand while he looked for Yuuri – there, in the corner, with the small stack of champagne glasses behind him, that had to be him under the demon mask. He was wearing the traditional white suit and trying to draw as little attention to himself as he could. Thankfully, Yuuri had enough champagne in him that when Phichit grabbed his hand and put it in Pink Suit Poodle’s, he went along with it instead of pulling away.
Matchmaking hadn’t been part of the plan, but he noticed a few people staring at him as he watched Yuuri and Pink Suit Poodle dance. He had work to do, and he got back to it, dancing with several people and drawing attention to himself. After an hour or so, he took a break and found his sister Kannika.
She winked at him through the dragon mask. “Congratulations. Everyone’s talking about the hamster in red who’s lighting up the dance floor. That and the poodle and demon who have already left the dance together.”
“You’re kidding. Wow!” Phichit was going to have to find Yuuri later and get details out of him – and probably talk him down from an anxiety attack when he realized he was one of the focal points of gossip. “Any sign of…”
Kannika pointed to the table at the front of the room, where a small group sat watching the ball. The royal family. “He’s here, although I can’t say whether the gossip’s filtered up to him yet. You know Mom’s going to kill you if this doesn’t work, right?”
“Don’t worry, Kanni, it’ll work. Have some faith in me.” Kannika rolled her eyes and Phichit headed back out to the dance floor.
Another hour later, Phichit paused to check on his progress again. He saw that the royals had broken up and were starting to mingle. Shouldn’t be too much longer, then. He set his sights on his next target, a girl in a gorgeous yellow gown and a snake mask, but found his path blocked as he started toward her.
“I’ve been watching you.” The man in his way was one of the royal family, the queen’s younger brother Celestino. “Would you dance with me?”
“Of course, your highness.” Phichit bowed and took the hand Celestino extended to him. Phichit had expected one dance, maybe two, before Celestino excused himself, but there was no sign that the prince intended to let him go anywhere. Very quietly, he whispered, “What are you doing? There’s a plan.”
“Trust me,” Celestino whispered back. It wasn’t reassuring, but Phichit didn’t have much choice but to play along.
As the music started winding down, Celestino led Phichit up to the front table, where his sister and her husband were watching the festivities. “I’m leaving. With your permission, I’d like to ask this young man to come with me.”
The queen looked over Phichit coolly. Phichit held his ground, not showing the nerves underneath the confidence he’d been projecting. This was the only part of the evening he’d been at all worried about. “Will you unmask?” the queen asked.
Celestino squeezed his hand and let go, so Phichit pulled off the mask and bowed to the queen. “Your majesty.”
“Chulanont. Phichit, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He could hear the scolding he was in for when he went home tomorrow, but this was so worth it.
“Very well. Enjoy your night, Celestino.”
As soon as the door closed behind them in Celestino’s room, Phichit burst into relieved laughter. “That went perfectly. Better than I’d expected, I thought you’d have to stage some kind of search for the person who stole your heart at the dance!”
Celestino pulled him in close and kissed him. “Sorry for going off-script, but I think it helped. I did not want to give you up and have to find you again.”
“I wouldn’t have been hard to find, you know,” Phichit said with a wink. “But yeah, that worked, no big deal. Tomorrow’s going to be interesting.”
“How dead are you if I let you go home? Because if your mother is going to hurt you, I can send you with an escort, or come myself, under the guise of gathering your belongings to bring you here.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” Phichit said after a moment’s thought. “I don’t think she’d literally kill me, but there would be some kind of awful punishments. Chores, beatings, being locked in the basement unless I’m doing one of those chores… of course, those would disappear when you show up to begin proper courtship, can’t have the royals thinking she’s mistreating someone they care about.”
Celestino frowned. “Would she really beat you?”
“She has before. Why did you think I was looking for a powerful mate? I want to get away from her, and whoever I went to needed to be able to stand up to her.” Phichit had begun working at the royal castle as a scribe and a musician, with the intention of seducing some powerful lord’s son or daughter. He’d never expected to catch Celestino’s eye, royalty was higher than he’d dared aim, but he knew how the game was played and did so to perfection – right up until he fell in love for real, but by then, Celestino was his. This whole plan, tonight, had been about giving them a socially acceptable story of how they met, given the differences in their age and social status.
The frown deepened. “What about the others? Does she treat them the same way?”
“Not really, but then, most of them fall in line and behave themselves the way she expects them to. She gave Kannika one good thrashing when she was twelve and snuck out to go to a party with her friends, and Kannika’s never stepped out of line since. I’m the only one who just can’t seem to behave the way she wants me to. Too much spirit, she says.”
“Well, joke’s on her, your spirit’s a big part of the reason I fell for you.” Celestino wrapped Phichit up in a tight hug, and Phichit closed his eyes and hugged back, relishing the feeling of safety here in the prince’s arms. “I’m going with you tomorrow. I think I need to have a word with your mother.”
“You’re that confident about your sister?” That was the part that had Phichit worried. This all came crashing down if the queen wouldn’t give her consent to Celestino marrying Phichit.
“You passed the one test she had. You stood your ground and unmasked. She was pointing you out and encouraging me to go dance with you for half an hour before I finally did. She just wanted to know that you weren’t awed by royalty and that confidence wouldn’t vanish just because you were in our presence.”
As Celestino said, the queen barely looked surprised when Celestino and Phichit went to her to ask her permission to marry, which she granted without hesitation. Celestino, Phichit, and two guards took a car and drove to Phichit’s home.
Phichit went in first, alone. “I’m back!”
His mother slapped him. “How dare you pull such shenanigans? Do you have any idea what you’ve done to this family’s reputation?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. You don’t, though.” Another slap, on the other cheek. “Mom, there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.” He opened the door, and Celestino stepped inside. “Unless you object, which you really shouldn’t considering we’ve already gotten the queen’s blessing, I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Prince Celestino.”
Celestino brush his fingers over the red marks, visible even with Phichit’s dark skin, from his mother’s slaps. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Phichit looked at his mother, whose mouth hung open as she looked between them. “You see, I didn’t hurt the family at all last night.”
“No, I…” she started.
Celestino interrupted her. “Phichit’s told me some things that I don’t like. He’s safe now, but I want you to know that I will be keeping an eye on my new brothers- and sisters-in-law. If I see signs of abuse, which I already do on Phichit, I will bring them to the castle where you can’t hurt them ever again.” Warmth returned to his face and voice as he turned back to Phichit. “Go get packed. Let’s get you out of here.”