The Crystal Ballroom of Gearhart House glittered like a snow-globe full of chandeliers. Brass chandeliers, naturally—each arm a swan-necked pipe puffing just enough luminous vapour to bathe parquet and petticoat alike in a faint topaz mist. The steam-organa in the gallery pumped out a jaunty foxtrot, its bellows sighing in time with the dancers' skirts. At the head of the marble stair, Harold Forsythe swallowed the remains of his courage.
Mabel, polished to parade gloss, adjusted the crease in his pearl-grey silk gloves. "Posture nominal. Pulse elevated but not apocalyptic. Remember: Guardian-Chaperoned Half-Incline only, sir."
"Half-Incline," Hal repeated, patting the cravat that felt suddenly throttling. Forty-two bows jostled for recall inside his skull like over-caffeinated pigeons.
Below, Duchess Euphemia raised an arm and the foxtrot juddered to a halt. "Honoured guests," she trilled, voice amplified by a discreet megaphone orchid, "may I present my ward, Mister Harold Forsythe—first of his gender to grace this floor in three stirring years!"
A hush pooled; monocles tilted; dowagers assessed. Hal descended the stair, each step cushioned in velvet yet heavy as lead. The moment his polished shoe touched parquet, applause erupted—polite, brittle, and edged with acquisition.
Madame Primrose Gravité glided forward, her gown a mauve zeppelin trimmed in ostrich. "Mister Forsythe will now extend formal greetings to our twelve distinguished debutantes." She brandished a silver baton. "Ladies: rank order, clockwise. Gentlemen—oh, singular—commence."
The twelve formed a crescent of brocade and expectation. Mabel's ocular lamp projected a translucent cue-card that only Hal could see: G-C Half-Incline pulsed in reassuring green. He inhaled, summoned the hinge-like calm of endless drills, and stepped before Lady Hyacinth Beauville, eldest daughter of the Admiralty.
What happened next historians would debate for years, but the parquet was later proven guilty of excess polish. Hal's heel slid. Reflex chose precisely the wrong compensation: arms swept wide, head dipped low, and a flamboyant heel-click resounded through the silence.
Full. Prosperity. Sweep.
A gasp rose—a single startled cymbal crash of breath—and twelve fans snapped shut as if by clockwork.
Lady Hyacinth's eyes widened to dessert-plate dimensions before she executed a textbook faint, rescued mid-plummet by a convenient potted topiary. Beside her, Lady Ianthe managed to sniff her smelling-salts before crumpling gracefully. The chain reaction continued until every debutante lay in fragrant heaps of satin, each guarded by an outraged chaperone wielding a pre-printed engagement contract.
Matriarchal Code §407.b was regrettably clear: an unescorted Full Prosperity Sweep constituted a proposal, and proposals—like artillery shells—were considered live upon impact.
Madame Primrose's mauve complexion achieved a shade rarely catalogued outside volcanic sunsets. "B-but he was trained!" she wailed, flapping her baton like a distress pennant.
Clock-drones, those meddlesome brass hornets of the society pages, dived for vantage. Magnesium flashes spattered the air while one over-eager reporter squawked in real time:
"Rare Chap Proposes to Dozen—Who Will He Choose?"
Effie flitted between swooning girls and snapping lenses, simultaneously administering salts and calculating dowry coefficients. Her modulated fretting could not disguise the glint in her eye—like a banker watching compound interest sprout legs.
Hal's world spun. Everywhere he looked a fainted lady or an ink-wielding solicitor blocked the exits. Mabel's etiquette sub-routine locked, her eye-lens frozen on the word ERROR.
A pair of tea-tray servers smuggled Hal behind towering mech-palms. There he sagged against the bark, heart pounding like a mis-timed piston.
"I reviewed the angles," he muttered. "That sweep should be mechanically impossible without intent."
"Parquet coefficient exceeded design parameters," Mabel replied, finally booting past the error. "Recommendation: hyperventilate more quietly—press within earshot."
Hal peered round a frond. Two lawyers in feathered hats were fencing with fountain pens over jurisdiction. Each flourish represented another chunk of his study timetable evaporating.
"I'm never going to pass the licence exam if every bow costs a week of arbitration," he groaned.
The steam-organa squealed as Effie mounted the bandstand. With one theatrical sweep of her fan she commanded attention.
"Dearest friends," she sang, "pray be at ease! My ward's flourish was no exclusive proposal, but a Traditional Mass-Prosperity Salute in honour of all fine ladies present. A courteous tribute, nothing more."
The chaperones bristled. "Statute §407.b—"
"—also allows the salute to be contextually honorary," Effie interrupted, brandishing a leather-bound law digest. "Disputes may, of course, be tabled at tomorrow's polite mediation breakfast—eleven sharp."
Applause—confused yet grateful—rippled through the hall. The clock-drones withdrew to file extended editions. The music struck up again, though dancers now avoided the centre floor as if a crater had opened.
As the buffet was cleared, Hal re-emerged, escorted by Mabel's steady gears. On his abandoned plate lay an unfamiliar calling card: a brass cog engraved with the crest of Lady Octavia Brasswell, edges warmed by the chandelier glow. Beneath the cog, a single line:
Hold fast. We speak at dawn.
Mabel slid the card into her chest cavity. "Strategic ally detected."
Hal managed his first genuine breath since the sweep. The prospect of Octavia's cool competence felt like a rope tossed to a drowning swimmer.
Hours later the mansion lay quiet save for the scratch of Effie's quill. In her study she sat before a ledger so vast it required two candle-trees for illumination. Twelve fresh columns bore the names of the debutantes, each accompanied by dowry estimates, political advantages, and colour-coded timetables for negotiation.
With every neat entry the adding-machine at her elbow chimed a jaunty cha-ching, coins clattering in an imaginary till. Effie's smile widened. "Twelve," she whispered to the shadows. "A dozen opportunities, neatly gift-wrapped."
Outside the door, Mabel's optic flickered, silently recording.
And in a dim guest-wing chamber, Hal stared at the ceiling, silk-gloved hands clasped over a heart that beat double-time to the ticking study clock. Somewhere beyond the window, the horizon was already paling—the brief, uneasy hush before Lady Octavia Brasswell's promised dawn.