Chapter Seven
The world did not stop.
The music continued. The chandelier sparkled overhead. A footman crossed the far side of the ballroom with a tray of wine as if nothing had happened.
Marry me.
He had said it aloud. In front of everyone who mattered and everyone who didn’t.
Someone had gasped. She didn’t know who. It might have been her.
Ash stood motionless, his expression unreadable behind the mask. But she could see the truth in his posture. The steadiness. The sincerity. This was no jest. No mistake.
Except it was.
A chill ran up her spine. He believed she was someone else.
She had not meant to let the deception go that far. Hadn’t meant to answer him at all. But here she was, caught in green silk, borrowed feathers, and a name that was never hers.
But her voice had gone missing along with her breath and her reason.
Leticia opened her mouth and heard herself say it before she understood why. He didn’t know her name, but somehow, he had found her. And for one reckless heartbeat, she wanted the illusion to be true.
“Yes.” Not loud. Not strong. But it was enough. Enough to move through the ballroom, the crowd, her bones.
A few guests clapped. And then a few more. The sound grew. It was not jubilant, but obliging, like a celebration offered more out of habit than certainty.
Ash reached for her hand, not with triumph, but with reverence. His eyes never left hers as he lifted it gently to his lips. The kiss was soft, formal, and entirely public. And like a vow.
“You’ve made me the happiest man here,” he said softly. “He was wrong, you know.”
Leticia blinked. “Who?”
“Trenton. He said you didn’t believe in romance.”
Her heart folded in on itself. Of course. He believed she was Erica.
Before she could speak, a call went out from near the musicians’ gallery.
“Another waltz!” someone called. “Let them have the floor!”
The conductor nodded, and a new melody began lush and slow, as the dancers around them stepped aside.
She let him lead her again. One more moment she told herself. One more dance before the truth found her.
Just one more moment, she told herself. One more dance. In the morning, she’d explain everything.
Tonight, she could pretend that she danced in a sea of rose petals alone with him.
She had never danced like this before. Never been seen, wanted, cherished. For the span of a waltz, the rest of the world ceased to exist.
The music faltered beneath a sudden scream.
“My necklace! Someone has taken it!”
All eyes turned.
A woman near the edge of the floor clutched at her bodice with both hands, her fingers trembling. She looked down in disbelief, patted her neckline again, as if the necklace might reappear by magic.
“No, no. It was just here!” she cried, spinning halfway toward her companions, her face drained of color. “Someone’s taken it!”
Gasps rang out around the ballroom. The conductor dropped his baton, and the violins stuttered to a halt mid-phrase. One or two guests instinctively placed hands over their own necklaces or gloves, checking what had not yet been taken.
He moved with a soldier’s precision, placing himself between her and chaos. She should have been grateful. Instead, she could only feel the cold certainty that he did not even know whom he was protecting.
“Where were you standing?” he asked the woman who had cried out.
She pointed toward a cluster of chairs near the refreshments. “There. Just before the last dance.”
A footman had already gone to summon the house steward. Ash nodded once, turning to Leticia.
“Come with me,” he said. “Barrington will want to know.”
Leticia nodded, her voice still caught behind her ribs. She followed him through the thinned crowd, aware of every eye, every whisper. The music had not resumed.
They rounded the edge of the ballroom toward a quieter corridor, only to pause as a familiar figure emerged from the alcove ahead.
Erica Notley.
Dressed in dove gray, elegant and composed, she looked every inch the darling of society.
Ash stopped. So did Leticia.
“Well,” Erica said lightly, “I see you’ve found someone to dance with after all.”
He looked at her, at Erica, and said quietly, “You nearly fooled me.”
The words were gentle. Grateful. Final.
Her pulse stopped. The world tilted, the truth plain at last—he hadn’t seen her at all. Before she could speak, Barrington showed from the opposite corridor.
“Ashcombe,” he said urgently. “We’ve just had another report. This one from the retiring room. I need you. Now.”
Ash’s gaze darted back to Leticia, as if he might still explain.
But she stepped back. It was too late.
Leticia looked at Erica, not a rival. Simply the woman he had meant to propose to.
She had danced in borrowed feathers and let herself believe he saw her. But he hadn’t. Not ever. Her hand fell from his arm. The space between them grew wider than the ballroom.
“I should go,” she said softly to no one in particular, or perhaps only to herself.
Neither of them stopped her.
Leticia slipped away down the corridor and stepped into an alcove. The silence pressed in around her, heavy and close, like a corset drawn too tight. The mask was no longer elegant or mysterious. It represented a part she was never meant to play.
She lifted trembling fingers to untie it, letting the ribbons slip through her hands.
The velvet mask fell to the table beside her like something shed, not discarded.
Her reflection in the mirror above the table startled her.
She looked young. Flushed. Uncertain. Not at all the woman the ballroom believed her to be.
She would go back. She must. There was no room for retreat now. But she would go back armored in stillness, not hope.
With careful hands, she retied the mask.
She walked without direction, slipping into the warren of hallways that led away from the ballroom, through a service corridor, past a powder room, until she found herself in a side drawing room dimly lit and blissfully empty.
Leticia stood with her back to the door, chest rising too quickly. The gown was too tight. The mask, too heavy.
Footsteps approached behind her, paused. A soft knock. “Leticia?”
Her aunt stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She said nothing at first. Just looked at her niece for a long moment.
“You cannot undo it,” she said gently.
Leticia turned, stricken. “He doesn’t even know who I am.”
“I know.”
“I’ll tell him the truth. In the morning. We’ll straighten it out.”
Her aunt’s voice softened, but it did not bend. “And do you think society will forget what it heard tonight? What it saw? You said yes, Leticia, in front of half the ton. If you retract that now, it will follow you. It will follow your family. Your parents.”
Leticia looked down. Her fingers trembled against the silk of her gown. “What am I to do?”
Her aunt crossed the room and held her close.
“You are to be brave, as you always have been. But you are no longer a girl who can choose and unchoose at will. You’re a woman now, and your next step must be taken with your eyes open.”
Together, they returned to the ballroom.
The music had resumed. Soft, unobtrusive. A few couples moved across the floor in quiet figures, trying too hard to appear unaffected.
Leticia held her head high. Her steps were sure, her mask secure. But the hush as she entered rippled like a breeze across still water. People turned. Murmured. One woman curtsied too deeply. Another leaned toward her companion, whispering behind a fan.
“Is that her?”
“So young.”
“I thought it was Miss Notley.”
Lady Eastbury’s presence was a shield beside her, calm and composed. Leticia kept her gaze forward, her smile nonexistent. The ballroom blurred at the edges.
Ash stood at the far end. He didn’t move toward her, but his gaze found hers. There was something unreadable in it, concern, perhaps. Or confusion.
She didn’t look away. But she didn’t approach him either.
A familiar voice rose nearby. “There you are! You’ve been the subject of every whisper.”
Mrs. Bainbridge swept toward them in a flourish of tulle and pale blue silk. “Come now, my dear. The look on half these ladies’ faces is enough to give me indigestion. Let me rescue you before one of them offers you a bridal crown made of peacock feathers.”
Leticia allowed herself to be led, grateful for the distraction. She did not know whether to laugh or cry, only that she was still standing.
But as they passed beneath the arch of the ballroom’s far alcove, there it was again, that flicker of warmth and ache and dread. The way he had looked at Erica. The words he had spoken. You nearly fooled me.
He had looked into her eyes and seen someone else. That was what she would remember long after the music, the gossip, and the glitter had faded.
Let the ton whisper.
Let them cheer.
Let them print their announcements in the morning papers.
Leticia would remember that look for the rest of her life.