A Masquerade with the Devil (Courting Ruin #2)

Chapter 1

L ady Clara Mapleton adjusted the mask over her eyes and managed a brittle smile as the strains of a waltz drifted through the space.

Candles glimmered in chandeliers overhead, casting golden light over an opulent sea of silks, velvets, and feathers.

The masquerade ball at the Duke of Winfield’s London townhouse was the pinnacle of the Season, which meant it was also brimming with danger.

Four seasons ago, Clara might have looked forward to this ball.

Four seasons ago, she had been another hopeful among the ranks of society’s daughters, more interested in the taste of sugared lemon cakes and the unspoken promises in a well-executed dance than in the dreadful calculus of marriage and reputation.

But that was before Oakford. Before he had spread a careless rumor that she had snuck off for a scandalous liaison with a viscount behind the hedges.

A lie, but one potent enough to see her Almack’s voucher revoked, Lord Beresford’s flowers cease arriving, and the whispers begin in earnest.

She moved through the crush of masked revelers with practiced poise, her chin tilted just so, the fan in her hand fluttering with deliberate control even as her pulse skittered like a trapped bird.

She acknowledged acquaintances with brief, practiced nods, each smile a fragile veneer stretched thin over a heart thudding too fast, each step calculated to project composure.

Every stride demanded a suppression of nerves, a masking of the dread that pulsed beneath her ribs.

Her thoughts churned. Would she ever truly move past the scandal from her first season?

Even now, it clung to her like soot. She refused to let the whispers define her, but even so, the weight of judgment pressed on her shoulders, heavy and unrelenting.

The whispers of society ladies stung like nettles against her skin.

After enduring too much, Clara had retreated to a corner near a gilded column, not in defeat, but to recover a sliver of calm.

Yet even the shadows felt complicit, whispering her name with the echo of past mistakes, wrapping her in doubt as if the night itself sought to remind her she did not belong.

“There you are,” came a voice to her left. It was her dear friend Lady Alice Pickford, wearing a gown of sapphire blue and a fox-shaped mask that somehow suited her impish nature. “You are the only woman I know who can make being a wallflower look elegant.”

Clara sighed. “I am simply... observing.”

“You are sulking.”

“I am not,” Clara said.

“Your frown could curdle cream.” Alice linked arms with her. “Come. Dance with someone. Or steal a kiss from a stranger. That is what masquerades are for.”

“A stolen kiss?” Clara arched a brow. “That sounds precisely like the sort of behavior that leads to ruination.”

Alice grinned. “Only if one is caught, and only by someone inclined to tattling.”

“Alice,” hissed a voice behind them. Eden Langley, Marchioness Blackstone, her mask a demure cream edged with silver lace, stepped up beside them.

She was taller than most, her dark hair braided tight and crowned with a circlet of tiny white roses, but her manner was all warmth.

“Hush. You will cause a scandal with such talk.” She rested a hand on Clara’s arm.

“Clara, you look wonderful. The red brings out the malice in your eyes.”

Clara allowed herself a genuine smile, touched by Eden’s insouciance. “That was the precise effect I aimed for, Lady Blackstone.”

“I hardly recognize you with all these feathers,” Eden replied, lowering her voice as the waltz swelled into a fortissimo. “If only our mothers were present…they would be in fits over this display.”

“They are present,” Alice stage-whispered. “They are over by the refreshment tables, gossiping and scanning for eligible son-in-laws. Our future is at stake, after all.”

The three women leaned in close, conspiratorial.

A flicker of movement by the far pillar drew Clara’s gaze.

Two men stood slightly apart from the crowd.

Lord Blackstone, Eden’s husband, and her brother Thomas Thornton, Earl of Pavington.

Gabriel Langley was the more imposing, black-haired and as enigmatic as a carved statue, while Pavington’s light-brown hair and sea-blue eyes suggested a friendlier temperament.

The pair watched the floor, though Clara was certain neither missed a syllable of the girls’ banter.

“Thomas looks like a man sentenced to execution,” she said, tilting her chin.

“Indeed,” Eden said, “it is because Alice is here, and he is desperate not to incite her. I think he worries she will bring up the incident of the dead ferret.”

Alice gave a theatrical sigh. “I would wager his concern lays more with the match-making mamas in attendance.” Her gaze drifted again. “He is looking this way.”

“He always does,” Clara said, who had not taken her eyes off the gentlemen for some time. “It is terribly endearing.”

“Thomas is only endearing to women who have not had their pigtails dunked in ink,” Alice replied. “But tonight I have no quarrel with him. I intend to smile, and laugh, and, if I can manage it, avoid any references to ruined virtue.”

Eden’s lips twitched. “You are a paragon of grace.”

Clara had just opened her mouth to speak when a masked man in black approached her, moving with the lazy grace of a predator. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and his mask was plain save for a gold trim. Something about him made Clara’s skin prickle with awareness.

“Dance with me,” he said smoothly, his voice low and wicked.

Clara hesitated. “I do not believe we have been introduced.”

“Is that not the point of a masquerade?” he countered, stepping closer.

Something wild sparked in her chest. She should say no. She would say no. But instead, she nodded and took his arm.

The music changed, and he led her onto the dance floor. His touch was steady and possessive on her waist, his steps confident. Clara found herself caught in the rhythm, the closeness, the heady sense of anonymity.

He leaned close, his lips at her ear.

Clara’s breath caught, her senses flaring at his nearness. The scent of sandalwood and something darker curled around her, and for a moment, the din of the ballroom faded.

“You intrigue me,” he said.

Before she could answer, he spun her out in a sharp, graceful swoop. When she steadied herself, a strange tightness coiled in her chest. Not just from the movement, but from the way he looked at her. As though he knew her. As though he wanted her.

Then he kissed her, and for a breathless instant, the world receded.

Time bent around her, the crowd and music blurring into a hush as his lips pressed to hers.

All sense of propriety vanished, her thoughts swept away by the sheer audacity of the moment.

His hand at her waist grounded her even as everything else spun, her thoughts scattering like petals on the wind in the blaze of sensation.

Her breath caught. Awareness surged through her, raw and unbidden, and far too real.

The kiss was not gentle. The way his mouth claimed hers was far from polite. It was searing, tasting of heat and arrogance, the pressure of his mouth both daring and decisive. A firm claiming. A scandal pressed against her lips in full view of the ballroom.

A rush of shock surged through her, disbelief mingling with something dangerously close to longing. She jerked free of his hold, her breath ragged, and his mask slid revealing his face. Only then, in the jarring collision of recognition and sensation, did her mind scream the truth. It. Was. Him.

Of course it was him. And yet, for one heartbeat, she had not pulled away. Not because she wanted it, surely not, but because the kiss had left her momentarily untethered, adrift in sensation and fury alike.

Gasps echoed through the ballroom, and the music faltered in response.

The scoundrel stared at her with the expression of a man who had just torched his own house and was still waiting for the smoke to clear.

Clara took a step back. Her cheeks burned. Her hands trembled. She wanted to slap him, to scream, to ask him what in the seven hells he thought he was doing. But most of all, she wanted—God help her—to feel that kiss again.

A sharp breath escaped her, her heart stuttered, and a chill raced down her spine despite the heat in her cheeks. Her stomach twisted, not just from the sight of him, but from the knowledge of who he was and what he had already cost her.

Crispin Hallworth.

The Devil of Oakford.

The title struck like a thunderclap in her memory, conjuring the whispered betrayals of her first season, the humiliation, the icy stares.

Her pulse pounded at her temples. She had sworn never to speak to him again—never to even look at him if she could help it—and yet here he was, his kiss still burning on her lips.

The very reprobate who had ruined her first season with a whisper. The single lie had cost her everything.

Clara’s eyes narrowed to slits, her fists curling at her sides as her breath came fast. “You,” she hissed, her voice laced with venom and disbelief.

“The pleasure is mine,” he said, a maddening smile curving his lips.

A crowd began to form around them. Eden and her husband Gabriel appeared at the edge of the crush, concern in Eden’s eyes. Clara’s mother looked horrified. Crispin’s mother, Lady Oakford, bustled forward, face pale.

Her mother's dismay, the swell of whispers from the crowd, and the knowledge that her reputation, already precarious, teetered on the edge of further ruin collided into a reckless resolve. She had already spent years under the weight of society’s judgment, all because of the devil’s lie.

She would not allow him to ruin her again.

If she could not stop the fire, she would redirect the blaze.