Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“Thisbe…” he murmured.
Sebastian Halshore, The Duke of Talwyn, slumped back against the bench in the privacy booth, and sighed.
Gently, he closed the book he had been reading as he took a sip of his wine.
The mask on his face was of a seductive, secretive snake, a kind that he knew would stand out in an array of every other animal existing.
Snakes knew how to weave themselves into a place; they knew where to slither, and they knew how to wait to capture their prey.
To Sebastian, that made sense.
Still, despite that, a woman had fled his attention, and he was left lingering in her absent scent of lilies and jasmine. He set aside his cup of claret and briefly turned his face toward the latticed wall.
He stared through the openings even though she was no longer there. She had left only moments ago, so her perfumed scent was potent, and he breathed it in.
For a second, he pressed his forehead to the wall, imagining what she may have looked like.
But reality snapped him back to an upright position as he polished off his wine, licking the corners of his mouth to catch the stray droplets.
It was a rich flavor, fruity, with a heady depth beneath, and Sebastian determined after quaffing the entire cup that he was rather fond of it.
Another, he thought, and rose.
When he left the booth, he placed the book back on the shelf, pausing to give a huff of a laugh at how he had dared to read part of it aloud to a nervous stranger, a woman who he thought wished to unlock more than she had let herself.
A glimpse of a fox mask, the flash of a silver pendant he had seen the shape of her hand clutching…
That was all he had of her.
That, and a nickname that adjoined with his own.
Pyramus and Thisbe, forever divided by a wall.
He laughed to himself once more before he left the room and headed down the long passageway that would return him to the ballroom.
On his way through the hall, he nodded to ‘Lord Spencer. The man had been in Sebastian’s service for years. Since he had begun hosting these soirees, this gentleman had posed as the host of these parties in his stead. Sebastian paid his Lord Spencer handsomely to play the role of host.
There is a reason nobody knows Lord Spencer’s true identity.
Sliding his hands into his pockets, Sebastian strolled down the hallway to the ballroom, trying not to wonder if he would see his nervous Thisbe.
Yet right before he entered the ballroom, he stumbled and then frowned down at himself.
“What the…” he muttered under his breath.
I can always hold my wine better than this, he thought, but didn’t linger on the thought.
Perhaps he had just gone a little overboard as he read, idly sipping away without realizing how much he’d had. Still, he composed himself and slipped into the ballroom undetected.
It was a strange thing: to be so anonymous beneath a mask here, but so widely known when he stepped into a proper ball hosted by one of the illustrious ladies of the ton.
He meandered through the throng, enjoying his relative anonymity, until he spied a pair of fellows who would never fail to pick him out in a crowd, no matter his disguise, for disguises were not unfamiliar to them.
One of those men was Vincent Byrd, the Duke of Ravenwood. He stalked through the crowd as soon as Sebastian appeared. Tonight, he wore a bespoke suit made of charcoal gray fabric. Draped over his shoulders, there was a fine, fur-lined cloak. Vincent revealed a small smile beneath his wolf mask.
Fitting, Sebastian thought.
His friend was vicious when he needed to be, more bite than bark, and was never one to hesitate when it came to slashing a blade or firing a pistol.
“And where might you have been all night?” Vincent asked, no sign of small talk, or asking how Sebastian was feeling about having all these merrymakers invading his property.
In truth, Sebastian was glad for it. He dabbled in small talk well enough, but it got exhausting. With his friend, Vincent, he could at least be authentic as much as he could be.
“Nice mask,” he added with a hint of a smirk.
“Thank you,” Sebastian chuckled, fiddling with the string of his snake disguise.
“I thought it was rather apt, given our surroundings.” He gestured languidly to the nearest couple who were leaning much closer to one another than standard propriety would allow.
“And, in answer to your question, I have been in another room, indulging myself.”
“With a woman?”
“With literature,” Sebastian corrected in a mocking tone.
But there was a woman…
For a fleeting moment, Sebastian considered telling Vincent about the woman who happened upon him in the small library. He knew his friend would be endlessly fascinated by this intimate yet fully chaste encounter, but Sebastian decided to keep his recollections to himself.
No one needs to know about my little fox.
“Hmm.” Vincent kept his gaze on the ballroom before them, ever the watcher, always looking out for danger.
“What?” Sebastian asked testily. “What is it?”
“You are concealing something.”
“My fa—”
“Other than your face, clever bastard.” Vincent turned his head toward him for a moment to shoot him a full smirk. “Tell me what our generous, mysterious host got up to while reading in another room.”
The dose of sarcasm Vincent coated this statement with irked Sebastian mildly, but it also made him feel quite known, and he liked that.
Sometimes, being known terrified him; other times, it made him feel a comfort he had not felt in too many years. Vincent, and his other best friend, the Duke of Whitestone, Percival, did that for him.
“Host,” Sebastian laughed, trying to deflect. “Lord Spencer is our host.”
“Lord Spencer is a placeholder for our host, the name paraded by a random peer whom you paid off enough to keep quiet. What would the ton do if they knew their beloved Duke of Talwyn was the true host of these devious balls?”
“I prefer the term notorious, or perhaps adored. Prestigious, even.”
“An event like this can be all of those things,” Vincent said, his tone flat in that way of his that always made Sebastian wonder when he was jesting and when he was not. “Either way, what would they think?”
“I honestly imagine, on some days, that the ladies and gentlemen of the ton would be unfazed to learn about my behavior. Why not let an infamous rake be the host of these balls? They would call me villainous and scandalous, even worse things, but they would not really be surprised.”
At that, Vincent’s brow crooked above the outline of his mask. “You would let that happen? You have your family’s name at stake.”
Sebastian scoffed. “My family ruined their own name enough behind closed doors. Perhaps it’s about time I do my part to bring that into the light.”
“You would never be so careless,” Vincent countered.
“You do not know the whole story,” Sebastian shot back, but as he tried to concentrate on their conversation, he felt his focus slipping.
Suddenly, the ballroom before him was double-layered, swimming in and out as the layers overlapped and parted. The back of his neck felt clammy, and his stomach sat heavily too.
“Because you refuse to tell it. However, I know—”
“You… do not… know.” Sebastian suddenly reached for the nearest tabletop. He gripped the wood tightly between his fingers and squeezed.
“Seb?”
“You… don’t… Damn.” He pressed his free hand to his forehead. “I am doing this—this… for the…” He inhaled sharply, fighting the sudden, strange wave of dizziness, stronger than in the hallway. “For the… for the Crown.”
“Sebastian.”
He heard Vincent’s voice, but it was garbled. It sounded like they were flailing underwater, and when Sebastian tried to focus on his friend, he saw two of him.
“Vincent.” He thought he said it, yet he was not entirely certain the name made it past his tongue. “Vin—”
Hands gripped his elbows tightly. “By Jove, Sebastian, you can handle your wine, but how much have you had tonight? You are swaying like a boat unmoored.”
“Only… only—” He frowned down at his hands, watching as they swam in his vision.
He could not even feel them, and it was true: he could handle his liquor, but this was different.
This was not a drunken sensation, and he certainly had drunk more at past celebrations and never felt this close to dizziness.
No. This was not inebriation.
“Tampered,” he whispered, staring up at Vincent. “Someone must have tampered… with my supply of claret.”
A sick sense of terror overtook his soul as he swayed on the spot.
“Sebastian!” Vincent called out.
Muddled as he was, Sebastian sprinted for the nearest exit to the gardens. There was a terrace attached to the ballroom, and he launched himself out onto it, stumbling and sliding his way down the stone staircase before landing hard on the grass.
His knees gave way, and he knelt there for a long moment, breathing raggedly.
The night air was cool and bracing. Whispers of wind slapped across his cheeks, bringing new life and clarity to his surroundings.
Sebastian sucked in one deep inhalation after the next, and when he had done enough to clear away the wobbly sensation that had overpowered him before, he staggered back to his feet.
Hold yourself together just long enough to…to…
He stumbled his way behind a bush, where he allowed himself to fall on his knees once more. Without giving the notion much thought, Sebastian shoved two fingers into his mouth, forcing the wine he had drunk earlier to come right back.
As he retched, he was aware of footsteps nearing him, and he tensed until he heard Vincent’s voice, a little clearer than before.
“Sebastian?” The question was laced with concern.
“I am…here,” he choked out before another wave of vomit came up.
When it was done, he slumped onto his hands and knees, inhaling and exhaling heavily as his heart rate reverted to its regular speed.
“I am fine,” he exhaled.
Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “You certain?”