Chapter Five
“Charlene?”
Charlene blinked, glancing at Ashley, who gave her a probing look.
“Did you see something?” Ashley pressed.
“I don’t know,” she murmured offhandedly.
She didn’t want to ruin her friend’s mood, but was David Cross truly here?
She didn’t know why her thoughts went to him first. Perhaps it was just pure instinct.
Yet, Charlene’s blood froze at the thought.
She glanced at the spot where she had seen the men, but they had both disappeared.
She didn’t even know why her thoughts went to him first. Perhaps it was just pure instinct.
Her gaze flicked over the crowd, searching.
No, hunting.
On the dance floor, masked figures twirled like brushstrokes on a canvas, each gown a splash of color set against the gleaming expanse of the ballroom.
She tugged at the silk of her gloves, a small motion to steady the restless energy coursing through her, but in the end it did nothing but make her more anxious.
If he was here, she’d leave.
She wouldn’t be able to survive another encounter with David Cross.
But the embarrassment tasted bitter as if it had been only yesterday and not a year ago… Charlene wished she’d never laid eyes on the man.
She couldn’t stand being in the same room as that man.
She just couldn’t. Of course, she wanted to find adventure and romance, but was this truly the place for her to find it?
Her gaze drifted over the crowd, the sea of feathered masks and glittering jewelry.
Everything appeared rehearsed, although she knew that wasn’t the case.
But there was a pattern to it all, a choreography that felt as predictable as the steps of the quadrille the dancers were enjoying.
And then her eyes stilled, once again fastening on a figure cutting through the smoky glow of the room as he danced.
Her eyes briefly rested on his hair. Dark.
A breath of relief escaped her, but just momentarily, because she hadn’t been wrong. She had recognized him. He was a Cross. Just not the Cross she thought.
He stood apart from any other man, not in defiance of the crowd but as though the space around him bent to accommodate him.
His hair gleamed under the flickering light, each step drawing reflections from the polished marble beneath his boots.
The line of his broad shoulders shifted with a kind of quiet intensity that struck her like a chord struck true.
Charlene blinked, unsure why her breath had hitched.
Adam Cross.
Here, in the flesh.
The new duke, not the boy she’d called her friend as a child—Adam.
The one who’d come to interfere when his brother had… well… and yet, Charlene didn’t quite manage to give either of them credit—not even when it was due.
It wasn’t that he was like the other gentlemen. He didn’t have their polished air, their effortful refinement. Rather, he carried himself with a rhythm and force that felt utterly untamed.
Especially when he was near his twin brother.
His movements weren’t like the dancers’, who flicked their arms and arranged their feet in deliberate, practiced poses.
No, his body moved as if the steps answered to him instead of the other way around.
His strides, even off the dance floor, were deliberate but fluid, each one falling with a precision that seemed to echo some unheard drumbeat.
He didn’t need music to guide him—he was the beat, the pulse of energy threading its way through the crowd.
Maddie’s head suddenly pressed close. “At whom are you gazing so intently? Has some gentleman managed to capture your attention after all?”
Yes.
“I wish to know the same thing,” Ashley piped up.
Something stirred inside Charlene, unfamiliar and unwelcome. Her pulse throbbed faintly in her ears as her fingers curled at her sides, her nails brushing the fabric of her skirts. He turned then, not sharply but with a natural grace that made the layers of his dark coat ripple faintly.
“Rotheworth,” was all she said.
Her friends gasped. “The Rotheworth?” Maddie asked.
“Well, we always knew he might be here,” Ashley said. “He’s staring this way and patting something in his coat.”
“His heart?” Maddie asked.
“His pocket.” Ashley tilted her head in an effort to see better.
For a moment, the crowd surged around him, blocking Charlene’s view.
But she didn’t look away—not even when the heat of watching him made her cheeks prickle beneath her mask.
When he reappeared, the light caught the edge of his jaw beneath his mask, the curve of his neck above his cravat.
There was nothing exaggerated in him, no artifice.
And still, he stood out in a room full of opulence and feathers and gold.
Her heart gave a small, unsteady kick as he moved again, cutting through the throng with simple, quiet purpose.
He made the rest of the masquerade feel like hollow decoration, as though, without him, the chandeliers might as well have burned out and the music fallen silent.
She swallowed hard, ignoring the flutter low in her stomach.
No matter who he was, whatever spell his presence had cast over her, she couldn’t quite convince herself to look away.
Her brother and friends told her but still, some part of her hadn’t truly believed it.
He really was back.
And it seemed this time, for good.
“Are you all right?” Maddie asked. “We can leave if you want.”
“No, I’m fine,” Charlene said. “It’s not like he will recognize me or we’ll cross paths.”
If he was aware of her scrutiny, he didn’t show it. Yet Charlene couldn’t shake the growing sense that the pulse driving his steps was the same one now thrumming faintly in her chest. Some untamed rhythm—irresistible, unrelenting—that she had been swept into without even realizing.
“Your brother won’t be happy,” Ashley said.
Charlene grimaced. While she’d narrowly escaped that fate worse than death, she couldn’t hide her swollen eyes or her torn clothing from her brother. He still didn’t know what had happened, but he did know David and Adam Cross had been involved. “He will be fine, just like me.”
Charlene adjusted the edge of her mask, suddenly conscious of the press of people around her. The masquerade had drawn half of London, it seemed, and yet the sea of silk and champagne barely touched her mind as her attention snagged on the figure at the far end of the room.
A fan snapped somewhere nearby, startling Charlene enough that she realized her lips had parted slightly. She dragged her gaze down, heat developing low in her chest, and smoothed her skirts, though nothing about her gown required adjusting.
She inwardly cursed.
Don’t forget who that man’s brother is, Charlene!
“Well,” Ashley said. “I must admit, the duke dances quite splendidly.”
“Forgive me for agreeing,” Maddie murmured.
Indeed, he danced as if he had been perfecting the art for a thousand years.
I can’t dance that well.
Charlene felt her heartbeat quicken, her cheeks flushing. There was surely something unrefined, almost untamed about his dancing—a shift from mechanical precision to something instinctive. It left her throat dry, a strange sensation that she had stumbled upon something she wasn’t meant to witness.
I want this.
Adventure. Passion. Grace.
Dangerous love.
Charlene shifted, her feet half-turning as if some deeper instinct urged her to either draw nearer or flee completely.
She remained rooted in place. And then, mid-turn, he stopped.
He didn’t hesitate; the pause was intentional.
His gaze swept across the ballroom—dark, searching—and fixed directly on her.
Her breath hitched.
Caught. But Charlene didn’t look away. Couldn’t. She swallowed hard, her fingers pressing into the smooth silk at her sides. He inclined his chin ever so slightly, the barest acknowledgment, before turning his attention back to his partner and guiding her through a final flourish of steps.
It wasn’t merely a greeting, nor a fleeting glance. Charlene felt it—just as surely as she felt the thrum of violins vibrating through the ballroom. The tilt of his head, the weight of his gaze, promised there would be more to come.
*
Her mask, edged with silver, lent her an air of daring that she likely required to extend her hand and propose a dance.
He hadn’t demurred. His hesitation would only have invited attention, and tonight he wanted none of it.
Besides, at that moment, he’d welcomed the interruption more than he cared to admit.
The whole room hummed with the notes of a lively quadrille; the violins pulling the couples on the floor into sweeping arcs.
The chandeliers overhead flickered with too much light, glinting off the endless sea of silk and satin.
Yet Adam’s focus wasn’t on the spectacle swirling around him or even the woman he was dancing with. All his attention was entirely on her.
She’d lingered earlier at the periphery of the ballroom, half-obscured by the towering potted palms. From afar, she’d seemed almost ethereal—slender but striking, inconspicuous yet somehow unmissable.
The curves suggested by the gown only stirred the corners of his imagination.
But it was her eyes that undid him. They had locked earlier.
Briefly. Bright, perceptive, and utterly arresting beneath the delicate lines of her green mask.
He could feel their pull even now, following him like a challenge he couldn’t resist.
Had she recognized him?
Would she even be looking his way if she had?
The dance finally came to an end. Unhooking himself smoothly from his current partner’s hand, Adam offered the woman a brief smile and murmured his goodbye.
He couldn’t hold back anymore, his course unwavering as he strode across the marble floor toward the girl who had refused to relinquish her hold on his attention.
Their eyes locked again, and his stomach lurched.