Chapter Five
Far too quickly, the masked ball was upon them. He both wanted it to happen, and didn’t. He disliked parties generally. And would never have agreed to do this if he didn’t think it was the absolute best option to find the woman.
She haunted him.
He’d never in his life had sex like that.
Maybe it was an illusion. Maybe it was all intensity brought on by the moment. By the loss.
It was such a difficult, conflicting thing to miss Circe the way that he did.
He hadn’t loved her. Their marriage had been difficult.
But she’d been a presence in his life. A woman who’d had fire and strength.
And who certainly had deserved to live. To go on with her life, to be a mother, to have the things that she wanted.
He felt… That he hadn’t been able to make her happy was something that ate at him more and more as time went on.
That her life, the past few years of it were spent in a state of dissatisfaction.
Should he have set her free, let her go off and find someone else that she could love?
They’d both been so wedded to their duty.
Far more than they were wedded to each other.
And yet the end result had been the same. She had been a captive in her own life, and that was how it had been until the end.
He was looking into bringing another woman into this. Into him.
But at least there was spark. He clung to that. He’d been so convinced that he and Circe would be able to create a spark out of a shared belief in what needed to happen for the kingdom.
But they hadn’t.
And if they had at least been able to be companionable then perhaps it would’ve been acceptable, but they hadn’t even been friends.
They’d been two strangers, bristling with resentment and loneliness.
And he missed her. Because he didn’t know how to live without that. Didn’t know how to be by himself, even when the togetherness had been difficult.
To believe that he might be on the cusp of something else was…impossible.
“Are you all right?”
He looked at his sister, who was staring at him with large, concerned eyes, her son on her hip, his pudgy hand clasping the neckline of her green ball gown.
She was going to leave him in the nursery before everything got started, he assumed.
Knowing Emerald, she might decide to bring the baby for a while.
Being able to have a family, a happy, intact family, was such a great joy for her that she often brought her child when no other princess would ever consider such a thing.
He didn’t blame her. He was such a joy for the three of them, who had experienced so much loss.
Circe had loved him too.
“Fine,” he said.
His sister knew why he was having the ball. That was another issue with having your best friend be married to your sister. Andrei was going to report back. Even if Onyx didn’t particularly want Emerald to know the details of his intimate life.
But Emerald hadn’t been judgmental; she’d been desperate to help take up the charge and plan everything.
She was incredibly critical of Circe, and of their relationship, which only made him feel defensive of his late wife.
He’d told her as much, but she’d said that all she really wanted was for him to be happy.
Was for him to find what he needed, and to have the kind of love that she and Andrei had.
He wasn’t sure that was possible for him. He was a man whose life was marked by duty. But he would take some passion. He’d tasted it, if only for a fleeting moment. If he could just have that…
“You don’t seem fine.”
“I am. I’m going to discover if she was an apparition or a real woman, I suppose.”
The suspense of that was more than he could bear. He just needed it to start.
It was a strange thing to want something for himself. He had wanted only what was good for the nation for a very long time.
But living in the mess made by his previous marriage had showed him that there was a real cost to that.
The real cost had been Circe’s happiness. The entire last part of her life spent in misery with him.
Emerald put her hand on his shoulder. “You deserve to find love,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said. Because there really was no point in telling her love wasn’t the ultimate goal.
In telling her he wasn’t entirely sure what drove him other than desire.
He’d never been in a position where he could explore that.
Maybe this was just the kind of insanity he might’ve experienced when he was a teenage boy.
Maybe he wasn’t being driven by anything lofty now.
Maybe he was lying to himself. Telling himself that he was doing this in response to Circe’s unhappiness.
Maybe he was only doing it for his libido.
He would hardly be the first man to do so.
As was customary, he allowed the ball to start, making his entrance ten minutes after.
He scanned the room. He didn’t see her. Which was a ridiculous thing, because he’d never seen her in a great amount of detail.
She’d been nothing more than an impression.
She’d been…a feeling. And he was counting on that feeling to guide him now.
It was one reason he appreciated the concept of the masked ball. It was the best way to recapture that moment. Reclaim that connection.
Be driven by feeling.
By that moment he’d been wrapped up in with her. It had nothing to do with who he was, or who she was. It had everything to do with a kind of magical enchantment, a spell that had come over him. He wanted to feel that again.
He needed to feel it again.
He moved around the room, looking at all of the gorgeous women in their dresses, and they were gorgeous. Confections of fuchsia, bright blue and electric green. Elaborate masks, and beautiful hairstyles. If she felt the same thing he did, she would be here.
He thought of the way her curls had felt sliding through his fingers. She had been so delicate. No one here was quite that.
He could remember how she smelled. The scent of her skin. The lilacs.
He was looking for that now. She wasn’t here.
“Your Highness.”
It was rare for anyone to approach him in the ballroom. Typical protocol demanded he make the first move in any social interaction, and he was taken aback by the tall, redheaded woman in a garish orange gown, clutching two fluttering young women to her side.
“I’m Lady Tremaine. My husband was a very well known businessman in the country before his untimely death, and I was so sorry to hear about your wife, because of course I understand your grief.”
He could see this clearly for what it was and clinging to his manners now was a feat more challenging than it had ever been.
“These are my daughters. Alana and Natalie and—”
And then, there was a rustle in the room, and he turned to look the same direction as everyone else. Arriving down the stairs, her hair a glorious blond halo, all dressed in lilac, the mask that covered her face a glimmering silver and gold with vines. She was like a fairy. And he knew.
As much as he could know anything.
With each step she took down the stairs, her shoes glimmered and glistened, her dress a pastel aura around her. Such a contrast with all of the brightness.
“What is she doing here?” The question was asked with venom, the woman who’d just spoken so sweetly to him now looking murderous.
Was it as obvious to her as it was to everyone? That this woman was magic. Singular.
He took a step toward the stairs and the woman reached out and took his arm. “Your Highness, that is no one. She’s… That woman is…”
“You will take your hands off of me, Lady Tremaine,” he said, knowing full well his glare had the power to turn even the bravest man’s blood to ice. “And you will not speak ill about her.”
He began to walk toward the stairs, hearing a ripple in the room as he did.
And then her eyes met his.
She stopped, and he kept moving toward her.
He went up two steps to meet her. “You’re here,” he said.
She nodded, not speaking, her eyes darting behind him for a moment. He could see worry on her face, in her gaze.
Maybe this had haunted her as it had haunted him.
And he extended his hand. “My lady,” he said. “Will you dance with me?”
She nodded slowly, and he took her hand, the instant, electric need that shot through him unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
Except that night. Except when she had touched his face. And everything had changed. He pulled her close to him, and he smelled her. Lilacs.
And then, he swirled her out onto the dance floor, in front of everyone. She was here. She had come.
She smiled up at him, and he felt like the world had shifted somehow. Like everything was different.
All of it changing in a moment.
He never felt like this. He hadn’t been sure that he was capable of it. When he had thought about it at all. His own feelings had never mattered. Not until her.
There was a squeezing guilt that went along with that. It’d taken the death of someone else for him to ever experience something like magic.
But he pushed that aside, because there was no reason to think about it now. She was here. In his arms. It didn’t matter what her name was. It didn’t matter who she was. Nothing mattered but how much he wanted her.
But they were dancing in a room full of people, and he had to keep his desire on a leash. He couldn’t betray that he already knew her. The cost was far too high. Andrei was right. There was a way to play this, one that would honor the crown, honor Circe’s memory.
He couldn’t take her. Not tonight. And certainly not in front of everyone. Except…
Just for a moment. He could steal her away just for a moment. The guests already had eyes on them. He had already made a spectacle. Perhaps everyone could feel this thing that was arcing between them.
“Will you step outside with me?”
She nodded, but didn’t say a word. He hungered for her voice. The husky whisper from that night.