Chapter 1 #2
By the time I returned to the refreshment table, my nerves had softened into something almost like courage. Heat bloomed beneath my skin. Champagne appeared in my hand again, though I could not remember taking it.
The laughter around me grew louder as patrons indulged in alcohol and debauchery that wouldn’t usually be acceptable.
Then, I felt it.
That prickle along the nape of my neck. The unmistakable sensation of being watched.
I told myself it was the champagne. The swirl of masks. Old habits learned from years of being judged and measured by rooms very much like this one.
Still, my chest tightened.
Slowly, I lifted my gaze toward the far edge of the ballroom.
And there, half-swallowed by shadow and torchlight, stood a man who was not dancing.
He simply watched.
Even from a distance, even with half his face concealed, something about him tugged at me with unsettling familiarity. Broad shoulders. Handsome features. The way the crowd bent nervously around him, as if sensing something sharp beneath his finery.
My fingers curled around the stem of my glass. Our eyes met across the expanse of the ballroom and I could have sworn he smiled.
I looked away, turning to take yet another glass of champagne, and in that singular moment, he vanished into the crowd.
But then I noticed him again and again as I moved through the rooms. By the gaming tables, leaning lazily against a column, watching dice roll as if the outcome meant nothing to him.
Near the musicians, his gloved fingers tapping in time with the violins.
At the edge of the balcony doors, where couples slipped out into candlelit darkness, his silhouette framing the threshold like a sentry.
Watching me with disapproval as another man claimed a dance.
I tried to pretend I didn’t feel the weight of his gaze. I tried to convince myself that champagne and nerves were conspiring to assign significance to a stranger who simply happened to be looking in my direction. But, every time I turned, I found him again. Always there.
Never approaching, but always watching me.
A chill crept beneath my skin.
You’re drunk, I scolded myself. You’re nervous. That’s all.
Still, my steps slowed. My sense of direction dissolved. I couldn’t recall which doors led where, though I had crossed this ballroom dozens of times in my youth. The floor felt too soft beneath my slippers, as if it might give way entirely if I pressed too hard.
Laughter burst too close to my ear and I flinched.
When had it grown so hot?
I continued forward, weaving through corridors where secretive trysts were unfolding behind half-drawn curtains.
A man in a plague mask tried to corner me with a compliment about my eyes.
Another asked whether I might join him for a walk on the balcony “to taste the night air.” A woman brushed my arm and whispered that she could introduce me to a baron looking for companionship.
The air vibrated with hunger—romantic, sexual, and financial. Everyone here wanted something. Including me.
I passed beneath a vaulted archway and found myself in a quieter gallery lined with marble statues. Here, the music softened to a distant hum. Lanterns threw long shadows across the floor.
Another gentleman approached. He was a tall man in a gilded wolf mask whose voice curled like velvet around me.
“Forgive my intrusion,” he murmured smoothly, “but I could not help noticing you have danced with nearly every gentleman in the room except me.”
I blinked. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…”
“I’ve been watching you,” he purred, stepping nearer. “The way you move. The way you look at a room.” His gaze dipped to my lips. “You hunt beautifully.”
Before I could answer, movement flickered in the corner of my eye. Up on the balcony overlooking the gallery, leaning on the rail as though carved from the stone itself, stood the man in the dark mask.
Watching.
Silent.
Unmoving.
The wolf masked gentleman followed my gaze and scowled before turning his attention back to me.
He stepped closer, his hand slipping around my waist and tightening as if he sensed weakness, as if he mistook my need for survival as an invitation.
“Come now,” he murmured, breath warm and wine-heavy against my ear. “That pretty mask doesn’t fool me. You came for excitement, didn’t you?”
I opened my mouth to protest—softly, politely, in that way women are taught to refuse men without upsetting them, but his hand slid boldly to the small of my back, lower than any stranger should ever touch.
I froze.
Then a hand closed around the man’s wrist. Not harshly. Not violently. Just firmly enough that the masked man sucked in a startled breath.
“Unhand her,” a deep and infinitely calm voice said from behind me.
The wolf glared, blustering. “Who the devil are y—”
His words died on his tongue as he realized that the man who held his wrist was tall, with a presence that seemed to bend the candlelight around him. His mask was simple. Black, almost featureless except for the faintest curve of a smirk carved into its lower edge.
I turned my head and met the strangers eyes.
I recognized them. I had been recognizing them all night.
The man who had been watching me.
Without releasing the man’s wrist, he shifted slightly, placing himself between the stranger and me.
“That is not how one touches a lady,” he offered quietly. His voice stirred something low in me. Whether it was fear or memory, I couldn’t be sure.
The wolf sputtered, “I didn’t— I was only—”
“You were mistaken,” the stranger said. “Leave. Now.”
Authority rolled off him with such quiet intensity that even the orchestra seemed to falter. The man’s bravado shriveled. He jerked free, muttered something foul, and slunk into the crowd.
The stranger turned toward me then.
For the first time that night, he stood close enough that I could feel the heat of him, could smell the faint sweetness of brandy beneath something darker and familiar.
“Men like that,” he noted softly, his gaze sweeping my face, “come to these balls expecting one kind of woman.”
“And what kind is that?” I whispered, breath catching.
His smile was slight, shadowed and dangerous. “The kind who doesn’t know better.”
He tilted his head slightly. “You, however… you should know better.”
Before I could speak, a crowd of masks moved between us, forcing me to stagger back as the stranger was swallowed in the chaos.
I found myself backed against the refreshment table again. My hand reached automatically for another glass… only to find one already waiting.
Full.
Golden.
Untouched.
A ridiculous thought crossed my mind then, unbidden and absurd.
Did I leave this here before?
I lifted the flute and drank deeply.
The effect was almost immediate.
Warmth surged through me, not pleasant warmth, but a spreading heaviness. My thoughts seemed to lag behind my body, each one arriving a moment too late to be useful. The edges of the room stretched, then pulled sharply inward.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The music faltered, skewed slightly out of time. The chandeliers pulsed faintly, as if alive. I pressed my fingers to the table to steady myself and felt the wood thrum beneath my palm.
“You shouldn’t drink those so quickly,” he observed mildly, voice deep and rich.
I turned, my vision swimming, and froze as the stranger approached again.
My pulse thundered in my ears. I searched his features desperately, cataloguing familiar lines, old memories clawing their way to the surface. But, my heart refused to acknowledge what my mind was vehemently screaming at me.
Even beneath the mask, I recognized that face…
Or rather, I knew the memory of it. The shape of his jaw, the curl of his mouth, the way the shadows seemed to cling to him as if he commanded them.
It couldn’t be.
It simply couldn’t be.
Not after all these years.
My throat constricted. I stared harder, as if searching his features might unmake the hallucination. My mind scrambled wildly, trying to force reason upon a face I had not seen in years.
What cruel trick of the light was this? What terrible longing made my heart insist it recognized him in a stranger?
For surely that was all this was. Longing sharp enough to carve illusions.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing my heart to stop its torture of me, but when I opened them again, the man, who looked so much like my love, still remained, head tilted slightly and a smile touching his full lips.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” he murmured, stepping closer until the heat of his body touched my skin in a sensual caress.
His proximity stole the breath from my lungs. I felt faint, undone, and foolish. What could I say to that?
Yes, perhaps I have. Perhaps my mind wants so badly for you to be the man I once dreamed of marrying that you wear his face and your voice carries the same lilt?
No. I suppose I couldn’t say that.
Instead I swallowed hard and forced a brittle smile. “As you said, sir. Perhaps I shouldn’t drink the champagne so quickly.”
He smiled back, a slow, deliberate curve of his perfect lips as though he could read every unspoken truth trembling behind my mask.
He reached for my hand and I expected the customary brush of lips to my knuckles, but he surprised me.
I watched, breathless, as he slipped my glove off and turned my hand palm up, bending slowly before pressing a gentle kiss there.
I sucked in a sharp breath when the heat of his tongue traced a slow, sinful circle, just once, over the delicate skin there before he released me.
Heat flared beneath my ribs and I inhaled sharply as my knees threatened to give way.
“Bold of you, sir,” I commented softly, my voice wavered, half indignation, half desire so startling it rattled me.
“Is it?” He asked, the corner of his mouth lifting as he searched my eyes. His thumb brushed lightly against my wrist. “I fear the way your pupils dilated and your pulse quickened may contradict your words.”
“Again, you assume,” I said quickly, my cheeks blazing beneath my cheap mask.
“I never assume,” he countered. “Dance with me so that I might prove you a seductress.”
Seductress…
If only he knew how laughable that word felt on my skin, which had only known the brush of propriety and consequence.
Still, the way he said it coaxed something reckless from me.
“Very well,” I agreed, infusing the words with a flirtation I did not feel, but had practiced well enough.
Without another word, I placed my hand in his.
The orchestra swelled.
He drew me into him—closer than any gentleman ought, closer than any gentleman dared—and the world narrowed to the heat of his body and steady command of his hand at my waist.
The waltz wrapped around us in dizzying circles. The floor seemed to move beneath us, and the light around the chandeliers blurred into halos. He smelled faintly of expensive brandy and something sweet, a scent that tugged at a memory just out of reach. His hand was steady, his touch unyielding.
“You dance beautifully,” he murmured. His voice was low, polished, and utterly calm.
“As do you,” I managed, my tongue suddenly feeling heavy.
He leaned closer, breath ghosting my ear. “You shouldn’t hide behind a mask. It dims you.”
My laugh came out thin and nervous. “You speak as though you know me.”
“Perhaps I do.”
Something in the timbre of his voice, the familiarity threaded with something colder, made the hair on my neck stand on end. Those infuriating thoughts of Sylum infiltrated my mind until I could no longer stand it.
“Tell me your name,” I whispered.
He smiled, pulling me so close that our breath mingled. “Names ruin the magic.”
The waltz quickened. My pulse matched its rhythm. He spun me then, too fast, too gracefully, his hand anchoring me as the room tilted. Colors brightened unnaturally and the air grew thick and cloying.
He bent his head, lips grazing my ear, breath warm and intimate, as he murmured, “Have you missed me, Lucy?”
The music crashed to a halt.
My heart stuttered and my lungs refused to take in air. I stumbled back, searching his face with a terrified desperation.
He released me, taking a step back, then another.
When I looked up, he was already vanishing, bowing slightly before melting into the sea of masks.
The crowd closed around him, and in an instant, he was gone.