Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Laughter should warm the heart, not chill the blood. Music drifting from the ballroom should stir delight, not dread. Yet a shrill squeal outside the cottage made Daphne clutch her chest, wishing the Masque were ending, not beginning.
She should be celebrating.
Dominic Hawke had made his choice. He would rather be her lover than her gaoler. He wanted a partner, not a prisoner.
It was foolish to want more. Affairs such as theirs rarely endured. She had told herself as much while lying sated in his arms.
Yet she could not quiet the memory of him. The timbre of his voice. The scent of his skin. The weight of him pressing her into the mattress.
She had not slept. She had scarcely eaten.
Desire she could manage. Hope was another matter.
She inhaled deeply, though there wasn’t a spare inch in her gown.
Her costume had arrived an hour ago. A daring shade of moss green. The bodice hugged her figure, its neckline sweeping low across her shoulders, delicate lace threaded through the silk like creeping ivy. Layers of gauze fell from her waist in a soft cascade, trailing behind her like forest mist.
It was not the gown of a timid debutante. It was the armour of a woman who had chosen her battlefield. Yet she felt anything but armed.
Her heart lurched at the sudden knock. It would be Dominic. But she demanded he repeat the secret phrase before she opened the door.
“I want you in my bed tonight,” he drawled.
The hair on her nape stirred at the thought. “That’s not it.”
He sighed. “I left my heart in the ice house.”
“No, though that might be true.”
He paused, though she knew he was smiling. “Nothing compares to the sky above Shadowmere.”
“You’re supposed to say it with conviction.”
“I would if I believed it.”
She opened the door and peered around the jamb, though the sight of him stole her breath. He stood there in black. Broad shoulders. Dark green eyes. A mouth made for sin.
She caught his hand, drew him quickly inside and locked the door behind him. Only then did she notice the scent of lilac on his coat.
Jealousy prickled beneath her skin.
“A new cologne? It smells suspiciously floral.”
His mouth parted. His gaze dragged over her bare shoulders. “You can’t walk into the ballroom dressed like that. I asked Charlotte to send something modest. Every man here will want you.”
At his veiled praise, the gown felt indecently tight.
“You’re avoiding the question, Dominic.”
“I’m the host. I’m expected to greet the guests and endure the occasional embrace.” He drew his thumb across his lower lip as he studied her. “You’ll tell them you have the plague.”
She pursed her lips. “I thought I might play the hostess.”
“Not a chance. I’ll kill any man who comes near you.” He glanced around the sitting room. “You have a shawl. I’ve seen you wear it.”
“It will ruin the costume. Wait until you see my mask.”
The mask was fashioned in deep green feathers, layered like the plumage of a hunting bird. A slender black beak curved over the bridge of the nose, lending its wearer a predatory elegance.
She lifted it to her face and did not look away.
She was no one’s prey.
Dominic groaned. “Saints’ teeth. If I’m not hauled off in irons tonight, it will be a bloody miracle.”
“Is that another of your strange compliments?”
His hand came to rest on her waist. “You look beautiful. I don’t like how much that matters.”
“Matters because you dislike competition.”
“Matters because I won’t lose you.”
She laid a hand on his upper arm. “You won’t lose me. Not tonight.”
His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, where her pulse betrayed her. “Still, take this.” He drew a small blade from his coat, sheathed in jewelled leather. “Tuck it into your stocking. If only to appease me.”
She felt his fear for the first time, stripped of bravado.
She lowered the mask and brushed her mouth against his. He breathed her in before coaxing her lips apart, tasting her as though staking a claim.
When they parted, she took the sheathed blade. “I’ll keep it close.”
“To frighten. To maim. Nothing more.”
He held the mask, watching as she lifted her skirts and slid the blade into her garter. He did not look away.
The air thickened between them. If not for the Masque, they would already be upstairs, undressing, tumbling into bed.
A cheer drifted from the ballroom, followed by the scrape of violins striking up a wilder tune. She’d almost forgotten he had a house full of sinners.
“I presume you have Lord Templeton in the stocks?” she said before temptation could take hold.
Dominic exhaled through his teeth. “I locked him in the study with Ramsey. He swears he could find no proof that anyone owed my father money. He should have searched his own ledger.”
“How are we to play this?”
“We’ll lie and build the story as we go.”
He stepped behind her and fastened the mask, his fingers steady against her temples. His mouth brushed the nape of her neck, a quiet claim before battle.
“Ready?” He took her hand, threading their fingers together. For a moment, he was not the master of Shadowmere, only a man afraid of losing her.
They kept to the shadows and slipped into the house through the servants’ quarters. The corridors were quiet and cold, the revelry muffled behind thick doors.
“Any guest found here is barred from future events.”
She pictured the maids beside Mrs Buckley’s hearth, eating scones and blissfully unaware. “Who waits on the merrymakers?”
“They’re expected to bring their own servants.” He paused at the top of the stone staircase and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Breathe. Then act as though they’re here for your amusement. Once the shock passes, it’s only theatre.”
She swallowed hard, her throat dry as ash. “Nothing here could rival my nightmares of Mr Irving.”
She was wrong.
A masked couple pressed against the panelling, the woman’s green skirts tangled around her thighs while a man in a stag mask laughed softly against her throat, his hand already wandering where it pleased.
Halfway up the staircase, a woman in crimson silk straddled a masked gentleman too drunk to stand. Her laughter echoed against the red walls as guests flowed around them, as though the display were part of the evening’s entertainment.
Yet something other than disgust stirred beneath her ribs. A sadness for the man who still twined his fingers with hers. This was the fortress he had chosen.
With it came another truth. She did not belong here. It had been indulgent to think she might. That she could pretend.
She gripped his hand a little tighter. Not because she might get lost among these degenerates. Because their worlds were farther apart than she had allowed herself to believe.
He mistook the slight tremble in her fingers for a different kind of fear. “They won’t dare approach you. I’d have their heads if they did.”
The mask concealed the crack in her composure.
“I know.”
People parted as they walked through the elegant corridor, moving like restless shadows. Animal masks hid their faces, not the hunger in their eyes or the ruin of their mouths. The house swelled with noise, not all of it music.
Lord Templeton was on his feet before Mr Ramsey closed the study door behind them. The crackle of the fire and the laughter drifting in from the corridor barely disguised the lord’s ragged breath.
His eyes were upon her first, like a child at a confectioner’s window. Though it would be a mistake to think him innocent. The mask he gripped in his hand was that of a wolf.
“How much longer am I expected to remain here?” the lord said, careful to appear nothing more than mildly frustrated. “I’ve a friend waiting upstairs.”
Dominic invited her to sit in the throne-like chair behind the desk while he remained standing, hands braced behind his back, a monument of stone.
“You were told to name one of my father’s creditors and bring proof of the debt. That was the bargain we struck at Mrs Flavell’s.”
Templeton ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. “I’ve made enquiries. No one keeps gaming records from over a decade ago. There was no mention of him in White’s Betting Book.”
The pause stretched.
Dominic began pacing. “You gambled with my father. Surely you know the men who joined you at the tables.”
The lord swallowed. “If you haven’t been able to uncover it, what hope do I have? If you want the names of men he met in gaming hells, that’s most of the ton.”
“Give him foolscap and ink, Ramsey. Let him make a list.”
Mr Ramsey obliged by gripping the lord’s shoulders and forcing him into a chair beside the desk. He took paper from the drawer and pushed the inkwell towards the trembling fellow.
Beads of perspiration formed on the lord’s brow.
“I want at least ten names,” Dominic said.
The glass bottle rattled on the walnut stand as Templeton dipped the nib. “I don’t know why you need this. You know these men are ne’er-do-wells, much like your—” He bowed his head and scribbled a list of names, pausing to steal a sly glance at her bodice.
“Keep your eyes on the paper,” Dominic snapped.
When finished, the lord pushed the foolscap away as if he’d signed his own death warrant. “They’re the only men I can recall.”
Dominic snatched it, his brow creasing as he scanned the page. “I see Harland tops the list. Yet you’ve omitted the name that should come the easiest to you.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
The lord blinked, his cheeks aflame, as though the burgundy upholstery had leeched into his skin. “Why include mine? I told you we gambled at the same tables.”
“You failed to mention my father owed you money.”
Like all good gamblers, the lord bluffed. “A few hundred pounds here and there. I can’t speak for others, but he settled promptly.”
“That’s not true,” she said, though the last thing she wanted was to draw his attention. “You hounded Mr Hawke’s mother. My father said you bled her dry and called it charity.” The lie came easily.