A library, its shelves looming in the candlelight.
She slipped inside, shut the door with a soft thud, and leaned against it. Her eyes fluttered shut. Her chest heaved, her perfume mingling with the scent of old leather and wax.
“Please, let me escape this without a scandal,” she prayed quietly, her fingers trembling. “And I promise to never be so reckless again.”
Reckless. That was what this entire ordeal was.
When she wrote her list of dares on that cold night, Helena, the rational one of their trio, had told her that she was merely acting under the influence of champagne. But she knew it was more than that.
She was a spinster whom many considered past her prime. She wanted to challenge the ton and their rules. She wanted freedom. Her list of scandalous activities should have been burned that night, but Dahlia, her more mischievous friend, had egged her on.
Helena would have my head if she knew I was actually doing this. She would have done everything in her power to stop me.
Footsteps thundered past the door, a man’s voice fading. “Where did she go?”
“Animals,” she muttered under her breath.
She had turned down several advances since she had arrived at the ball, but somehow her resistance spurred them on. If she weren’t fearing for her dignity, perhaps even her virtue, she would have laughed at the sheer irony.
They never looked her way twice at any other ball. No one would approach the Stone Cold Spinster.
She stood still for a few more minutes, feeling the cool wood pressing against her back, calming her ragged breathing. She couldn’t hear any more voices.
“Thank God,” she whispered.
Relief washed over her, but it was short-lived.
“A pity,” a deep voice drawled from above, rich with amusement. “I was getting intrigued.”
The voice echoed around her, surrounding her completely.
Celine’s eyes snapped open, her heart lurching when she saw no one around her.
“God?” she asked timidly, wondering if her unchaperoned presence was so scandalous that the divine was forced to intervene.
A low chuckle echoed, and a figure descended the library’s spiral staircase, his boots deliberate on the oak steps.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to claim to be a god,” he said, his voice dripping with the cockiness of a man who had never wanted for anything in his life, “but I think I recall others calling me one.”
Celine scoffed, her fear giving way to irritation. She’d recognize this man anywhere. She’d heard too many people fawn over him,watched from corners as he toyed with the hearts of several girls, each one waiting like a lovesick puppy to get the chance to dance with him.
Even though he wore his black velvet mask firmly on his beautiful face, she knew him. She couldn’t mistake those broad shoulders for anyone else, the dark brown hair curling at the nape of his neck, the arrogant tilt of his head.
Rhys Harken, the Duke of Wylds.
“You,” she almost snarled.
He represented everything she despised about the ton. The Wild Duke himself, a notorious rake and a thorn in the side of every mother with a good head on her shoulders. And a notorious trap for every mother without one, blinded by his status.
Her mask hid her identity, but his presence set her teeth on edge.
“Me,” he responded, like he was taunting her.
He watched her every move with amber eyes. The black velvet surrounding them highlighted their golden tone to an almost predatory gleam.
“So tell me,” Rhys drawled, his voice as smooth as the claret he likely savored, “who do we have here?”
Celine’s pulse hammered, her back pressed against the library door, the oak still cool even though her hands were now trembling.
