He leaned close, his lips at her ear.
Clara’s breath caught, her senses flaring at his nearness.The scent of sandalwood and something darker curled around her, and for a moment, the din of the ballroom faded.
“You intrigue me,” he said.
Before she could answer, he spun her out in a sharp, graceful swoop.When she steadied herself, a strange tightness coiled in her chest.Not just from the movement, but from the way he looked at her.As though he knew her.As though he wanted her.
Then he kissed her, and for a breathless instant, the world receded.Time bent around her, the crowd and music blurring into a hush as his lips pressed to hers.All sense of propriety vanished, her thoughts swept away by the sheer audacity of the moment.His hand at her waist grounded her even as everything else spun, her thoughts scattering like petals on the wind in the blaze of sensation.
Her breath caught.Awareness surged through her, raw and unbidden, and far too real.
The kiss was not gentle.The way his mouth claimed hers was far from polite.It was searing, tasting of heat and arrogance, the pressure of his mouth both daring and decisive.A firm claiming.A scandal pressed against her lips in full view of the ballroom.
A rush of shock surged through her, disbelief mingling with something dangerously close to longing.She jerked free of his hold, her breath ragged, and his mask slid revealing his face.Only then, in the jarring collision of recognition and sensation, did her mind scream the truth.It.Was.Him.
Of course it was him.And yet, for one heartbeat, she had not pulled away.Not because she wanted it, surely not, but because the kiss had left her momentarily untethered, adrift in sensation and fury alike.
Gasps echoed through the ballroom, and the music faltered in response.
The scoundrel stared at her with the expression of a man who had just torched his own house and was still waiting for the smoke to clear.
Clara took a step back.Her cheeks burned.Her hands trembled.She wanted to slap him, to scream, to ask him what in the seven hells he thought he was doing.But most of all, she wanted—God help her—to feel that kiss again.
A sharp breath escaped her, her heart stuttered, and a chill raced down her spine despite the heat in her cheeks.Her stomach twisted, not just from the sight of him, but from the knowledge of who he was and what he had already cost her.
Crispin Hallworth.
The Devil of Oakford.
The title struck like a thunderclap in her memory, conjuring the whispered betrayals of her first season, the humiliation, the icy stares.Her pulse pounded at her temples.She had sworn never to speak to him again—never to even look at him if she could help it—and yet here he was, his kiss still burning on her lips.
The very reprobate who had ruined her first season with a whisper.The single lie had cost her everything.
Clara’s eyes narrowed to slits, her fists curling at her sides as her breath came fast.“You,” she hissed, her voice laced with venom and disbelief.
“The pleasure is mine,” he said, a maddening smile curving his lips.
A crowd began to form around them.Eden and her husband Gabriel appeared at the edge of the crush, concern in Eden’s eyes.Clara’s mother looked horrified.Crispin’s mother, Lady Oakford, bustled forward, face pale.
Her mother's dismay, the swell of whispers from the crowd, and the knowledge that her reputation, already precarious, teetered on the edge of further ruin collided into a reckless resolve.She had already spent years under the weight of society’s judgment, all because of the devil’s lie.She would not allow him to ruin her again.If she could not stop the fire, she would redirect the blaze.
Panic and purpose gripped her, swift and sharp.She took his arm and turned to the stunned assembly.A dull roar rushed through her ears as she tried to suppress the quake in her limbs.This was madness.Pure, irrevocable madness.Still, she could not afford to falter again, not with the eyes of half the ton boring into her.Not when at least a quarter of them knew who she was behind the feathered mask.
Clara took a deep breath and smiled up at Lord Oakford, her expression composed, every inch the poised debutante reclaiming her power.Her future might hang by a thread, but this time it was one she grasped firmly with joy, but with the fierce defiance of a woman determined to seize control of her fate.“There is no need for alarm.Lord Oakford and I are,” she turned to the crowd, “engaged.”
The silence was deafening.
Crispin looked down at her, stunned, the corners of his mouth twitching before he schooled his expression.A dozen retorts and jests danced behind his eyes, but something else flickered there too.Curiosity, calculation, and perhaps the barest hint of reluctant admiration.
Clara’s breath hitched, and she gripped his arm, silently begging him not to contradict her.
Was he about to laugh?Deny it?Accept it and twist the knife further?Her mind scrambled to predict his next move, heart thudding with dread.Each second of silence coiled tension tighter around her, and part of her wished to undo it, but she could not take the words back.
Then he laughed, the low, rich sound threading through the charged silence.To Clara, it felt like a slap, a sound that coiled around her like smoke, intangible but suffocating.It slipped through the moment like velvet over steel.Amused, confident, and so cutting that Clara’s spine stiffened in response, even her cheeks flamed.
“Indeed,” he said smoothly, eyes glinting with mischief and something she could not name.
Then Oakford reached for her, slow and deliberate, and slid his hand around her waist.The gesture was scandal incarnate, and it electrified the onlookers.For the first time that night, Clara understood just how completely he controlled the moment.He was not a victim of circumstance.He was its architect.
