Her fingers grasped her pendant tighter, thinking of Genevieve’s words. Phoebe’s grandfather never would have approved of such an engagement, but would he have approved ofthis?
This ball, with its faux names and masks and sultry music and performers? A secluded meeting with a gentleman in a hidden corner of the house?
Certainly not.
But he would have approved of Phoebe claiming tonight for herself, no matter the scenario.
“It is just…?” The man’s voice came again, softly prompting without applying too much force.
Phoebe wanted to answer, for, aside from Genevieve, she felt listened to for the first time in years. Somehow, she did, separated from a stranger with a beautiful voice through a screen, draped in darkness.
“I… I have mixed feelings,” she finally whispered. “I… I wear a pendant that signifies everything I have held myself to. It—it urges me to speak, but it silences me at the same time. The person who gave it to me… I worry about his disapproval.”
“That is fair,” the man answered. “Not many would approve of what we have done here tonight.”
“No, no, it is not that,” she was quick to say. “It is that he would approve of the freedom tonight has given me, but I do not know if he would approve of the specifics.”
At that, the stranger laughed under his breath. “All right, if you are not comfortable telling me of your pleasure—” Phoebe made a choked noise, but laughed, nonetheless. “Then will you tell me about this pendant of yours?”
Phoebe hesitated, for she wore the pendant everywhere. What if it was spied beneath a gown at a public event, and this man was there? What if he recognized her by it alone?
“You do not have to,” he told her, once again providing assurance, but Phoebe was already speaking.
“The pendant is silver and engraved with my grandfather’s name,” she said. “His Christian name, which was not widely spoken of. He—he guided me a great deal, so that is why I am conflicted.”
“Confliction is not something to be ashamed of, little fox.”
She stiffened at that, her head snapping toward the lattice wall. “You can see my mask clearly through the slats?”
“Yes.” She spotted a quirk of a smile, something teasing and wicked. “But only that. I only see the fox mask.”
“You are certain?”
“I would not jeopardize either of our identities,” he said. “I know the ways of these balls. Masks only, false names only.”
“Then, may I know your faux name?” she dared to ask.
Silence lingered for too long, and she feared she had asked the wrong thing.
But then his voice slid between the gaps of the wall between them. “Pyramus.”
“Pyramus?” Phoebe dredged the familiarity of the name from her books. “A Grecian king.”
“Indeed,” the stranger confirmed. “Always separated by one wall or another. I am he.”
In a quiet voice, Phoebe asked, “Then, does that make me your Thisbe? Always parted by a wall?”
More silence followed, and she swallowed her nerves down, right down into her stomach, where they festered in a rage of butterflies.
“If you wish.”
“One Thisbe of many,” Phoebe huffed softly.
“You could not be more wrong,” he told her. “For you have stayed longer than I expected and have shared more than I could have hoped for. My fox, my Thisbe.”
Phoebe’s breath caught, and she went to speak further, to be bolder, wanting to ask the stranger if they could step outside of the privacy booth to face one another; masks be damned. But the clock chimed throughout the room, and she stiffened.
Just meet me back here in an hour, yes?
