Genevieve’s words rang through her mind, chasing away the arousal that this stranger had caused, and she stood abruptly.
The ballroom—she needed to go to the ballroom.
“I must go,” she whispered, jumping up from her seat.
“Thisbe—”
“I am sorry,” she said, “but I must.”
Whatever he said after that was left behind as she fled her side of the booth and scurried away in a flushed hurry. When she found her way back to the ballroom, with its stunning performers and tantalizing music, she found Genevieve only just weaving her way through the crowd to meet at the top of the staircase.
“We must leave,” Phoebe said as soon as her cousin was at her side.
Genevieve frowned, glancing back at the crowd below them. “We must? Is everything all right? I realize an hour is not really long enough to explore?—”
“It was plenty,” Phoebe rushed to say. “But we must leave. I—I cannot risk being caught here, so we must depart sooner rather than later. Please, Gen. Please.”
Genevieve gazed back at her through the eyeholes of her mask, and it made Phoebe wonder how much of the stranger she would remember after tonight, even though he had never removed his mask.
For a moment, she tried to paint a picture of what he might look like.
That long curtain of light, auburn hair, his mask, the smirk…
She shook her head as if that would rid her of the thoughts, and she tugged on her friend’s hand.
“Gen.”
“All right,” Genevieve finally conceded. “All right, we will leave.”
Guilt briefly pierced Phoebe. She knew it was discourteous to pull her cousin away from this magical gathering, but her worry was a tidal wave, growing due to her interaction with a stranger.
The sound of his voice filled her mind bringing with it heat. The urge to spin around and rush back to the room at the end of the hall occurred to her, but Phoebe pushed it violently out of her mind.
If I go back now, I will surely tell the man my real name. He will not be Pyramus and I will no longer pretend to be Thisbe.
I am Lady Phoebe, daughter of Lord Tripleton and he is…He is…
“Genevieve,” Phoebe pleaded as she tugged her cousin’s arm. “Please. We must go at once. Temptations abound and…”
“Yes,” Genevieve murmured as she cast a wistful glance back toward the dance floor. “I can see how being surrounded byso much temptation all at once would be overwhelming for someone who is only experiencing it all for the first time.”
Without saying anything further, Phoebe turned on her heel, hearing Genevieve following behind, and the two of them left the notorious Lord Spencer’s masquerade.
Chapter Four
“Thisbe…” he murmured.
Sebastian Halshore, The Duke of Talwyn, slumped back against the bench in the privacy booth, and sighed.
Gently, he closed the book he had been reading as he took a sip of his wine.
The mask on his face was of a seductive, secretive snake, a kind that he knew would stand out in an array of every other animal existing.
Snakes knew how to weave themselves into a place; they knew where to slither, and they knew how to wait to capture their prey.
To Sebastian, that made sense.
Still, despite that, a woman had fled his attention, and he was left lingering in her absent scent of lilies and jasmine. He set aside his cup of claret and briefly turned his face toward the latticed wall.
