A little adventure. That was all this was to her, he knew. All he was. A brief interlude in her happy life of fulfilling work, adoring community, and loyal family and friends.
Oblivious to his inner struggle, Bess turned to him, eyes wide behind her mask and a smile that shone like the sun coming up. “You really don’t mind that I’m nothing more than a farmer’s daughter turned cook. I thought it might change how you look at me...but it hasn’t.”
“I want nothing more than your happiness.” Disliking the hoarse rasp of his own voice, Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Therefore, it follows that if being a cook makes you happy, then it’s a good thing.”
Nathaniel told himself he ought to be glad to know that when she left him and returned to her real life, she would be going home to something that sustained her and fed her soul.
He was glad about it, even if the thought tore at him like the talons of a great bird raking at his flesh.
Nothing lasted forever. No one stayed. Happiness was for other people. Pain was the only thing Nathaniel had ever been able to count on as a constant—but he didn’t want that for Bess.
“Well. This has already been quite a surprising evening,” Bess remarked, with a new lightness about her. “Shall we venture inside and see what the rest of the night holds?”
Nathaniel stood and offered her his arm. Her fingers settled lightly upon his wrist, making him shudder. It was the longest they’d spent in each other’s company without falling into bed, he mused. At least, with the masks on. His body was trained to expect certain things, his hunger stoked by her nearness in a way that would have driven him mad a few weeks ago.
Now, having experienced both the wonders of her body and the intimacies of conversations like the one they’d just had, Nathaniel was better able to weather the need that pulsed unceasing in his veins. It provided a dark, sensual backdrop to the experience of walking her down the garden path through the cascading tumble of flowers and weeds, and into the strange, derelict beauty of Wycombe House.
The Midsummer Masquerade was at its full-throated, frenetic peak. Masked revelers in lurid, revealing costumes thronged the ballroom floor.
No sedate candelabras or chandeliers lit the space—instead, more torches had been brought in and placed in iron-bracketed medieval sconces about the room to smoke and cast their hellish glow upon the capering demon horde.
There, a black-robed doctor in a plague mask whirled by with a nun in his arms, though her skimpy habit would certainly not have found favor with any Mother Superior. Here, a large man in a wolf pelt with a full mask made from a snarling wolf’s head bent the lithe figure of a harlequin in diamond-patterned tights back over his brawny arm. In the corner near the masked musicians, a trio of ladies draped in Grecian-style robes—the Fates perhaps?—danced a slow, sinuous seduction with one another, ignoring every effort of the men around them to join in.
Beside him, Bess clutched her cloak more closely about her shoulders for a moment before setting her jaw with determination and unclasping it. No servant leapt forward to take it from her, so she cast it on a pile of similar outer garments cluttering a chair by the door.
The entire rest of the outlandish gathering fell away from Nathaniel as he took her in. Her brilliant pink gown was a color he’d wanted to see her in since the moment he’d fingered the fabric at the dressmaker’s.
As vivid as a sunrise, the gown bore no relation to the insipid pastel pink sported by debutantes—nor did the cut of it. Nathaniel’s gaze traveled the length of the gown from the full, swirling skirts to the nipped-in waist and the low, straight neckline that bared her smooth shoulders and the tops of her breasts.
She was probably the most demurely dressed of any woman at the masquerade. Yet Nathaniel could not take his eyes off her.
Bowing low, his gaze never leaving hers, Nathaniel held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”
Her cheeks were an even prettier pink than the dress when she put her hand in his and let him lead her out onto the wild, heaving dance floor.
The music had the beat of a waltz, though no one around them was paying any particular mind to the music. Eyeing a couple next to them comprised of a bespectacled faun and a laughing Titania, arms wound around each other and bodies barely swaying with less than an inch of daylight between them, Nathaniel let his hand settle at her waist and pull Bess closer than he ever would at Almack’s.
Close enough to hear the swift intake of her breath. Close enough to count her eyelashes through the mask when her eyes fluttered. Close enough to catch her scent, vanilla and almonds, among the riot of smells and sights and sensations clamoring around them.
Bess never looked down, never stumbled or faltered, as confident and sure in his hold as if they’d waltzed together many times before. Nathaniel lost himself in the pleasure of holding her in his arms, the rub of their bodies together as other dancers brushed past, pushing them even closer together.
They waltzed, and watched each other, and occasionally challenged each other to guess at the meaning behind a particularly esoteric costume.
He made her laugh, once or twice, a satisfaction akin to winning a hard fight or browbeating a political opponent welling in his chest.
She smiled, and Nathaniel let himself smile back.
It was a magical night. What could it hurt?
Chapter Twenty
Bess's feet were sore and tired, her legs trembling from the exhaustion of dancing every dance. She never wanted to stop.
But she could hide nothing from Nathaniel. He pulled her to the edge of the dance floor and gave her an appraisal that she felt like his hands skimming her naked body.
“Let us sit this one out,” he said, more of a command than a suggestion. Without further ado, he located a chaise longue positioned along the wall and drew her over to it.
Never mind that the chaise longue was occupied by a jolly, plump-cheeked wench dressed, improbably, as an infant in yards of lace ruffles and a white satin mask, and the volubly singing man in a horned Viking helm dandling her upon his knee.
