She was just about to embrace her when Meg bustled into the room with an armful of fresh flowers. “We’re in luck,” chirped the maid. “There were anemones. Oh, but I’ve learned some other news. The duke’s valet was polishing his boots belowstairs. He told me Lusk is going to the ball dressed as a man-shaped slab of Somerset limestone.”
Chapter Eighteen
Declan infiltrated the masquerade ball as the Huntsman.
It had been his father’s idea. With Helena occupied throughout the day, he’d asked Girdleston for a day off and gone to his father’s shop in Savile Row.
After an avalanche of questions from his sisters about Somerset, and Castle Wood, and if the village had assemblies of handsome men, the three of them worked together to construct a costume.
His “Huntsman” identity wasn’t known outside of military and security circles, but his father knew his reputation—fierce, skilled, dangerous—and he chose black leather and buckskin. His sisters added touches that invoked legendary heroes like Robin Hood and King Arthur. The resulting costume amounted to a hooded vest in thin black leather, no shirt (everyone but Declan was in agreement about this), broad belt and dagger, black buckskins, and layered strips of leather bindings wrapped around wrists, biceps, and thighs. If he fell into the Thames, the weight of wet leather would pull him under.
But he wasn’t bound for the Thames, he was bound for the bloody Winter Solstice Masquerade, and God help him, he was desperate to get inside. He wanted to see Helena safe and protected and . . . and—
And he simply wanted her. The devil himself could not have kept him out.
As ridiculous as the costume felt, the throng outside the ball parted ways when he arrived. Women tittered in delight and men could not hide their deference when they looked him up and down. Something about the black leather and bare muscled biceps, the deep hood and thin black mask, lent an air of scintillating menace to his otherwise uncredentialed presence. No one questioned him; in fact, he was regarded a bit like the only interesting guest invited to Sunday dinner.
He’d called in a favor to an old army comrade and finagled an invitation. His friend, a retired officer, had also given him a fake name and foreign title to feed to the herald on the ballroom stairs. No one had questioned a thing.
An hour after the first guests arrived, Declan stood in the ballroom doorway. The cavernous room, a two-level space with ballroom below and balconies above, was illuminated by thousands of glittering candles. Orchestral music soared over a raucous crowd that dripped in jewels and floated in silk.
He saw a woman dressed as a provocative milkmaid pulling a dazed calf on a ribboned lead. Another woman had secured a festooned birdcage to the top of her head and live birdsthrashed about inside. Several men wore elaborate hat-mask combinations that transformed their faces into a velvet panther or a feathered falcon. Countless guests wore assembled togas, some of them dampened to cling to their bodies. Most guests wore masks, some beaded and feathered on long sticks; others, like Declan’s, were strips of silk tied with holes for eyes.
Because of his work, this was not Declan’s first ball, or even his first masquerade. But he’d never been to an event where decadence and indulgence were so clearly the order of the night. He saw diamonds affixed to cheeks and swirling in the bottom of champagne glasses. He saw expensive French wine sloshed on the floor. Each cluster of guests seemed to throb with their own brand of sensuality, their anatomy, both male and female, girded, groomed, or gauzed to invite the eye. Furniture was strewn with languid couples. Terrace doors were thrown open to the night, despite the chill, and guests disappeared into the dark garden.
Declan stalked the rooms, forcing himself to walk at an amble. He’d been unable to locate Helena. Every time he rounded a corner and did not see her, his heart rate increased. He could feel his face hardening into what his sisters referred to as his “death stare.” He was sweating, which was remarkable, because he hadn’t been allowed to wear a shirt. But he must not panic. She was here. She would hate everything about this, of course. She would be searching for him, anxious that they had not connected. But he would find her. She’d managed perfectly well before he’d—
He clipped down steps, and then there she was.
She stood next to a young woman dressed as Cleopatra. Helena looked more beautiful than ever he had seen her. She wore no mask. Her hair fell long and loose down her back, dotted with bright, dewy blossoms. Her dress was the color of early spring at dusk, when the acrid green of new growth turned blue-green. While other gowns in the room poufed and flounced, Helena’s skimmed her slender body, sleek and spare. The neckline was daringly low, showing off an expanse of creamy skin and the contour of her breasts. A waterfall of teal and turquoise silk fell from her shoulders and hips. She looked like a forest nymph—no. She looked like therulerof the nymphs.
He glanced around, checking the reaction of other guests. Women slowed and cast her with appraising once-overs. She slid the heavy mane of her hair from shoulder to back, and men stared openly at her exposed décolletage and startlingly beautiful face.
Declan’s own mouth went dry, watching. He wanted her. Now. Later tonight. Tomorrow. Forever. He wanted to scoop her up and carry her away.
He wanted—
Helena looked up and their eyes locked. She went very still. She blinked. She cocked her head. She mouthed his name.
Declan.
Not a question. She knew.
He began to walk; he didn’t look away.
Helena took a deep breath and excused herself from Cleopatra.
A large easel had been arranged in a corner to display the painting of a dog. Helena stepped up, examining the art, and Declan stepped behind it.
“You’ve come,” she said to the dog.
“Yes,” he said. He kept well behind the easel, his face averted from the ballroom. He felt like he hadn’t seen her in a year. He felt as if they’d never parted. He felt as if his whole purpose in the world was to find her at this party and carry her away.
“You look... remarkable,” she said flatly, speaking to the dog. “You were always handsome, but I was not prepared for how you would look outside of the—” She glanced at him, hungry eyes raking him from hood to boot. Declan’s body tightened.
She finished, “—how you would look outside.”
“Ah,” he said, not prepared for her praise.
