Page 4 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“Ah.”

“You are a strange fellow at the best of times, but tonight you are especially difficult to read,” James said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“It must be my age. Did you not know? All the Ashcrofts go mad eventually.”

“That cannot be true.”

“There is no evidence to the contrary for this generation or the last, so I stand by it.”

James looked displeased. “Will you make your speech now?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“It must be done eventually.”

“Yes, it must.”

Gabriel looked past James into the hall. The door to the terrace looked especially tempting.

“Five minutes is all I ask to rehearse,” Gabriel lied, already making for the door. “I am the youngest Duke of Hartmere there has ever been,” he recited from the speech he had worked on with James, and then went off script, “but I am also the most succinct. Thank you, and enjoy the party.”

James’s laugh was the last thing he heard before closing the terrace doors behind him.

Outside, the air was bitterly cold. It was too easy to forget how brutal English winters could be from the confines of a home. Gabriel shivered and hastened down the steps to the garden. He paused at the base and looked out over the grounds. Hartmere House was located on the outskirts of Mayfair, where, in the late hours of the night, he could almost believe he was far away from the city. It wasn’t nearly as quiet now. The house buzzed behind him, and the lawn crackled under the moonlight with frost.

He leaned on the stone sculpture beside him, covering his mouth with his hand as he turned his snuff box in his pocket with the other. Thirty-one years old, he told himself. Does Aunt Elisabeth realize the significance of this age? Did James? I am now more than twice as old as Marcus was when he died. I never thought this could happen... And now that it has, what more of life is there left to live?

His eyes stung, and he blamed the cold, blinking hard. Again, his lashes beat against his too-tight mask like the wings of a bird. He reached up to remove it and had almost pried it off, but he heard someone approaching behind him. He dropped his hand to his side, turning instead.

At the top of the steps stood a woman. It was dark outside. He could barely see her face. She was masked like the rest of the guests. Her hands were balled at her sides like she intended to strike him.

“What...” he started to ask.

The woman raced down the steps so quickly she fell into his embrace. But this was not an accident. Her arms were around his neck, pulling him into her. She pushed her mouth against his mouth in a closed, violent kiss.

Gabriel’s stomach flipped, his body tight with shock and horror. And yet his hands were still on her back. He did not let her go. She was unfamiliar. He had never felt this way about this woman before. He worried he would never feel anything like her again.

He could not explain what happened next, why he pushed the kiss further and drew her into him rather than casting her away—why he pried open her cold and unyielding mouth and kissed her deeper. Maybe it was because it was his birthday and that seemed impossible. Or maybe it was this stranger and the inexplicable power she wielded over him.

Suddenly, the terrace doors opened behind them. The woman gasped, drawing back from him and tripping on the step behind her. Light from the hall spilled onto the terrace, illuminating her from behind. There was a wisp of red hair by her ears, something pink glittering at the edge of her mask...

And then there were her words, “Oh, heavens, no...” before she ran back toward the doors and disappeared inside.

Two

It was strange, in hindsight, how the night had begun entirely as usual. Rosalie sat by her mother at the edge of the ballroom, engaged in a conversation with Lady Winthrop and one of her many friends, Lady Simon-Downs. Her mother was gregarious to a fault, her father always said, which was why it was so peculiar that they had borne such a private second daughter.

Rosalie smiled cordially as her mother’s friend addressed her, asking her how her Season was progressing. The question was charged with more than well-meaning interest.

“Do you think this will be the one?” the woman asked, leaning across Lady Winthrop to take Rosalie’s hand. Lady Winthrop placed hers on top. Rosalie stared down at the tangle of gloved fingers on her knee, stifling a laugh.

“We can but hope,” Rosalie said, nodding. “But I am perfectly content to remain with Mother and Father for the time being. I shall never want for anything so long as I am with them. And Mother,” she turned to Lady Winthrop, “you do so like having me around, don’t you? You say so all the time.”

“The day Rosalie marries shall be the best, worst day of my life,” Lady Winthrop joked, finally yielding the friend’s hand and consequently freeing Rosalie’s hand too.

That was always how she described it, the best, worst day; the day when, after four Seasons, Rosalie Winthrop finally met her match. There would be fanfare, certainly. They had spared no expense for her elder sister’s wedding to Viscount Howard. And when Rosalie married, her mother always said, they would have twice as many guests and twice as many cakes: “What good is all our wealth when our girls are gone and their dowries paid?”

Rosalie refrained from arguing that there were many things her father's wealth could be used for. And it wasn’t like her parents led an economical life. Their trips abroad were unending. Her mother’s passion for art cost three times as much as her works generated. Rosalie would build a library with that sort of money. She had already begun. A life curating books was not so terrible. Life without love was fine as long as she had stories.