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CHAPTER ONE

“ G oodness, why are you always lurking in corners?” asked the tall, willowy young lady with the feathers in her hair, a scowl narrowing her blue eyes behind a gold mask that resembled a peacock.

“Are you intent on frightening everyone and anyone who desires a momentary reprieve from actually participating in the ball?”

Lady Teresa Wilds clenched her hands into fists, unwilling to give up her hideaway to this woman, Lady Juliet, and her gaggle of harpies.

No matter what the event or where she tucked herself away—even at a masquerade where she should have been undiscoverable—Lady Juliet always managed to find Teresa, as if she had made it her mission to disrupt Teresa’s peace.

“You know, you really ought to at least try,” Lady Juliet remarked with a smirk. “If you do not, you shall end up a spinster. You must be, what, five-and-twenty by now? You have almost no time left, and one does not want to have to be in the position of scraping the barrel.”

“I am twenty,” Teresa muttered, hiding her book in the folds of her skirt.

Lady Juliet feigned a gasp that made her friends snort. “Heavens, you would never think it to look at you.” She paused. “I say this from a place of kindness, Lady Teresa, but you really should stop spending so much time out of doors. It has weathered your face terribly.”

“You cannot see my face,” Teresa said with all the curtness she could muster, her cheeks hot beneath her own mask: a bronze masterpiece of elegantly twisting curlicues and little fern embellishments, with an adorable nose, and surprisingly sharp teeth.

“Not tonight,” Lady Juliet replied with a smirk. “But I know what you look like beneath that mask. Honestly, what are you supposed to be?”

Teresa swallowed. “A bear.”

Like the fairytale… It was a German story she adored, where a cursed prince had been transformed into a bear by a mean-spirited dwarf, and had the curse broken by a beautiful maiden. But she was not going to give Lady Juliet the satisfaction of hearing that.

“How… unique,” Lady Juliet said, sniffing.

Her harpies giggled behind their hands: a pretty array of birds and rabbits, like every other lady at the masquerade, aside from the occasional deer and a butterfly or two.

“Have you nothing better to do than pester me?” Teresa asked wearily, struggling to raise her gaze to her antagonist.

Do not make me hate this mask. Teresa had spent an age designing it, and had yelped with joy upon its arrival from the metalsmith. It was precious to her, and these nasty ladies were tarnishing it.

“Pardon?” Lady Juliet replied loudly, cupping her ear. “I am afraid I cannot hear you. Do speak up. It truly is impossible to understand you.”

“And you can shut your mouth entirely, Juliet,” a different voice interjected, a force of nature pushing straight through the cluster of smirking, snickering women.

“I always find myself wondering if it will finally be the night that you grow tired of the sound of your own voice, but I am perpetually disappointed.”

Teresa expelled a breath of relief at the sight of her dear, dear friend, Beatrice Johnson. A fellow outsider, but not at all for the same reasons: where Teresa was a wallflower, Beatrice was ivy that grew wild and wherever it pleased, impossible to ignore.

Lady Juliet scoffed in outrage. “How dare you speak to me that way!”

“Oh, I dare,” Beatrice shot back. “And there is far more that I could say, if you push me; far more that I could say if you do not leave my friend alone, and go and flutter your eyelashes at some poor soul in the ballroom at once.”

Lady Juliet hesitated.

“I could mention where you were this past Sunday, when you were supposed to be at church, but feigned a headache,” Beatrice continued, with a sly smile that seemed all the slier thanks to her fox mask.

The other young woman’s blue eyes widened, her mouth slack for a moment. In the next instant, she was mumbling something about not wanting to be associated with such hapless creatures and ushering her friends away from the quiet annex with all the haste of someone with a secret to keep.

Once they were gone, Beatrice sauntered over and sank down onto the floor, sitting at Teresa’s side. She nudged Teresa’s arm with an affectionate bump, that wicked grin still on her face, though her eyes were creased with concern.

“Sorry for being gone so long,” Beatrice said, lifting her mask.

“My uncle and cousin arrived while I was fetching drinks, so I was distracted. I should have known those callous witches would find you. I still think you should consider carrying a stick with you, so you can whip them with it if they get too close.”

Teresa laughed halfheartedly. “And make myself twice as weird as everyone already thinks I am?”

“There is nothing weird about you,” Beatrice insisted, weaving her arm through Teresa’s.

“You are interesting, you are unique, you are glorious, you are exemplary in every way, which is more than can be said for those nasty wastrels. I know it is easy for me to say, but do not listen to a word that comes out of their bitter mouths. All they are interested in is defeating potential rivals, and you , dearest Tess, are a formidable threat.”

A snort erupted from Teresa’s throat. “I am as threatening to those ladies as a defanged, declawed, blind and deaf kitten.”

“The very sort of being that a gentleman would long to scoop up and take care of,” Beatrice pointed out with a smile, and lightly touched her friend’s precious mask.

“But you are not at all a helpless kitten. You are a fierce and remarkable she-bear, and I will not hear another word said against you, least of all by you.”

Lifting her chin, Teresa glanced at the opening to the annex, where Lady Juliet and her friends had been.

She frowned at the absence, listening absently to the muffled music of the orchestra and the gentle babble of chatter coming from all those who belonged out there, who knew how to be out there among society.

“Let us have a picnic tomorrow,” Beatrice suggested. “Forget all of this ever happened.”

“And what of the next dinner party, the next ball, the next soirée that I am invited to?” Teresa replied, almost to herself. “I do not think I can do this for another Season.”

Beatrice waved a dismissive hand. “Then do not. Do what I have done since I was five-and-ten—pick and choose. If there is a year where you cannot compel yourself to be sociable, then do not. Everyone will try to convince you that it is not that simple, but it is.”

Not wanting to cause offence to her closest friend, Teresa held back from saying that not everyone had parents who ignored their children and let them do what they pleased because they did not always remember that their children existed.

It was not Beatrice’s fault that she had been raised with absent parents, who only cared when she did something so wild that it could not be overlooked.

So, instead, Teresa said nothing, sinking into her thoughts, letting what Lady Juliet had said turn around and around in her mind. A carousel of stark honesty.

“You cannot listen to the likes of them, Tess,” Beatrice urged. “They are vapid, envious, awful creatures.”

Teresa tilted her head to one side. “If I never saw those ladies again, it would be too soon, but… I cannot deny that Lady Juliet made an excellent point.” She puffed out a sigh. “I cannot be oblivious to my situation.”

“What situation?”

Teresa scrunched her eyes shut and rested her head against the wall. “Being three years in society and still unwed.”

“Oh, do not worry about that,” Beatrice urged brightly.

“I have told you before— I shall take care of us both. If you did not think me serious, I must let you know, right this minute, that I am perfectly serious. You and I shall have a residence somewhere, all our own, where we shelter any other ladies who have no desire to marry.”

It was a beautiful thought. Whenever Beatrice had mentioned it in the past, it sounded like paradise, but it had also sounded like pure imagination: a spinster’s fantasy that could never come true. For Beatrice, maybe, but for Teresa? Impossible.

“I would adore that,” she replied in a faraway voice. “You know that I would not mind remaining a spinster indefinitely, enjoying life without expectation, just like you wish to, but… my brother will never allow it.”

Beatrice narrowed her eyes, clicking her tongue. “He is not your father, Tess. He cannot make you do anything.”

“He can,” Teresa replied. “For all intents and purposes, he is my father—he adopted that role when our father passed, just as he inherited his title of Earl. He has made his position clear on the matter of my marrying; he is too stubborn to ever renege upon his decisions.”

Beatrice sniffed. “And this would be the brother who is also unwed, and seems to show no indication of marrying anyone? The brother who does not even speak to ladies at these events, if he attends at all?”

With a resigned chuckle that she could not help, Teresa looked at her friend and said simply, “He is a gentleman.”

“And that should not make the slightest bit of difference,” Beatrice grumbled. “Either everyone should be forced into marriage, or no one should. It should not be one way for the ladies and another for the gentlemen.”

Teresa shrugged. “I agree, and perhaps one day society will be in agreement with us, but that day is not today. Nor will it be that way by the end of this Season.”

Beatrice shuffled around to face Teresa, taking hold of her hands.

“Do you want me to find someone boring and rich for you? Do you want me to find you a gentleman who has no interest in being anything other than distant acquaintances? I know a few. You could be as good as a spinster, free to do as you please, yet ‘married’ to satisfy society.”