You realize, do you not,” Anthony said as he affixed the domino to his face, tying the strings behind his head, “that this is rather insufficient as far as costumes go?” Besides being rather flimsy, it would not go particularly far toward obscuring his identity. The eyepatch beneath it would see to that well enough, as would the numerous scars that the domino couldn’t even come close to hiding.
Charity laughed as she alighted from the carriage. She had tied on her own mask before they had arrived, but it had been too dark within the carriage to get a glimpse of it. Only now in the light pouring through the windows of the grand house at which they had arrived could he see it at last. Flimsier even than the one she had offered to him, it was hardly a mask at all—just a few thin frills of lace woven in sparkling gold thread. A veil made of net would have better guarded her identity.
“It’s pretense,” she said, with a delicate wave of her hand before she settled it into the crook of his arm.
“It’s all just pretense. Only a bit of fun; the tiniest concession toward the secrecy we are meant to employ. Perhaps half of those in attendance will arrive in masks at all. Fewer still with arrive in any sort of costume.” She tipped her head back, touching the point of her chin as if in thought.
“It’s possible,” she added, “perhaps even likely that some might arrive without clothing entirely.”
“Truly?” He couldn’t imagine it.
“Well, perhaps not arrive, per se,” she allowed.
“That would cause a stir. But a few have been known to shed their costumes—or clothing—at the door. As anyone else might a cloak or a coat.”
Anthony squinted up at the house, its glittering windows awash with light. A cry went up from within, mingled voices and cheers attesting to the merriment already well underway.
“Whose house is this?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and fished in her reticule to pull out a card with gold lettering emblazoned upon it. An invitation, he assumed.
“Doesn’t it? Are we not meant to thank our host?”
Charity tilted her head back to laugh once more, her dark curls shimmering in the light from the windows.
“Certainly not,” she said.
“Even if you could find the host, he—or she—would never admit to it. Like as not the use of this home has been secured for the evening at a premium, from someone not even in attendance and more likely not even in London at present.” She smiled up at him, her warm, dark eyes shining with her amusement.
“Tonight is for pleasure, for excitement. I imagine you’ll see a fair few people whom you will recognize. You should not, at all costs, address them by name, for this evening they have none they’ll claim.”
“Even names are forbidden?”
“Not forbidden,” she said, as she gave a small tug upon his arm, pulling him toward the door.
“Not exactly. It’s just that tonight is meant to be a fantasy, and tomorrow it will be as if it never happened. There will be no strict adherence to propriety, and there will be quite a lot of wickedness. In addition to those whose sins are well-known, there are plenty who rely upon the secrecy of those in attendance to hide their own iniquity. You might see a man you know locked in a torrid embrace with his mistress this evening, and still he would deny his attendance tomorrow, if you were indiscreet enough to ask him.”
She had mentioned something to that effect, he supposed—that many men in attendance would have wives. That these events were meant to be secret, known only to the privileged few who had merited invitations. A bawdy imitation of a Ton event, and far less decorous.
That much was clear from the hearty cheer that assailed his ears as they approached the door. And that wasn’t the half of it. The sound that crashed over him as the door opened and a man stepped into the crack, extending his hand to receive the invitation that Charity handed over to him was nothing short of ear-shattering.
He supposed there might have been some faint, distant strains of music over the din, but he could pick out naught but a few warbling notes of a violin as they were admitted.
“Miss Nightingale,” the man said as he opened the door.
“What a surprise it is to see you. It has been too long.”
“It has, hasn’t it?” Charity said, though her hand tightened upon Anthony’s arm as they proceeded into the house. Ostensibly to bring home the message that she was not in search of a new protector, he thought.
“My name is known well enough,” she whispered to him, sotto voce.
“I have been wicked for years and years already.”
It was—nice, for once, he thought, to not be the one who garnered stares. The whispers that followed them were not judgments rendered upon his appearance; it was Charity who received the bulk of the attention.
And she fairly preened beneath the regard, the indisputable diamond of the ball.
“Out of curiosity,” Anthony murmured to her as they moved toward what he thought must be the ballroom, “how long is too long?”
“Mm. A few years, now,” Charity said on a sigh. And then she swallowed a snicker as a masked woman sauntered past them, her dress half-unbuttoned, breasts exposed, to throw herself into the arms of the gentleman who Anthony supposed must be her paramour.
“That’s Sylvie,” she whispered to him.
“She is just delightful.” Another sigh, wistful and longing.
“I have missed it. The revelry; the chaos. It’s in the very air. Can you feel it?”
There was most definitely something in the air. Anthony couldn’t be altogether certain that it was not opium smoke. They found the ballroom at last, where a bevy of dancers were circling the floor, the bright skirts of ball gowns—far too risqué ever to grace the ballroom floor of Almack’s—fluttering as their owners whirled.
A Ton ball, turned upon its head. People laughing too loudly, drinking too deeply, dancing too closely. Where every rule and stricture that made polite society what it was had been stripped away, and no one seemed to find anything even the least objectionable in it. And Anthony felt—
Invisible. A curious notion, given that he’d felt far too much on display just recently. But no one paid him any mind at all, intent as they were upon their own vices, their own night of wicked fun. It made the sorts of events he had attended, both recently and in the past, seem tepid by comparison. Bland and boring.
“Shall we dance?” Charity asked, a glimmer of warmth in her voice.
“What, here?” But it was an utter crush. It had taken nearly all of his concentration to maneuver Lady Cecily about the ballroom floor of a much more sedate ball—and that had been with fewer than half the people milling about now, in no discernable pattern.
“I don’t think I could manage it.”
“Of course you can,” she said.
“I have every faith in you.” And she seized his hand in hers, dragging him through the throng of people at the fringes of the room and toward the dizzying blur of dancers moving in their riotous circles.
“Surely we must wait for the next set.”
“At a Ton event,” she said.
“Not at this one. We’ll just pop in wherever there’s space.”
Anthony wouldn’t have risked it, but Charity charged on boldly, as she did everything—and somehow she’d timed their entrance perfectly, and all of a sudden they were in the thick of it all. Anthony stumbled a step, and was surprised to find that no one had noticed, no one was jeering.
“Half the dancers are drunk already,” Charity confided as she squeezed herself closer, leading him into the steps of a rather disjointed waltz, owing to the thick of the crowd about them.
“No one will care if you happen to fumble a few steps. They’ll blame it upon a surfeit of liquor, same as themselves.”
The close quarters did not allow for a great deal of freedom of movement, and she’d skillfully placed them toward the center of the floor, which lent itself to tighter, more controlled circles. Anthony gave himself a moment to glance around, surprised to find a sort of wild beauty in the pandemonium. She had been correct; he did recognize more than a few of the gentlemen present. But every person his gaze fell upon looked to be enjoying themselves immensely. A far cry from those few dignified events he had attended, where a rogue smile might threaten to split a face in twain, this was high society let off its leash. Every bit as elegant, every bit as opulent and grandiose—with none of the inhibitions.
From a chaise longue situated near the refreshment table, a woman in a silver mask dotted with seed pearls opened her mouth to taste the ripe raspberry her paramour placed upon her tongue. Across the room two lovers rubbed noses, entirely unconcerned with being seen as they slipped out together into the cool night for what promised to be an assignation in the garden. And amongst a row of chairs ostensibly meant for a bit of a respite after a sprightly dance, a woman sat directly upon her lover’s lap as they shared a glass of liquor.
Perhaps he ought to have found it all a bit sordid. Instead, he marveled at the freedom they enjoyed, the joviality found in every moment, the raw hedonism in which they liberally indulged.
A hard shoulder bumped his own from his blind side, precipitating another stumble which sent him reeling toward Charity. He recovered himself promptly, forcing himself to tamp down upon the instinctive anger which welled up inside him.
“I say,” the gentleman responsible blustered, in slurring tones of drunkenness.
“Glare,” Charity whispered, a measure of glee in her voice.
Anthony turned his head sharply to spear the man with a hard look. Narrowed his eye and glared, as instructed.
Already ruddy cheeks flushed a deeper red.
“My mistake,” the man said, his shoulders slumping.
“I beg your pardon.” And he swept his partner away, thoroughly chastened.
Charity trilled a laugh, that delightful nightingale melody that warmed him from the inside. Full-throated and lyrical, without even the slightest care over whether or not it had been too loud or inappropriate. Once again he found himself wishing that he had half the courage she had, that he could find his way toward living his life in all the fullness she lived hers. Without regret, without shame, reaching with both hands for whatever bit of joy she might grasp.
Anthony had gotten the distinct impression since the renewal of their acquaintance that Charity could appear to belong anywhere she had the mind to. She had an unassailable confidence that would allow her to mingle with the aristocracy just as effortlessly as with the demimonde. He could picture her sipping tea with a cluster of ladies in an elegant drawing room every bit as easily as attending a Cyprians’ Ball, and yet, here—here she was truly in her element. The brightest sparkling star of her own world.
For this one moment out of time, it was a balm to his soul only to bask in her light.
The twitch of her fingers on his arm warned him to slide them away before another careless couple sauntered by, and he didn’t feel half so clumsy as he had upon the dance floor with Lady Cecily. It felt rather like a team effort just now, with Charity subtly leading where he could not, generously accommodating for his diminished sight with only the gentle clasp of her fingers.
“Your morning call with Lady Cecily,” she said as they made their first circuit of the ballroom floor.
“How did it turn out?”
“Well enough. The poetry was a bit of a blunder. I chose Byron, and it seems she is not enamored with him.”
“Pity.” Her lips pursed into a tiny moue.
“And the roses?”
“She’d have liked them more if the stems had not been cut. She prefers live plants to dead ones, it seems.” He hesitated.
“But she was personable. Gracious. She gave me a book of poetry. Keats.” Ode to a Nightingale.
“Did she? That sounds promising indeed. You will call upon her again?”
“She invited me to do so. I told her that I would.” And really, there was no reason not to.
“When you do, you must ask her what events she plans to attend so that you may attend the same. I can hazard a few guesses until then,” she said.
“So long as I may have a peek at your most recent set of invitations. Have you decided to court her in earnest?”
“It would be imprudent to base such a decision upon nothing more than a dance and a single morning call.” But he had a good deal of time to arrive at a conclusion, since he could not court anyone in earnest before he was out of mourning.
Perhaps it would come by then, that bolt from the blue for which he had hoped. Perhaps there would come a time when those first tentative stirrings of a friendship blossomed into love, and he would look at Lady Cecily, and simply know it.
“Which is why you must spend more time in her company,” Charity said, and squeezed his arm, tilting her head toward the side of the room in silent indication that they should begin meandering in that direction.
“Now you must learn the art of stealing a kiss at a crowded ball.”
“I hardly think it’s necessary here,” he said.
“I’ve witnessed at least half a dozen people kissing in plain sight.”
A sparkling, scintillating laugh.
“That means only that being caught will have no consequences here. Think of it like—like practice.” As they slipped off the dance floor once more into the thick of the milling crowd, she said, “There is an art to it, in slipping away unnoticed. It’s best done at the end of a dance, when you would naturally part ways. When we do, I will go to the refreshment table to fetch myself some champagne and then slip outside into the garden when the moment is right. You will keep watch—possibly affecting a bored expression to avert suspicion—and follow a few minutes behind me as soon as it is clear.”
“Is it really so simple as that?”
“Mm. The difficulty will be in persuading your intended to it in the first place. But I charge you with this: the next time you are at a ball, observe for yourself who slips out of the room at the end of a set, when the dancers are scrambling to find their partners for the next.” Her hand drifted free of his arm, and she flicked her fingertips at him in dismissal.
“Now, away,” she instructed.
“I’m off for champagne.”
And then Anthony was on his own, consigned to fading backward toward the nearest wall, watching as Charity wended her way through the crowd toward the refreshment table, where she selected a glass of champagne for herself, chatting idly as she sipped with those who lingered near.
When she had finished her drink, she let her gaze slide over the room for a moment until at last it alighted upon him, and with a delicate motion of her wrist she lifted her empty glass in a subtle salute and made for the doors leading out into the night. In only a moment she had slipped through them and was gone from sight.
As instructed, he waited a few minutes more, lingering near the wall as he watched couples slide on and off the dance floor, watched numerous indiscretions play out without shame before his very eyes. The air had grown rather stifling, and he yanked at the material of his cravat, vaguely relieved that there was no one to judge him for it here.
Because no one was paying the least attention to him. In the chaos he was still invisible, and so when he’d judged it long enough, he skirted the wall toward the doors through which Charity had exited, following her out into the night, stripping off his gloves and stuffing them into his coat pocket as he went.
The garden was far from deserted. Past the hedgerows that lined the stones laid into the ground, a woman’s squeal split the night, and a man’s hearty chuckle followed soon after. A couple barreled past him, hand-in-hand, nearly stumbling in their efforts to lose themselves within the expertly manicured garden stretching out in the distance.
No one cared if they had been seen. No one cared if they had been heard. Cyprians’ balls were a fascinating study in wickedness, in the freedom there was to be found outside of the suffocating restraints of Ton society.
“Right on time. I do admire punctuality in a man.”
Anthony turned to his left and found Charity there, lingering in the shadows just out of sight of the nearest window.
“We’re not alone,” he said.
“No. But there are still shades of privacy to be found. Come; I’ve scouted ahead.” She reached for his hand, interlacing their fingers as she led him round the side of the house, deeper into the thick of the shadows, and away from the various sounds of sex emanating from within the garden. A privacy that was not quite private, a dark hollow hidden away, obscured beneath the cover of an upstairs balcony.
A balcony where a woman sat perched upon the banister, her skirts hitched up to bare her legs, her head thrown back to the sky. From the light pouring through the windows above, Anthony could see a man’s hands clamped around her thighs, see his knees upon the ground as he knelt before her, his head obviously positioned between the splay of her legs. The particulars were hidden well enough behind the dripping flounces of the woman’s skirt, but the purpose—that had been clear enough.
Christ.
“Be glad I didn’t suggest heading upstairs instead,” Charity murmured as she pulled him deeper into the shadows coalescing beneath the balcony.
“There’s always at least one room reserved for a proper orgy. We might have stumbled into it by mistake.”
“I’ve seen people fucking before,” he said. It had been an unavoidable aspect of life in the army, on a campaign. Hot-blooded young men had availed themselves of willing camp followers whenever the opportunity allowed, either because there had been no guarantee that they would live to see another day, or because they had needed some release of the simmering tension of battle. Quick couplings, with rather more speed than finesse, had been common—in all areas of the camp. Many officers’ wives had taken to shading their eyes whenever they roamed the camp, lest they risk the sight of some soldier’s bare arse at an inopportune moment. Probably Charity had seen enough of it herself.
But he had never seen that. In open air, on a balcony, in plain view of anyone who fancied a look.
“Don’t concern yourself with it. They can’t see us from there,” she said, nestling into the crook of his arm.
“And most of those present—well, they don’t much care whether or not they are seen. Or heard. They won’t be looking in this corner.” Her hands lighted upon his chest, stroking down the fine wool of his coat.
“Now. Supposing you have successfully lured your intended out into a secluded corner of the garden, it is your chance to steal a kiss. Perhaps a bit more, if she allows. If you able to make her want more.”
Anthony tried to picture Lady Cecily here with him now, but his feeble imagination failed him. The sweet floral scent of Charity’s perfume consumed his senses as he bent his head, pressed his lips against her neck as he knew she liked, felt the softening of her body as she relaxed beneath the pressure.
“Mm,” she said on a soft hum.
“Lovely. But a bit too familiar for a first kiss. She is a proper lady, so you must handle her gently. As if she is made of spun glass. Perhaps you place your hand at the small of her back and draw her closer.” She made an approving sound in her throat as he complied, and the warmth of her skin through the fine silk suggested she’d left off at least the stays again this evening.
“Now is the prelude to a kiss. You might lean in close, whisper into her ear how beautiful she is—”
“You’re beautiful.”
A throaty chuckle.
“You don’t have to say such things to me,” she said.
“Only keep them in mind for her.”
But she was beautiful. Did she not also deserve to hear such words?
“And now, a kiss. It must be light,” she said.
“Soft, gentle. Remember you are seducing, not pillaging.” She tilted her head back expectantly, waiting upon him.
His lips brushed hers, feeling for too fleeting a moment the decadent softness of her lips against his own. It wasn’t how she wanted to be kissed. It wasn’t how she liked to be kissed. She had taught him that much already. And he found he did not much care for the pretense that she was anyone other than who she was, that she was merely the stand-in for someone else. Perhaps that first time in the library it had been useful; a skillful ruse designed to combat his nerves.
But he had not required it since.
On the balcony above them, the sounds of passion continued unabated, building to a crescendo until at last the woman cried out her pleasure into the dark of the night. A vibrant, primal screech, unmistakable for anything other than what it was. And then, at last, there was the faint rustling of clothing, the patter of retreating feet.
And suddenly it wasn’t Charity’s mouth he wanted to kiss.
He said, “Sweet and chaste, no? As you said that first time in the library.”
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s it exactly. At least for a first kiss—”
“I can do that, if so called,” he said. It had, after all, been his instinctive first attempt.
“That’s not what I wish to learn this evening.”
“Oh?” He could hear the pout in her voice, as if it had irked her that she had put so much effort into finding a prime secluded spot for a kiss, to teach him a particular lesson, all for naught.
“What, then, would you learn?”
“Something less wholesome. Something more prurient, more suited to the occasion.” Anthony tilted his head back, peered up at the underside of the now-abandoned balcony.
“The couple on the balcony,” he said.
“The woman seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. I should like to learn that.”