Page 24 of One Duke of a Time (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #37)
L ady Helena Fairfax lifted the fox mask, a mix of russet and gold, almost childish, and, for a moment, too sly to be hers. She inhaled a steadied breath. After three years of marriage followed by two years of widowhood, she deserved a bit of mischief.
She tied the mask firmly. The silk pressed against her hairline, a bracing counterpoint to the warmth rising in her cheeks.
It was astonishing how easily one could slip into a role with so little effort, as easily as the solicitors had slipped her life into tidy ledgers.
She had been doing it, in one form or another, all her life.
The clock neared eleven as she crossed the carpet on quiet feet, paused at the threshold, and drew a breath. Behind her lay the hushed safety of an ornate prison. Ahead, a corridor to the carriage and, God willing, her first ungoverned breath in months.
London offered a soft, unseasonable April night.
As the carriage rattled over the stones, fog curled around the lamps, turning each pool of light into a small, private world.
She traced a gloved finger along the fox’s nose and thought of the creature slipping unseen through hedgerows, outsmarting hounds and husbands.
The masquerade’s address was notorious and, to those who mattered, discreet. It was quite perfect, for tonight, Helena longed for anonymity.
When the carriage stopped, a colossus in baroque livery opened the door, his gaze catching on her mask with a flicker of amusement. Helena swept past him, her own name already loosening its hold with each step over marble. Tonight she was not the dutiful widow. She was a vibrant mystery.
Inside, light reigned. Crystal hung from the ceiling, scattering prisms across velvet and gilt.
The air was thick with bergamot and jasmine, and beneath it, the unmistakable scent of too many bodies too close together.
Laughter ricocheted off mirrors. Shepherdesses and pharaohs mingled with Harlequins, Columbines, and Roman heroes.
Helena slipped to one side, crimson a clean slash among pastels and gilt, and pressed her fingertips to the mask’s edge, confirming her invisibility.
Eyes skimmed over her and moved on. Relief tasted like champagne.
She lingered near a bright group of women whose practiced flirtations rose and fell like a well-rehearsed chorus. A maid in a domino mask offered a tray. Helena took a glass and turned the stem between her fingers, acutely aware, as ever, of observing even as she longed to immerse herself.
One waltz, she told herself. One kiss. Then home. No regrets.
She had not reached the floor when she felt it.
The steady knowledge of being seen, measured, by a mind as meticulous as her own.
She turned. Across the room stood a tall man in a black domino mask, serious even amid the revelry.
Dark hair threatened rebellion against careful styling.
His posture was precise, his attention wholly fixed on her.
Something about the breadth of his shoulders, the stillness of him, tugged at a place in memory she could not name.
Helena did not look away.
He approached in three decisive strides, the crowd parting without his noticing. He did not bow or posture. He regarded her with cool composure, blue eyes intent.
“Good evening, vixen,” he said, velvet lined with gravel. “I congratulate you on being the only guest unafraid of a proper hue.”
She lifted her chin. “And I congratulate you on making black look like a choice rather than a deficiency.”
“Appearances,” he replied, “are the point.”
“Then what is yours meant to convey? Minister of ill omens?”
A brief, suppressed smile tugged at his mouth. “Only an amateur student of them. Tonight’s are most diverting.”
“Perhaps you simply lack practice.”
His gaze sharpened. “If that is a challenge, I accept.”
She might have laughed. Instead, she smiled behind her mask. “Do so at your peril, sir.”
He offered his arm, perfectly poised between sincerity and satire. “Permit me to risk humiliation. Will you dance?”
She hesitated long enough to know she could refuse, then placed her hand in his.
Warmth seeped through gloves, making her long for more.
The orchestra struck a waltz with sly undertones, and formality dissolved by degrees, breath by breath, until only heat remained.
He smelled of clean citrus and wood, a quiet rebellion against florid colognes.
They fit—ridiculously, undeniably—as if they had danced a hundred times.
“You are not from London,” he said, low.
“Not originally. Exile suits me.”
“You wear it like armor,” he murmured. “And I think you would rather shed it.”
She would, but only when it was her choice and for a man of her choosing. She gave a sly grin, then said, “Bold.”
He held her closer, his breath ghosting her ear. “It is a bold night.”
The room turned. Caution loosened. His mask tipped as though studying her mouth. “A pity about midnight,” he said. “Mysteries rarely survive it.”
“Some do,” she replied, though her pulse contradicted her.
He dipped her, expertly, deliberately, just enough to steal her breath and give it back. “Are you always so cavalier with ladies’ hearts?” she asked when he set her upright.
“Only when invited.”
The final chord lingered. Applause swelled and faded to a hum she scarcely heard over the thrum in her veins.
He leaned so close that his words brushed her ear. “The conservatory. Ten minutes. I have a wager to propose.”
Her answer was a nod she felt rather than made. The corridor beyond the ballroom lay dim and cool, an invitation in shadow. Helena paused at the threshold, breath quick, and asked herself if she meant to be the heroine of her own story.
She stepped forward.
One waltz. One kiss. No regrets.
William Atteberry, Duke of Powis, had always preferred to believe his composure was inherited, for Atteberrys did not lose their heads, even in private.
In truth, it was a discipline. Detachment kept the world tidy.
He entered the masquerade wrapped in it.
His black velvet coat fitted to austerity, linen starched to an edge, every button an assertion that he would not be moved.
His mask was a minimalist black domino, matte and severe, as if carved from the night. It hid nothing of his jaw or mouth, only distilled him. Powis without daylight’s courtesies.
From the threshold, he surveyed the room.
Light, music, bodies colliding—others found it cacophony.
He found patterns. Laughter rose and thinned, tides of interest pulled and slackened, small dramas rippled at the edges.
A jilted lover guarding the punch bowl, two young men vanishing behind a curtain, a battle-hardened matron interrogating the pastry table.
He had come with a purpose, a dare issued at White's, lubricated by claret and boredom. Before midnight, identify the most intriguing stranger, secure her name, and, if she wished, a kiss. He accepted with indifference and a private certainty of victory. He was good at detection.
He began a circuit. Costumes were clever. Masks exquisite. The faces beneath them were the usual mix of need and performance. He cataloged. He dismissed.
And then—the fox in crimson. A clean strike of interest he had not felt in years. Words had been exchanged. Heat had followed. Now the only portion of the wager that mattered waited in the green hush beyond the glass.
The conservatory breathed damp and green, windows pearled with condensation, orchids exhaling a faint sweetness. The ball’s noise dulled to a heartbeat behind panes. She stood there already, the fox’s gilt catching lamplight. They were close without touching, the quiet suddenly urgent.
“My wager,” he said, hands easy at his sides so she could see them not reach, “is this… Until midnight, no names, and, if you wish, a kiss. If you do not, we forfeit it. I do not play games women do not want.”
Something in her eased. Something in him did too.
“Very well,” she said. “A kiss, then. For the science of omens.”
He stepped in as if approaching the edge of a familiar precipice and discovered the ground was not where he remembered it.
The first brush of her mouth was a question.
He answered, deepened, and waited for refusal that did not come.
She rose into him with ferocious grace, her hands at his collar, body a warm, urgent confession.
He mapped the long line of her back, the hidden tremor at the base of her spine.
She nipped his lower lip, claim and caution in one, and he laughed softly against her mouth, undone.
They parted on a mutual drag of breath.
“That,” she said, fingers ghosting her lips, “will be remembered.”
“By me,” he said, too honestly, “for a very long time.”
The first chime rolled through the house.
She reached for her ribbons. He stilled her wrist—not to stop her, only to steady both of them—then removed his hand. She untied the fox as he slid the domino free. For a heartbeat, the world held.
He saw her.
“Lady Helena Fairfax,” he said, the name arriving unbidden and irrevocable.
Her eyes widened, and her breath caught on a shocked, incredulous laugh. “Powis.” Then, quieter, “Good God.”
The second chime struck, then the third. Edmund’s widow. Edmund, his cousin, whose death had put trusteeship papers in William’s hands and quiet responsibilities on his shoulders. The knowledge landed with the peculiar clarity of cold water. Still, desire did not recede. It steadied.
Of all the omens, he thought.
Words were treacherous now. He did the one thing that felt both reckless and right. He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers, offering not demand but anchorage.
She did not pull away as he brought his lips back to hers, his palm spanning the small of her back.
Beyond the glass, the ball surged on. In the green hush, a simpler, far more dangerous wager began—one that had nothing to do with names and everything to do with what they had already chosen. There would be more than one waltz. Far more than one kiss.
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