Page 3 of Twelfth Night Sorcery (The Cambion Club #2)

Oliver Valance huddled behind the bedroom door, his heart pounding.

Aphrodite’s gloved hand still rested in his.

Even as he panicked at their near discovery, he also noticed how small her hand was compared to his.

From a distance, she had not seemed particularly diminutive, but up close, he dwarfed her.

She’d been blessed with generous curves, but she was shorter than most grown women.

She looked young enough to be a debutante, too.

Was she really one-and-twenty, or had she lied about her age?

He wasn’t sure he could trust any of what she’d said.

Something about this situation seemed fishy, even apart from the way Valance seemed to have taken leave of his senses.

He had been a fool for a pretty face before but tonight set a new standard for his folly.

But then, he had never before seen a face like hers.

Raucous laughter pealed in the corridor. “Who was that?” a woman asked.

“God knows,” a man replied. “Didn’t recognize ’em. Hope they didn’t recognize us.” Both strangers laughed again. Their footsteps gradually faded as they walked away.

Valance waited until the hallway fell silent, willing his heartrate and breathing to slow down. “We are safe,” he finally announced. “They didn’t recognize us.”

It had been utter folly on his part to unmask the lady in the hallway. He realized that now. He had been so intent on seeing her face that he hadn’t considered the consequences. All he could think about was that Aphrodite must be radiantly beautiful under her blue-green mask.

And he had been right. It was rare to see a grown woman with that pale, nearly-white shade of hair.

It was equally rare to see eyes that so vibrantly blended blue and green.

The combination of hair and eyes would have made Aphrodite stand out in any crowd, even apart from the graceful shape of her cheek bones or her charming retrousse nose.

She was right that they had never met before. He would have remembered her.

“Ah, so we were not discovered,” Aphrodite said softly.

Something about her voice worried him. He peered down at her, but in the darkness of the room he could not read her face.

“I suppose we are fortunate not to have been caught and identified,” she continued.

Why, he wondered, did she sound disappointed?

She ought to be glad they’d gotten away without being caught!

In any case, Valance had had enough of a scare for one night.

His desire for Aphrodite had built since the moment their eyes met across the crowded ballroom, but the shock of nearly being caught felt like a bucket of cold water. He no longer felt at all lustful.

Time to end this dangerous game. Now, before someone got hurt.

Valance cleared his throat. “We should go back to the ballroom. Next time we might not be so lucky.” Aphrodite made no response. As the silence stretched out, Valance began to worry again. “Madam? Are you unwell?”

“I do not know what to do,” she whispered.

Valance closed his eyes, silently wishing he were snugly tucked into his own bed, back in Russell Square.

Aphrodite was not his problem to solve. “Go back to your husband,” he suggested.

“And next time . . .” Who was he to give marital advice to a stranger?

He had never been married. “Next time, think twice before you sneak off for a tryst.”

She sighed so softly he almost missed the sound. Then she cleared her throat. “No doubt you are right. But I need a moment to collect myself. You may go on without me, sir.”

“You want me to leave you here?” He drew his brows down unhappily.

“Yes, please.”

Was it his imagination, or did her voice tremble? Although Valance’s eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room, he still could not interpret her expression. But her tone made him uneasy. Something felt off.

“I really think I should escort you back to the ballroom. Who knows who you might encounter in one of these back hallways? Some of the guests have already had too much to drink.” He did not like to imagine what might happen to her if she met the wrong man.

“I am not going back to the ballroom.” Her voice had grown more confident.

“Then where are you going?” His words hung in the air, unanswered. “I know it isn’t any of my business, but—”

“That is right,” she said crisply. “It is none of your business where I go or what I do. But if you are not going to ruin me, I must come up with a different means of escape, so please—”

“Ruin you?” he repeated, startled. “You want to be ruined?” She did not answer. Her silence gave him time to recall something even more disturbing she’d said. “What do you mean, escape? Are you trying to get away from someone?”

She hesitated for so long, he thought she was not going to answer him. Finally, she said, “That is my concern, not yours. If you are not going to help me, please leave me alone to figure this out.”

How was he supposed to help her when she would not say why she needed help?

He tore off his ridiculous crown of wax fruit and tossed it on the floor so that he could run a hand through his hair.

The strangeness of the situation frustrated him.

It would be easiest to do as she asked and leave her behind, but that did not seem right.

“Damn it all,” he grumbled. “You’re making this my business!” She’d made it his business the moment she asked him to accompany her out of the ballroom. Having escorted her away from light and safety, he felt he had an obligation to see that she came to no harm.

Time to shed a little light on the situation.

Fortunately, Valance had had pockets sewn on the inside of his toga, though they disturbed the hang of the fabric.

Now, he dug around in a pocket for a pencil and a scrap of paper.

The darkness made it difficult to write words, but he could work this spell with a single rune.

He drew a swift, sloppy starburst symbol on the paper, pouring his magic into every stroke of the pencil.

As he finished the last stroke, a silver witchlight burst into being above him, illuminating the guest room.

“How did you do that?” Aphrodite did not sound scared or surprised, merely curious. “I did not hear you utter any incantations. But that was sorcery, not magecraft, wasn’t it?”

“More or less,” he said, feeling self-conscious. He had not expected to have to explain his unusual gift. “I work magic by writing words or drawing symbols rather than by speaking, chanting, or gesturing. It’s a rare form of sorcery.”

Some of his instructors at Oxford had, in fact, considered it to be more akin to wizardry than to sorcery.

Wizards and witches used materials when they worked magic; sorcerers used only words.

Valance did not need eye of newt and wing of bat—or the more normal herbs and crystals used by wizards—to work his spells.

But he could not work magic unless he had a writing implement and a surface to write on.

In a pinch, he could use a stick to scratch symbols into the dirt.

But he had never been able to cast spells by speaking, the way most sorcerers could.

“How strange.” She tipped her head back to study the witchlight. “Your light is very well made, though. Bright and efficient. You didn’t waste any power.”

“Er, thank you?” Valance had not expected to have his spellcasting critiqued, either. Most people could neither see nor work magic.

Aphrodite peered up at him, a wrinkle forming between her brows. “By any chance, are you able to cast concealment spells?”

Valance stared. “What do you mean? Conceal what?”

“Could you conceal a person?” Aphrodite clarified. “Make it so other people wouldn’t notice someone? Or at least, so they wouldn’t recognize that person? Like a magical disguise?”

“I have never tried to do that.” It ought to be within the scope of his talents, but he had never had a need to conceal someone. “Why do you ask?”

“I need to get away from here tonight.” She spoke matter-of-factly, as if she discussed nothing more concerning than the order of the dances at the ball.

“It would be easier to leave if people did not recognize me. If servants see me and identify me, the—I mean, someone might be able to track me down.”

Valance narrowed his eyes. “What exactly are you running away from?”

Rather than answer him, she stared down at the floor and twisted her hands together. The soft glow of his witchlight illuminated the anxious lines in her face. She looked on the verge of tears.

All sorts of unsavory possibilities jostled for space inside Valance’s head. “Is someone trying to hurt you?”

He could not help thinking of the sad story of Lady Cheverly, whose abusive husband nearly killed their oldest child a few years after she ran off with Lord Markham.

Lord Cheverly had eventually been declared incompetent, and his children were placed in the care of a safer guardian but arranging that had been both difficult and expensive.

Men like that deserved to be shot, in Valance’s opinion.

If he had been Markham, he would have called Cheverly out and put a bullet in his brain.

Except that Markham was a truly terrible shot, and would probably have gotten killed by Cheverly, who had decent aim.

So perhaps it was best that no duel had occurred.

“Maybe,” Aphrodite said at last. “But probably not the way you mean hurt.” She drew a deep breath.

“The fact of the matter is that my mother is trying to force me into a marriage I don’t want.

I would do anything to escape it.” She licked her lips.

“I cannot offer to pay you money, but if there is any service I could offer in exchange for your help, I would gladly—”

“Your parents are arranging a marriage for you?” Valance interrupted. “Aren’t you already married?”

She froze in midsentence, her mouth hanging open. That was answer enough.