Camellia alighted from the hackney cab with a flutter of nervous excitement. The hired hack had been stuck in the queue of carriages inching toward the Lambley ducal residence for almost an hour. The mere act of arriving had taken so long that her initial trepidation had been replaced by impatience.

Before tonight, she had been so focused on staying inconspicuous that she’d failed to live her life while she’d still had the freedom to do so. Now that she had committed to stealing a few hours of anonymity, it was all she could do not to race up the duke’s front steps and immerse herself in the crowd of masked revelers.

But first, she had to get past the gatekeeper at the door.

In order to verify each guest’s invitation, only one set of passengers at a time was allowed to disembark each carriage. Camellia was all alone as she strode toward the entrance with what she hoped was the relaxed, confident stride of a frequent party guest and not the half-terrified nervous mince of a shy wallflower impersonating her vivacious younger sister.

The door swung open as she reached the final step.

A chestnut-haired man with a black mask and a friendly smile welcomed her inside a marble vestibule with a small fire and a large crystal chandelier.

He closed the door, then held out a white-gloved hand. “Invitation, please.”

Camellia’s fingers shook as she retrieved the embossed parchment from her reticule and placed it into his hand.

The doorkeeper glanced down at the invitation, then up at her. He said nothing. He simply waited.

Was there a secret passphrase? Sweat prickled at the nape of Camellia’s neck. Bryony hadn’t mentioned a secret passphrase. If Camellia were turned away at the door in front of an endless line of carriages… She gulped. It wouldn’t matter that no one could recognize her. Camellia would kill her sister anyway.

“My apologies,” the man said, his voice flat. “You are not Bryony Grenville.”

“I… Of course I am,” Camellia stammered. “Who else would I be?”

The doorkeeper gazed back at her impassively.

No. She had not come this far to quit this soon. She rolled back her shoulders with renewed determination. “I am absolutely Miss Grenville.”

The man tilted his head to consider her anew.

She tried not to melt into a puddle of nervous embarrassment at his scrutiny. It wasn’t working. She was about to be tossed out on her ear.

“You are not Bryony,” he said slowly, “but you might well be a Miss Grenville. Take off your mask.”

“I… What? No! This—this is a masquerade,” she blurted. “Anonymity is the reason everyone is here.”

The doorkeeper crossed his arms. “If I don’t know who you are, you aren’t allowed inside. Either you take off your mask, or you return home. Your choice.”

She hesitated, then untied her mask.

His glance upon her naked visage scarcely lasted a moment before he motioned for her to retie the mask. “Very well.”

She blinked. “Very well… what?”

He tossed her invitation into the fire, then crossed over to an open journal atop a waist-high, fluted column and scribbled something on one of its pages in black ink. “Welcome to the masquerade, Miss Grenville.”

She sent him a doubtful glance. “Did you just write my name in that book?”

“I enter a coded cipher known only to Lambley and myself. Guest privacy is the sole concern the duke prizes as much as their safety.”

“But how…” She swallowed. “How did you know I wasn’t Bryony?”

“I take special care with verifying all first-time invitation recipients. After taking your name, I allowed the silence to stretch on for some time.” His smile was kind. “You withstood the awkwardness admirably. Your sister, however, is not exactly known for her patience in suffering delays or silence.”

Camellia’s cheeks heated at the doorkeeper’s frankness. If anything, his assessment of their character was an understatement. Bryony would have sashayed into the vestibule, teased the doorkeeper with a flirtatious remark, and all but strutted into the hidden chambers without a second thought. Camellia gulped. She should never have taken her sister’s place. “Might others recognize me?”

He shook his head. “I had the advantage of having my expectations set by seeing your family name printed on the invitation, followed by having you remove your mask to confirm my suspicions. Trust me. Now that your mask is back in place, no one will have the slightest inkling of your identity unless you choose to divulge it.” He gestured to a large white door with a gold handle and filigree trim. “Ready?”

Less now than even a few moments before. But she was here and she intended to make the effort worth it. “Ready.”

He swung open the door. Music and laughter spilled into the marble vestibule as a blur of costumed merrymakers swirled past.

As she took a hesitant step over the threshold, the doorkeeper called out, “Lady X!”

Startled, she sent him a sharp glance over her shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “All the ladies are Lady X.”

“Lady X!” the crowd cheered in response to the doorkeeper’s bellow.

Within seconds, the door to the vestibule had closed and a court jester now hovered in its place, balancing a tray of brimming champagne glasses on his outstretched arm.

Camellia resisted the urge to fortify herself with the contents of the entire tray and limited herself to clutching a single frothy glass instead.

This large, open chamber was not the main ballroom, but music from the nearby orchestra nonetheless bounced like refracted light across the crystal chandeliers and reverberated up through the marble floor. A thrill hummed through her veins at the whirl of masked revelers and the thrum of music.

Now she knew what the Grenville musicales had been missing… Everything! Gold filigreed arched doorways led from the current chamber to several others and beyond. Singing here would be like performing at an opera. And, of course, just as scandalous.

To her right was the orchestra, where a crush of dashing lords and ladies danced far too close for propriety. No one seemed to care. The theme of the night seemed to be indulging any desire that crossed one’s mind. A gasp choked in Camellia’s throat as she spied more than one masked lord steal a kiss from his lady as they twirled about the dance floor in time to the music.

To the left was a card room, where elegant women wagered right alongside the men. A few of the ladies were even perched on their gentlemen’s laps! On the other side were smaller, more intimate rooms, with far less lighting, and… beds? Camellia couldn’t tell if her pulse skipped from shock or excitement. One of the doors swung shut before she caught anything more than the briefest glimmer of the interior of the chamber.

To either side of the current chamber were slender staircases, leading to a narrow promenade circumnavigating what would have been the second floor, and giving a bird’s eye view to the proceedings below. Glass-windowed doors seemed to open onto a balcony overlooking the rear garden.

At the rear of the chamber beneath the second story promenade, several wide carved doors spilled out onto some sort of stone courtyard, where more waiters in court jester costumes dispensed glass after glass of champagne to the fashionable sophisticates laughing and flirting beneath the stars.

Camellia gulped down the rest of her champagne and returned the empty glass to a passing tray without selecting another. She didn’t dare! This seemed like the sort of wicked wonderland where the wisest course of action would be to keep one’s head.

Everything about the masquerade was exhilarating. The sounds, the scents, the colors. The knowledge that no one recognized anyone else, and if she chose to waltz too closely or allow a masked stranger to steal a kiss, no one would ever know. Her blood raced.

She took a deep breath and stepped into the jostling, joyous crowd, intending to slip through to the rear for a look at the duke’s garden. She barely traversed a few yards through the chamber when the vestibule door swung open behind her.

The doorkeeper’s voice rang out. “Lord and Lady X!”

“Lord and Lady X!” the crowd roared back, welcoming the anonymous newcomers with a lift of their glasses and a hearty cheer.

She grinned despite herself. It was impossible not to get caught up in the revelry. One couldn’t help but cheer with the crowd as each Lord or Lady X’s name was called. It was ridiculous, infectious, marvelous fun.

Another court jester with a tray of champagne appeared from out of nowhere. Nearly all the offered glasses were gone within seconds. Camellia found herself reaching for the last one—until her fingers were intercepted by a man in a leering Venetian mask with tiny black eyes and a monstrous hooked nose. He tugged her to him too sharply and she nearly stumbled.

“Lady X,” he said as he caressed the back of her hand. “Just the woman I’ve been waiting for.”

“I’m not…” she began, but broke off her stammered denial. She wasn’t what? Wasn’t Lady X? Of course she was. They all were.

Camellia tensed. She had no intention to be anywhere near someone who would pull her bodily to him with no regard for her own wishes. She would have plenty of that with her future husband. She would not stand for it from a stranger.

“There, now that we’ve met,” the man continued, his expression impossible to read behind the protruding papier-mâché of his mask. “Shall we find a cozier chamber in which to get to know each other more fully?”

“No.” She tried to tug her fingers from his grasp. “Let me go.”

“I think not.” He tightened his hold. “Why would you wish to go somewhere else? You’ve only just arrived.”

“Because she’s waiting for me,” growled a smooth voice laced with controlled power from somewhere just behind her.

“My apologies, Lord X.” The papier-mâché released Camellia’s fingers with a curl of his lip. “I did not realize the lady had been claimed.”

“She claimed me.” A strong hand lightly touched the small of her back. “The lady knows her own mind. I believe you asked me to steal a kiss atop the promenade, did you not?”

Camellia hesitated only briefly. She would not be granting any kisses, but there was nothing she wanted more than to be one story higher, viewing the merry crush from a safe distance. “What took you so long, darling?”

She turned, expecting to be confronted with another terrifying mask with overlarge features. Instead, a tall, refined gentleman with a trim, muscular form gazed back at her from behind a simple black mask. In fact, other than the golden blond of his hair and the stark white of his cravat, he was dressed in smooth, impeccable black from his boots to his shoulders. Far from monstrous, he appeared dashing and mysterious.

“I almost didn’t make it,” he said cryptically as he offered his arm. “But now I am glad I did.”

So was she.

Camellia’s cheeks burned behind the safety of her blue-plumed mask as her masked rescuer led her toward the closest staircase. The crowd parted around him with every step, as if they too sensed his restrained power. She had to ignore the feel of hard muscle beneath her gloved fingers, the implied promise of a stolen kiss in their future, lest she trip over her own feet and bring them both crashing down the stairs before they even reached the top.

Not that she wanted a kiss. The idea terrified her as much as thrilled her. And the fact that she’d been present at the masquerade for less than half an hour, and had already been fought over by two men… She grinned to herself.

Bryony was going to be so vexed that Camellia had taken her place.

At the top of the stairs, the black masked gentleman once again proffered his arm. She took it. He led her not for a stroll about the interior promenade, but rather through one of the open doorways overlooking the garden.

The anonymous revelers out on the shadowed balcony were too involved in their own intimate conversations and scandalous embraces to notice two silent newcomers cross behind them to a series of Chinese folding screens.

Low murmurs could be heard behind the first of the delicately painted dividers. Soft giggles emanated from the second. The third, however, was silent, and Camellia found herself being whisked behind a cherry blossom screen into utter darkness.

Her breath caught in fear. He was going to kiss her. She had not been rescued, but abducted. This was it. Gooseflesh prickled down her bare arms. Should she scream? Run? Let him do it—and then ram her knee where her brother had taught her? Her heart pounded loud enough to drown out all the other sounds of the night.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dark. The masked man was not leering at her suggestively, but lounging in one of two carved wooden chairs, his head lolling back against the edge as if he were utterly exhausted.

“Did you know that man?” he asked, his voice low.

She shook her head before realizing he could not see her doing so. His mask was tilted upward toward the faint spray of stars above the folding screen.

“No.” She bit her lip with indecision. Should she sneak away? Or sit beside him? “I’ve never met him. As far as I know. With that carnival mask… he could be anyone.”

“Not anyone.” Her rescuer stretched out his legs and tucked his laced hands behind his head. “Masquerades are for privacy, not unwanted pressure. I’ll inform Fair—the doorkeeper, that is. He’ll know who it was. And Lambley will take care of the blackguard once and for all. He shan’t return.”

She swallowed. The promise was both reassuring… and ominous. Her skin prickled. She had not actually come to any harm—had been in the center of an impressively crowded room, in fact—but this gentleman was affirming what she had suspected at the time. She had been right to be afraid. Any “gentleman” who grabbed a lady’s unwilling hand and refused to let go in public… what might he have done if he’d managed to corner her somewhere private?

Certainly not throw himself into a cushioned balcony chair to peacefully watch the stars. She let herself relax slightly. Now that she no longer feared having to thwart unwanted attentions, she was not quite certain what to do. Walk away… or stay?

“I don’t believe we have met,” her rescuer said presently. His mask tilted toward where she stood. “I am Lord X. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He did not stand, as would have been required behavior in a proper ballroom. But they were far, far away from the land of propriety. The rules were different here. She would simply have to learn them.

She took the empty seat adjacent to him and folded her hands primly in her lap. Her heart calmed. “Lady X.”

“The honor is mine.” He tilted his head. “Did you wish for me to ravish you, now that we are alone?”

Her pulse jumped at the bold question. Good heavens! How was she meant to respond to such a query? Her voice squeaked as she managed, “Not at the moment.”

“Perfect.” He returned his gaze to the stars. “It’s so rare for me to be in public and to still be able to just breathe.”

Although she understood what he meant, her lips curved at the phrasing. “You do not often breathe in public?”

“Not freely,” he replied, his tone resigned. “Too much is expected of me. I must act a certain way, be a certain thing. It is as if I am a music box, forced to play a melody not of my making every time they wind me up to dance. Not for myself, but for the masses. They return because they love to hear the same tune over and over. No one considers what might be best for the box.”

She stared at him in wonder. Not only were his words more poetic than she would ever have expected, not only did his choice of music for his metaphor speak directly to her soul, but also the sentiment itself was one she’d felt every moment of every day for as long as she could remember.

He might be a figurative music box, but for Camellia it was almost literal. She was a spinster, quite on the shelf. Pretty but dusty, and utterly forgotten—until it was time for the Grenville soirée musicale. Then, and only then, was she plucked from her shelf and placed on a stage.

Her winding mechanism was her sister on the violin, but the hands cranking the key belonged to her parents. They provided the score. She was expected to follow it.

So she sang. Not the songs of her choosing, nor the time or the place, but the arrangement her parents had designed years before. The same arrangement she and her siblings performed at every single musicale, because it had become what the Grenvilles were famous for. What their pampered, fashionable guests wanted to hear. A programmed melody, which sounded only when each tiny clockwork spring bounced dully in place.

Why would the masked gentleman have chosen such an apt metaphor?

“Do you know who I am?” she stammered.

His head tilted her way. “I haven’t the least idea. Nor are we allowed to enquire. Lambley does not hesitate to revoke all future invitations to anyone who breaks his rules. No, Lady X. I am afraid our identities will forever remain a mystery.”

Perfect. A strange peace settled over her. He didn’t know and couldn’t ask. She was simply an anonymous, masked lady in a clandestine corner of a private balcony with an anonymous, masked man.

Who felt precisely as she did. As if they were twin souls.

Foolish, of course.

Camellia did not believe in twin souls, nor would she expect to stumble over one amidst the bustle of a scandalous masquerade ball. Yet she rather liked this gentleman. For a brief moment, she had feared he had meant to violate her, and instead he had simply wanted to breathe. Somewhere he was not alone.

Later, when he had asked her if she wished for him to ravish her, she had interpreted the question not as a threat, but rather an offer. And that was all it was. An offer to appease her expectations, not a demand to force his own desires upon her.

The masquerade was a safer place than it looked, she realized slowly. With the exception of the individual who would apparently be banned from these premises for his rudeness, every person under the duke’s protection was free to do precisely as he or she pleased. Those who wished to dance, danced. Any debauched behavior was by mutual consent. Those who wished to wager, to eat, to drink, to flirt with strangers, to explore the garden, to do nothing more than sit back and stare up at the stars… Here, tonight, they could.

Masquerades weren’t about scandal. They were about choice.

“The party is lovely,” she ventured. “Is this your first time?”

Her rescuer chuckled. “I was at the very first one. Before anyone ever suspected how large these gatherings would one day become. Lambley is a personal friend.”

She tilted her head. One might think that admitting to a personal friendship with a duke might give insight into one’s secret identity, but when the duke in question was the sort to throw a party open to all walks of life from all classes and demimondes, provided the guests followed a few simple rules… The gentleman seated at Camellia’s side could still be absolutely anyone. A footman. A soldier. A prince.

Despite not sharing his name, the man’s open, easy manner and frank, honest answers made her feel as though she could quickly get to know him better than any of the frequent guests to her family musicales.

Unlike masquerades, her family musicales were not about choice. They were about doing what one was told. Performing as expected.

Afterwards, men did not fight over Camellia’s hand. They did not speak to her at all. No one did. Although she remained on the stage, once the music was over, their interest in her vanished. She no longer tried. Their attention only lasted as long as her song.

Until now.

She gazed through her lashes at the gentleman at her side. He showed no sign of wishing to quit her company. Or of stealing any kisses. Her cheeks heated at the oddly intriguing idea. Now that she knew the promise had only been a pretext, that he wouldn’t kiss her unless she wanted him to… She almost wished he would.

When else would she have such a chance?

“So. Lord X.” She fished for something to say. “Do you come here often?”

“Every single one,” he answered without hesitation. “Sometimes I dance and sometimes I don’t. It depends on how the week has gone. Sometimes I feel like drinking champagne at the center of the most fashionable mob in London, and sometimes I lean against the wainscoting and take it all in from a distance. Sometimes I meet a beautiful woman…” A crooked smile bloomed beneath his mask. “But this is the first time I’ve sneaked away with one to watch the stars. Are you terribly bored?”

She shook her head. Terribly charmed would be more accurate. She loved the stars; loved nature. Her sisters accused her of never leaving the house, but that wasn’t true. She simply didn’t attend high society routs. That wasn’t where she felt at home.

While her sisters were off at this soirée or that tea salon, Camellia escaped to her favorite private stretch of land deep in the undeveloped section of Hyde Park’s many acres, where she loved to climb up on her favorite rock and listen to the sound of the river.

She supposed she felt about the rippling water and the countless leaves overhead the way the man at her side felt about the stars. Sometimes, feeling small, feeling insignificant, actually made her feel more connected to the universe. Everything played its part, and gave her the strength to play hers.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “I see how a masquerade could be… freeing.”

He stared at her in silence for a moment, as if debating whether to speak. “Would you think me foolish if I told you that only when I’m disguised beneath a mask, can I ever truly be myself?”

“I would think you looked inside my own heart,” she answered matter-of-factly.

Was she ever truly herself? Or was she always Camellia, the good girl, the wallflower, the dutiful daughter? She bit her lip at her own uncertainty. Was she boringly good because she wanted to be? Or simply because no one expected anything else from her?

She suddenly wished he hadn’t merely pretended to want to kiss her. It would have been her first time. She might have liked the experience. With him, anyway. Her skin warmed. There would have been no strings, no scandal, no expectation of marriage. Just a kiss between two people who shared a brief connection beneath the stars.

He was right. Her mask was more than artistic blue feathers. It was freedom. For as long as she was wearing it, she would do and say as she pleased. And if he changed his mind about wanting to kiss her, decided to ask again…

Tonight, she’d let him.