Michael peered over the edge of the balcony at the teeming crush of masked merrymakers below. He had promised himself he wouldn’t look—he’d been craning his neck five times a minute even when no new guests had been announced—but he could not stop himself from peeking just one more time. And perhaps another.

He couldn’t wait to see Lady X. Had been looking forward to their encounter ceaselessly since the moment she’d disappeared from his arms seven days earlier. All week long, his heart had quickened every time he caught a glimpse of blue from the corner of his eye.

“Lady X!” the doorkeeper called out below.

Eagerly, Michael’s gaze flew back to the entrance. A willowy blonde strolled in wearing a peacock-feathered mask and a come-hither smile. His shoulders sagged. Not his Lady X. He would have to keep waiting.

The past sennight had been far more trying than he’d anticipated. Keeping out of the scandal columns meant a complete reversal to his routine. He’d avoided the theater, Vauxhall Gardens, his friends, his gentlemen’s clubs, gaming parlors, gatherings of any kind where the least noteworthy person, conversation, or scandal was likely to occur.

Michael had even had to limit his interactions with guests at his own party, lest he be accused of flirtation or debauchery. He would have canceled the bloody soirée altogether, were the cancelation itself not just as likely to land his name in the papers, along with salacious conjecture about what activities a famed rake might be pursuing instead of honoring his invitations to his guests.

“Lord and Lady X!” came the next cry.

Michael couldn’t prevent himself from looking, even though he knew it would not be her. If his Lady X had accepted his invitation, she would arrive alone rather than with a lover. And yet here he was, gripping the banister with nervous excitement in the hopes that it was her, just to put him out of his misery.

It was not.

He slumped back against the wall. Soon. She would be here soon. If he could survive the past week, he could survive another hour or two.

Although Michael had never been the sort of person who sat about his house doing nothing, he had spent a week trying to do exactly that in order to keep his name out of the papers. Forty days without scandal. Thirty left to go. His shoulders tightened.

It had sounded so easy. Not anymore.

He had to win this wager. Not for the money. To prove himself to his friends. He needed someone to believe he was more than a walking caricature. He needed this to be a new beginning.

“Lord X!” came the next cry.

Michael looked. He couldn’t stop himself. Even though the chances of Lady X arriving at the masquerade dressed as a man were preposterous enough as to be impossible—God help him, he looked.

Not Lady X. Definitely a man.

With a groan, he leaned his head back against the wall and tried to be sensible. He’d been trying all week. When staying inside had proved too maddening to endure, he had made a list of the most innocuous, scandal-free destinations London had to offer, and visited every last one of them. The haberdasher. The linen maker. The button shop.

When he’d run out of ideas, he’d taken to the park rather than go back home to his overlarge, empty house. He didn’t visit Hyde Park to race a curricle down Rotten Row or promenade in his stately coach with the family crest. Those were activities where he was liable to accidentally make eye contact with the wrong person and end up caricatured for weeks.

Instead, he’d tied his horse at an unused post in the least attended sector, and hiked off down the most solitary trail he could find. Surely scandal would not find him in the middle of the woods.

Except it almost had. He’d run into the eldest Grenville—literally, as it would happen—and the daft chit wasn’t even accompanied by a chaperone. If they weren’t in the most remote thicket of the park’s endless acres, someone might have chanced upon them alone together. The chit would be ruined, Michael would be leg-shackled, and the caricatures that would follow…

He shuddered. That had been a close call. And a good lesson. He would not be returning to that park until after the bloody wager was over. In fact, he ought to strike “solitary walks” off the list altogether. The last thing he needed was an accidental compromise.

“Lady X!” called the doorkeeper.

Michael’s head swung out over the balustrade like a lapdog from a carriage window.

No sapphire blue.

The beautiful, dark-haired woman who eased into the crowded chamber wore a raven feather mask and a stunning blood-red gown with stones that sparkled like diamonds along the neck of the bodice.

As he watched, she reached up and idly worried one of her dewdrop earrings, just as Lady X had the week before, on the balcony behind the painted divider. His blood raced. It was her!

He rushed down the stairs toward the vestibule door, no longer caring if he looked to the others like a green, eager pup. He felt like one. Behind his mask, he didn’t give a damn about the judgment of others. All he cared about was Lady X. He just needed to coax her to come with him before some other masked blackguard spirited her away.

In seconds, he was at her side.

“Lady X, I presume?” His heart was still pounding and his breath a bit too quick, but he’d made it. He was the first at her side.

“Lord X.” Her red lips smiled up at him from beneath her impenetrable black mask. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure is most definitely mine.” He proffered his arm. “Come with me.”

“Should I?” she rejoined archly.

“I shall beg if I must.”

Only when her fingers curved about his elbow did his tense muscles finally relax.

He guided her up the slender staircase lining the far wall. When they reached the upper promenade, he led her not to the balcony overlooking the back garden, but to a hidden corridor with a second, smaller staircase, twisting up a dark tower.

She tilted her head. “What’s up there?”

“Come and find out.” He stepped into the darkness, held out his hand, and waited.

She placed her white-gloved fingers in his.

“I’ve been thinking of you all week,” he said roughly. “It’s been maddening.”

“Why didn’t you stop?”

“I can’t.” He pulled her into his arms and slanted his mouth over hers.

The last time he’d kissed her, he’d felt she was holding back on her passion. He didn’t want her to. Not with him. Not tonight. He cradled the side of her face in his hand and told her with every kiss that there was no need for circumspection. No need to be tentative.

Whoever she was before she stepped through the vestibule door, here she was a goddess cloaked in darkness and sheltered by the night. They were as anonymous as stars in the sky, their passion as bright. Her power was boundless. With naught more than the taste of her kiss, she was capable of bringing him to his knees.

Heart pounding, he pulled away while he still could.

Before his baser instinct could tempt him to remain sequestered in a clandestine stairwell for the rest of the night, he locked his hand with hers and drew her up the narrow steps.

“Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly.

Good. She made him breathless, too. He squeezed her hand. “Somewhere we can put our lives into perspective.”

When they reached the top landing, he shoved open the thick wooden door to expose the night.

Chill air swept through his hair and swirled behind them. Unfettered stars spilled across an infinite sky. There were no walls, no ceiling, no sounds but the night.

“The roof,” she said in wonder, then pulled from his grasp to race to the edge and peer over the knee-high parapet to the sparkling city below. “It’s beautiful.”

His heart pounded as he pulled her back from the edge. “You’re beautiful.”

“I’m masked,” she said, her voice droll. “You cannot see me.”

“But I can hear you,” he insisted softly. “You’re beautiful inside, no matter how you look beneath the mask.”

She lowered her gaze and gestured at the unbroken expanse of wide, smooth stone covering the hundred-odd chambers of the ducal residence. “Now that we are here, what do you intend to do with me?”

Michael crossed to the satchel he’d placed beside the parapet in anticipation of her arrival and opened the flap. Nerves and excitement rushed through his veins. He extracted the two crystal goblets nestled inside a thick woolen blanket, and the bottle of wine he’d been saving for the perfect occasion. He hoped this was it.

With more self-doubt than he’d felt in years, he shook the folds from the blanket, letting it billow out from his chest like sails caught in the wind. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Carefully, he arranged the soft wool over a section of smooth stone in the center of the roof and placed the bottle of wine at one corner.

After he settled the two crystal goblets on either side of the wine, he straightened his shoulders and turned toward Lady X.

The quarter-moon was to her back, casting her face in even more shadow than the black-plumed mask disguising her eyes. If she found his attempt at an anonymous romantic picnic laughable, she refrained from comment. Nor did she make any move to join him.

The back of his neck heated. “Too rustic?”

“Too perfect,” she breathed.

Relief flooded him.

Lady X crossed over to the arrangement and stretched out on the blanket until she lay propped on one elbow with her head just below the wine bottle. Her gloved fingers tapped the empty space on the other side.

“Are you going to join me?” Starlight caught her smile.

“Absolutely.” He withdrew the corkscrew from the satchel and hurried to her side. “Wine?”

“A little.” Her voice was mysterious. “I wouldn’t want to do anything reckless.”

“I would not dream of it.” He poured her a goblet of wine. “You might be hideous behind that mask, remember?”

She laughed and smacked him on the shoulder before accepting the goblet. “Of course I remember. Who says I’m ever unmasked? Perhaps I am the Maiden in the Iron Mask.”

“That sounds like an intriguing opera.” He raised his glass. “And a performance I would definitely love to see.”

“If I ever perform on Drury Lane, you’ll be the first to know.” She clinked her goblet with his and smiled up at him after she took a sip. “Delicious.”

Pleasure rushed through him. He lay back on the blanket facing the stars, and motioned for her to join him. She placed her goblet aside and laid her head against his arm, careful not to let any other part of her body touch his.

Lady X was by far the most mysterious creature he had ever known.

He pointed at the stars. “Ursa Major. Do you see it?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never been clever at picking out constellations. I… am not usually out of doors late at night.”

“Then I’m glad you’re here with me. I love the stars. My father taught me.” His heart warmed at the memory. “When I was very young and supposed to be fast asleep, he would sometimes come to the nursery and carry me outside to see the stars.”

“That’s beautiful,” she said with a smile. Then her tone turned dry. “I don’t think I spoke with my father until I was out of the nursery.”

“It’s unseemly,” he agreed, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. “Children should be seen and not heard. Ask any respectable family.” His father had been criticized for his softness. For giving Michael the moments he treasured most. “But I appreciated it very much. It’s one of my favorite memories with him.”

“And your mother?” she asked.

“An angel.” For years now. He missed her, too. “What about yours?”

She laughed quietly. “Absolutely impossible. Her idea of being the perfect mother is raising the perfect daughter, and ensuring I live exactly the same unobjectionable, predictable, unceasingly proper life she did.”

His lips quirked. “I’m sensing… tension?”

“Our family makes Punch and Judy look sane.” She nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder. “Mother means well, which makes it even worse. I can’t say no. We love each other. So we go on as we always have.”

“Should you?” he asked. He would never have dared such a personal question if the masks and the stars didn’t make him feel as though he and Lady X were alone in the universe. “Think about it. If you could change any one thing about how you were raised, what would it be?”

“More… control over decisions that affect me,” she said at last. “Fewer expectations.”

“Too many responsibilities?” he asked with curiosity.

“Sometimes I wonder if I was ever a child,” was her cryptic answer. She tilted her feather mask toward the sky. Whether she knew it or not, Ursa Major watched over them both. “What about you? What’s the one thing you would change about your childhood?”

“Keep my parents longer,” he said without thinking, then immediately regretted the blurted response. He’d meant to keep the topics light. For he and Lady X to have fun together whilst blanketed by midnight. Not to discuss their own darkness.

But it was true. He’d had an idyllic childhood until a fever had struck his parents while they were on a tour of the Continent. He’d begged to go and see them, but his temporary guardian would not take orders from a child. The next day, Michael was no longer a mere twelve-year-old. He was an earl. The first thing he’d done was to ensure he was never powerless again.

“What are your friends like?” he asked to change the subject.

“Even loonier than our mother,” she responded, her voice cheery. “My closest friends are my mad siblings.”

“Of the Punch and Judy show?” he asked doubtfully. The puppets she’d referenced were quick to fly into tempers.

“The very same. You should see the bruises on my knee from all the love taps my sister gives me.”

He brightened. “May I?”

“No.” She handed him his forgotten goblet of wine and leaned up on her elbows to drink from hers. “What about you? Do you have close friends?”

“A few.” That was an understatement.

Michael had so many friends, so many crowds of acquaintances and swarms of names and faces he vaguely recognized, so many invitations from the second cousin twice removed of the third viscount’s nephew’s neighbor, that he never sat down and specifically sorted his countless connections into neat piles.

If he had, however, the stack entitled True Friends would contain two names. The first was Gideon, the owner of the Cloven Hoof, currently decorated with yard after yard of strung etchings of Michael’s cartoonish misadventures, as conceptualized by London’s prolific caricaturists.

The other was Lord Hawkridge, penniless marquess, and the owner of the biggest, purest heart of any man of Michael’s acquaintance. Those two unrepentant rotters were the very reason the forty-day wager had sprung to life in the first place.

Anyone else would have gossiped about the caricatures behind Michael’s back. The rest of London, in fact, fit neatly into that category. Gideon and Hawkridge were the only ones to throw his overblown reputation in Michael’s face. To force him to do something about it. To open his eyes.

Hawkridge and Gideon ribbed him not out of cruelty but because they were friends. No one else would dare disclose their honest opinions about Michael to his face. No one but Hawkridge and Gideon knew him well enough to know that the caricatures were caricatures.

That their well-meaning intervention had resulted in pennants of etchings and a marquess-beggaring wager inscribed in a public betting book, well… Michael chuckled. Perhaps the Cloven Hoof was more like Lady X’s Punch and Judy family than he had realized.

He and Lady X might have far more in common than it already seemed.

“If you could wake up tomorrow with any ability you can imagine,” he asked suddenly, “what would it be?”

She was quiet a long moment, then drained her goblet before replying. “You first.”

He deserved that, he supposed. His lips curved wryly as he lifted his own goblet to stall for time.

His initial response, the gut emotion that had caused him to blurt the question in the first place, was that he was weary of being infamous. It wasn’t that he wished to be respectable in the sense of “staid” or “proper” or “boring.” He wished to be respectable as in respected. For his voice to have weight in Parliament, for his presence at soirées and dinner parties to be seen as overtures of friendship, not reconnaissance for his next assignation.

But being seen as something more than the Lord of Pleasure wasn’t a special ability. It would be an inversion of his world. Nothing short of a magic wand could reset the closed minds of everyone in London.

“Music,” he said instead. It was just as true, and perhaps slightly more possible. “Since the moment you put the thought into my head, I cannot stop wishing I did play an instrument.”

“Then you should,” she answered simply. “Can you not hire an instructor?”

Not without word of his musical endeavor leaking to the scandal columns. His jaw tightened in frustration. Much as he might like, he would never learn to play the harp. The pianoforte perhaps, a violin if he wished, but the instrument of the angels? He would be a laughingstock. The caricaturists would drown in seas of gold. His lip curled at the thought. No. He would honor his parents’ memory, not make a mockery of it.

“What about you?” he asked. “Play fair. I shan’t pour more wine until you answer the question. If you could wake up with any quality you don’t have today, what would it be?”

“I would be bolder,” she said without hesitation. “Even without the mask.”

He sat up in surprise. “Bolder in what way? What do you want that you’re not going after?”

Her whispered response was almost too soft to hear. “Everything.”