by Anne Gracie
“And shepherdesses wear silk, do they?” Daisy said. “Fancy that.”
Lady Bea lifted her lorgnette and gave her a beady look. “Wretched gel, would you have Jane dress in rags? For the sake of authenticity?” She pronounced the word with delicate disdain.
Daisy laughed. “Just sayin’. And there won’t be no—yeah, I know—won’t be any hoops needed when I’m finished with it.”
“I suppose she can be one of Marie Antoinette’s shepherdesses,” Lady Beatrice conceded begrudgingly. “She and her ladies used to play at being shepherdesses and milkmaids and such, poor deluded creatures.”
So the dress was altered, and was pronounced to be satisfactory by all concerned, except for one feature. “How will people know she’s supposed to be a shepherdess?” Daisy wondered. “She don’t look like no shepherdess I ever seen.”
“Doesn’t, any and saw,” Lady Beatrice corrected her absently.
“We could find a sweet little lamb at one of the markets,” Jane suggested.
“Nonsense! You’d get attached to the dratted animal, forget its purpose in life is to be dinner, and next thing you know, we’d have a silly great sheep blundering around the house,” Lady Bea said severely. “Besides, one does not take livestock to a ball, Jane, not even a masquerade ball. It’s simply not done.”
In the end, the required effect was achieved by Damaris cutting out sweet little lamb shapes from white felt that Jane sewed around the hem of her dress. A shepherd’s crook painted white and tied with a blue ribbon, a white velvet mask trimmed with lace and a pretty little straw hat a la bergère put the final touch to Jane’s outfit, and she left for the masquerade ball feeling very satisfied with her appearance.
Jane, Lady Beatrice, Abby and Max rode together in the carriage, Lady Beatrice magnificent as Good Queen Bess in gold and purple brocade and a splendid ruff and Abby dressed as a mermaid, with a green sequined mask and a green sequined tail peeping from beneath her frothy green skirts and hooked up in a convenient loop over her arm.
Max was nominally dressed as King Neptune, with a trident—nominally because other than the trident, and a black velvet mask, he was otherwise dressed in his usual formal black knee breeches and coat. Over them he wore a midnight green domino, which, he informed them, represented the sea. “I’m not much of a one for costumes,” he said as he climbed into the carriage.
“I never would have guessed,” his loving aunt told him.
At the entrance to the ballroom, Jane paused a moment, drinking in the sight. Hundreds of candles burned in the chandeliers overhead, their tiny flames reflected and magnified through the myriad of crystals that hung from them, making the scene below shimmer and dance.
Before them was a sea of fantastical and exotic creatures—Egyptian queens, milkmaids, winged fairies, harlequins, Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, and more. Of course, not everyone had worn a costume; many had simply worn a domino over their usual formal dress and donned a mask. The masks ranged from the simple strips of black velvet worn by a number of gentlemen to elegant and intricate confections worn by the ladies.
“Oh, I wish Daisy could see this,” Jane said.
“She could have come—I did arrange for her to attend—but she’s a stubborn wench,” Lady Beatrice commented. “Said she needed to work. Work!” She sniffed. “Gel works too dratted much if you ask me.”
Jane didn’t say anything. Daisy was working flat out, she knew, but it wasn’t the only reason she refused to come. Daisy was very good at not letting herself want what she knew she couldn’t have. Unlike Jane.
Sometimes, a taste of something was worse than nothing at all. If you didn’t know about something, you couldn’t crave it.
Like Zachary Black.
If she’d never met him, never felt the touch of his hand, never gazed into those gleaming silvery eyes . . . No. She wasn’t thinking about him.
“I can see several milkmaids, but not a single shepherdess,” Abby said, gazing out over the shifting throng.
“Certainly none with a flock of sheep conveniently attached,” said Lady Beatrice caustically.
“Oh, look,” Jane said. “There’s Damaris and Freddy—and they’ve gone all Chinese. Don’t they look wonderful?” She waved, and Damaris waved back. She was gorgeously attired in an exotic-looking Chinese-style dress and Freddy was dressed as a Mandarin with a long, droopy mustache and a sumptuously embroidered Chinese robe.
Abby said, “And is that—yes, it’s Mr. Flynn dressed as . . .” She gave Flynn a long, thoughtful glance. “Would you say he’s dressed as a pirate? The gold earring and the black head scarf with the skull and crossbones seems to indicate it, but I must say his attire is very . . . colorful. Though I suppose he of all people would know how pirates really do dress. It’s probably quite authentic.”
Lady Beatrice gave her a blistering glance. “Authenticity again, is it?” She sniffed. “A masquerade ball is about fantasy, not authenticity.”
Flynn, seeing them, gave a rakish bow. He was dressed in tight red pants, thigh-high black boots, a violently multicolored waistcoat, a white shirt and a purple and gold brocade coat. He wore a cutlass thrust through his black leather belt.
“A fine figure of a man, Mr. Flynn, though I hope that cutlass is fake,” Lady Beatrice commented, watching him make his way toward them through the throng. “Check before you accept a dance with him, gels. If your dresses catch on it, they’ll be ribbons in no time. Men never think of such things.”
Flynn wasn’t the only one who’d noticed their arrival. A number of other young single gentlemen were hastening toward them. “Well, well, Jane’s arrival has been noted. Here come your dance partners, gels.”
Lord Cambury, who arrived dressed as Julius Caesar, in white robes and an olive wreath, had claimed his dances the day before—the first waltz of the evening and the dance before the supper dance, which was a country dance—and Jane had already written his name on her card. Now a crowd of other gentlemen pressed forward and in minutes every dance had been claimed, mostly by men she didn’t recognize, who wrote things like Henry VIII, Lucifer or Apollo on her card.
The next few hours passed for Jane in a happy whirl of laughter and dancing. Lord Cambury had danced his two dances and taken her to supper, then disappeared into the card room to play piquet until the unmasking, leaving Jane to dance to her heart’s content. Which she did.
The masks encouraged gentlemen to flirt ridiculously—leering extravagantly at her sewn-on sheep, and saying things like they wished they’d come as the big bad wolf. Most of them were boys not much older than Jane and not to be taken seriously. And because she wasn’t Miss Jane Chance tonight, but a simple shepherdess, Jane found herself able to flirt back quite unself-consciously. It was all the most delightful fun.
Chapter Nineteen
Piracy is our only option.
—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
It was the last waltz before the unmasking. A shadow fell across her. Jane glanced up and there stood a tall, dark stranger, a pirate by his dress. His eyes glittered through the slits of his mask, not a proper mask, just a ragged strip of black velvet that covered half his face.
She tensed. There was something about him . . . the way he stood there, the shape of him . . . the way he held himself.
His breeches were black and tight and hugged his long, powerful thighs faithfully.
Jane wanted to look away. She couldn’t.
His boots were high and black and reached to mid-thigh. A bold red sash cinched his lean waist. Beneath a black leather waistcoat, his shirt was loose, white and flowing, and laced carelessly almost to the throat. Almost. Shockingly, it lay open at the neck.
She could see the faint beat of a pulse in his throat. His naked throat. Tanned and strong-looking and masculine.
She swallowed. It couldn’t possibly be him. He would not dare, surely . . .
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All she could see of his face—apart from those intense, unreadable eyes—was a clean-shaven jaw, and a square, chiseled, freshly shaven chin. She’d never seen him shaved, but still, she was sure it was him.
His mouth was stern, unsmiling, beautiful—and where did that thought come from, she wondered feverishly.
“My dance, I believe.” His voice was low and deep and came straight from her darkest, most turbulent dreams. Zachary Black.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
“I came to dance with you, of course—what did you think?” The devil danced in his eyes. White teeth gleamed briefly beneath the mask. “I told you it wasn’t good-bye.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is a private ball—a very exclusive private ball! You cannot be here!”
“And yet I am.” He gave her that slow, lazy smile.
Zachary Black the gypsy was a handsome, intriguing ruffian, but this man . . . this man was beautiful in his lithe piratical arrogance. She forced herself to concentrate. “You should not be here. You are trespassing. And I am already engaged to dance this waltz.”
“Yes, with me.”
She checked her dance card. “No, it says ‘Radcliffe,’ and I know Mr. Radcliffe and you are not he!”
“I’m here in his place.” Through the slits in the mask, his eyes gleamed. Did he think it was amusing to be here, an impostor, dressed as a pirate? If anyone realized that a gypsy had somehow managed to gain entrance, there would be a fearful scandal. And Zachary Black would be—she wasn’t sure what would happen—a beating, arrest, some kind of trouble anyway.
“This is a private ball. Invitation only. How did you get in?”
He smiled, a flash of white, wolfish beneath the velvet mask. “Purloined one.”
“You mean you stole an invitation?”
His eyes gleamed through the raffish velvet mask. “Pirate, remember?”
“But why would you do such a mad, risky thing? If you’re discovered—”
“Stop worrying.”
The orchestra played the opening bars of a waltz and he stepped closer, and reached out lazily. She took a hasty step backward. “No, go away. You must leave. My partner will be here any minute.”
He took her hand and swung her out onto the dance floor.
“Stop it! Mr. Radcliffe—”
“Isn’t here. I am.” His arm was an iron bar encircling her waist, and before she knew it, she was twirling around the dance floor. Being held scandalously close.
She would have to dance with him. She had no choice. She couldn’t escape him without making an embarrassing public scene.
He drew her even closer. She could feel the heat of his body, his tall, powerful body, smell the faint tang of his masculine cologne.
“Don’t think about the future,” he murmured. “Don’t think about anything. Just close your eyes and give yourself up to the music.”
And to the man. The temptation was irresistible. It was just one dance. A few moments where she could indulge her fantasies. A harmless dance in public. What could it matter? Jane stopped fighting him—and herself—closed her eyes and let him twirl her around the dance floor.
In his arms, she danced in a way she’d never experienced before. She didn’t have to think, to remember her steps, just obey the silent, delicious command of this masterful, infuriating, insanely audacious man.
Delicious? She batted the thought away. But oh Lord, he could dance.
So this was what the waltz was all about. It was not at all like her lessons; this was like floating, like a leaf being swept into a swirling wind and whisked off to . . . who knew where.
A dance of pure, magical enticement . . .
The last strains of the waltz faded away.
Jane stood in Zachary Black’s embrace, his arm wrapped around her waist much closer than was proper, her hand firmly enclosed in his. She was breathing fast, and not just from the exertion of the dance. Her heart thudded madly in her chest; her mouth was dry.
The dance was over. She wanted to lean against him, to keep her eyes closed and press her cheek against his broad chest and just pretend, for a few more minutes. Her own private fantasy. Cinderella at the ball. She wanted it to go on forever, not caring who he was, who she was. To be just a man and a woman floating in a dream, a blissful dream she didn’t want to wake up from.
But in the distance she could hear exclamations and laughter. The unmasking had begun.
Slowly, reluctantly she opened her eyes.
And looked straight into his, gleaming and intense through the slits of the ragged black velvet mask.
“It’s time to unmask,” she whispered. “People will see you. You have to go.” She raised her hands to remove her mask, but he was there before her, his long fingers nimbly untying the strings of her mask and dropping it carelessly, all the time devouring her with his eyes.
She didn’t move. She couldn’t, couldn’t bring herself to move an inch. It was all she could do to breathe.
He remained masked, his eyes glittering in the reflected light from the ballroom. A faint shiver thrilled across her skin as the night air cooled the skin that her mask had kept warm. With a small shock she realized they were outside, on a small balcony, one of several that led from the ballroom, overlooking the terrace a dozen steps below, and beyond that the garden.
A quick glance around revealed that they were alone. The French doors that led back into the ballroom were closed, and the balcony was small and made private by the darkness.
The darkness? When she’d arrived at the ball, the whole place—the terrace, the gardens and, of course, the ballroom—had been a blaze of light. The gaily colored lanterns that had been placed along the terrace and strung between the pillars had, in this one small balcony alcove, been extinguished.
Here, where she stood with Zachary Black, there were only shadows, made deeper by the brightness outside. Nobody could see them.
The situation shocked her back to reality. She was no longer an anonymous simple shepherdess, free to flirt and dance and have fun, but Jane Chance, a girl with obligations. And expectations. And a betrothal.
And he was an impostor, here by stealth and dishonesty. There could yet be a scandal if he were found out.
He must have prepared this earlier: extinguished the lanterns, planned every move. It was a scandal waiting to happen. His presence—his uninvited presence—could compromise her badly. She needed to return at once to the main ballroom.
“You have to leave,” she repeated. “It’s dangerous to be here. If you’re found . . .” There would be unpleasant consequences for both of them.
He made no move. “I came here to talk to you, as well as dance,” he told her. “You wouldn’t meet me in the park, wouldn’t respond to my note—did you read it?”
“Yes.” She glanced at the doors back to the ballroom. She was getting anxious. Lord Cambury would be looking for her. “I have to go.” She moved toward the door. He stepped in her way, blocking her escape with his big, strong body. “So you know I am a gentleman, but there are other things I need to explain—”
“I said, I have to go!” She tried to push past him but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back.
“I came here tonight to talk to you.” And in a low, rapid voice he explained that he was a gentleman with a large estate and a fortune—“not as large as Cambury’s but substantial enough.” He told her that he’d been away for twelve years, that he’d left England as a boy of sixteen, and had only just returned the day he met her. He explained that while he’d been abroad, he’d been working in various locations, gathering intelligence for His Majesty’s government, that he’d become skilled at deception.
As he talked, her temper slowly mounted. To think she’d been having dreams about this man! How could she have let herself fall for this . . . this charlatan?
When she didn’t respond, he went on, “I am on the verge of claiming back my inheritance, but there is a . . . an obstacle, a legal impediment—all nonsense really, but I was advised to lie low until the matter was sorted out, and not use my correct name or my title. It’s rather delicate and I would ask for your discretion—”
“No need, because I don’t want to hear it. And you want to know why?” She tossed her head. “‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief’—how many of those are you, Mr. Zachary Black? First you say you’re a gypsy, then a pirate, then a spy—and you stole your invitation tonight, so you’re definitely a thief! And now you claim to be a gentleman? A gentleman with a title? A lord in hiding because of some mysterious impediment that requires you to dress as a gypsy?
“How gullible do you think I am? This is just another one of your wonderful tales.” She snorted. “You’re nothing but a big fat liar!” With each word she poked a finger into his broad, hard chest. “You seem to think life is nothing but a game, but my future is not a game to me! It’s a very serious matter, and I’m not prepared to listen to any more of your lies, so let me pas—mmph!”
She found herself being ruthlessly kissed, pulled hard against him, wrapped in an iron-hard embrace.
She pushed against his shoulders, once, twice, trying to shove him away, but the taste of him, the intense, masculine onslaught of his mouth, ruthless and utterly dominating, slowly sapped her will. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, pressing between them and she gasped. Her mouth opened beneath his and he took possession, his dark, male taste flooding her senses.
Duty warred with desire, and desire won.
The longing for him, so long denied, swelled within her. Intoxicated by the flood of sensation, she gripped his shoulders tighter, pressing herself against him.
He moved, and she found herself sandwiched between a cold stone wall and a hot, hard man. Shivers rippled through her and her grip on him tightened. With a deep moan he settled his big, warm body over hers, pressing her firmly against the cold wall, dominating her effortlessly. Masterfully. Any desire to escape had evaporated long since.