“There’s no asp on my staff,” Maia pointed out.

“We’re to don our masks before entering?” asked Mirabella, finally able to get a word in.

“Yes. We’ll be announced as we arrive, but not with our real identities,” Maia explained before Aunt Iliana could speak. “Only by our character or costumes.”

She gestured with the gold mask in her hand and caught their chaperone’s indulgent eye. At least the elder lady didn’t seem to mind Maia’s managing ways—which was more than she could say for her own sister. “Everyone is to be unmasked at midnight. Although last year, the unmasking was much later,” she continued. “No one was ready until nearly one o’clock.”

“It’s our turn,” Angelica said as the voices of the driver and footman reached them. She was out of the carriage before Maia could respond, followed by Aunt Iliana and Mira bella.

Taking a bit longer, ensuring that her long, whisper-thin glittery-gold gown didn’t expose anything scandalous—like an ankle or a knee—Maia allowed the footman to help her alight.

When she stood still, the hem of her gown pooled on the ground in soft waves over her feet, which were encased in sandals with soles so thick that they made Maia as tall as her sister. Instead of hanging in one single-paneled skirt, the gown was actually six panels that overlapped, but that were only sewn together to just below the waist. This meant that there was ample opportunity for the long slits to show the sheer, lace shift she wore beneath it.

Not for the first time, Maia wondered if she’d made a mistake in selecting such a potentially scandalous costume. But she’d loved it the moment the dressmaker showed her the design, and that was the whole purpose of masquerade balls—anonymously walking the line of propriety. And, frankly, she’d hoped that Alexander would be back from Europe to accompany her to this ball so that it wouldn’t have mattered whether it was on the line of scandalous or not.

Deep inside, worry gnawed at her. Would he ever return? Had he changed his mind? She pushed the unpleasant thoughts away. Despite his occasional letter, the doubts had been coming more often than not lately. For all of her exterior confidence, Maia felt the fear of rejection, of scandal, of humiliation looming in her future.

And unlike most other problems in her life, this was one she couldn’t manage or control. She simply had to wait.

But here she was, without an escort, dressed in a column of cloudlike gold, with an underskirt as sheer and silver as a moonbeam…and completely anonymous. Between the several inches of added height, and the mask, along with the fact that dark horsehair curls had been interwoven with her chestnut hair, it was impossible that she would be recognized; especially since no one would expect prim Maia Woodmore to wear such a thing.

So she allowed herself to relax a bit more than she normally would.

The butler announced, “Her Majesty, Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile.” Maia tried to correct him, but there was an angel and a Queen Elizabeth behind her, and the latter’s farthingale skirts bumped Maia out of the way as she moved forward, so she gave up. She’d practiced walking in them, but there was no sense in getting herself unbalanced while on these high shoes.

Maia caught a glimpse of Angelica as she disappeared into the crowd. Aunt Iliana was on her heels, with Mirabella clinging to her arm, and Maia, for once, found herself not needing to be vigilant.

She’d hardly taken two more steps when she came face-to-face with a knight. She couldn’t see his face, of course, but behind the mask, his eyes seemed familiar.

“Your majesty,” he said with a little bow. “I see that you’ve been neglected by your swains. Would you care for a glass of sparkling champagne punch—or perhaps the effervescent lemonade?”

“A glass of the punch would be divine,” Maia replied. She loved champagne, but very rarely had the opportunity to taste it.

“And when I return, perhaps you would care for a dance?” he added with another bow.

“But of course.”

And thus the evening began, and soon slipped into a whirlwind of dancing and revelry. Once, as she spun carefully through the steps of a reel, Maia caught sight of a tall figure in a dark mask with a red and black waistcoat making its way quickly through the crowd. He seemed to move with great speed, despite the crush, and for some reason it put her in mind of Corvindale.

That had the effect of souring the evening, and Maia shouted to her current partner—a lanky court jester—a request for a cup of punch. The jester agreed, and led her away from the fracas that was the dance floor.

But her mood had been spoiled, for the very thought of the earl reminded her of their exchange in his study yesterday afternoon. It was the first chance she’d had to actually speak to him when he wasn’t ordering her and Angelica about, and he’d been abominably rude, ensconced in his gloomy office with fascinating-looking books stacked hither and yon. He’d practically shouted at her when she tried to open the curtains to give him some light.

Even now, she flushed at the memory of his clipped voice as he looked up from his desk, clearly loath to be interrupted. “What. Do. You. Want. Miss Woodmore.” The periods between each word were clearly enunciated, along with the telling absence of a question mark.

She’d had to swallow a retort at his overt rudeness, and instead marshaled her manners. One really couldn’t shout at an earl, especially when one was a guest in his home. She’d said placating things like, “My sister and I are very appreciative that you’ve agreed to our brother’s request to take on our guardianship.” And she’d actually managed to sound sincere, and to subdue the urge to lecture him on working in such dim light. “As I mentioned in my letter, I didn’t realize he’d made such arrangements with you until he went missing. We’ve always had Mrs. Fernfeather and her husband when Chas has been gone. Regardless…I do not wish to impose upon you—your household any longer than is strictly necessary.”

“That is one thing on which we are in agreement, Miss Woodmore.”

By that point, her fingers had clutched her gown so tightly it would be horribly crumpled by the time she loosened it. “And so I wanted to make you aware of our plans to repair to Shropshire as soon as arrangements can be made for the house there to be opened. My fiancé will be arriving from the Continent in short order and once we’re wed, you’ll no longer be responsible for me, of course. My sisters, including the youngest, will come to live with me and—”

“An odd time to be planning a wedding, with your brother missing, Miss Woodmore. Or are you in such a hurry to marry that you intend to get the deed done before you even learn what has happened to him?”

The memory of those words even now sent anger flashing hotly through her. She’d been trying very hard not to worry constantly about Chas’s mysterious absence—not to mention Alexander’s continued nonappearance (for her claim that he was arriving shortly had been a bald-faced lie)—and the earl’s implication that not only did she not care about her brother’s disappearance, but that there might be a reason for rushed nuptials, infuriated her. Pie-faced worm.

Maia realized she was worrying and fuming again, and she happened to look up as the court jester handed her a cup of sparkling wine punch. It was remarkably cold and quite delicious, with its effervescent bubbles, and she drank it rather more quickly than she should have.

“Perhaps I should procure you another one, my lovely Cleopatra?” asked the jester. “Or would you prefer to get some air?”

Maia declined to correct him about her costume and at the same time, decided she wasn’t about to fall into his little trap and go out into the dark garden. She’d noticed the way the jester had been eyeing her jouncing bosom as they moved through the enthusiastic steps of the reel. He was just the sort to pretend to bump against her and slide his hand around to cup a breast. At least she wasn’t wearing a gown with a lowcut bodice, but instead, a heavy Egyptian collar covered her shoulders and the front of her chest.

“Another cup of punch would be lovely,” she replied, adjusting her mask.

At least she knew she had no chance of meeting up with Corvindale tonight, for when she’d mentioned the masquerade ball, he’d snorted his contempt for the whole concept and dismissed her from his study.

And she’d been more than happy to leave his arrogant presence, too, Maia thought as she drank a second…or perhaps it was a third…cup of sparkling wine punch. To her mortification, she had to muffle a tiny little burp from the bubbles.

“Madame?”

The jester had moved in rather close to her person, and she realized he’d asked her a question.

“Another dance?” she repeated. That would be the second in a row, which wasn’t quite the thing if one wasn’t dancing with one’s fiancé, unless one wanted to be all over the Times’s on dits…but then, she was in a mask. And no one would need to know it was the proper Miss Maia Woodmore dancing two sets in a row—

And then she realized it was a waltz.

A thrill of excitement slipped through her. What a dangerous thought. To perform the waltz, the scandalous dance from Vienna that had caused the matrons at Almack’s to lift their noses and tighten their jowls at the very thought of the debutantes participating…!

Chas hadn’t even officially allowed Maia to waltz with Alexander…although she had managed to do so one time, briefly, in a secluded corridor, without her brother’s knowledge until it was too late. And she’d loved it.

Loved being spun through the space in his strong arms, their bodies close together, their thighs brushing, the scent of his clothes and hair pomade close and fresh—

Maia realized the jester was waiting for a response, and also, at the same time, that her face was quite a bit warmer beneath her mask. And she was feeling quite a bit more relaxed and happier than previously…

“I should love to waltz, sir jester,” she said boldly. And offered him her arm.