Page 15 of Unmasking a Wicked Marquess
“Well … yes,” Juliet murmured. “I know, I know it’s mad.” She held up her hands in innocence. “I do not know him. He could have been a cad, a perfect rake –”
“Could be, indeed,” Violet nodded, with much more eagerness than Juliet had expected.
“Yet I do not know; there was just something about him that made me …” Juliet faltered as she thought back to their dance that night. The way they had talked, the way they had danced together was unlike any other she’d ever had.
Even when she stood outside with him under the canopy of ivy, and he’d brushed his fingers against her own on that stone balustrade, her heart had thudded in her chest so hard, it felt as if it were trying to escape out of her ribcage.
“I know this look.” Violet clasped her hands together, looking quite dreamily at Juliet as if they were talking of some great romance play on a stage. “You are quite at risk of falling in love.”
“Love? Pah!” Juliet laughed loudly and stood from the bed, rounding it and hurrying to the changing screen at the side of the room. She unlaced her dress hurriedly, determined that if she readied herself for bed, Violet would soon leave.
Why did I tell her? I should not have told her about that kiss!
Yet, in her excitement, it had fallen quite naturally from her lips.
“I spent at most ten minutes in a man’s company tonight. It is impossible to fall in love within that time.”
“Have you not heard of love at first sight?” Violet called with that same dreamy tone as before.
“Equally mad idea.” Juliet peered around the screen, looking at Violet with narrowed eyes. “For one thing, I could not exactlyseehim properly, could I?”
“Would you know him again if you saw him?” Violet asked, standing from her stool.
Juliet didn’t answer, for she was not so sure. His hair, the stubble across that distinctive jawline, seemed all so recognizable, but in another room and a different amount of light, maybe he would be impossible to see.
She stepped out of her gown and flung it across the changing screen.
“There is one question I have for you,” Violet said, her voice now coming directly from the other side of the screen.
“What is that?” Juliet asked, reaching for her corset. She could have called for a maid to help her or even asked her sister, but instead, she scrambled most ungainly to untie the laces at her back, for she longed to be alone.
“Why did you not ask his name?”
Juliet paused with the laces and hung her head. He’d asked for her name, yet she had refused it.
“In truth, I am not sure,” she mumbled now, thinking her own mind an odd one. “It was all too good to be true, Vi. It was a perfect dance full of excitement. Then, when we were outside, that kiss …” She paused and flung the corset free from her body. She discarded the chemise and her stockings next, feeling the cool air of the chamber prickle her skin and make goosebumps rise across her thighs.
“It was as if I had walked into some book and was reading a favourite chapter. Or that I had walked onto a stage and was living out a perfectly written moment. Life does not work like that, not in reality.”
She halted once more and reached for a night shift, which hung off the other side of the screen. She pulled it on over her head, scrambling to get herself ready, then reached for a dressing gown and slung that over her shoulders, too.
“If I discovered his name, then I do not doubt the next time I saw him, we would both be disappointed. We’d miss the magic of this night.”
“What happened to your romantic side?” Violet struck the other side of the screen so much in frustration that it wobbled.
“That could flatten me if you push it much further.”
“I am not that bad,” Violet muttered. “Come on, Juliet. Are you seriously telling me you did not ask this man’s name because you thought it all too good to be true?”
“Yes,” Juliet spoke with decisiveness as she stepped out from the screen. She went to the vanity table and sat down, quickly unpinning her hair from its position. The dark, auburn locks fell loosely around her shoulders.
“Why?” Violet asked, appearing behind her reflection in the mirror. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“The first time you and Brandon met, how did you feel? It surely must have been no fairy tale.” Juliet laughed at the idea.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Violet stepped forward, her face now clearer in the candlelight, her smile reaching so far that the skin around her eyes crinkled. “It was my perfect fairy tale.”
Juliet paused, with her hands still placed in her hair.
