Page 18 of Unmasking a Wicked Marquess
“I was not smitten –”
“Pff. We both know you were.”
“Shh.” Juliet waved a hand at their mother again. “I not only do not wish to wake her, but I don’t want our mother to hear of what I did at that ball. It is our secret.”
Violet tapped the side of her nose in agreement.
“I asked the hostess if she knew who he was. Oh, she was so in her cups that night she couldn’t remember one masked man from another.”
“I rather imagine that is the point of a masked ball,” Juliet said simply, turning the pages of her atlas. As she looked down, she bit her lip, trying not to give away the fact that she had been secretly hoping her sister would discover something about the mystery man’s identity. To have no leads was disappointing.
“I asked Brandon, but he did not know. I even asked his friends to make some small enquiries, but no one even knew who he was talking about. Oh, it’s ridiculous. It’s as if you are the only one who noticed him there that night of the ball.” She huffed once more and sat back uncomfortably in her chair, making it creak loudly. “You didn’t imagine him, did you?”
“God, I hope not,” Juliet mumbled. “Or maybe I truly am losing my marbles.”
Over the past two nights, she had woken up briefly heated in the night. For one mad minute, she had thought she was suffering her mother’s pains, but early in life, then she realized she was suffering no such thing. Her heated spells at night were due to her dreams.
Each night, she dreamt of the masked man from the ball. She dreamt he was in her chamber. She always pictured him with that mask on, though he was frequently pulling at his clothes and hers, too, shedding other layers to get to one another.
All Juliet knew of what passed between men and women at night had her picturing what would happen in her bedchamber with him there. Would they leave the cushions mussed as Violet and Brandon did? Would they be so desperate to reach one another that they’d forget to lock the door on their way to the bed?
If I am picturing all this with a man I imagined in a mad moment, then dear God, I am not well!
“He existed,” Juliet muttered eventually, quite certain of it. “My imagination may be a competent one, but it isn’t so good as to imagine what passed between us without …” She trailed off before she could saywithout experience.It had been her first kiss. How would she have known what to imagine otherwise?
“There’s nothing else for it.” Violet folded her arms, nodding her head with resolution.
“Oh dear, I know that look. You have a plan.” Juliet closed her book. “Am I going to like this or not?”
“Probably not.”
“How reassuring!”
“You simply must attend every event of the ton that you can.”
“Every single one?” This time, it was Juliet speaking too loudly in her outrage. Violet hissed at her to be quiet as, at the other end of the room, their mother murmured in her sleep and shifted her head on the armchair, turning her face more towards the fire.
“Come, Violet. I go to all the events our parents ask of me, but surely, I do not need to attend every single one. They grow tiresome after a while. We do all stand there, straight-backed and rigid, all afraid to step on one another’s toes. No one speaks freely.”
Not likehedid.
“Don’t you see?” Violet asked in excitement. “This is why you must go. Your masked suitor –”
“He was not a suitor. He was …”
“A rebellion?”
Juliet shifted uncomfortably, rather startled her sister had discovered the very word that she and the masked man had used that night when they had kissed.
“Anyway, how are you supposed to find him unless you do attend every event. The one event you do not go to might be the one he does attend. You must go.” Violet patted the closed atlas with finality. When Juliet tried to open it again, Violet placed her palm flat upon it, keeping it closed. “Promise me you will go.”
“Must I?” Juliet sighed dramatically. As little as she liked the idea of attending the event, she could not deny a longing to see the man again.
“In fact, go shopping tomorrow. Take the carriage out of London and go to that modiste you like so much who lives on the edge of the city. Buy yourself something nice to catch his eye.”
“Well, if you insist upon it, sister.”
Violet clapped with delight, and their mother jumped in her sleep, sitting bolt upright with wide eyes.
