Moonlight Masquerade (23 page)

Suddenly the dream Christine and the real
Christine became one, as happens in dreams, and she dared to raise
her head, to look at her love, to see him smiling down at her, hear
him saying her name.

Her blood ran hot, then cold. It wasn’t
Vincent.

She was being held by a man with no face. A
man with only a white, grinning skull, mocking her as he pushed her
from him and melted back into the mist.

“
Sir Death!
” she screamed in her
bedroom in Half Moon Street. “No, Sir Death!
Don’t go!
”

“She loves you?”

Vincent kept his chin held high, allowing
Lazarus to knot the cravat tightly about his throat. “Is that so
astonishing, my friend?”

Lazarus felt his cheeks grow hot with
embarrassment. “No, oh no, sir! Of course she loves you. You are a
most wonderful person. Miss Christine would be a fool to do
anything else.”

Lowering his head once the servant had made
his last careful adjustments to the snowy white linen, Hawkhurst
gifted Lazarus with a mocking smile. “Don’t overdo the praise,
Lazarus. You might strain yourself. Now, fetch me my cloak, if you
please. I don’t wish to be more than fashionably late.”

Lazarus scurried to do his master’s bidding.
“You’re really going to do it? You’re really going to go to the
ball, like Mr. Belden said? Aren’t you afraid?”

Vincent bent down slightly so that Lazarus
could place the black silk cloak around his shoulders. “I’m more
frightened now than at any time in my life, my friend,” he admitted
honestly.

“Of what people will say,” the servant
concluded, nodding his head.

“Of what Christine will say,” Hawkhurst
corrected feelingly, heading for the door. “Hers, my good friend,
is the only opinion that matters.”

“I still say you should be home in bed.
You’ve obviously been trotting too hard, out every night to heaven
only knows what hour with Mr. Belden. Much as I like the man, I
think he should know better. You’re very delicate, you know. You
take after me, and I was always most delicate.”

Christine shifted herself slightly on the
cracked leather cushion of the rented carriage. She was so anxious
for the evening to begin she could barely sit still. “It isn’t
Fletcher’s fault, Aunt Nellis,” she answered wearily. “Besides, it
was only a dream. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Woke me?
Woke me!
You woke the whole
household. I had to promise Mrs. Flam a Cornish hen all her own to
keep her from walking out on the spot,” Aunt Nellis retorted
heatedly. “Screaming that way about death and dying and all sorts
of nonsense. It took every pot and potion I had to get some bit of
color into my cheeks tonight, Christine. That’s how much you
frightened me. I think I’ll pull the rope and have the driver turn
back to Half Moon Street. You shouldn’t be out.”

“
No!
” Christine cried, raising her
hand to stop her aunt. She had to go to this ball tonight, she just
had to.
He
might be there again. Sir Death! How could she
have been so stupid? She had known immediately that he had been
different, special.

Why hadn’t it occurred to her that it had
been Vincent? Why had it taken a dream to tell her?

And he had seen her with Fletcher Belden!
How could she ever explain to him, make him understand? He had
every right to hate her, to believe her to be the most fickle,
hard-hearted female in nature! He had to come to her again, to let
her explain. If he didn’t, she’d know he had returned to Hawk’s
Roost, to brood, to curse her, to hide.

“Christine, let me go, please. You’re
hurting me,” Aunt Nellis said quietly, clearly upset.

Christine blinked twice, then realized that
she had taken hold of her aunt’s wrist. “Oh, I’m sorry, Aunt,” she
apologized, taking her hand away. “It’s just that this evening is
so important. Fletcher promised he’d be there, and most
particularly asked that I save him a waltz,” she added, knowing
Nellis was harboring hopes in that corner. “It wouldn’t do to
disappoint him, would it?”

Aunt Nellis was mollified, and the carriage
continued to Portman Square.

Fletcher came up to her the moment she set
foot in the ballroom, and no matter what she did, he refused to
leave her side. While her Aunt Nellis beamed from her seat with the
dowagers, Christine did her best to show him he really wasn’t
welcome, but the man refused to take the hint and go away. There
was just no moving him.

He stood up with her for the first two
waltzes, treading on her feet as was his custom, and then escorted
her down to dinner over her protests that she wasn’t hungry,
keeping up an amusing monologue that would have had her laughing
out loud if only she weren’t so close to tears.

Her gaze barely left the main entrance to
the ballroom as she held her breath, waiting, hoping, for Vincent
to arrive. She knew she was poor company to the young men who led
her out onto the dance floor, but she couldn’t help herself, and at
last simply begged off, saying that she had the headache.

But once she was seated away from the dance
floor, fanning herself as she bit her lip and looked once more
toward the door, Fletcher sat down beside her, appearing as if he
was determined to support her in her agony.

“Headache, huh?” he asked conversationally,
and a bit too happily, or so Christine thought. He sat back,
crossing one leg over his other knee, obviously prepared to bear
her company until the end of the evening.

Gritting her teeth behind a purely social
smile, she gave up any pretense of politeness. “Fletcher,” she
whispered fiercely, “go away!”

“Oh, I’m hurt!” he responded, theatrically
clutching at his chest. “Cut to the quick. I know you don’t love
me, but that doesn’t mean we have to become strangers. Besides, you
like me. You told me so yourself. It was just the other day—I
remember it distinctly. You said, ‘Fletcher, I like you.’ I was
very moved, I tell you. Very moved.”

“Oh, stop it!” Christine ordered under her
breath, smiling and nodding as Lady Wexford walked by, a look of
censure on her horsey face. “Now look what you’ve done! The whole
world and his wife will think we’re engaged to be married.”

“Really?” he questioned, raising his
eyebrows speculatively. “Now, there’s a thought. But I’m sure you
said you were to marry Vincent Mayhew.” He sat forward, looking
toward the door. “Well, lookee there, if it isn’t the earl himself,
walking bold as brass into this very ballroom. Imagine that! I
think I’ll go say hello. Are you coming?”

Christine didn’t move. She couldn’t move.
Her eyes shifted to look toward the doorway, then widened in
disbelief. It
was
Vincent. He was standing just inside the
doorway, dressed impeccably in black and white, his head uncovered
and held high, not in daring, but as if he had every expectation of
being welcomed with opened arms.

She placed her hand on Fletcher’s arm,
pulling him back down into the chair so that he let out his breath
in a rush. “Hey!” he cried, removing her fingers. “You’re crushing
my sleeve, Christine. My valet would be grievously disappointed in
you, I have to tell you.”

“It’s him,” she breathed, still looking at
Vincent.

Fletcher tilted his head and made a face.
“Yes, I know. I’ve already said that. You didn’t have to ruin my
coat to tell me again, my dear.”

“But—but you hate him,” she stammered, then
declared forcefully, “I won’t let you hurt him, Fletcher. He’s been
hurt enough.”

Now Fletcher took Christine’s hand, gently
pulling her to her feet. He was aware that the entire ballroom had
gone very still, that every head was turned, looking from Vincent,
to him, and then back again. He could almost smell their blood
lust, just waiting to see what would happen.

“Darling girl,” he said soothingly, slipping
her hand through his arm, “I fear I have been unfair to you.
Vincent and I have settled our differences, although I was tempted
to hit him over the head, stuff him in a sack, and send him back to
Hawk’s Roost just so that I could have another try at winning your
heart. But I knew it was useless.”

Christine reluctantly drew her gaze away
from Vincent, who was still standing just inside the doorway,
looking in her direction. “Will he come to us, Fletcher? Is he
really ready to come back?”

“I don’t know, Christine,” Fletcher answered
truthfully. “He’s been through a lot, one way or another. It wasn’t
easy getting him to agree to come here tonight. What do you say we
meet him halfway?”

Holding tightly to Fletcher’s arm, Christine
allowed herself to be led across the empty floor, her vision
narrowing until her world excluded everyone but Vincent. Her bottom
lip began to tremble as he took one step, then two, into the
ballroom, his handsome face speaking eloquently of his love for
her, his scars a pale reminder of his past, but no longer a
hindrance to his future.

They met in the middle of the floor, and
Vincent’s clear-eyed gaze shifted to Fletcher, who held out his
hand in greeting.

Christine heard the two men speak, and
although she couldn’t understand what they were saying she knew
that Fletcher was giving her over to Vincent, while at the same
time letting everyone know that this man was his friend, now and
forever. Her heart was beating too loudly to hear the actual words,
her breath was tearing at her lungs, her vision clouded as tears
welled in her shining sky-blue eyes, then spilled over onto her
cheeks.

But she knew. They all knew.

She felt her hand being removed from
Fletcher’s arm and placed in Vincent’s, the contact burning into
her flesh. Turning on his heel, Fletcher walked away without
turning back. The quiet that had been so deafening just a moment
earlier was broken by guests beginning to chatter among themselves,
disappointed to see that there wasn’t going to be a scene, and the
musicians quickly struck up a waltz.

Her head tipped back so that she could look
up into his face, Christine reached inside herself to summon up a
watery smile. “May I please have the honor of this dance, my lord?”
she asked, moving into his open arms, her mouth forming a small
circle of surprise as his left hand came up slowly to take hold of
hers. Until that moment she hadn’t realized that his arm was no
longer hanging limply at his side. “Oh, Vincent,” she said on a
sigh, remembering how he had held her as they danced together at
the masquerade.

“I’ve waited all my life for this,
Christine,” Vincent told her, his voice husky with emotion as he
skillfully guided her into the first, sweeping movement of the
dance.

Alone, in the center of the floor, they
danced round and round, unaware that Nellis Denham was weeping
softly into her handkerchief, overcome by the look of happiness on
her niece’s face; unaware that Fletcher Belden was standing on the
perimeter of the dance floor, his handsome head held high, softly
applauding; unaware that, together, they made a perfectly
beautiful, perfectly wonderful couple.