Chapter One
ONE YEAR AGO
One would thinkthat a man in a Roman Centurion’s helmet and an armored skirt would look ridiculous. Lilah Rees studied the gentleman very closely and determined that that conclusion would be both right and wrong.
The man had the physique to play Lord Ares at tonight’s masquerade. Broad shoulders, thick arms, and a barrel chest beneath the breastplate armor. He held a spear that he routinely banged upon the ground as he issued some commandment much to the amusement of the audience.
But though he looked handsome in his costumed attire, he did not have the demeanor of a true showman. He did not prance, and he certainly didn’t entertain for long. He merely stood to the side of the dance area and seemed uncomfortable in a helmet that pinched his temples. Or so Lilah assumed given the way he kept frowning and adjusting the headgear.
And yet she found him handsome, alluring, and completely out of her reach. Though he was playing the role of Lord Ares at tonight’s masquerade, he was in fact her brother-in-law’s friend Aaron, Lord Chambers. A future earl, a wealthy man, and the picture of robust, perhaps even lusty health.
Lilah watched him from afar and imagined him as her hero in a fairytale story that filled her romantic heart to overflowing. Then she tucked away her romantic heart and focused on the practical. She was a by-blow—a bastard—and Lord Chambers was as far above her as Ares was above mere mortals.
She needed to get started on her plan to catch a husband. Tonight was a rare opportunity for her to meet such a man. She attended a masquerade that allowed a by-blow like her to mix freely with thehaut ton. She had dressed with care, applied her cosmetics to perfection, and had even practiced flirting to the best of her limited ability. She could only hope it served because bastards didn’t get many opportunities to snare a husband.
First step: dancing. Since this was a masquerade, the usual dance cards were ignored. The dance floor was more of an unformed free-for-all where partners matched willy-nilly and one could snare a donkey or a fairy prince. With a quick wave to her family, she headed into the exuberant mix of costumed partygoers.
She charmed a man in a dark domino who was sadly much too young for her. She spun about the room with a belching baron who was already married and on the hunt for a mistress. She promenaded with a dandy who spent the time criticizing the stitching and fabric of her green fairy costume. And the whole time, she wondered if this were the full range of gentlemen for her. If so, she was in for a lonely, single life.
She also couldn’t help her attention from wandering to Lord Ares where his bright helmet and thick staff towered over the guests. Indeed, her imagination made him ten feet tall as he inspected every newcomer and pronounced them worthy of attending his revels.
She turned a sigh of longing into a pretend whisper of delight. Her current partner was another man too young for her tastes, but perhaps she could mold him into an appropriate husband. His conversation was stilted, and he had an unfortunate tendency to blush, but he might grow into some confidence. He would never be a Lord Ares, but it was unfair to compare him to their host. And beggars couldn’t be choosers, but surely there had to be someone better out here than a stuttering youth.
There wasn’t. At least none that she could find, even with her sister Diana’s help. The eligible suitors guessed her identity as a bastard and stayed away. The ones ignorant of her parentage were on the hunt for a mistress or a faster tumble as a night’s entertainment.
She was an excellent catch, damn it. She could organize a household, discipline unruly servants, and even manage pets. She would cherish her husband and educate her children. But that was the painful curse of being a bastard raised as a gentlewoman. She was by definitionimproper.
Nevertheless, she smiled and persisted.
Until she couldn’t take it anymore and headed alone to the buffet. But once there, a female performer caught her eye. The woman stood in the shadows of a tree, well beyond the dance floor at the edge of the green where acrobats, knife throwers, and the like performed. She appeared to be scanning the crowd for someone, and Lilah was drawn to her merely out of curiosity. Or perhaps nostalgia because her mother’s acting troupe had performers such as these.
Or perhaps it was memory, since a closer inspection revealed one of her oldest friends as the woman threw up her arms in relief upon spying Lilah.
Was it really her friend? It wasn’t possible. And yet Lilah moved quickly around and past the buffet, ducked behind the dancing arena, then headed into the shadows between the elite and the performers.
“Margarite, is that you?” Lilah asked.
The young girl of her memory was now older, slimmer, and considerably more muscular than the nine-year-old she remembered. It was only the particular curve of her cheek and a mole set above her right eyebrow that gave away her true identity. And the fact that she’d always loved bright pink tutus, which is what she wore.
“Me?” Margarite gasped. “Is it you?” She stepped back and looked Lilah up and down. “Cor, but you’re all grown up and dressing fancy.”
Lilah didn’t say that this gown was a cast-off from her half-sister Diana. Or that she had altered it herself. She merely smiled and gestured to her childhood companion. “What are you doing here? You’re dressed like—”
“A rope dancer?” She cocked her head back toward the juggler’s area and sure enough, there was a rope strung between two trees. “I started dancing ’ere a couple weeks ago. It’s good pay if’n I can keep the men off.”
Lilah nodded, reminded once again that as difficult as her life was—caught between respectability and not—she still had a full belly and a safe place to sleep. Margarite didn’t, and it was only a quirk of fate that had taken Lilah’s life on a path different from Margarite’s. “Who is protecting you tonight? Are you safe?”
Her friend dimpled. “I got a couple friends watching me back. But I’ve been looking for you. Figured it’d be at a nob party like tonight.”
“You’ve been looking for me?”
“You ain’t never come by since the day you left.” There was accusation in her voice and Lilah flushed.
“I wasn’t allowed,” she said.
“I guessed as much. But you an’ me, we were the best, right?”
They’d been inseparable. Two girls of nearly the same age raised in an acting troupe. They’d played dolls together, learned their letters together thanks to Lilah’s mother, and even slept in the same bed. Until Lilah’s father had taken her away to a better life.