can’t,” Penny rushed to say. “You need to stay near home. I’d never ask it. We’ll think of something. Or someone.”
They turned to the only “someone” remaining in the room.
“Don’t look at me,” Gabriel said. “No one in Mayfair wants me at their parties, and Her Ladyship can’t be seen in public with the Duke of Ruin.”
“I might have an idea,” Chase said. “One of the clubs is sponsoring a fete tomorrow. It’s at a pleasure garden in Southwark. Dancing, supper, fireworks. It doesn’t require an invitation or a new gown, and with a bit of planning, even the Duke of Ruin can escort you without causing a scandal.”
“That sounds ideal,” Penny said.
“It sounds impossible,” Gabriel retorted. “There’s no event safe enough for that. Not one that would make the society column.”
“I assure you, there is.” A slow grin spread across Chase’s face. “But you’re not going to like it.”
Gabe hated to admit it, but Chase was right.
He didn’t like this one bit.
He stood with Penny at the edge of the garden, watching the throngs of masked lords and ladies float by, contemplating a subject that rarely occupied his mind: medieval history.
“How the devil did England win a single Crusade? I can’t even walk in this. Or see, or eat, or drink.” He fumbled with the visor of the helmet until it finally flipped up. “And this codpiece is much too small.”
“Do stop complaining. It’s not so bad.”
“Easy for you to say. Your ballocks aren’t dangling between two plates of metal.” The armor creaked as he shifted from one foot to another—carefully.
A liveried manservant strolled in their direction, bearing a tray of crystal flutes. “Champagne?”
Gabe eagerly accepted. So eagerly, in fact, that he forgot the restrictions of his current attire. With one swipe of his plate-metal gauntlet, he cleared the tray, sending the crystal flutes to the ground and drenching the servant in champagne.
Brilliant.
As the servant walked away, Gabe filled his stifling helmet with profanity.
“You insisted you needed a true disguise—one that covered your face. This was the best we could do on such short notice. Be grateful that Ash loaned it to you. He did us a favor.”
“Some favor,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose His Grace is going to do me the favor of holding my prick when I need to piss.”
After that incident with the champagne glasses, Gabe wouldn’t attempt it on his life. Perhaps a drink wasn’t a good idea.
She gave him a teasing look. “If it helps at all, you do look rather gallant.”
It helped a bit. A tiny bit.
“You may be uncomfortable now,” she said. “But I’m the one bound for an eternity in perdition. Wearing my mourning attire to a masquerade? The last time I wore this gown, it was for my Uncle Jeremiah’s funeral. He’ll probably haunt me. Hairy ears and all.”
With great effort, he swiveled his torso to look at her. She was dressed as a cat, naturally. A sinuous, alluring black cat. A pair of pointed ears perched atop her slicked-back golden hair. She’d tipped her eyes and the snub of her nose with charcoal, adding thin whiskers across her cheeks. And affixed to the back of her gown was a slinky black tail that waved and beckoned when she walked.
His codpiece was definitely too small.
He lowered the helmet’s visor again.
A small orchestra gathered on a shell-shaped dais and began tuning their instruments.
“You should dance,” he told her.
“I don’t want to dance.”
“I don’t want to be wearing a metal codpiece, but here I am. This had better be worth it.”
She was silent. “How can I dance when no one has asked me?”
“How can anyone ask you when you’ve installed yourself in the shrubbery? You’re being a wallflower.”
“No, I’m not. There aren’t any walls.”
“A shrubflower, then.”
“You know, clanking at me isn’t helping.”
Gabe thought of asking what would help, but there seemed little point. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t be able to do it. He couldn’t introduce her to anyone in this crowd of elites, couldn’t make her feel confident when he had no idea what he was doing. And he damned well couldn’t ask her to dance.
Even in a suit of shining armor, he wasn’t fit to be her hero.
“I would do this for you if I could,” he said. “But I can’t.”
“I know.”
”You won’t convince your aunt you’re circulating in society if you spend the night hiding in the bushes.”
“I’m frustrated with myself, believe me. A masquerade is supposed to be a chance to put on a different face, isn’t it? An opportunity to be someone else for a few hours. Yet I can’t seem to manage it. I’m still me, beneath the mask.”
“I know what you mean.” Gabe was still himself beneath the armor, too. An interloper among the aristocrats. Unwelcome. Inadequate. “We are who we are, I suppose.”
“We are who we are,” she agreed.
Gabe despised the defeated note in her voice. He liked who she was, beneath the mask. And when he was in her company, he almost liked who he was, too. The idea that anyone would overlook her made him vaguely furious.
“You don’t have to dance.” He gestured clumsily with a metal-plated arm. “Strike up a conversation with someone. Anyone.”
“I do see someone I know.” She lifted on tiptoe and craned her neck. “That man over there. He’s a distant cousin.”
“The one dressed as a Russian prince?”
“The one who actually is a Russian prince.”
Of course he was. As if Gabe needed one more reminder of the vast gulf between their stations. “Go on, then.”
She hesitated.
He creaked sideways, moving closer. “The hedgehog was ages ago. Everyone will have forgotten it.”
She tensed. “I’m not so certain.”
“Why, Lady Penelope Campion. Is that truly you?”
Penny winced. Of all the people she could bump into at her first true social foray in years, it would be the Irving twins.
“My dear Lady Penelope.” Thomasina took Penny’s hands in hers and squeezed. “How long has it been?”
Not long enough.
Tansy and Thomasina Irving had been the bane of her life at finishing school. Unlike some of the other girls, they were never cruel outright—they would never risk making an enemy of an earl’s daughter. However, they never missed an opportunity to needle her, and since there were two of them, they pricked from both sides.
Tonight, they were dressed as peacocks. They each wore a gown of shimmering teal-blue satin, with matching gloves and slippers. Fan-shaped arrays of peacock feathers sprouted from their posteriors.
“Why, we haven’t seen you since your debut at—” Tansy conferred with her sister. “Almack’s, wasn’t it?”
“I can’t say I recall,” Thomasina answered blithely. Falsely. “It doesn’t matter. What’s