Free Dear Stranger by Suzanna Medeiros

wiping a trail in the sheen of perspiration beaded across her skin.
    His gaze followed the action, eyes darkening before he returned his gaze to her face and gave a slight bow. “At your service.”
    He turned and took the two steps down to the dance floor, then began shouldering his way through the crowd towards the buffet table at the opposite side of the room. Caroline hesitated, the lost hope of feeling that muscled chest beneath her palms and his hard thighs heavy against her, suddenly bitter. She had planned intimate kisses, clandestine caresses, and the memory of a man’s hard cock between her fingers. She planned to give all, save proof of her innocence. On the morrow, she would do her duty as the promised virgin. Now nothing. If Margaret caught her at the ball, there would be hell to pay.
    Caroline swallowed the panic bubbling in her throat, and turned to the left, intending to skirt the wall to the French doors that lay a few feet away. She met the joker’s gaze. He grinned. The woman with him faced Caroline and gave her a sultry look. Caroline turned to the right and glanced in the direction she’d seen Margaret. Where had she gone? Nerves sizzled with apprehension and tension in her neck promised a headache in the morning.
    She looked back in the direction of her companion. He halted to the left of the masked dancers and turned to stare at her. A small smile curved one side of his mouth. Her stomach fluttered, then soured. The ball was the event of the season. He would be another ten minutes making his way through the crowd. By then, she would be on her way home. Caroline turned and hugged close to the column as she headed for the balcony doors. She slipped past couples in intimate conversation. Under her breath, she cursed again, and scanned the crowd as she sidestepped a woman dressed as Autumn. Once outside, she would make her way through the gardens to the servants’ entrance, then to the front of the mansion where a hackney waited.
    She was out the door, across the stone balcony and down the last of the four steps when behind her a voice said, “Have you gone mad?”
    Caroline froze, skirt held above her ankles. It had been too easy. She released the dress and slowly turned. Lady Margaret stood at the top of the stairs, the ridiculous pannier she wore spanning half the width of the steps. Caroline started to speak, then paused when another masked domino and sultana emerged from the ballroom. He pulled the sultana closer and she responded with a giggle. They rushed down the stairs, headed for the seclusion of the gardens. Longing stabbed at Caroline. She was a fool to have thought she belonged here.
    Margaret’s gaze followed their retreat, then shifted back to Caroline. “Looking for a bit of privacy?”
    Caroline ignored the cold—she had left her wrap inside and had not intended on retrieving it—and leant against the stone pillar. “I am alone, as you can see.”
    “Yes, I can see you are…now.” Margaret took two of the steps, stopping so that she towered over Caroline. “Perhaps you have a lover waiting in the garden?”
    Caroline sighed. “How did you know it was me?”
    Margaret snorted. “We have known one another since the nursery. I would know you in any disguise. Just as you recognised me—and do not deny that is the reason you fled.” She descended to the fourth step so that they were eye level with each other and said in a voice barely audible over the music filtering from the ballroom, “You are to marry on the morrow. What in God’s name are you thinking?”
    “As you say, tomorrow I marry. I go from grieving betrothed to wife.” Unwanted wife , she mentally corrected. So much so that her future husband’s business had taken precedence over their marriage and he refused to come to England until the very day of their wedding. “Surely, I can have this,” she added, “my last night of freedom.”
    Margaret arched a brow. “Do not expect the privileges of rank then flout