Free Moonlight Masquerade by Kasey Michaels Page A

My aunt has doubtless gone to her chamber for a nap,
so she will never be the wiser. I shall be just fine, I
promise.”
    Lazarus fought a quick battle with his
conscience, which just as quickly lost the war against the demands
of his very cold, very wet feet. “If you really think so, miss,” he
agreed, already racing for the nearest door as fast as his thin
legs and the deep snow would allow. “Don’t you be too long now,
miss, please, if you will. Ten minutes more or less, or else you’ll
catch your death and your aunt will be terribly displeased with
me.”
    Christine called her agreement, then waved
the servant on his way, happy to be alone. Her Aunt Nellis may have
denied her horses, or the freedom of the village, but she had
always encouraged her niece to enjoy the pleasures of the outdoors,
so that Christine had grown up hating the feeling of being enclosed
day in and day out by four walls.
    Of course, Nellis Denham’s idea of the out
of doors did not include stumbling about knee-deep in snow in the
dead of winter, but Christine didn’t mind the cold weather. It was
exhilarating, feeling the sharp bite of the wind against her
cheeks, and listening to the silence of a countryside muffled in
snow.
    Christine bent down beside a winter-barren
rose bush to admire the way last night’s short rainfall had
sheathed it all over in a thin layer of ice. Slipping her hand out
of her fur muff, she ran her fingertips up and down the length of
one slim branch, tracing an ice-dulled thorn with the tip of her
index finger.
    “You enjoy flirting with danger, don’t
you?”
    Christine, startled into sudden movement,
felt the thorn prick her skin and quickly brought her fingertip to
her lips, sucking a small drop of blood into her mouth as she
looked at him balefully.
    “You are nothing if not consistent,
Vincent,” she said after a moment, trying not to let him know how
happy she was to see him. “You must enjoy sneaking up on people,
even out here.”
    This afternoon Vincent was clad in a heavy
black woolen cloak that was molded to his broad shoulders and
descended in deep folds to end at the tops of his shiny Hessians, a
muffler covering the lower third of his face. He looked dark, and
mysterious, and Christine was, as always, thoroughly entranced.
    He swept her an elegant leg—or at least it
might have been elegant if he had executed it in a drawing room.
Here, in the snow, it was almost comical, and Christine’s light,
musical peal of laughter mingled with the breeze that danced past
his bowed head.
    “I passed by poor Lazarus, illicitly
toasting his skinny feet at my fire in the study, and he told me
you had escaped the house for some fresh air,” he said, as if he
needed to explain his presence, stepping forward to walk at her
left side as they made their way down what, in warmer weather,
would be one of the bricked garden paths. “He was mumbling
something about hooligans, I believe, so I thought it best to lend
you my protection.”
    “And who, I must ask, is to protect me from
you, my lord?” she dared to venture, peering impishly up at him
from under the brim of her hat. “That scarf makes you look much the
hooligan yourself.”
    Christine had spent most of the past night
reliving their time together in his study. She had succeeded in
banishing any lingering fear of this strange man, as well as her
embarrassment over her own actions. All that was left was her
overwhelming need to be near him, to hear him, to see him.
    Vincent looked down at her and she could see
faint creases appear around his eyes, surely a hint that he was
smiling at her. “I believe I should be asking that same question of
you, Christine,” he countered easily, his deep voice made even more
appealing by the soft barrier of wool that kept part of his
expression hidden from her. “I have never felt so much danger in my
life as I do when I find myself in your presence.”
    “Thank you, Vincent,” Christine replied
cheekily, slipping a