Their words had been meant as teasing. Mostly.
But he had seen the glance Trenton and Winthrop shared when they thought he wasn’t looking, one part amusement, two parts concern. He’d known men who trusted him with their lives, and those two fools were among them. That made their warning harder to ignore.
He walked to the side table and opened the guest list. It had arrived two days ago, neatly folded and already annotated by hissecretary.
He told himself he was checking for familiar names, potential allies, likely guests.
But his gaze skimmed the columns without focus, pausing now and then as if recognition might strike.
She would be there. He didn’t know how he knew it—only that he hoped she would.
The woman from the musicale, as elusive as her name, as impossible to forget.
He read the list again, slower this time, searching for something he couldn’t name. A trace. A hint. Something.
There was nothing, of course.
Still, he folded the page carefully and set it aside, unwilling to admit even to himself that he had been looking.
He glanced at the mantel clock. Late afternoon already. Not long now.
*
His valet arrivedprecisely at five, as expected.
“I’ve laid everything out as requested, my lord,” the man said, discreet and composed. “Do you wish to dress now, or closer to your departure?”
Ash glanced at the mirror and nodded. “Now.”
In the dressing room, the garments waited in quiet obedience: the black evening coat with its fine silver embroidery, the waistcoat of deep midnight blue, the mask, leather and satin, a dark half-face that shadowed the eyes but left the jaw bare.
He ran his thumb along its edge. The leather was cool beneath his fingers, faintly scented with polish. The smell reminded him of the armory, of shields before parade. Not protection, appearance.
He dressed in silence while his valet adjusted the cuffs and brushedthe coat. The boots gleamed. The cravat folded in an unfussy knot. Layer by layer, the uniform of civility replaced the man beneath it.
When the valet withdrew, Ash took up the mask again. It wasn’t ostentatious. Just enough to grant anonymity or distance. He couldn’t decide which he needed more.
He held it a moment longer, thumb resting over the curve where cheek met temple, as if the leather itself might answer. Then, deliberately, he raised it to his face. The ribbon drew tight behind his head with the soft sound of silk.
The man in the mirror was familiar and foreign all at once, composed, deliberate, and unreadable. The mask suited him too well.
It wasn’t a disguise. It was a threshold. And standing on its edge, he realized how easily the world mistook silence for strength. The soldier in him welcomed the concealment; the man resented it.
He adjusted the mask, watched how the light caught its angles. It did not make him someone else. It only made himinvisible.
He had walked into battle with less hesitation than this. But battle had never asked him to risk the one thing he had always guarded…hope.
Chapter Five
The bronze gowncaught the light like dusk through cathedral glass—soft, warm, and easily overlooked until one truly looked.
It wasn’t sumptuous, but it was beautiful, graceful in a quiet, deliberate way. The silk caught the light like breath, shifting from bronze to honey as she moved. For one unguarded instant, she had expected the mirror to offer someone else back to her. Someone braver. Someone less careful. But the image that met her gaze was unchanged. The same composed young woman, who always did what was right and never let the world glimpse what it cost her, stared back at her.
The gown had done its part. It was Leticia who had not changed.
Her throat tightened, the smallest tremor of longing threading through her composure. She would try the mask later, just to see if it might do what the gown could not. But the thought carried its own unease, as if daring to hide might reveal more than she was ready to face.
“A simple pin,” she murmured, reaching for the tortoiseshell comb on the dressing table. Her hair was already twisted into a precise chignon, a quiet rebellion in its simplicity. “No sparkle.”
