The Masquerade by Brenda Joyce Read Free Book Online Page B

it through various sets of double doors. It was very crowded inside and they bumped into the macaroni and his musketeer friend. Both men bowed. “My lady,” the macaroni said, and Lizzie thought he was speaking to Georgie, “would you do me the honor of joining me in this dance?’
    Lizzie realized he was speaking to her just as Georgiejabbed her in the ribs with her elbow. Suddenly dismayed, Lizzie realized that she did not want to dance, especially with the macaroni, who was clearly unable to keep his masked eyes from her cleavage. “I am sorry, this dance is taken,” Lizzie said politely.
    He understood and with profuse apologies, turned away.
    “Lizzie!” Georgie seemed angry now.
    “I am not dancing,” Lizzie said stubbornly.
    “You are not the shy one,” Georgie snapped, clearly in a temper, “You are the impossibly foolish one!” And she stalked off.
    Lizzie was left alone. Instantly she regretted turning her suitor down, but only because of her sister’s reaction. Sighing, she turned to watch the dancers on the dance floor. The moment she ascertained that Tyrell de Warenne was not among them, she started to scan the surrounding crowd. If he was not in the ballroom, he might be outside in the gardens, as it was a pleasant night.
    She felt eyes boring into her then.
    Lizzie stiffened as if shot. Instantly she turned.
    Tyrell de Warenne stood a short distance away, dressed as a pirate in thigh-high boots, tight black breeches, a black shirt, black eye patch and a wig on his head, with several narrow beaded braids around his face. He had his hand on his hip, where he wore a very genuine-looking sword, and he seemed to be staring directly at her.
    Lizzie lost the ability to breathe. He could not be staring at her that way, so intently, as if he were a lion about to pounce on his prey. She turned to see what lovely lady stood behind her, but no one was there. She was by herself, quite alone.
    Almost disbelieving, she faced him. Dear Lord, he was now striding toward her!
    Lizzie panicked. What had she been thinking? He wasthe heir to an earldom, as wealthy as she was poor, and eight years older than she. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted. Her heart was beating its way out of her chest—and she knew she would behave like a fool again.
    Lizzie turned and fled out of the ballroom, suddenly terrified. She was no seductress and no courtesan. She was Elizabeth Anne Fitzgerald, a sixteen-year-old girl prone to daydreams, and it was absurd to try to tempt Tyrell de Warenne. She found herself in a gaming room filled with lords and ladies at various card and dice tables. There, she paused against the wall, panting and uncertain as to what she should now do. Had he really been approaching her? And if so, why?
    And he suddenly strode into the room.
    His presence was like the sunrise on a cold gray dawn. Instantly his gaze pinned her. He halted before her, leaving Lizzie stunned, her back to the wall.
    She could only stare, her heart racing as wildly as it ever had.
    “Do you really think to run from me?” he murmured. And he smiled.
    She had stiffened impossibly. She could not move but she began to breathe, not normally but shallowly and rapidly. She tried to shake her head no, and failed. What could he possibly want? Had he confused her with someone else?
    He was so close, as close—no, closer—than he had been the other day in Limerick. She knew she must reply, somehow. But how could she? She had never seen him thus clad. The thigh-high boots drew her gaze the way a magnet did a coin, and from the top of the boots, her eyes drifted to his groin. There, a suggestive and very masculine swell was far too evident. She jerked her gaze up to his disreputably unbuttoned shirt, and saw a gold-and-ruby cross lying amid the dark hairs of his chest. Moisture gathered in her mouth, and elsewhere, too. A most persistent aching began, that longing she spent days and nights trying to ignore.
    “You need not run from me,” he