Steeling herself, she pasted on her practiced smile and accepted a dance with a skinny man she knew to be Lord Derry wearing a black hood and carrying an ax.


Caleb stood away from the crush of guests along a far wall of the ballroom. He wasn't wearing a costume, just his scarlet and navy uniform and tall black dress boots. His only concession to the masquerade ball was the scarlet satin domino that covered the top half of his face.

He surveyed the crowded dance floor, his gaze taking in the wild array of colors and fabrics, the plumed hats and rich satins and velvets. In the corner of the room, he spotted Vermillion, in conversation with her aunt and Lord Claymont. She looked beautiful tonight. There was no denying it. Every bit the goddess she portrayed. She was a sensual, stirring creature, the epitome of every man's fantasy, sophisticated and completely untouchable.

Only Caleb knew the sweet young woman she was underneath her façade. The innocent young girl he had made love to that first night in the stable. His loins clenched at the thought, began to fill, and silently he cursed.

Caleb watched her dance, first with a slight man in a black hood and then with Andrew Mondale, and cursed again, more savagely this time. For a man used to waging campaigns, his strategy in dealing with Vermillion had been a complete and utter failure.

He had made a tactical error in seeking her aunt's assistance and Lee refused to forgive him. For the last two days, she had avoided him. God only knew what she would do when she saw him tonight.

Caleb sighed as he watched her dance. He shouldn't have gone to her aunt. He knew that now, but at the time he hadn't been thinking too clearly. He had wanted her, been afraid he was going to lose her.

He should have known Lee would rebel, do exactly the opposite of what he wanted her to do.

Dammit to bloody hell.

The dance ended and Mondale returned her to her circle of friends. Oliver Wingate was among them. She looked up at him and laughed at something the colonel said. It was all Caleb could do not to storm across the room and drag her away from the man, haul her out of the ballroom, out of the house and off someplace private where he could make love to her until neither of them could move.

Instead, he stood there watching, wondering what she planned to do, feeling sick inside. He prayed that when the time came she would simply cry off, refuse to choose any man at all. She had said that she might… that she was giving the matter serious consideration.

One thing he was fairly sure of—if she decided to choose a protector, the very last man she would pick would be Captain Caleb Tanner.


The evening dragged on. Gabriella had let it be known that when the orchestra struck up the birthday waltz, whichever man Vermillion chose to partner would be the man who would become her protector. Aunt Gabby had also said that if Vermillion danced with Lord Claymont, it would signify she had decided against any of the men in the room.

As the dancing wore on, a fine tension settled in Vermillion's shoulders. The golden sandals hurt her feet and the shimmering threads in the embroidery chafed her skin. She wanted nothing so much as to retreat upstairs to her bedchamber and simply go to sleep.

Instead, she heard her aunt's joyful laughter and saw her smile, remembered how long Aunt Gabby had been planning this affair and how much it meant to her, ignored her aching feet and chafed skin and kept on smiling.

Another hour passed. Her face felt stiff, her lips brittle, as if they might crack at any moment. She had finally caught sight of Caleb and purposely ignored him, which only served to make the long night even more miserable.

At last the hour came. Midnight. Time for the birthday waltz. She spotted Lord Claymont and smiled, knowing he would be pleased with her decision. From the time they had met, the earl had wanted a different sort of life for her, had, on more than one occasion, tried to convince Gabriella that he could make some sort of match for her, the son of a village squire, perhaps, or a young man in need of a wealthy bride's dowry.

Gabby wouldn't hear of it, of course. Marriage was the dreariest future she could imagine.

For the most part, Vermillion agreed.

"Darling, are you ready?" Gabriella smiled and Vermillion's stomach knotted.

"As ready as I shall ever be," she said, the smile still stuck on her face.

"Come up to the dais, darling. Lord Claymont would like to propose a toast."

With more dread than she should have been feeling, uncertain what her suitors would do when they discovered she intended to break her vow, she nodded and stepped up in front of the orchestra.

The music stopped and people clustered around the dais. Lord Claymont clinked a silver spoon against his crystal champagne goblet and the room fell silent.

"I should like to propose a toast," he said with a smile. "To Miss Vermillion Durant on this, the night of her nineteenth birthday." He turned to her, held up his glass. "To you, my dear. All happiness in whatever course in life you choose to take."

"Hear! hear!" said Colonel Wingate, lifting his glass. Mondale chimed in and all of the guests lifted their glasses and took a drink. Several more toasts were made, then the strains of a waltz began.

Vermillion looked down at the men clustered around the dais, some she barely knew, and Andrew, Jonathan, and Oliver, the three with whom she was most familiar. Lucas Tanner stood a little ways away, eyeing her with considerable interest. She wondered what his brother had told him about her.

Her eyes swung in Caleb's direction.

He stood behind the others, the epaulets on his scarlet jacket glittering, taller than most of the men in the room, his posture perfectly erect. It was then she noticed that his shoulders were stiff with tension, his jaw set and looking as hard as granite. Though a scarlet domino covered much of his face, she could see his eyes, so dark a brown they looked like onyx.

There was something in them, she saw, something that compelled her to look deeper, past the reserve he wore tonight, all the way into his heart.

A faint tremor ran through her at the image that rushed into her mind.

It wasn't possible.

He couldn't care that much.

Not the way she did, not with a deep, yawning ache that never left her, a pain so deep that suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do.

She knew the choice she would make, knew that she would give up her precious independence. Knew that she would choose Caleb. And if their brief time together was all she ever had of him, it would be worth it.

She stepped down from the dais, reeling a little with the enormity of what she meant to do. She stumbled a bit and swayed toward Andrew, who steadied her with a hand at her waist. He smiled, thinking as everyone did that she meant to choose him. Instead, her gaze swept past him, fixed on Caleb. She saw the anguish in his face even the mask could not hide.

"Excuse me, Andrew," she said, politely easing away from him. For an instant, she caught a flash of anger as he realized he wasn't the man she would choose, but she kept on walking. A few feet away, Wingate was frowning, his jaw iron-hard. Beneath the folds of white satin, her legs were shaking. Her mouth felt so dry she couldn't have said another word if her life depended upon it.

She didn't have to. When she reached the place where Caleb stood, she simply reached out to him.

For an instant he didn't move and she thought that she had been wrong, that he didn't really want her as she had believed.

Then he stepped forward. One moment she was looking into his face and the next she was in his arms. She closed her eyes and felt a sweep of love for him so strong a lump swelled in her throat. The music swirled around them, urging them to dance, but Caleb simply held her and Lee clung to his neck. She knew people were staring, but she didn't care.

The orchestra began the waltz again. Caleb took a deep, shuddering breath and his mouth curved up in the softest, most endearing smile she had ever seen. Taking her hand, he led her out on the dance floor and swept her into the steps of the dance.

Other guests moved onto the floor beside them, falling into the rhythm of the waltz, the colorful congregation laughing, dancing with abandon as they whirled around the ballroom.

"I thought perhaps you would decide not to choose," Caleb said, his eyes locked on her face. "Or if you did, I would be the last man you would pick."

"So did I."

"Why did you change your mind?"

Because I love you. I love you so much. "You looked lonely. I thought you might need some company."

Caleb drew her closer. "I do," he said gruffly.

She smiled as he led her into a turn, but it felt a little sad. Caleb's I do was as close as she would ever come to a wedding vow. It had never mattered before.

It didn't now, she told herself firmly.

The waltz was coming to an end. "Let's get out of here," Caleb said softly. "We'll leave for London tonight."

She needed to pack. It was late and the roads would be dark. She didn't care. "Let me change into my riding clothes and throw a few things into a satchel. I'll bid farewell to my aunt and Lord Claymont, then we can leave."

"I'll have the horses saddled and brought round to the front." They left the dance floor, slipping away from the others, disappearing quietly out of sight. Lee said a brief farewell to her aunt, thanking her for the party and receiving a hug from Lord Claymont, then she left the ballroom and hurried upstairs.

She was leaving Parklands. She would have Jeannie pack the rest of her things and bring them to London once she was settled in. She wondered if she would ever return to the house she had been raised in, but she didn't think so. She was starting a new life, and though tonight hadn't gone exactly the way she had planned, it didn't matter.