A Duchess a Day (Awakened by a Kiss #1) - Charis Michaels Page 0,76

invited because her father is a viscount from Yorkshire and they are new to town.”

“She wasn’t sensual enough for Lusk,” Declan said, turning to crack the door and peek out.

“Look who’s taken note of sensual women at this ball,” Helena teased.

Declan closed the door and turned back, sweeping her into his arms. “I only see you, sweetheart.” He dipped her back and kissed her. “From the beginning, I have only seen you. God help me.”

When she was breathless, he lifted her upright and checked the door again. “I will go first. It makes no sense for me to be alone in a music room. If you are discovered, at least you can pretend to play a musical instrument.”

“I am a rather accomplished pianist.”

“Really?”

“Sadly, no,” she said. “I’m terrible. But I can pretend.”

Declan returned to the door. “After five minutes—don’t rush it—wander out. Have you seen the other potential girl?”

She nodded. “Earlier. She was lounging in a room down this corridor.”

“Which?”

“The second—no, the third room.”

“With all the smoke and the couches?” Declan looked at her.

“Yes. I saw her rather clearly; it had to be her. She’s pretty. But she was surrounded by friends, and the room . . . unnerved me for some reason. I couldn’t invent a reason to go in.”

“The smoke in that room was opium. Let us not have you go in, shall we? Wait her out instead? Surely she’ll emerge eventually.”

“Yes, yes,” Helena said, adjusting her dress. “Far preferred. Will you be nearby?”

“Always.” The word was out before he could stop it, and her face lit up.

Declan’s heart lurched and he turned back to the door. “I’m going,” he said.

“So you say.” A giggle.

Declan shot her a look—if only she knew how badly he wanted to lock the door and never leave. Securing his mask, he gazed at her another long moment and went.

He made an easy slow circuit of the dance floor and anterooms, checking first the location of Lusk, who was in the card room. Helena’s parents were at the drinks table upstairs. Girdleston was smoking with men on the terrace. No one seemed to notice Helena’s absence. He marveled that someone so incredibly important to so many people was also so widely ignored. It made no sense. He’d been trying for days to put her out of his mind—his life and the lives of people he loved depended on his ability to forget her—and he could not.

When he made his way to the row of rooms beside the dance floor, Helena was there. She hovered outside the murky room that reeked with the sickly sweet smell of tobacco, hashish, and opium. Guests coasted in and out, their half-lidded eyes red-rimmed and blinking.

Declan took up position against an opposite pillar and stared into a glass of claret. He waited a beat and looked up, willing her to glance his way. When their eyes locked, he winked.

Her green eyes grew large; she arched a brow.

She looked ready to mouth something when a young woman caught her eye. The girl stepped from an anteroom and Helena pounced.

“Excuse me . . .” she began. The young woman stood just outside the door, fiddling with a crooked wing hanging limply from her costume. Declan shoved off the pillar and ambled closer.

Helena asked the girl, “Are you, Miss Lisbette Twining?”

The young woman looked up. “Ah . . .” she began, her voice tired and drawn out.

Helena tried again. “But may I help you with your wing?”

“That would be so . . . niiice,” drawled the girl, speaking slowly, enunciating every syllable.

“Miss Twining,” Helena mused philosophically, wrestling with a wire inside the costume. The girl toddled this way and that as Helena worked. “What a pleasure to meet you. You do not know me, but I’ve . . . I’ve heard so much about you.”

“All wicked, I assume,” the girl drawled. She giggled.

“Nonsense. But I don’t suppose we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Lady Helena Lark. I am betrothed to the Duke of Lusk . . .” She enunciated the duke’s name formally and let it dangle.

“Oh, I know you,” rasped the girl. Her words came out in a kind of extended yawn, as if she’d only just awakened. She spoke as if she was talking more to a pet cat than another girl. “Bradley’s future wife. Charmed.”

“But are you acquainted with the duke?” Helena asked, stepping back from the wing, now hanging at a more upright, but still very odd, angle.

“Oh, Bradley and I have known each other since we were