hard mask at his face. The mask came off with a small creak and a burst of Archer’s freed breath. Light hit his features, and Miranda froze.
“Has my face gone blue?” he asked softly when she stood with her mouth hanging open like a haddock.
His lips curled as he enjoyed his joke.
Lips. She stared at them in shock. She could see his lips. Behind the carnival mask, he wore a black half-mask of smooth silk. It molded to his face like a second skin, revealing the lines of a high forehead, a strong nose, and a sharply squared-off jaw. The mask covered almost all of his right side, down along his jaw to wrap fully around his neck. But the left side… The tip of his nose, his left cheek, jaw, chin, and lips were fully exposed.
The shock of seeing all-too-human skin upon his face rendered her nearly senseless. His complexion was olive toned, showing some Mediterranean origin in his background. How on earth the man could have sun-bronzed skin was a mystery to her. He must have shaved before they left, for his cheek was smooth. Grooming his face for a world that would never see it. A pity.
A small cleft divided his square chin. But his lips called her attention once more. They were firmly sculpted; a sturdy bottom lip that almost begged to be bitten. The upper lip was wider than the bottom and flared gently in perpetual humor. Roman lips. She hadn’t thought…
“You keep gaping like that, and the flies will come in.”
She watched in fascination as the lips moved, amazed to hear his familiar rich voice coming from them. One corner lifted. “Are you going to stare all day? Should I have a self-portrait done for your contemplation?”
She looked up into his eyes, heavily lidded and deeply set, though covered with some sort of black cosmetic, kohl perhaps. Not an inch of his true skin color showed around his eyes. Even so, there was kindness in those endless gray depths. His eyes drew a person in and kept one wondering.
“Yes,” she said.
Archer’s jaw twitched. “ ‘Yes,’ you are going to stare? Or ‘yes,’ you would like a portrait?”
Despite his teasing, he was uncommonly still, poised as though she might bite.
“Yes, I am going to stare,” she said crisply.
“Why are you cross? You said you didn’t like my other masks. I offer you a different view.”
“You walked around wearing those terrible masks, filling my head with all sorts of horrible visions and… and…” Her hand flailed in front of his face. “And all along, you could have worn this.”
His lips compressed, but they couldn’t thin entirely. “What makes you think that there isn’t a horror lurking still behind this mask?”
“It isn’t the horror,” she retorted. “It is the subterfuge.” The line of his brows rose beneath the mask. “Those carnival masks must not be comfortable in the least. Blast it, you can’t even eat or drink wearing them!”
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.
“Why, Archer? Why shut the world out?”
For a moment, she thought he might not answer.
“I don’t want pity.” He glared at the stern visage of the Greek centaur before them. “I’d rather have fear.”
His voice was a phantom, haunted and alone. Miranda’s fingers curled into fists to keep from reaching for him. But she understood him. Deep down, she knew she would rather the world see her beauty and overlook the pain. It had stung when he had called her a false front, because he was right.
“And me, Archer?” she whispered. “Would you have me fear you as well?”
“No!” He stopped and stiffened. “I’d rather have you imagine all sorts of horrors than study my face and believe that there is a chance a normal man might be hiding underneath.”
She flushed hotly. It was the very thing she’d started to imagine.
Light from a flickering gas lamp caressed the sharp angles of his jaw, the high planes of his cheek as he lifted his chin. “Because there is not. I am not so twisted as to wear this thing if I were whole and untouched.”
He glanced at the stairwell as though he’d like nothing more than to flee. “Perhaps we should go. It is getting late.”
He moved to put on the mask once more, and her hand flew to clutch his arm.
“Don’t,” she said gently. The muscles beneath her hand hardened like granite yet he did not pull away. He loomed over her, his newly revealed features inscrutable, all the more