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She stepped into a small holding room. Another uniformed guard stood on the other side of the door, a large tablet in his hand. Her heart almost stopped.
She recognised him. She’d spoken to him numerous times in the staff room.
There was not a flicker of recognition in his returning stare.
He greeted her with a polite smile. ‘May I see your invitation please, miss?’
Hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in her hand, she passed it to him.
He peered at it closely then turned his attention to his tablet until he found her name on the list. He pressed his finger to it then smiled again at her and nodded at the double doors at the other side of the room. ‘Guests are assembling through that door. Enjoy your evening, Miss Coulter.’
Air rushed out of her lungs.
Mrs Coulter had been right. The dress and the mask acted as the perfect disguise.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
Straightening her back, Tabitha held her head high. Yet another doorman opened the double doors for her to step through.
The noise she was greeted with from the reception room made her blink. The guests already congregated were in high spirits. Laughter and the buzz of excited chatter filled the air, melding with the music coming from the corner, where a pianist was playing a familiar tune.
She soaked up all of this in the time it took to step over the threshold.
A waitress holding a tray of champagne approached her.
Tabitha took a flute with a smile and restrained herself from tipping the contents down her throat in one swallow.
Whatever the circumstances of her life now, she’d been raised to be a lady. Ladies did not tip drinks down their necks.
She brought the flute to her mouth and took a small sip.
The explosion of bubbles in her mouth was enough to make her want to cry.
Only twice in her life had she tasted champagne. The first time had been at her father’s wedding when she’d been ten. The second had been when she’d been fourteen. Her stepmother had thrown an eighteenth birthday party for Fiona, the oldest of Tabitha’s stepsisters. The party had been an elaborate affair with no expense spared.
The celebrations for Tabitha’s own eighteenth birthday had been markedly different. Her stepmother had celebrated by throwing Tabitha out of the family home.
The big wide world she’d looked forward to embracing had shrunk overnight.
Any alcohol she’d consumed since then had been whatever was cheapest. No Freshers’ Week at university for her. While her school friends had scattered to various higher education institutions around the country—the majority intent on having a fantastic three years getting drunk and attending the odd lecture when they could fit it in their busy social schedules—Tabitha had already been gaining callouses on her hands from working as a cleaner in the small family-owned hotel. The pay had been terrible but the job had come with accommodation.
The call for silence broke through her sad reminiscences.
The master of ceremonies greeted the four hundred guests and then, with a flourish, declared the masquerade ball open.
CHAPTER TWO (#u86501cce-c9f4-544f-9378-12b095faa0fe)
CAUGHT IN THE tide of bodies, Tabitha entered the enormous ballroom.
Her hand flew to her throat as she took in the lavish transformation the already opulent room had undergone.
From the grand high ceiling hung balloons of gold, silver and white, the walls lined with heavy drapes following the colour theme. In the far corner sat the champagne fountain the staff had been talking about for days.
Everything glittered. Everything shone, especially the colourful, fabulously dressed guests.
It was like entering a magical wonderland and Tabitha’s heart ached at the beauty of it.
She finished her champagne, placed the empty flute on the tray of a passing waiter and took her place amongst the ladies forming a long line to the left of the springy wooden dance floor.
The gentlemen lined up on the right and then the orchestra struck the first note of the first tune. Four ballet dancers appeared and performed a short but exquisite dance for them. No sooner had they danced out of the ballroom to rapturous applause than two-dozen professional ballroom dancers, notable for the ladies’ all-white gowns and the gentlemen’s traditional black tail suits, took to the floor and performed the first waltz.
It had been a long time since Tabitha’s ballroom dancing lessons at school. It was the one lesson every pupil had looked forward to and she’d been no exception. She’d never imagined then that she would have to wait so long to put the moves she’d learned into practice.
These dancers were incredible and the whispers around her indicated there were world champions amongst them.
Yet she found her gaze darting over the line of gentlemen on the other side of the room.
She shouldn’t be looking for him, she scolded herself. Hoping that his words about finding her were true was nothing but a fool’s wish, and a dangerous one at that. If Giannis discovered she was an employee, she would lose everything.
And, even if he had meant it, there were one-hundred and ninety-nine other women here, most of them far more attractive than she was.
He’d probably forgotten her already.
The professional dancers finished their waltz and then came the words Tabitha had once longed to hear in a setting just like this, and not from a school mistress: ‘Alles Walzer!’
Everyone dance!
The gentlemen set off towards the ladies.
Excitement surged inside her.
For so many years she had dreamed of this moment, yet for so many she’d stopped believing it could happen.
She didn’t even care that the gentleman making a beeline towards her was old enough to be her father and short enough to fit in her handbag.
When he was only a couple of feet from her, his path was suddenly blocked by another, much taller and broader figure who seemed to appear from nowhere.
Her heart stopped then, after a breathless pause, kick-started back to life with fury.
Giannis stood before her, his head tilted, a gleam in his eyes as bright as the chandeliers hanging amidst the balloons above them.
‘Darf ich bitten?’
The traditional way of asking a lady to dance at a Viennese Ball.
The very words Tabitha had once dreamed of hearing.
She stared into the clear blue eyes, the strangest of feelings forming in her veins.
Her knees sank into a curtsey without any input from her brain.
Strong nostrils flared. He put a hand to his stomach and inclined his head in a bow.
Then he took hold of her right hand with his left and slipped his other hand around her waist to rest just above the small of her back.
Sensation shot through the fingers being held in his, seeping straight into her bloodstream.
Muscle memory took control of Tabitha’s left hand and she placed it on his right bicep, splaying the thumb away from her fingers to cup it.
The orchestra struck the first note and then she was being spun across the great ballroom in his arms.
In Giannis Basinas’s arms.
Her first ever dance with a man.
This man.
This man who controlled their moves effortlessly and steered them around the other couples without his clear blue eyes ever leaving hers.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from the face that had captured her attention from that very first glance either.
And nor could she stop herself breathing in his spicy scent.
But, even with the feeling that she had entered the most magical of dreams strong inside her, there was a voice in her head whispering that this one dance was all she could have with him.
Never mind the danger that being with him put her in, he would want to dance with other women. If the rumours were true and this ball was a ruse for him to find a new wife then he would want to spread himself out and talk and dance with as many women as he could.
It felt as if no time had passed at all when the dance finished. The couples around them parted like the Red Sea.
Tabitha let out a breath that contained both relief and disappointment and moved her hand from his arm. But there was no relinquishing her hand by his. His grip on it tightened.
He brought his mouth to her ear. ‘You don’t think I’m letting you go, do you?’
Brand new sensation skittered down her skin at the warmth of his breath on her ear and cheek.
She tried to think of an excuse to pull away but her brain refused to co-operate.
Her body refused to co-operate too. Her hand reached back up to cup his bicep.
Around them, new couples formed.
The orchestra played the first note of the next dance and then she was being spun around the floor again.
All the reasons she needed to escape seeped away as the music made its way through her body and down into her dancing feet. Masked faces floated around her, dresses twirled, beautifully played music...
And the heavenly arms of Giannis Basinas.
When that dance finished and the master of ceremonies took to the floor to announce that it was time to dance the polonaise, she met Giannis’s eyes. There was a question in them.
She nodded. She remembered this dance.
He smiled and, holding her left hand, led her to the forming line of couples.
In and out they wove, separating then coming back together, curtseying, separating... She curtsied and danced with other men but her attention was always on Giannis.
She simply could not tear her gaze from him.
Not until they’d danced another waltz, and then a foxtrot, did he steer her away from the dance floor to one of the round tables on the raised dais running the lengths of the ballroom walls with a murmured, ‘Time for a drink.’
Unwilling to leave her side for a moment, Giannis signalled for champagne to be brought to them.
He had a feeling this ravishing creature would disappear if he turned his back on her.
She hadn’t exchanged one word with him during their time on the dance floor.
Their champagne was brought to them. He held his flute to hers then drank from it. ‘Are you hungry?’
She shook her head.
‘You don’t speak much, do you?’ he observed. In his experience, women always had to fill any silence with chatter, however inane. His sisters were the worst for it. Their mother always said Niki had been born with a never-ending battery in her tongue. He’d caught a glimpse of Niki in the arms of a bemused man trying to cut above her incessant chatter to waltz her around the dance floor.
Slim shoulders raised in a tiny shrug. ‘I do if I have something to say.’
He laughed. ‘And do you have anything to say, Tabitha?’
She shook her head again.
‘I thought Beddingdales taught its girls how to make small talk in social situations.’
There was the faintest spark of amusement in the cornflower eyes. ‘I failed that class.’
He laughed. ‘But obviously not the ballroom-dancing lessons.’
‘I liked those.’
‘Do you go to many balls?’
Another shake of the head.
‘I’m going to have to stop asking you closed questions, aren’t I?’
Now there was the slightest of curves in the full heart-shaped lips to accompany her shaking head.
He laughed. ‘Tell me about yourself.’
The faint amusement he’d detected vanished. She looked away from him, her lips pulling in together. ‘What do you want to know?’
Everything.
