Page 36 of Peculiar Engagements

Sabre looked down at his hands, cowed. Charon knew he had likely ruined what was supposed to be a lovely night for Sabre and Laurent, but his iron control was cracking. The sensible thing would be to leave the suit and return to the House of Onyx.

He thought of Yves, masked and sightless, reaching for him in the middle of a ballroom draped with flowers, and he took the suit down from the mirror.

It fit him perfectly, and when he looked at himself, he saw a stranger—tattoos covered, the hood of his cloak shading his masked face just enough to obscure the shape of his jaw. He took a step back, and his cloak swirled around his legs.

“There’s a space in the ballroom waiting for you, if you want it,” Sabre said. Charon left the parlor without a word.

When he returned to the ballroom, Yves was dancing with Raul. It was a country dance, with a ribbon wrapped around the dancers’ hands to link them together, and Charon felt a pang in his chest as he realized that Yves had found a way to dance with Raul without touching. Since Yves couldn’t see, he had to rely ontugs of the ribbon to move, but Raul kept forgetting to lead and sent them stumbling over the dance floor.

Yves laughed. “You have to lead, Raul!”

“Hey!” One of the other suitors turned to Laurent. “He’s not supposed to know who we are.”

Raul blushed pink, but Yves pulled his ribbon, sending them in another direction. They passed close to the dancers ringing the open circle in the ballroom, and Charon moved forward.

“Don’t listen,” he heard Yves say. “I’m glad you came.”

“So am I,” Raul said, and they whirled away.

Charon caught a glimmer of yellow—Oleander stood to the side, glaring at them both, hands shoved in their pockets. The music died, and Yves’ laugh rang out like the tinkle of breaking glass. He led Raul back to the line of suitors, and Lord Marteau smiled smugly as he took a step forward.

Laurent cleared his throat and raised a hand, and the musicians stilled. The dancers and onlookers turned to look, and even Lord Marteau paused, brows knit in confusion. Laurent smiled, head tilted. Charon could imagine what he’d been like as a courtesan—his elegant charm hiding a dominance sharp enough to kill, his strange violet hair and eyes a novelty in the Pleasure District. The ballroom was arrested by his presence, and when he turned to Charon, he realized with a cold rush of unfamiliar terror what Laurent intended.

Laurent pressed a finger to his lips, then extended a hand to Charon. An invitation.

Charon took a step into the circle. Yves’ lips were slightly parted, his hand still extended for his next partner, clearly confused by the sudden silence. Charon could feel the eyes of the ballroom turned his way as he crossed the distance between them. Lord Marteau moved as though to intercept Charon, but Laurent shook his head, and Charon stepped around him.

Yves turned to him like a sunflower following the light, and Charon thought of Nikos kissing Aster behind the tea shop in Axon. The boy he’d been had only wanted something good and bright to hold onto in the crumbling, lonely chasm his life had become. Charon found, as he stood before Yves under the eyes of half of Duciel, that he still wanted that. One good thing. A candle easily snuffed out, too delicate for hands that had been trained to hurt. But maybe he could have this, just once. Just for a night. A dance.

Charon took Yves’ hand, and the music swelled, drawing them close like a great wave pushing them into the center of everything, bright and beautiful.

A calloused hand enclosed his, and Yves felt something shift inside him.

The night had been wonderful so far. He was pretty sure he’d guessed most of his suitors by touch or scent—or in Lord Hugh’s case, by the little hopping step he made every time he had to turn. But then the ballroom had gone silent, and the man taking Yves’ hand was strangely familiar. Yves had felt that hand on his before. He’d felt the warmth, the steady assurance of his steps, the weight of his dominance, but no matter what client or suitor ran through his mind, none of them fit.

The song was one of his favorites, an old country dance they still played in dance halls in lower Duciel, and Yves didn’t need sight to follow it. Even so, the man who held him guided him through the steps with a firm touch on his lower back and a steady grip on his hand, and Yves felt a rush of heat roll through him as he followed. He wasn’t laughing like he had through the other dances. This was different, more somber, as though theman guiding him was too intent on Yves to even smile. Yves tilted his head up, trying to get a glimpse of him through the slit at the bottom of his mask, but all he saw was a flash of black and gold.

“All right,” Yves said at last. “I give in. Who are you?”

The man didn’t answer. He lifted Yves as he turned, possibly to avoid a dancer at the edge of the circle, and Yves shivered at the way his hands wrapped around his waist. He should have been terrified of falling, like he’d been when someone tried to swing him in the first dance. He should have objected. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t afraid to fall.

The man set him down, and Yves’ breath left him as he was turned again, led back down a line. He felt flushed and strange, and he itched to take off his mask. He hadn’t felt this way with anyone—not even as his favorite clients took him in the House of Onyx, bringing him to a glorious release on a bed of silks. His waist burned with the touch of his partner’s hands, and his breath came short and hot. Tears were stinging the corners of his eyes, and he felt a strange ache in his chest, a low, deep yearning that left him dazed and unsure.

He stumbled, and his partner stopped to steady him. A hand touched his cheek, reverent, light, and Yves impulsively stretched up on his toes, lips parting in a silent expectation.

He heard a faint sound, and he could tell, almost instinctively, that the man holding him felt the same ache as he did.

“Please,” he whispered. But before he could say,tell me who you are,warm lips pressed his, and Yves reached up to clutch a silk cloak sliding over strong shoulders as he kissed back. It was hot and fierce and tender all at once, and Yves clung to him as he was lifted off his feet a second time.

“Please,” he said again, before his breath was taken again in another warm kiss. “Please, please, tell me, please.”

The man kissed him one last time, gently set Yves down, and withdrew. The silk cloak slid out of Yves’ hands, and he suppressed a groan of dismay as footsteps clicked across the floor.

He ripped off his mask. A cry rang out from the suitors behind him, but Yves was too busy searching the crowd. Cloaks swirled everywhere, black and red and gold, too many to count among the flowers and crystal ornaments lining the ballroom. Yves stood there, clutching his mask in both hands.

“Yves.” He turned. Lord Theobold Marteau was there, smiling warmly, one hand extended. “If we’re done with this pretense, perhaps the rest of us might have a turn.”

Yves looked at him. “That wasn’t you.”

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