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Ever had a dream come true?

I have. Four times, and this evening, I was hoping for a fifth.

“More champagne, miss?” a waiter asked.

“Yes, please.”

I held out my glass. Tonight, of all nights, I needed the courage it gave me. Or, as my mother would argue if she found out what I’d been doing for these past few months, the stupidity.

All around me, partygoers danced and chatted, their faces covered by masks ranging from plain to ornate while they noshed on canapés and knocked back the free booze. At the back of the ballroom, I spotted my mother stumbling into Sir Arnold Hall, inventor of a revolutionary...uh, I forgot. Something to do with aeroplanes. Of course, the masquerade ball had been her brainchild—she’d use any excuse for a party and tonight, celebrating the launch of her daughter’s latest romance novel, she’d certainly pushed the boat out. We even had a flipping orchestra in the corner.

There was a slight flaw in her plan, in that few of the guests would recognise the author herself, but Mother didn’t concern herself with such trivialities. If I were a gambling woman, I’d bet most of the partygoers hadn’t read the book and didn’t care that it even existed.

Emphasis onmost. One of the regular attendees certainly had read Sapphire Duvall’s offerings, or at least her previous release, and he was the only man who mattered to me tonight.

Was he here?

I pulled my phone out of my clutch bag and checked the screen for a message—the hundredth time I’d done so in the last hour, even though I’d have felt the vibration if one arrived.

Please, say he’s here.Mr. Midnight, the object of every one of my dirty dreams for the last month. He hadn’t promised to come—he’d never promised anything—but during Mother’s last four shindigs, he’d texted me by ten.

My twin sister Angelica waltzed up, resplendent in a red ball gown quite at odds with my dark blue one. She revelled in the attention whereas I’d deliberately matched my dress to the curtains in a desperate attempt to fade into the background.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asked.

“Not really.”

Butsheclearly was. A glass in her hand, a man on her arm, and those who recognised her under the jewel-trimmed mask congratulating her on yet another bestseller.

“Lighten up, Gus,” she said. “Won’t be long until you can go back to your own world.”

She didn’t mean to sound cruel—she never did—but tact wasn’t her strongest suit. Her words stung, a harsh reminder that I didn’t fit in here. As if I needed one.

I mustered up a smile. “Two hours and counting.”

Angelica drained her glass and whispered something to the man at her elbow, lifting his wrist with delicate fingers to check the time. He wore a Patek Phillippe watch. Expensive. His mask covered most of his face, but I didn’t miss the curve of his lips or the heat he exuded. Clearly, he liked whatever suggestion my sister had just made.

“See you in the morning,” she said, giving me a little wave.

Three guesses as to what she planned to do for the rest of the night. Once, I’d have been depressed and maybe even slightly jealous over yet another of her conquests, but tonight I forgot her almost instantly as I snatched my phone out of my bag again. Nothing.

Had he got bored with our game already?

* * *

Three months ago, Midnight’s first message had come out of the blue as I pretended to enjoy my mother’s St. David’s Day party. No, nobody in my family was Welsh, and we lived in rural Oxfordshire not Wales, but little things like that never stopped her. When I said she’d use any excuse for a party, I meant it.

Unknown

Meet me at midnight. The summerhouse by the pond.

At first, I thought the message was a joke. It had to be. BecauseMeet Me at Midnight was the title of Sapphire Duvall’s latest bestseller, a bodice-ripper set in Victorian England where the object of Lady Anne’s affections asked her to—you’ve guessed it—meet him at midnight. First in the summerhouse, then behind the chapel in the grounds of her family’s country manor, even in the stables.

And what they got up to made my mother splutter her tea and hastily flip the pages until Anne was safely laced into her corset once again.

Surely you’re not serious?

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