the eye slits of her mask, she looked around the room, waving her lace fan delicately back and forth, stirring the air in an attempt to clear her head of the luscious scent that seemed to be floating through the air. Straight ahead, the French doors were inched open, and Chastity made her way to them. She needed the air, which would be fresh and mind clearing.
Checking over her shoulder before she slipped through the doors, she saw that no one had noticed her, nor would they notice her exit. It would only be a short reprieve from the dance, but a most welcome one.
FOUR
QUICKLY, CHASTITY SLIPPED THROUGH THE PARTED doors and stepped out onto the balcony, which was shrouded in darkness. To the left of the balustrade was a boxwood maze, shadowed by the height of looming oaks and willow trees. Inside the maze there was a bench where she could sit and rest feet that ached from her delicate dance slippers. She knew she should not be out here, alone, in the dark, but her head still remained cloudy, and the lure of a rest in solitude was too great. The exotic scent still lingered, but her head would begin to clear when the fresh night air swept over her while she rested in peace and quiet.
What a queer sensation that had been. She had never experienced anything like it. It had warmed her body as nothing ever had, not even champagne. The lingering heat and the languorous feeling still seemed wrapped around her, giving her the fanciful taste of what the enduring effects of sensuality must feel like. Despite the fact she had never experienced any sensual feeling before, Chastity knew that what she had experienced was some unexplained erotic charge in the air. Unsullied or not, she was not a simpleton.
Taking a few calming breaths, she stared up at the sky, watching as the sliver of silver moonlight appeared behind a black cloud. It was the Eve of Beltane, she reminded herself. The night of the Great Hunt, the union between the god and the goddess. Of course there was a carnal element to the evening. Everyone was anticipating the hour of midnight when it would be Beltane, and the frivolities and promiscuous activities of the spring and May Day would be welcomed with eager arms.
Back home in Glastonbury, the Great Hunt would just be beginning, and the bonfire on the village green would be blazing high into the sky. In the woods, men would chase maidens, and beneath the very same sliver of moonlight they would celebrate the rites of spring.
The Great Hunt and all Beltane’s festivities were steeped in pagan belief and the old way of the Celts. With the mystery of the tor and its prominent setting in the village it was not hard to feel rather pagan most of the year, but on evenings such as this, everyone threw aside propriety and Christianity to participate in the ideals of growth, sexuality and fecundity, for those three things had long represented the spring.
For centuries, Glastonbury, which had always been known as the Land of the Summer People, had been at the center of Beltane. As a child, her father, who had been raised in the little village, celebrated this very night every year. Every year except this one.
For some reason, her father, who had never been averse to accompanying them to the village on the Eve of Beltane, had acted as though the villagers and the festival were anathema. This year, after promising her and her sisters that they were old enough to witness the Great Hunt, after they had allowed themselves to grow excited about the prospect, he’d denied them.
“You’re not going to such a hedonistic display. It’s archaic,” he had grumbled as he waited for them to cram themselves into the town coach. After the carriage had lurched down the drive, he had refused to speak anymore of it, telling them only what they already knew, that they were off to London, to her brother’s ball, and then back to the Lennox town house in Grosvenor Square to spend at least a fortnight.
It all seemed so very strange, especially since her father had always striven to keep them very far removed from the capital. “Nothing but rakes and dowry thieves in London,” he had always claimed. So why now had he had a change of heart?
It seemed that their whole life their father had prevented them from being tainted by the sights and sounds—and smells—of London, only to turn around that very morning and all but force them to embrace the city.
Something wasn’t right. She sensed it. And that something had to do with her father and his perplexing behavior. Thinking it through, Chastity found herself at a loss to explain it. Perhaps, she thought, taking a deep breath, she couldn’t make heads or tails of his behavior because her mind was still clouded by the lingering scent of… of whatever that had been back in the ballroom.
Glancing back at the beckoning maze, Chastity glided to the stairs, the hooped silk skirts of her gown making a soft brushing whisper against the stone. She would find privacy and quiet there in the maze to reflect upon the puzzling events of the day.
Descending the stairs, she trailed her gloved hand along the stone banister, noticing the sparkling moonbeam that widened over the quartz cut stone. The moonbeam became less filtered light, and more like a fine swath of iridescent wetness. Like mist, but it radiated such a dazzling brilliance that Chastity watched it, hypnotized by its beauty, as it seemed to dance in and around the banister as though it were alive.
What folly, she chastened herself. It was a reflection of the rock quartz in the moonlight, nothing else. And the scent? her mind whispered to her. What of that?
It was back, that lush, exotic blend that reminded her of a faraway place, a spice island, or India perhaps. It was heavy, evocative, almost drugging, yet it made her feel as light as a feather. As if she were the one floating, and not the mist particles that glimmered in the moonlight.
Ceo Side, something whispered to her. Faery Mist.
She had heard of it before, the ability of the faeries to come as rain, mist, fog and shadow.
Now she heard it murmured on the wind as her slippers sank into the damp grass. Were the Daoine Side—the fairy people—here in the back gardens of her brother’s London estate? But why here? Why now? For her whole life, her father had talked to her and her sisters about the fey, yet she had never seen them, never perceived that they were somehow truly a part of her life. So why now was she obsessed with the idea of them? Perhaps it really was the champagne making her head fuzzy, and nothing more.
Head heavy, limbs warm, Chastity moved deeper into the darkness of the ten-foot-tall maze. She was breathing heavy, she realized. The lace that held her cameo secure around her throat felt suffocating. Her stays were tight, pushing her breasts higher, making it difficult to get air into her constricted lungs. Her fan dropped to the deep, damp grass as the air grew thicker, began to wrap around her, where it worked its way under her skirt to caress her calves, then thighs. She felt strange, as though she was disembodied. Her mind, always sharp and clear, would not work, and her lungs did not seem able to provide her body with adequate air.
With a gasp, she felt heat slide over her waist, then up to her breasts and, unable to bear it, she tore the lace choker off, flinging it to the ground, gasping to breathe. She was being smothered, but by what or whom, she could not fathom. She was utterly alone—and yet she wasn’t.
“A beautiful woman such as you should not be out in the dark, unaccompanied by a gentleman.”
Whirling around, Chastity startled when she heard the deep voice behind her. The man’s identity was cleverly concealed by an intricate mask made of gold and wire, designed to look like foliage. With his height, and the breadth of his shoulders outlined by the moon, and his long black hair whispering in the slight breeze, he looked like the fabled Oak King come to ravish her.
Unsteadily, she took a step back, coming up against a large birch tree that marked the entrance to the maze. She did not
