Moonlight Masquerade Read Online Free PDF

for me. What a
depressing thought!”
    Christine stayed at the window for a long
time, lost in a brown study that had little to do with glittering
balls and very much to do with a portly old man with gray hair and
few teeth bowing over her hand, before a movement below her in the
garden caught her attention.
    “It’s an animal, lost and searching for
food,” she said, pulling the draperies back a little farther in the
hope of improving her view. “No, it’s not an animal. No animal is
that big. It’s a man. A very tall man, all wrapped up in a hooded
cloak. It must be Aunt Nellis’s monster, the Earl of
Hawkhurst!”
    Quickly dropping the drapery back into
place, she moved about the room, snuffing out all the candles, then
tiptoed back to the window and drew the heavy material out of her
way. “Now he won’t be able to see me seeing him,” she said in
satisfaction, her breath fogging the windowpane as she eagerly
pressed her nose against the glass.
    She watched in fascination, holding her
breath, as the earl walked across the garden, his long strides made
only slightly awkward by the deeply mounded snow. A massive cloak,
black as the starlit night sky, molded over his broad shoulders and
swirled about his knees as the wind tugged at the material. His
legs were quite long beneath the hem of his cloak, his shiny
Hessians hugging calves that were neither too thin nor too
muscular.
    A large hood hid his face from her view, a
fact that bothered her immensely, for she longed to see what her
host looked like that he felt the need to hide from his guests. He
walked on, moving away from her as the wind gusted, causing him to
use his right hand to keep the cloak from opening, exposing him to
the cold.
    He mounted a small rise about fifty feet
away from the walls of the house, standing there for what seemed to
Christine to be a long time, his hand now holding the cloak tightly
closed at the throat, his face turned directly into the wind, as if
challenging the elements in some private game of endurance.
    “How excessively odd,” she mused, shaking
her head, her headache forgotten. “It’s as if he’s daring the wind
to strike him down. Perhaps Aunt Nellis is right. He does seem
rather strange. Yet he’s standing so straight and tall, like a
strong oak. Oh, I wish he’d move closer so that I might see
him.”
    As if in answer to her wish, Hawkhurst
turned and began walking back to the house, his right hand once
again clasping the front sides of the cloak closed around his
middle. When he was just below her window a strong gust of wind
whirled through the garden, lifting the loose snow so that it
danced around the earl’s body like the sea mist just before a
storm.
    His heavy hood fell back against his
shoulders, but the earl didn’t seem to mind. He raised his face to
the descending moonlight and allowed the swirling snow to caress
his cheeks—while unknowingly exposing his profile to Christine’s
avid gaze.
    She inhaled sharply, unable to believe what
she was seeing. He had hair as black as hers, as black as night,
thick hair that waved only slightly as the wind brushed it back
from a forehead that was smooth and clear save for the slashing
black brow that sheltered one long, deep-set eye whose color she
could not discern.
    His nose was perfection itself, straight and
narrow, save for a small bump just below the bridge, a forgivable
imperfection doubtlessly acquired by an unfortunate collision with
someone’s hard fist. His mouth was generous, his upper lip nearly
as full as the lower, with what looked to be laugh lines vertically
scoring the skin below his thin, high cheekbone.
    Even his chin was outstandingly perfect, no
matter that it was covered with a slight shadow of beard, as if
Lord Hawkhurst only allowed himself to be shaved when the spirit
struck him.
    Christine had seen all this in only a few
moments—taken it in as a flower takes in rainwater—letting the
reality of it sink into the very root of her,