Chapter 5

‘You aren’t supposed to know it’s me.’ Helena frowned behind her mask.

‘We discussed these dresses once—don’t you remember?’ her friend said as Helena moved to kiss a Duke-of-Wellington-costumed Byron.

As it happened, Helena did remember the time she and Emma had lain under an oak tree in the school grounds, waxing lyrical about how romantic it must have been to live in the seventeenth century with all those manly heroes from the historical novels they’d devoured. Until they had remembered that there had been no plumbing for instant hot baths in those times, nor the convenience of the telephone!

But like Emma, Helena hadn’t been able to resist wearing a beautiful gown in the style of that century this evening.

‘You both look very beautiful,’ Byron told them gallantly.

He was nothing like those dark, almost satanic heroes Helena and Emma had once drooled over, with his hair a golden blond and his eyes blue, but there was no doubting the happiness of Emma and Byron’s marriage, which Hel