She lifted her face wordlessly to his, but he shook his head, and with every evidence of regret, loosened her from his grasp.

“No,” he said, “I dare not, or I will not stop, with but a kiss.”

“No?” she asked, feeling obscurely disappointed. “Then—”

“But I can do this,” he said, interrupting her. He dropped to his knees, clasping both her hands in his. “Here if is only you and I, not our countries, not our Councils, only ourselves to satisfy. We will please only ourselves; we will answer only to our own will, here. Selenay, I ask this for myself, and for myself—would you, will you, grant your hand to me in marriage?”

He had read her riddle; more than that, he had answered her invitation and her challenge and met it, his Prince to her Moon Maiden. And now—now, away from all witnesses, all eyes, he had asked her to wed him specifically for himself, and not for his country.

If this wasn’t the answer to her questions, she could not imagine what could be.

“Yes,” she whispered. “With all my heart.”

He leaped to his feet and took her in his arms again, and her whole body thrilled to the caresses that he bestowed on it. She would quite willingly have torn off her own gown and melded her body with his there and then. It was his restraint that stopped anything more from happening.

And though a great deal of her was frustrated and disappointed, the rest of her was grateful and full of admiration at his self-control.

“Here,” he said, as he actually stepped away from her, then took her hand and bestowed a tender kiss on the palm. “You may be only one Moon Maiden among twelve, but we should not take the risk that you are missed. Let me help you mask again.”

And so she stood, burning with desire for him, as he, clever as her best maid, masked her hot cheeks with the silver ovoid again, and placed the veil over her head, and the chaplet atop it. Then he retrieved his own mask and resumed his guise as well. “Shall we walk?” he asked. “My own lady?”

A shiver went up her spine at the caress in his words.

“To cool ourselves,” she murmured in reply, and he laughed.

“I think that cooling is what we both need, my Moon Maiden!” he chuckled. “It is just as well that our masks will hide our faces, or they would surely betray us to anyone with eyes in his head!”

He took her hand, and led her back toward the festivities, at a far more decorous pace this time. She was glad of the night air and the chance to get her pounding heart to quiet itself. Her hand trembled in his, and he felt the trembling, and tightened his fingers about hers for a moment.