AN: I know, I know… it's a short chapter, but this weekend has not offered me a large quantity of time to sit down and write an extensive chapter. Next chapter I'll try to make it up. A million blessings and thanks to my reviewers.

Chapter 26. The Masquerade Continues

Ziddler was not a morning person.

Up all night tending to men who did not want to spend the night alone, desiring a bit of romance within the Moulin Rouge with his courtesans, he found it more imperative to sleep than attend to whatever matters were needed when the sun went up. He was a serpent of the night, his intentions as dark as the shadows of the night.

"Ziddler!" Edmund slammed on Ziddler's room impatiently. "It has been five minutes already! I am not one to wait."

"Yes, yes." Ziddler emerged, a wrinkled robe wrapped around him.

"You ass!" Edmund raised a hand as if to strike the man but only stomped to the wall of the hall. "You fool! You arrogant brute! I am what is keeping the Moulin Rouge running. I am what keeps you and your precious niece alive. Yet you cannot even do me the decency to come when you are called! I should withdraw my funds for this whorehouse right now. Is it such a hard thing to get up and come out in something besides a thin piece of cotton that you think is some robe!"

With each sentence, Edmund stepped towards Ziddler, until… by the end of his bursts of rage… he was jabbing his finger on Ziddler's protruding stomach. His face, crimson with fury, matched the red of Ziddler's robe.

"Come out where you are decent!" Edmund growled, pushing Ziddler in his room, and slamming the door behind him. "We will discuss of the matter when I am able to separate them from my anger, you arrogant bastard."

"Where are you taking me?" I questioned Gregory as he led me through the corridors of his home. "What need is there of me wearing a blindfold, may I ask? It is not as if I have ever been in your house except that one instance. I would not be able to identify where you were taking me whether or not I wore this piece of cloth over my eyes."

"It would ruin the effect," Gregory replied, his pace quickening in anxiousness.

His sincerity was touching, even if I knew that I could not love him. Try as I might to smile with jollity and give into the anticipation at the time, I could only feel guilt towards my cruelty.

I was leading him on…

Denied my sight, I was still able to know he led me outdoors when he opened a door and a gush of afternoon breeze blew in. Aromas of flowers filled the air, along with the songs of numerous birds. I could feel the soft grass beneath my feet, still wet with the morning dew. Leaving the shadows, I entered the day and felt the sun heating up my skin.

With my eyes closed, I noticed aspects of my life I never would have considered likewise. How clever on his part…

"I hope you appreciate nature as I do," Gregory remarked, pursuing on still.

Each step I began hearing the faint trickle of water. The sound grew and grew as we went on, until all other sounds were lost over the overwhelming trickling of this water, flowing as if it were a waterfall.

"Where are we?" I sounded as enchanted as a girl witnessing magic before her eyes. "It sounds like no place I have ever been."

"Being with you takes me to a new world that I have never been to," Gregory whispered, his hands touching the tie of my blindfold. "Now it is my turn to show you something new."

"I have missed you," Christian looked up from where he sat typing and grinned. "You have been in my thoughts all day."

"Hello to you, too." I smiled when he got up and kissed me.

"How was your talk with Gregory?" Christian held me in his arms as we swayed back and forth, his forehead leaning against mine. "The fellow took it well enough, I hope."

"Well enough…" I bit my lip before offering a grin and kissing him. "I've missed you too."

In the past twenty-four hours I had spent my day with two men who both love me.

The first man is Duke. Any woman would be utterly insane to not choose him, especially when his love was so honest and pure.

Opening my eyes to find myself in a grandiose garden full of flowers and greenery, it seemed like a picture out of some fairytale, illuminated by fantasy and magic. We stood, hand in hand, before a great fountain that was bigger than the room in which I now lay with Christian. So overbearing and elegant was this fountain, that nothing outside of where we both stood could penetrate the water.

When Gregory had began singing to me once more, as heart-filled as ever, I knew that I could not tell him. Not today, at least.

The glow that resided within his eyes, so full of anticipation for the future… our future… it was a sight that I did not want to eradicate. Just the knowledge of what I would do to the joy on his face eventually… the fact that I knew I loved another man… was enough to ruin the enchantment of this sacred place that Gregory had taken me to.

But I could not deny him. Kissing Gregory, I was at ease, knowing well that I was safe in his arms.

With Christian there was passion. I yearned for his song… for his touch… for him.

He did not provide me with economic security, but I only needed his love.

There was nothing elaborate to his appearance. He was handsome, there was no denying it, but clad in rags the vast majority of the time, he was easily overlooked.

The fantasies that Gregory shared with me Christian did not have…

…but the fairytales he sang for me were just as captivating.

Confusion visited me again as the memories of today washed over me.

"I cannot keep this up," I told myself, resting my head on Christian's shoulder as he slept.

Yet, despite the guilt that stayed with me when I was with either men, I kept up the masquerade.

I was truly becoming no better than Ziddler now.