Ill Met by Moonlight: A Novella — Eileen Dreyer

Could a person fall in love with a stranger when she doesn't know his name or see his face? Can she do it while engaged to someone else? All Stasia Dunn wants to do is hide from the fortune hunters at a Midsummer Night's masquerade ball. Looking far more like Peaseblossom than Titania, she and her fairy wings have escaped to the conservatory. Unfortunately, she is discovered by a man dressed as Nick Bottom, complete with massive donkey snout covering his head. For some reason, he makes her feel safe. Worse for her fiancé, she suspects she might be falling in love. But since she hasn't met her fiancé, how can she compare?

What she doesn't know is that Nick Bottom is her fiancé, Maj. Hugh Fitzwilliam, who has just inherited a bankrupt estate he can only save with marriage to the daughter of an obscenely rich cit, neither of whom he has met. Meeting her as Nick Bottom seems a harmless way to assess this surprise fiancé without risk. It isn't. Stasia turns out to be more fairy queen than she'd thought.