Still even more naked nightmares than that

Eliza de Hauteville took the hand of the mysterious prince with a smile and a graceful toss of her golden hair. Strutting out onto the floor of the ballroom, she caught the eye of her rival, the Countess Angelique, slouching sullenly on a stool beside the punch-bowl. So nobody had asked that little red-haired strumpet to dance! How truly delicious! She smirked at the Countess, and was rewarded by a withering glare as she swung by.

"Sir," she crooned, looking her masked dancing-partner directly in his handsome face, "you must tell me your name."

"Would that I could, fair lady."

"Oh, but you dance so finely. Do we not make a fair couple?"

"We do. But who is yonder vixen, who glares at us with such grim fury on her face?"

"'tis but a lowly wench, a newcomer to this court. Last winter, on a lark, I dispatched her husband on a quest to foreign lands, simply to fetch me the rarest and most delicate of silks with which to make a dancing-gown. When she protested, I had my maids strip her to the skin and cast her out into the streets of fair Palermo."

"Your jests are most amusing, my lady."

"I pride myself on them. And do I not cut a far more dashing figure than she, in her hand-me-down rags? With her husband away, of course, she can afford little. While this gown you see me in today, this confection of lace and emerald, was dropped off at my door only this morning by a secret admirer. I paid nothing for it!"

"On the contrary, my lady, you shall pay everything for it. Do you wish to know my name?"

"I should like nothing better."

The masked dancer took Eliza by the hand, and spun her in a series of dazzling twirls, clearing a space in the middle of the dance floor. She came to a stop, panting, looking out at the assembled courtiers, who all seemed to be staring at her. The music had come to a stop, except for the jangling of one half-blind lutist. Eliza blinked.

"My name, you see," said the masked prince, "is ****."

And with a firm slap to the bottom, he alerted her to the nature of her condition, while the courtiers burst into applause and the Countess Angelique laughed so hard she almost fell off her chair.