MASKED & SMITTEN: Montague Heir Crashes Capulet Masquerade — Heiress Smitten On Sight!
Guests in masquerade at the Capulet household last night. One uninvited Montague was, scandalously, among them.
Verona awoke this morning to fresh scandal: young Romeo Montague, heir to a house sworn enemy of the Capulets, was seen slipping into Lord Capulet's masquerade ball under cover of a mask — and leaving, by all accounts, an entirely different man.
Witnesses say Romeo, still nursing a broken heart over the fair (and entirely uninterested) Rosaline, took one look across the crowded hall and forgot her name completely. The object of his sudden devotion? None other than Juliet Capulet, the very daughter of his family's oldest rival.
"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!"
The two were seen exchanging words — and, our sources whisper, rather more than words — near the orchard wall before the night was through. Juliet's nurse, ever the chaperone, reports her young charge has not stopped sighing since.
Lord Capulet, for his part, seemed almost amused by the intrusion, reportedly waving off a furious nephew who wished to draw swords on the spot. "Let him alone," the old man is said to have remarked. "'A bears him like a portly gentleman."
Not everyone was so forgiving. One guest in particular was seen seething in the shadows for the entire evening — a name our readers will recognize from rather too many of our crime-blotter columns.