He’s got the same lightly suntanned skin as Mark, but dark, dark hair and beautifully tragic features cut right out of a Victorian fairy tale. And when he helps Mark out of the car as well, I don’t think I imagine that Mark keeps his hand in Tristan’s for a beat longer than necessary.
“Here,” Mark says, producing another domino from his pocket. He hands it to Tristan. “This is for you.”
Tristan’s face doesn’t change, but I can sense the discomfort rippling through him. “I’m not dressed for a masquerade, sir.”
“You’re in a suit, and that’s good enough. Plus, you’ll have a mask. What else do you need?”
“I was given to understand the Constantine security was sufficient for tonight, and that you would not require me inside—”
“Then you were mistaken. I require you inside very much. Whom else will I dance with?”
Even in the velvet evening, with only the lights from the house pouring onto the drive, I can see Tristan struggle with a response to that. He flushes. “Very well, sir.”
“Good boy. Meet me inside after the car is safely parked.” And without a glance backward, Mark takes my arm and leads me up the shallow front steps into the mansion, stopping at the front door to help me affix my gold mask. A faint breeze finds its way through the high slit in the tulled skirt of my gown and caresses the skin exposed by the deep V of my bodice.
“He’s young,” I remark after Mark’s finished with my mask. “And thank you.” I almost wish I could stop and attend to some of the more invisible parts of my costume, which are both deeply uncomfortable and strangely stimulating, but I assume I’ll have time once we get inside and start circulating.
“You’re welcome. And I haven’t fucked him, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.” He hands the doorman our invitations, and then we both proceed inside, trailed discreetly by my Secret Service detail. Neither Mark nor I pay them any mind.
“Do you want to fuck him?” I ask.
We move easily through the foyer, following the elegant strains of music coming from the ballroom. “I wouldn’t object to it, no,” Mark says. “Would you?”
I think of Tristan’s pout-shaped mouth and his haunted eyes…and all those rippling, ex-soldier muscles. “Of course not.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m a woman of simple tastes—oh.”
Oh.
We have just reached the ballroom, and it is like something out of a movie, like something out of a poem. A play. A Shakespearean fever dream of glittering crystal, gilt everything, and tumbling roses of ivory and dipped gold. White wisteria and roses hang from the chandeliers, entire trees have been moved into the corners, and there are small alcoves carpeted in what appears to be fresh moss. The ballroom—already a cathedral-sized space, already richly adorned—is now a hymn to sumptuousness, to extravagant beauty.
And the guests?
I see swans and nymphs, pirates and nereids. A woman in a full porcelain mask sails past us, her petticoats swishing as she’s chased by a man wearing a brightly checkered harlequin’s costume. As we descend the grand staircase down the ballroom floor, couples swirl in froths of feathers and eddies of silk. Some are in waistcoats, some in dresses, some in bodysuits, and everywhere are elaborate hats and headdresses trimmed with feathers, veils, bells, flowers. Several people have wigs with model ships and tiny birdcages lodged in the curls, and several others have opted for crowns or tiaras instead. The guests are dripping with jewels, all of them to a one. The crowd shimmers and sparkles even more than the ballroom itself.
“You were saying about simple tastes?” Mark asks with some amusement.
“Shut up.”
“Ah, Morgan Leffey. Brought low like the rest of us by mortal pleasures.”
“What,” I say, turning to him with an eyebrow raised behind my mask, “about any of my time in your club has ever made you think I don’t enjoy mortal pleasures?”
“I didn’t say ‘didn’t enjoy’, I said ‘brought low’—oh, there is our hostess. Shall we go and make our gratitudes?”
“Best to get it over with, I suppose.”
Caroline Constantine greets us with queenly but gracious kisses, and then points out her youngest, Tinsley, out on the ballroom floor, radiant and dancing, perhaps forgetting for a moment that her mother’s gaze is never far. I watch Tinsley as Mark and Caroline talk, and for a brief and tired instant, I envy the young heiress. I envy her youth. I envy her innocence. I envy