Where has Miss Potton got to?"
Lydia gazed around the small chamber. Though without her eyeglasses most men in crowds looked alike-except James, of course, whom she would know anywhere under any circumstances, and human Christmas trees like Prince Razumovsky- she could generally spot women by the colors and shapes of their dresses. But there was no sign of the fawn-and-white silk among the crowd, no ink blot of black curls glistening in the sharp yellowish light. She remembered Ysidro remarking last night, I may be somewhere thereabouts, and Margaret's desire to see him at the reception... And the more so now, to show him her newfound beauty.
"She may have gone into the gardens." The image of Margaret, in improbable Georgian panniers and wig, waltzing with Ysidro on the terrace of some dream mansion, floating through her mind.
"She'll freeze," Lady Clapham predicted. "Oh, my dear, there's someone I do want to introduce you to... absolutely charming, and such a cut-up..." She was already starting to lead her toward a man who had just entered the smaller room. Another uniform, this one scarlet, heavily braided with silver and ornamented with, of all things, a leopard skin over the shoulder, set off dark hair and a stance that told her at once, without being near enough to see his face, that he was as handsome as Apollo and knew it. All Adonises, she reflected-or was that Adoni?seemed to stand in the same way. She wondered if anyone had done a study on the subject. Not that anyone but a woman would notice, of course... "... member of the diplomatic community here and an absolute charmer, even if he's never going to rock the world with his intellect. Baron Ignace Karolyi..."
"Excuse me," Lydia said hastily. "I think I see Miss Potton and I really do need to... I'll be back in one moment..."
"Really? Where...?"
But she dodged away into the crowd.
Fortunately, a doorway connected that room and the other rear chamber of the suite. Lydia ducked through, wove her way to the door leading back into the main salon, and worked back with what speed she could-given a visual range of less than a yard, though the brilliance of the man's uniform helped in avoiding him- to the double door leading into the colonnade. The cold was sharp. Wishing she'd had time to fetch her cloak, Lydia hurried along the black and white cobbled pavement to the stairway passage in which she'd taken refuge with the prince, and gathered her point-lace train in hand to descend the sloping tunnel to the terrace beyond.
Once certain she was out of sight, she pulled her spectacles from her handbag and settled them on her nose.
What had been an impression of leafy blackness and swimming spots of color resolved itself suddenly into a sable wonderland of cypress and willow that sloped down to the indigo shimmer of the sea. Bare boughs or somber leaves were illuminated from below by a rainbow lace of colored lamps, which outlined paths and terraces like dim-burning jewels dropped on velvet.
To her left the lights traced terraces, stairways, the eaves of pale shut- windowed pavilions in a flickering web of ruby, azure, honey stars... and at the top of a flight of marble steps she saw one star was missing. A lamp had been taken.
Margaret. She didn't know why she was so sure. Gathering her train more firmly, she hastened along the terrace and up those pale steps to the gap in the line of lights.
A gem- latticed darkness of marble pavements and low box hedges spread out before her at the top, rimming deep stands of lawn and trees. The pavement led her around to the locked doors of the two pavilions overlooking the lower gardens.
Past the second pavilion's door a low arch of very old bricks pierced the wall, marble steps leading down again, through a vaulted tunnel, to the terraces below.
Had Margaret seen Ysidro in the gardens? Or only a shape she thought might be his?
She turned back to scan the colonnades, the elaborate pavilions above and behind her, but saw no movement there; neither was there any sight of the pale mousseline de soie dress in the semiwilderness of trees and long grass that lay between her and the sea. She pulled a handkerchief from her bag to shield her fingers from the heat, then picked up another lamp, the brass base beneath the bowl of ruby glass hot through both cloth and glove. One of the innumerable wild cats