Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
On the Saturday of the gala at the Reuter mansion, Rose remembered Jason’s quick-change talk and spent a few hours buying extra clothing items. She didn’t know why she’d left it until the last minute.
Late in the afternoon, after carefully turning Henry’s hair mostly gray with theater stage paint and a toothbrush, she showed him what she’d purchased.
“First of all, this is like a cotton beanie thing you can put on, like this.” She put the slouchy black hat on herself.
He smiled. “That’ll hide my hair.”
“Exactly. And you can wear this under your shirt and tie.” She dug into the bag and held up her thrift store find: the cream-colored T-shirt with an illustration of people at Grant Park.
“Lollapalooza,” he read aloud slowly. “What is that?”
“It’s like an outdoor concert with a lot of performers.”
He shrugged. “Well, that seems respectable, at least. You have planned things out very well. Will you try the same spell you tried before?”
He didn’t sound skeptical, but Rose felt like some skepticism would’ve been called for.
“Yes. Hopefully, with the astrolabe, it’ll work.”
They got dressed in the bedroom, Rose changing into a black midi dress that she hoped would blend in. The full skirt hid the small Wi-Fi jammer in a thigh holster. She was pairing the dress with ballet flats, made for sneaking.
Then she went to the bathroom to put on the wig.
She’d watched about twenty YouTube videos for tips on how to keep it secure, involving a headband called a wig gripper and an adhesive that seemed so powerful, she was hoping that it really did come off in water.
She applied a bright red lipstick, which she never wore, put on the anti-recog glasses, and studied her reflection in the mirror.
The moonstone pendant would’ve looked perfect with it…
but she’d pried the stone out of its setting, put it in an empty mint tin, and tucked it into her large black beaded purse.
She’d put all her spell essentials in there, including the incantation she’d written on a page torn out of a journal.
The purse’s crossbody strap would leave her hands free as she skulked around a giant mansion.
She came out into the living room where Henry, wearing his black tuxedo, stood looking out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. He turned around and his intense gaze on her made her knees feel a bit watery.
“I prefer your curly hair,” he commented.
“Well, you look great with glasses and gray hair. Which doesn’t seem fair, to be honest. We should go…Wait.” She snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot the heliotrope.”
“The flower?” he called after her, as she scampered back to the bedroom.
“No, but I’m using that, too,” she called back. She plucked the polished, oil-slicked stone from her altar. Then she returned to the living room, holding it out in her palm for him to see. It was dark green with bright red spatters.
She said, “It’s also called a bloodstone. Have you ever heard of a guy named Pliny the Elder?”
Henry’s brows raised, and he said with a touch of hauteur, “One of the first true scientists, in ancient Rome. Who has not heard of him?”
“Pretty much everybody,” Rose said. “Anyway, he said that if you combine a bloodstone with the heliotrope flower, it’ll make you invisible.”
“That is impossible,” Henry said promptly.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” Rose teased. He got a strange look on his face, and she realized she should explain that he wouldn’t really be invisible. As far as she knew.
“I think it means people won’t notice you. Anyway, I rubbed it with heliotrope essential oil and I did a spell, so hopefully, it’ll keep us out of trouble.” She slipped the little stone into the satin bag so it wouldn’t get oil on her phone, and put it in her purse.
Henry pursed his lips dubiously. “Perhaps we can also rely on good judgment to stay out of trouble.”
“If I had good judgment, I’d stay home,” Rose said. “Don’t forget your bag!”
She’d booked a driver to take them to a popular theater a few blocks away from the mansion.
Since she was using her own name on the app, she didn’t want to go straight to the party.
She’d even managed to buy a couple of tickets to the stand-up comedian’s show there, in case she needed a cover story later.
Once they were in front of the theater, they put on the anti-recognition eyeglasses.
They walked a few blocks to Armitage Avenue, where several cars waited to turn right onto Burling Street in Lincoln Park. Finally, they got close enough to see their destination.
Bright lights illuminated the three-story limestone with wrought iron balconies, and fairy lights twinkled from the trees.
Two women got out of a Mercedes. The passenger, wearing a sleek white halter jumpsuit, waited while the driver, in a tuxedo, gave her keys to the valet.
An elderly couple, a man and a woman, made their careful way up the front steps to the door, where two large men in uniforms stood… Security guards.
Rose’s stomach plummeted, even though in some part of her dreamy brain, she’d known that there would be tight security. This was no joke: she really shouldn’t be doing this.
Henry regarded her seriously. “Are you unwell?”
She looked up at the mansion. “What if someone catches us removing that panel, and we get arrested for property destruction or something? I could lose my job.”
“The panel your brother spoke of is designed to swing open,” Henry pointed out logically.
“Right.”
And there was a worse option. What if her spell actually worked?
Rose took a deep breath and let it out. She couldn’t think like that. All along, she’d been promising to do her best to get him home. She and Henry had just been having a fling. A beautiful, soul-altering fling.
Henry offered his arm to her, she took it, and they proceeded up the front walkway.
“This place is huge,” she said. “Maybe not to you, but to normal people.”
“It is very fine. French Baroque, I believe. When was it built, anyway? In the 1700s?”
“2010, according to Zillow.” The builder must’ve purchased and torn down a few of the narrow three-story houses of brick or limestone, which all looked to be well over a hundred years old, that lined the rest of the street.
“Ah. Revival,” Henry muttered. As they reached the door, Rose let go of his arm to pull up the tickets on her phone.
Henry reluctantly opened and handed over the messenger bag so the woman could poke around in it with a flashlight and a stick, then watched with interest as a woman wearing a name tag welcomed them and scanned the QR code on Rose’s phone.
He and Rose stepped into a foyer with a polished marble floor, crowded with people, some glittering, who chatted, laughed, and greeted one another with hugs.
House music surrounded them, making Rose feel as though she’d stepped into a lavish music video.
To the right was the enormous dining room, empty except for a few staff members placing silverware next to the plates with gloved hands.
Chandeliers sparkled above them, and flowers spilled out of their vases on the white-clothed tables.
Henry peered around them. “Do you see our host?”
“No.”
One group of thirtysomethings sat posing for a group picture on the winding staircase, which had an ornate railing of dark bronze with gilded accents. Halfway up, the steps were cordoned off by a heavy velvet rope. Good thing they were planning to use the back way.
Even more people thronged in the wood-paneled room ahead, clearly the location for the cocktail hour before the dinner. A white-jacketed server with a silver tray crossed the arched open doorway.
“I love the back terrace,” she murmured.
The floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the back doors offered a view of it, along with the fountains and gardens beyond.
Some guests mingled out there, drinks in hand, near the fire pit.
A hired dancer in a circusy sequined leotard swirled ribbons as she spun and gyrated.
Henry seemed to be watching her, and Rose couldn’t really blame him.
“Those are some handsome statues,” he said of the marble figures of Roman generals.
Rose shrugged. “I like the Venus in your secret garden better.”
Henry gave her a strange look. Maybe he was wondering why she was thinking about the gardens of Everly Park at a time like this.
“But I don’t see any doors to the kitchen,” she added.
“Pocket doors. They slide open,” he said. He inclined his head, and Rose followed his gaze toward the framed panels next to the bar. Two men in tuxedos stood at either side.
Henry murmured, “We must create a diversion to tempt those footmen from their posts.”
“They’re definitely security guards, but yeah,” Rose agreed. “Should we split up?”
“By no means. If we are caught in the wrong place, we must pretend we have stolen away to enjoy a passionate embrace.”
Even though a little thrill went through Rose at the thought, she said, “Isn’t that kind of a common ploy, though?”
“That I do not know, but it is a common thing to do. Drunken louts love nothing more than a conquest in another man’s grand house, which they may boast of later to their fellows at the club.”
Hearing Henry say at the club made Rose smile, even though she was pretty sure he was talking about a very different kind of club. “But if we’re together, who’s going to create the diversion?”
“A third party, of course.”
Before she could ask whether they were calling Jason, Ryan, or Emily and Griffin, a server appeared at Henry’s elbow with a tray full of hors d’oeuvres: cucumber slices topped with something else, a dollop of pale cream, and, to Rose’s delight, tiny flower petals.
The server said, “Ahi tuna with wasabi aioli?”