Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Annie
The first camera flash hits me right in the eyes, and I’m already thinking about how good it would feel to kick off these shoes and make a run for it. Instead, I plant myself next to Reed under the east gallery chandelier, smiling through the pinch of my satin heels like it’s all perfectly normal.
“Beautiful,” the photographer says. “Mrs. Dillon, tilt your chin slightly.”
I tilt my chin.
Reed’s hand settles at the small of my back, warm even through the thick, dark-red fabric of my dress. That touch steadies me, just like always. One solid palm. One private anchor in a room stuffed with silk, velvet, feathers, and people who say my name like they’re not sure it fits.
“You’re doing great,” Reed murmurs.
“I’m ready for this to be over.”
His mouth twitches beneath his black half-mask. “You look wicked and dangerous, my favorite combination.”
“Good. I was going for a cross between evil and devastating.”
That gets his real smile: quick, crooked, and mine. Then someone says his name. A man in a silver mask catches Reed by the elbow, already talking about the lower drive, parking, and late-arriving donors. Reed’s hand leaves my back.
“I’ll be two minutes,” he says.
That’s what he said twenty minutes ago, too, when Catherine swept him into a family portrait with cousins who all seemed to know exactly where to stand.
It’s what he said when Glen needed him near the ballroom doors, and what he said when a trustee leaned in with the solemn urgency of a man discussing estate drainage at a masquerade ball.
“I’ll be here,” I tell him.
For a second, his eyes hold on mine through the mask. “Don’t let anyone steal you. You belong to me tonight.”
A strange little chill runs over my skin. Then the crowd takes him.
I keep the smile in place. Don’t fight the current, I remind myself.
Just let it carry you. Turn when someone comes up, answer questions before they get too nosy, and accept compliments like you expected them.
Let the older ladies touch your sleeve and call the gown dramatic, in that voice that could mean anything from stunning to ‘wait until you hear what she wore’ at brunch tomorrow.
Every time I turn my head, the raven feathers brush my cheek.
Mrs. Davenport pinned my hair just like she did at the fitting: dark twist, a few loose pieces at my neck, nothing soft enough for Catherine to call sweet.
The gown’s been getting compliments all night.
Real ones, I think. Maybe even a few grudging ones, which, if I’m honest, I appreciate more because they feel more genuine.
I try to enjoy the spectacle. I listen to the musicians tucked beneath the balcony, enjoy the sweep of candlelight along polished floors, and watch the guests moving through Stanhope like animatronics performing a complicated dance.
There are masks painted gold, masks with pearls, and masks with long black ribbons trailing down bare backs.
Someone laughs near the fountain room. Champagne glitters in tall glasses.
The orangery doors stand open at the far end, spilling warm citrus scent into the hall.
For once, I picked something that actually feels like it belongs to me.
A woman I half recognize from a preservation committee touches my arm. “Annie, darling, Reed’s mother has outdone herself.”
“She always does,” I say.
“Such stamina. I don’t know how she manages.”
I know exactly how she manages. She never lets anyone see her sweat, and there’s always someone on staff to handle the rest. Not that I’m about to say that out loud.
A waiter glides by with champagne, and I grab a glass mostly so my hands have something to do. Across the room, I spot Reed’s dark hair and those broad shoulders, talking to two men by the mantel. Then a flock of feathered masks drifts between us, and he disappears again.
It’s fine. I know how this goes. Reed gets pulled away, I get kissed on both cheeks by women who remember him in diapers, and eventually we circle back to each other.
He’ll put his hand on my back, lean in, and say something that makes me look away so I don’t grin like an idiot.
Later, upstairs, I’ll pull the pins from my hair one by one and let the whole night drop to the carpet.
Just one night. That’s all I have to get through.
I turn toward the ballroom, but a man in a bronze fox mask steps into my path.
“Mrs. Dillon,” he says, smiling as if we’re old friends. “There you are. I swear I just saw you with Reed by the orangery.”
My polite answer is already forming: something easy about mistaken identities and too many masks. Then the sentence reaches the part of me that’s still awake.
“I’m sorry?”
He glances over his shoulder, distracted by a woman calling his name. “By the orangery. Near the east corridor, I think. He must have slipped away fast.”
“I’ve been over here,” I say.
The man laughs lightly. “Then I’m losing my mind. Must have been a trick of the light.”
“You sure it was me you saw?” I smile as I ask, keeping the polite party mask firmly in place even as a spider-crawl of cold dread creeps up the vertebrae of my neck.
He’s already turning, one hand lifted in apology. “Probably another lady in red. Excuse me.”
Another lady in red. My fingers clamp around the champagne glass. There are enough red dresses tonight to start a parade: burgundy, scarlet, ruby, wine. The whole place is swimming in them. The lighting’s low, everyone’s masked, and people see exactly what they want to see.
Still, I look toward the orangery. The open doors wait at the end of the hall, framed by greenery and candlelight. Beyond them, the corridor bends away from the noise. I set my untouched champagne on the nearest tray and start walking.
At first, I keep my pace steady. I’m not about to be the wife who goes chasing after her husband just because some stranger spotted a red dress.
Reed’s probably been cornered by someone from Catherine’s guest list. Maybe he’s checking on Lexi because his mother asked.
A prickle of misplaced jealousy buzzes under my skin, irritating enough that I nearly swat at it.
The crowd thins out near the orangery. The music shifts as soon as I step past the ballroom’s archway, strings and laughter muffled by thick plaster and heavy doors.
The heat from all those bodies fades, replaced by the cooler air of the house.
Sconces flicker along the corridor, their light glinting off gilt frames and the shiny leaves of potted orange trees. My heels sound too loud on the floor.
Halfway down the corridor, I slow.
Reed stands near an open doorway, mostly in shadow, one shoulder braced against the carved wood frame.
He’s kissing a woman.
For one suspended second, my mind simply refuses it, because the woman looks like me.
Dark-red gown. Black raven-feather half-mask.
Dark hair pinned in the same loose twist, with the same bare line of neck beneath it.
Even the posture is close enough from behind that something in me tries to make the picture harmless.
That’s me. It has to be me.
Except I’m ten yards away, my hand pressed flat against the cold wall.
Reed’s body is relaxed. Not the posture of a guilty man.
His hand rests easily at the woman’s waist, familiar and steady.
He looks as if he’s touched this woman hundreds of times in dark rooms and hotel elevators.
His other hand cups the side of her neck, his thumb moving beneath the edge of her mask.
My stomach drops so fast I have to grab the molding to keep upright.
He must think she’s me. That’s the only explanation.
He must think he’s kissing his wife.
Except he isn’t.
The woman gives a small laugh against his mouth. Reed goes completely still. I hear him say something too low to catch, then he jerks back as if the body under his hands burned him. His head lifts. His shoulders lock.
The woman tilts her face. The sconce catches the lower half of her smile.
Lexi.
I stop breathing.
Her hand rises to the mask. Not dramatic. Just two fingers touching the edge, easing it slightly, enough for the light to find her cheek, her mouth, and the pleased curve she doesn’t bother to hide.
Her eyes flick past Reed to me.
The hallway closes in around me.
She knew.
Reed says her name then: sharp, horrified.
I don’t wait for him to turn. My body moves before my mind catches up. I have to find air. My lungs feel like they’re suddenly underwater.
It was a mistake. The words hit in time with my steps. It. Was. A. Mis. Take. Step. Step. Step.
He thought it was me. Masks. Dim lighting. The same dress. The same hair.
I turn the corner too fast and nearly crash into a server balancing a tray of empty glasses. The glasses clink. The noise should blend into the cacophony of sounds around me, but it all sounds like crashing cymbals.
All I can see is Reed’s lips on hers. His hand on her jaw. The wicked smile she gave him.
Wicked and dangerous, my favorite combination.
My mask feels too tight all at once, the feathers scraping my cheek every time I breathe.
I pass a mirror and catch a glimpse: wine-dark dress, black feathers, mouth pale under all the paint and powder.
For a split second, I see her instead. Lexi in my dress.
Lexi in my mask. Lexi with her lips on my husband.
I can’t get enough air. I need to be anywhere but here. Let me just find a terrace door, a service hall, anything that isn’t this suffocating ballroom.
I reach the smaller corridor near the west sitting room before another masked figure steps out of the dim: ivory silk, gold embroidery, pearls at the throat. A heavy wave of gardenia perfume announces her before she speaks, so suffocatingly sweet it turns my stomach.
Catherine.
She wears a mask cut delicately around her eyes, but it doesn’t matter. I’d know the angle of her chin in the dark.
“My dear,” she says. “Are you all right?”