The music rose to a dramatic crescendo and ceased abruptly. Benedict stopped as if someone had flipped an invisible switch. Amity was forced to halt so quickly that she accidentally stumbled into another dancer. She could not tell if her victim was male or female because the individual was wearing a long black domino with the hood pulled up around a full-face mask.
“Your pardon,” she started to say.
The dancer thrust a note into her hand. Before Amity understood what had happened, the costumed figure vanished into a sea of black dominos. Amity clutched the note very tightly, trying to peer through the throng. It was hopeless.
“Benedict.” She yanked on his arm to get his attention.
“What?” He did not look down at her. He was too busy studying the crowd.
“I think Lady Penhurst—or someone—just made contact. I was given a note.”
“What the devil?” He stopped, turning quickly to survey the crowd behind her. “Describe the costume.”
“It was just another black domino. She was wearing a mask that covered her entire face. There was nothing to see. Except—”
“Except what?”
“Now that I think about it, I’m quite certain that the person who thrust the note into my hand was wearing gloves. Kid gloves, I believe. And she was about the same height as Leona. But that’s beside the point. We need to find a place where we can read the note.”
Benedict steered her through the crowd and out a side door. Amity pushed her mask up onto her forehead and fumbled beneath the domino to touch her tessen. It dangled from the chatelaine, together with the dainty evening bag that contained a tiny sewing kit of the sort that ladies frequently carried to balls. The kits were designed to make it possible to do emergency repairs to ripped hems and petticoats.
When she looked around, she discovered they were in a hallway lit with gas lamps. At the end of the hall she could see footmen dashing about. Silver platters clanged. Someone swore. Someone else called out orders.
“More champagne and another tray of lobster canapés needed in the buffet room.”
“Let me see that note,” Benedict said.
She handed it to him and then leaned around his broad shoulders to read it aloud while he studied it:
The ladies’ withdrawing room. Five minutes. I will not wait any longer.
Amity straightened swiftly. “Good heavens, I must find the withdrawing room immediately. There is no time to waste.”
“I don’t want you going anywhere without me.”
“Nonsense. It is the ladies’ room, for heaven’s sake. There will be chambermaids and any number of guests coming and going.”
Benedict looked deeply suspicious. “Where is this withdrawing room?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask one of the footmen. Come, we must hurry.”
She grabbed Benedict’s hand and drew him down the hall to a room swarming with sweating servants. The first one to see her looked shocked.
“Can I help you, madam?”
“The ladies’ withdrawing room, please,” she said.
“Not in here,” the footman said. “Opposite side of the ballroom. There will be a maid at the door.”
“Thank you.”
She yanked the mask down over her eyes.
“We’re losing time,” she said.
She towed Benedict back along the hall and out into the darkened ballroom. She paused briefly to let her eyes adjust to the shadows.
“Damn it, I can’t see over the heads of the crowd,” she said.
