She gave him a small smile. “Well, it’s time. Time to find justice for Lydia.”
Yes, it was. He helped her down and into the line waiting entry to Lady Stockton’s home. They would get justice for her sister tonight.
He just didn’t understand why that thought made Cassie so sad.
Chapter Thirty
It was more difficult to keep a ballroom between her and Charles than Cassie had thought it would be. Ever since she’d first made her excuses that she wished to socialize with the ladies of the ton and left his side, Charles had been prowling after her, looking as put out as a lion with a thorn in his paw.
He suspected something. He had no way of knowing her true intent at tonight’s ball, but he knew she behaved differently. She wasn’t a good enough actress to pretend otherwise.
The other men from the agency seemed to find nothing amiss. There were other guests who wore black domino costumes, but it wasn’t difficult for her to spot her colleagues. Hurst and Verity were taller and bulkier than the average fop at the ball, and Wilberforce had a striking woman in red on his arm. They all drank, ate, and made conversation, looking for all the world like they belonged.
Cassie didn’t belong. She’d never felt more separate from her fellow man. Every movement felt disjointed. Every conversation a lie. She saw herself smile and drink and it was as though she watched herself in a play.
Her prey threw his head back and roared with laughter at something a woman dressed as Lady Macbeth said to him behind her fan. Lord Wiltshire himself wore robes trimmed with white fur. He was a priest, and Cassie almost had to laugh at the irony. Laugh, or cry.
Even though his mask did an adequate job of covering his face, it was easy to discern the man’s identity. Every ten minutes or so, he pushed it up on top of his head, too vain to keep that pretty face covered.
“Lady Domino.”
Cassie started at the voice. She looked to her side.
Lord Hereford clapped his heels together as he bowed. “Might I have the pleasure of this dance?”
She gave him a smile, hoping it didn’t appear too forced. “Aren’t we supposed to be working this event? Not partaking of its pleasures?”
He stepped close and sighed. “I’ve worked these poor little fingers to the bone. I’ve questioned, dropped hints, all but shouted to the rafters that the Bond Agency is on the precipice of delivering a villain into the hands of the magistrate. My tongue tires from all the work it has done. Now I’d like to dance.”
On another day she would have found his insouciance charming.
Wiltshire leaned towards his Lady Macbeth, whispering in her ear.
The woman pretended shock, smacking his arm with her fan before flicking it open to hide a smile behind.
“My feet are a bit sore,” Cassie gave her excuses. “These borrowed slippers chafe.” It actually wasn’t her feet that were chafed, but something a bit higher. However, she couldn’t use the holster she’d tied about her thigh as an excuse to the viscount.
“Just one dance.” He held out his gloved hand. “Surely your feet won’t complain more for a cotillion than the incessant walk they’ve had about this room. Besides, it will make your bloke jealous, and that man needs a bit of provoking.”
Indeed, over Hereford’s shoulder, Charles pushed his way through the throng of guests. He would disappear for a moment in the crowd, only to reappear a step or two closer. His glare was fixed on Hereford.
But it was what Cassie saw to her right that settled her answer. “One dance won’t hurt, I suppose.” She took Hereford’s hand and followed him to the center of the ballroom. With one tug on his hand, one quick-step of her feet, she maneuvered them until she stood shoulder to shoulder with Lady Macbeth.
Hereford nodded to a Spaniard on his left, then to Wiltshire on his right.
Cassie barely heard the music. Her feet followed the steps she’d practiced in her youth. Practiced at a time when she’d thought dancing at a masquerade ball with a handsome viscount would have been the height of joy.
She and Hereford stepped into the center of the aisle made between the line of men and the line of women, spun around each other, and dance-stepped towards their neighbor.
She had to force her lungs to breathe. The back of her gloved hand glanced across the back of his. That slight contact was still too much. She lifted her gaze.
As a girl, she never could have imagined what it was to dance with her sister’s killer.
Wiltshire’s grin spoke of one too many glasses of punch. His gaze was focused down, squarely on her décolletage. It was almost insulting that this man, this juvenile, insipid, excuse for a man, had been the one to take her sister’s life. Aside from drink and women, he seemed to feel no great passion. His mind was second-class. He must have been like a child, lashing out when a toy was taken away, when her sister had confronted him.
It made the tragedy even greater, that for this pathetic excuse of a human, her sister had died. Lydia had given her heart to a careless, vapid monster, and received the ultimate punishment for her lapse in judgment.
The first pass down the aisle with Wiltshire on her arm she could find nothing to say, her throat too tight to speak. When she rejoined Hereford, he tried to make conversation but she didn’t comprehend his words. When their palms pressed together, she noticed his frown but could do nothing to ease his confusion.
