The masquerade was a thin excuse. No one here wished to be anonymous, only unaccountable. Beneath the gold, glass, and perfume, he could smell the game of desperation disguised as wit, threat laced with laughter.
Two footmen guarded the main entry. A side corridor led toward the servants’ wing. French doors opened onto the terrace, where fog pressed close against the balustrade and the city’s lights trembled like distant ships.
And at the heart of it all, Lady Mordaunt presided as though she owned not only the house, but the morals of everyone inside it.
Graham swept his gaze across the room until it locked on Eleanor.
She moved through the crowd in a dress of blue silk—quietly scandalous in its confidence. Her velvet mask was edged with embroidered forget-me-nots, that same precise shade that had become a marker and a menace. She laughed when a witless gentleman tried to impress her, tilting her head just so, letting him believe he had invented delight.
But Graham knew her tells.
Her hand drifted to her reticule—habit, anchor, weapon. She stood never at the center of a conversation but always slightly to the side, angled to catch reflections in mirrors, windows, or polished trays.
She was bait as well as the trap.
He had agreed to it. That was the ugly truth that sat like iron in his gut. The plan was tactically sound and perhaps the only option, but every instinct in him rebelled at placing her within reach of men who collected leverage like trophies.
Because the last time he’d let his guard slip, he’d tasted her mouth in the firelight and learned, too late, that wanting her made him reckless.
The string quartet ended a set, and the room’s energy shifted. Guests leaned closer, voices sharpening, attention turning toward the staircase as if the house itself demanded theater.
Eleanor drifted near the stairs, half-shadowed by an arrangement of lilies so large it could have concealed a man.
Graham tracked the flow of bodies and found what he’d been waiting for. A small knot of late arrivals. Men in brocaded coats and practiced smiles, women with feathers rising from their masks.
At their edge moved someone shorter and more precise than the rest.
A plain black mask.
Not fashionable.
Functional.
A courier.
Graham’s pulse slowed into cold focus.
The group did not move to intercept Eleanor. Instead, they fanned out. A man stationed himself at the foot of the stairs, just to Eleanor’s right, too close to be coincidence, too casual to be accused. Eleanor did not look at him, but her left hand produced a blue silk handkerchief and toyed with it as though from idle fidgeting.
Blue.
Danger lingered nearby.
Graham drifted along the periphery, feigning interest in a portrait he’d never seen and did not care about. A servant offered a glass. He declined and used the moment to scan the gallery above.
Empty enough to be suspicious.
Eleanor began speaking with the man by the stairs. He offered his arm. She did not accept. Instead she tilted her head, allowing him to lean in.
The man wanted her attention, and Eleanor gave him just enough to keep him close.
Across the room, the courier’s hand dipped into his jacket. When it emerged, it held something small and round—palmed quickly, hidden again.
A token.
Graham shifted his weight, ready to move, then Eleanor turned—smoothly, naturally—as though merely leaving one tedious conversation for another.
She nearly collided with the courier.
