“Corny Rokesby?” one of them was just repeating. Vivian’s attention snapped back to the conversation. “He’s here. I do believe I saw him about half an hour ago over there”—she gestured vaguely toward one of the back halls—“talking with some scowly little man in a checked suit that I didn’t know at all. Terrible suit. Terrible hair,” she added with a throaty laugh. “All gone on the top, though he’d combed quite a lot over from the sides in an attempt to hide it.”
“Absolutely appalling for Corny to be here tonight, you know,” another added, her silk fan moving briskly in a losing battle against the heat. “Did you know his stepfather died just a few days ago?”
“No, I hadn’t heard!” another exclaimed. “What happened?”
“Oh darling, it’s even worse than that,” the first woman said, clearly relishing every word. “He didn’t die. He wasmurdered.”
“I thought that was just a rumor…”
As they traded gossip, Annabel introduced her as simply “My friend Miss Vivian,” and the others accepted that with no questions. That wasn’t surprising—Vivian was used to the Nightingale, where most folks shared little about themselves beyond a name and an occasional hint of what their daytime lives might look like. She smiled at them but kept her mouth shut as she sipped her drink and listened.
Someone mentioned Buchanan’s bastard daughter, speculating aboutwho she might be and what she would do with his money. The others were less interested in the daughter than in how Mrs. Buchanan had reacted.
“She hasn’t been seen since it happened,” one woman said with obvious relish. “Can you imagine being the man who turned his wife out into the street after his death?”
“Oh, but didn’t she just marry him for his money anyway?” another said dismissively. “She wanted her useless son to join his firm, because the good Lord knows Corny Rokesby wouldn’t make anything of himself unless he was forced to. Wouldyoureward that with any kind of real inheritance?”
“Mm, and we’re all models for making something of ourselves, dear,” Annabel said with a roll of her eyes while the others laughed.
“Are you including yourself in that statement?” one of them asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Annabel said, smiling playfully. “I’m useless as they come, except on the dance floor.”
The conversation drifted away from Buchanan’s death, and Vivian started to feel lightheaded from the heat and the smoky air. After a minute, Annabel caught her eye and gestured delicately toward the bar, making graceful excuses as she ushered Vivian away.
“Thank you for that,” Vivian said quietly once their conversation would be lost in the noise of the crowd around the bar.
“I hope you can find him, sweetheart,” Annabel said, setting her glass aside. “And now, I’m off to enjoy my evening, which means you and your handsome fella need to keep an eye on Mags, as we discussed. She’s exactly the sort of bright young thing who could get herself in a heap of trouble without even realizing it.”
“But you’re not worried about me?” Vivian asked, one corner of her mouth kicking up self-deprecatingly. “Is that because I’m not young enough or not bright enough?”
“It’s because you know how the world works, doll. And Mags is still figuring it out.” Annabel gave her hair a fluff and blew Vivian a kiss. “See you around?”
“See you around.”
Vivian took a deep breath once she was on her own, resisting the urge to sink back into the woodwork. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke and the scent of perfume. From where she stood, she could just see the grandfather clock, though its noise was lost, and she thought it was just after eleven o’clock. Early in the night by some standards, but time was ticking away, and she didn’t want to waste any of it.
She headed in the direction of the hallway where Corny Rokesby had been spotted. Vivian wished she had thought to ask if he had been wearing a costume. But she was glad for the crowd as she wove her way through on quickstep-light feet. No one noticed her. No one would remember her.
She left the front doors behind; whateverXXwas, she didn’t think it would be happening in the entrance hall. Instead, she found the stairs and wandered up, trying to stay near groups of people so she didn’t stand out. The second floor was crowded, especially near the boxes that overlooked the ballroom. The third floor, though, was nearly empty; there was no view of the downstairs from there, and the halls were narrower, with smaller rooms and few open spaces for guests to mingle. Vivian could guess that, as the night wore on, they would be the preferred spot for partygoers to sneak off for a bit of necking or petting—or whatever else they wanted to get up to. But the evening hadn’t grown quite that naughty yet.
She moved carefully and quickly, listening for the sound of voices. But the few people she did run into up there didn’t seem to be looking for anything except a bit of quiet or privacy.
She hurried back downstairs, tagging along with a group of costumed partygoers as they made their way toward the ballroom. She hadn’t seen him on any of the floors… could Rokesby be meeting with someone in one of the boxes?
The band had just struck up a brassy Charleston when she arrived. On the other side of the room, she saw Mags abandoning her drink to drag Leo back onto the floor. Vivian craned her neck to see into theboxes, wondering if she would be able to recognize Rokesby from that distance if he was in one of them.
“Ready to dust off your shoes, gorgeous?”
Vivian turned to find a stranger, his brown hair turning handsomely gray around the temples, eyeing her with heavy-lidded appreciation. When she looked at him, he gave her a slow smile that she could guess was an invitation to more than a dance. “You look like someone who loves to move fast.”
“I like it just fine on the dance floor,” she said, her voice light but firm. If Corny Rokesby was in one of the boxes, the best way to spot him would be from the dance floor, though the song might be too fast to get more than a quick look at each of them. But she had no intention of spending the rest of her night escaping a fella who thought a dance entitled him to something more. “But I’m not interested in anything else, and I’ve got a mean right hook when I need it.”
To her relief, the man laughed instead of getting offended. “I believe it, pretty girl. Dancing it is.” He smiled as he offered his hand. “I’m awful fun at that too.”
His grip on her hand was light but firm, the hold of a confident lead. Vivian couldn’t help smiling back. “I believe it,” she said, echoing him. He laughed and pulled her hip to hip. A moment later they were off.
He hadn’t been lying; he was a fun dancer. He swung her across the floor with confidence, leaving plenty of space for her to add her own flair to their movement. They wove their way through the other dancers with wild kicks and stomps, splitting apart, mirroring each other, meeting up again only for him to spin her in the opposite direction with a light touch to her hip, her elbow, her back. With each movement, Vivian tossed her head back, eyeing the people in the boxes.
