A woman near the edge of the floor clutched at her bodice with both hands, her fingers trembling. She looked down in disbelief, patted her neckline again, as if the necklace might reappear by magic.
“No, no. It was just here!” she cried, spinning halfway toward her companions, her face drained of color. “Someone’s taken it!”
Gasps rang out around the ballroom. The conductor dropped his baton, and the violins stuttered to a halt mid-phrase. One or two guests instinctively placed hands over their own necklaces or gloves, checking what had not yet been taken.
He moved with a soldier’s precision, placing himself between her and chaos. She should have been grateful. Instead, she could only feel the cold certainty that he did not even know whom he was protecting.
“Where were you standing?” he asked the woman who had cried out.
She pointed toward a cluster of chairs near the refreshments. “There. Just before the last dance.”
A footman had already gone to summon the house steward. Ash nodded once, turning to Leticia.
“Come with me,” he said. “Barrington will want to know.”
Leticia nodded, her voice still caught behind her ribs. She followed him through the thinned crowd, aware of every eye, every whisper. The music had not resumed.
They rounded the edge of the ballroom toward a quieter corridor, only to pause as a familiar figure emerged from the alcove ahead.
Erica Notley.
Dressed in dove gray, elegant and composed, she looked every inch the darling of society.
Ash stopped. So did Leticia.
“Well,” Erica said lightly, “I see you’ve found someone to dance with after all.”
He looked at her, at Erica, and said quietly, “You nearly fooled me.”
The words were gentle. Grateful. Final.
Her pulse stopped. The world tilted, the truth plain at last—he hadn’t seen her at all. Before she could speak, Barrington showed from the opposite corridor.
“Ashcombe,” he said urgently. “We’ve just had another report.This one from the retiring room. I need you. Now.”
Ash’s gaze darted back to Leticia, as if he might still explain.
But she stepped back. It was too late.
Leticia looked at Erica, not a rival. Simply the woman he had meant to propose to.
She had danced in borrowed feathers and let herself believe he saw her. But he hadn’t. Not ever. Her hand fell from his arm. The space between them grew wider than the ballroom.
“I should go,” she said softly to no one in particular, or perhaps only to herself.
Neither of them stopped her.
Leticia slipped away down the corridor and stepped into an alcove. The silence pressed in around her, heavy and close, like a corset drawn too tight. The mask was no longer elegant or mysterious. It represented a part she was never meant to play.
She lifted trembling fingers to untie it, letting the ribbons slip through her hands. The velvet mask fell to the table beside her like something shed, not discarded. Her reflection in the mirror above the table startled her. She looked young. Flushed. Uncertain. Not at all the woman the ballroom believed her to be.
She would go back. She must. There was no room for retreat now. But she would go back armored in stillness, not hope.
With careful hands, she retied the mask.
She walked without direction, slipping into the warren of hallways that led away from the ballroom, through a service corridor, past a powder room, until she found herself in a side drawing room dimly lit and blissfully empty.
Leticia stood with her back to the door, chest rising too quickly. The gown was too tight. The mask, too heavy.
