The second-floor gallery of Mansfield’s mansion was empty save for Zhang the sentinel. Rory awkwardly clambered over the windowsill, then leaned out the window and plucked the floating silver tray out of the air. He flashed Jade a thumbs-up he didn’t quite feel and turned back into the room, the rope untying itself behind him.
Zhang’s shimmering projection passed through the wall. Rory poked his head out of the gallery’s doorway to find a painting-lined hall. Zhang pointed to the left and the faint sounds of a crowd.
“Straight ahead, past the music room, until you come to the main hall that leads to the ballroom. The guests are in there and Ace will be looking for you.” He glanced back at Rory. “You good?”
It was said with genuine concern, not condescension. “Copacetic.” Rory clutched his tray and swallowed hard. “I worked in a restaurant. I can pretend to be a waiter.”
“We’ve got you.” The air shimmered and Zhang disappeared, maybe back to Jade to patrol the outside of the mansion.
Rory followed Zhang’s directions, the narrow hall opening in a much wider one packed with women in sequined dresses and men in tuxedos. More art lined the walls with glass case displays every few feet, like exhibits at that Museum of Natural History Rory had heard about. He kept his head down and his tray in front of him like a shield as he wove through the crowd, following the flow to the ballroom—
“Oh good, you’re empty.”
Rory nearly tripped over his feet as a middle-aged woman with a blond bob and black dress snatched Rory’s tray out of his hands. “Hey! That’s my—”
“You take Ned’s tray instead,” she said. “I need him to get more drinks.”
“But—” A man about Jade’s age pushed his full tray of canapés into Rory’s hands, oysters, deviled eggs, celery with a dab of pink mousse—
“No more dawdling!” The woman’s eyes raked over him and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “You’re a mess. Take that tray in, then do something about that hair.”
Yeah, sure he would.
He pretended to walk toward the ballroom, then just before the doors, ducked off to the side behind a glass case with a huge marble head. Rory helped himself to a deviled egg and scanned what he could see of the ballroom.
But as his gaze landed on a familiar figure, he nearly choked. Arthur was surrounded bysixbeautiful women, all laughing, eating his charm up, one of them touching his arm—
Rory’s face flushed hot. Arthur looked incredible in his tux and fit perfectly into the fancy crowd. Not like Rory, an outsider trespassing in a house that hated him for being born in America when his mom was from somewhere else.
Luce dei miei occhi, baciami. Rory hadn’t been able to help it, his heart so full of feelings for Arthur that his lips remembered the language he used to hear when he was loved.
Of course, Arthur had already knownbaciamimeantkiss me.
That realization sat like lead in Rory’s chest.
’Course he’s got those dolls all over him. He’s probably got dolls and fellas after him across the world. And you still want him for yourself.
Rory took a tight breath and looked away, trying to stay calm. But as he did, he saw a clean-cut man making his way through the wide hall to the ballroom. The coat and hunter’s cap were gone, replaced with a double-breasted suit, but Rory wasn’t going to forget a face he’d watched murder a man in cold blood.
Rory froze. The man spoke to no one as he darted down the hall, the other guests paying him no attention. He came to a stop just by the ballroom entrance, his jaw set tight, his narrowed eyes fixed on a single point. Rory followed his gaze straight to—
Arthur.
Where the blazes is Rory? Arthur tried to keep the concern off his face and instead play his role and find his best smile for Alice’s pretty sorority sisters.
“Look at you in a tux,” said Josephine, as she ran a hand over his arm. Her ginger bob was sleek and shiny, and her bright red lips were a perfect match for her dress and nails. She and Jade would get along like a house on fire. “You still look like a quarterback.”
“Goodness, how I used to look forward to the Yale games.” That was Emmeline, a petite socialite with neat blond finger waves, nothing like Rory’s messy curls. “It was never quite the same after you went off to the army. Do you still play?”
“A municipal league.” He’d been recruited after Benson discovered Arthur could still throw a football fifty yards and hit a target.
He shot a glance to the ballroom doors over the women’s heads.Hurry up, Rory. Christ, what if he was lost in the mansion? Lost in avision?
He forced a smile for Emmeline. “Are you following the new National Football League—”
“Never mind the sports talk, I need your tailor’s name,” Josephine said. “Your tuxedo is a work of art. Perhaps I can get one made for dear Edgar, although he doesn’t have your…build,” which was a tactful way to say her lawyer husband wouldn’t have lifted anything heavier than a copy of the New York Tax Code.
“I’ll speak with him.” Arthur was fairly certain Dear Edgar wouldn’t venture into Mr. Dannenburg’s neighborhood on pain of death, but the man could use reminding there was an entire city beyond Fifth Avenue. “I must say I’m favoring a more casual style these days, however. Newsboy caps, tennis shoes, that sort of look.”
