A devil.
The word moved through her before she could stop it.
No. This wasn’t… the same. There was no reason to believe…
Still, memory flickered at the edge of her vision.
A mask too close to her face. The smell of something sweet and sickly. Black glass where a pair of eyes ought to have been.
Beatrice tightened her fingers around her fan.
No.
She was at Dasborough Park. Her home.
They were only masks. Made of silk, velvet, pasteboard, paint.
That was what she told herself as she forced her gaze over the room. Most guests were easy enough to identify if one paid attention. People moved in distinctive ways, held themselves with habits no mask could conceal. Hair color, height, posture, the turn of a head, the slope of a shoulder—all of it betrayed them.
Mrs. Allendale’s peacock feathers did nothing to disguise the way she leaned too close to every conversation. Lord Brantley’s noble mask could not hide his unfortunate stoop. Mr. Hargreaves, dressed absurdly as a Roman emperor, remained unmistakable by virtue of being shaped rather like a plum.
There. Perfectly ordinary.
And yet she could not identify everyone.
Her gaze skipped over a cluster of gentlemen near the far wall.
Faces partially covered.
Another wolf.
Beatrice shivered before she could stop herself.
No.
She would not do this. She would not allow a room full of harmless country neighbors and curious London guests to spoil the celebration.
Masked or not.
But neither would she set aside her watchfulness simply because they had left London. Danger did not remain politely in Mayfair. It followed opportunity.
And the Vigilance Society continued.
Not in one ballroom now, nor through a neatly arranged course of lessons. The women who’d signed on had not disappeared. They had carried it with them.
As would Beatrice.
With or without Gideon.
As she had done before.
Already that evening, she had steered Miss Halbrook away from the terrace after a young gentleman with too much wine in him had offered to show her the moonlit gardens, and then inserted herself into one conversation that had grown far too intimate beside the musicians’ gallery.
Small things.
Necessary things.
Her gaze moved from the supper room to the terrace doors, from the terrace doors to the dancers, from the dancers to the entrance?—
