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‘No, I’ll manage.’
‘OK. But hurry up; don’t forget your surprise is waiting!’ Alex laughed and went back downstairs at a run.
Patrick was already fully dressed; he was just tying his tie in front of the mirror; and Antonia couldn’t quite meet his eyes as he looked across the room at her.
‘How the hell am I going to get out of here without them knowing I was with you?’ he asked her.
‘I don’t know, and God knows what they’re all going to think; it’s going to be so embarrassing,’ she muttered, deeply flushed and feeling light-headed. ‘Alex is going to be shocked; I should never have...’ She broke off, ran into the bathroom and spent some time washing again, didn’t come out for some minutes, and when she did found the bedroom empty.
The door was still locked; Patrick hadn’t gone out that way, but the window was open. She went over there just in time to see him drop down on top of the wall. He swayed there, a tall, supple figure in black evening dress, his arms out, as he balanced, like a trapeze artist. He had obviously climbed from her balcony on to the next one, lowered himself from the edge of that, and let himself down that way. Antonia was glad she hadn’t been here watching him; her heart would have been in her mouth. It had been a stupid, reckless thing to do. Thank heaven he had landed safely.
She watched him jump down on the other side of the wall, and turned back into the room. There was a hot ache of frustration inside her; she was feverish and chill, the blood beating in her ears. Why had Alex and Susan-Jane come back at that moment? If they had come ten minutes later...five minutes later...
She mustn’t think about it. Very flushed, she began to get ready, stepping first into the light, floating black and silver feather dress.
It took her nearly a quarter of an hour in the end. She had to do her make-up and hair again, as well as dress, and her hands were very unsteady. When she was finally ready she paused to assess her reflection in the mirror, her mask firmly in place. The unfamiliar figure gazed back at her, mysterious, ethereal, a creature from another world, as Patrick had said. She didn’t recognise herself and it made her feel more confident, more at ease, as she went downstairs. Nobody would be able to read her feelings tonight; she was safe behind her mask.
The party was already under way; there were people in all the ground-floor rooms, and spilling out into the garden. As Antonia appeared heads turned; there was a silence, then a murmur of appreciation. People called out greetings, admiring remarks.
‘Magnifica, cara...’
‘Beautiful, darling...’
One of Susan-Jane’s model friends said sulkily, ‘Nobody said this was a fancy-dress party or I’d have worn one too!’
A man asked his wife, ‘What is she meant to be? Who is that inside it?’
‘She’s a bird, stupid!’ his wife retorted. ‘I think it’s Antonia. Is that you, Antonia? You look wonderful.’
She smiled, said thank you, and said the other woman looked gorgeous too, which was true.
‘Thanks,’ the woman said, complacently smoothing her brief, glittering gold lamé dress with one hand.
‘Is it a carnival costume?’ asked someone else, and she nodded.
‘It must be as light as a feather,’ someone else joked, and everyone groaned.
‘What an awful joke!’
All the time she kept moving, looking for Alex, wondering if Patrick was with him, if he had come in through the front door as if he had never been here earlier.
She eventually found them in the garden, with glasses of champagne in their hands, by the fountain, which was spraying glittering drops of water into the air.
Patrick was standing facing her; Alex was sitting on the edge of the fountain. They were talking to a man in a dark suit who had his back to her.
As she slowly drifted towards them, her long feather skirts floating around her, Alex caught sight of her and waved, his face lighting up in a smile. ‘There you are at last, Antonia! You look quite wonderful.’
She smiled back, glad of her mask, very conscious of Patrick’s dark, unsmiling glance, taken aback by the grimness of his expression. Why was he looking at her like that, as if he hated her?
Then the man in the dark suit turned, smiling, holding out his hands. ‘Hallo, darling! Surprise, surprise!’
It was Cy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SOMEHOW Antonia went on walking towards them, even more relieved to be wearing the mask of feathers, which could hide her expression, her feelings, what she was thinking. Shyly, she put her hands into Cy’s, and he bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek, laughing as he straightened.
‘Your feathers tickle!’ Cy said, laughing, and then moving back a step to contemplate her. ‘I remember you wore that at Patsy’s ball and it made a sensation. It suits you; there has always been something bird-like about you. You look enchanting in it.’
