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“Unfortunately, yes,” Matthew said. He was no longer holding his head, but he looked pale. “So you can be better prepared to guard yourself against their wiles.”
Jesse did not reply; he was looking out at the crowd. No, James realized, he was looking at someone making their way through the crowd: Lucie, looking elfin in a pale lavender dress. The gold locket around her throat shone like a beacon. She smiled at Jesse, and Matthew and James exchanged a look.
A moment later they had made themselves scarce, and Lucie and Jesse were whispering together in the alcove. James had every confidence that Lucie could easily show Jesse around and fend off the Rosamund Wentworths of the world.
He was less confident that Matthew was all right. James led him toward one of the tinsel-encircled pillars at the edge of the room, trying to peer into his face. He looked pinched, and there was a greenish cast to his skin; his eyes were bloodshot.
“I assume you are not staring at me because you are riveted by my beauty or my haute couture,” Matthew said, leaning back against the pillar.
James reached up and plucked one of the leaves from Matthew’s hair. It was pale green, edged with gold: not a real leaf, but enamel. Painted beauty taking the place of a living thing. “Math. Are you all right? Have you got the stuff Christopher gave you?”
Matthew tapped his breast pocket. “Yes. I’ve been doling it out as instructed.” He looked out across the room. “I know what I’d be doing at an ordinary party,” he said. “Floating about, being entertaining. Scandalizing Rosamund and Catherine. Joking with Anna. Being witty and charming. Or at least, I thought I was witty and charming. Without the alcohol, I…” His voice sank. “It’s like I’m watching clockwork dolls in a child’s dollhouse, acting out their parts. Nothing seems real. Or perhaps I am the one who is not real.”
James was aware that Thomas and Alastair had arrived—interestingly, together—and that Alastair was looking over at them, his eyes narrowed.
“I’ve known you a long time, Matthew,” said James. “You were witty and charming long before you began drinking. You will be witty and charming again. It’s too much to ask it of yourself at this very moment.”
Matthew looked at him. “James,” he said. “Do you know when I started drinking?”
And James realized: he did not. He had not seen it, because of the bracelet; he had not felt the changes in Matthew, and then it had seemed too late to inquire.
“Never mind,” Matthew said. “It was a gradual process; it’s unfair to ask.” He winced. “I feel as if there’s a gnome inside my head, banging away at my skull with an axe. I ought to give him a name. Something nice and gnomish. Snorgoth the Skullcrusher.”
“Now,” said James, “that was witty and charming. Think of Snorgoth. Think of him taking an axe to people you don’t like. The Inquisitor, for instance. Perhaps that can help you get through the party. Or—”
“Who is Snortgoth?” It was Eugenia, who had come up to them, her yellow cap askew on her dark hair. “Never mind. I am not interested in your dull friends. Matthew, will you dance with me?”
“Eugenia.” Matthew looked at her with a weary affection. “I am not in a dancing mood.”
“Matthew.” Eugenia looked woebegone. “Piers keeps stepping on my feet, and Augustus is lurking about as if he wants a waltz, which I just can’t manage. One dance,” she wheedled. “You’re an excellent dancer, and I’d like to have a bit of fun.”
Matthew looked long-suffering but allowed Eugenia to lead him out onto the floor. As they took up the positions for the next dance, a two-step, Eugenia glanced over at James. She cut her eyes toward the ballroom doors as if to say, Look there, before letting Matthew sweep her into the dance.
James followed Eugenia’s glance and saw that his parents were greeting Anna and Ari, who had just arrived, Anna in a fine blue frock coat with frogged gold clasps. With them was Cordelia.
Her fiery hair was pinned in braided coils around her head, as if she were a Roman goddess. She wore a dress of stark, satiny black, the short sleeves baring her long brown arms to the elbow, the front and back cut so low it was clear she was not wearing a corset. No fashionably pallid dress, covered in lace or white tulle, could hold a candle to hers. A snatch of a poem James had read once flashed through his mind: viewing the shape of darkness and delight.
She glanced over at James. Her dress set off the depth of her eyes. Around her throat gleamed her only jewelry: the globe necklace he had given her.
She seemed to see that he was alone and raised her hand to beckon him to join her and his parents at the door. James crossed the room in a few strides, his mind racing: it only made sense that he should join his wife when she arrived. Perhaps Cordelia was merely thinking of appearances.
But, said the small, hopeful voice that still lived in his heart, the voice of the boy who had fallen in love with Cordelia during a bout of scalding fever, she said we would talk. At the party.
“James,” Will said cheerfully, “I’m glad you’ve turned up. I require your help.”
“Really?” James glanced around the room. “Everything seems to be going well.”
“Will,” Tessa scolded. “You haven’t even let him greet Cordelia!”
“Well, they can both help,” announced Will. “The silver trumpet, James, the one that was given to your mother by the Helsinki Institute? The one we always use as a centerpiece at Christmas? It’s gone missing.”
James exchanged a mystified look with Tessa. He was about to ask his father what on earth he was on about when Will said, “I’m quite sure it was left in the drawing room. Can you and Cordelia fetch it for me?”
Cordelia smiled. It was a thoroughly expert smile, the sort that showed nothing at all of what she was thinking. “Of course we can.”
Well, James thought as he and Cordelia crossed the ballroom, either she believes the story about the trumpet or has accepted that my father is a mad person and needs to be humored. Most likely, he had to admit, it was the latter.
He followed Cordelia into the drawing room and closed the pocket doors behind them. He had to admit he rarely gave much thought to the drawing room; it tended to be used at the end of parties, when the ladies who were too tired to dance but not tired enough to go home sought a place to talk and gossip and play cards while the men retired to the games room. It was old-fashioned, with heavy cream-colored curtains, and delicate, spindly gilt chairs surrounding small tables set up for whist and bridge. Cut-glass decanters gleamed on the mantelpiece.
