She mistakes my moment of reticence for rejection, and I must hurry to assure her that is not the case, that she is proper in extending the invitation, and I should love to accept, if her uncle will not object.

“He will scarcely notice us,” she says. “He will be too busy currying favor with other gentry. Also . . .” Her eyes glitter. “He will not notice you because you will be in a mask.”

“A . . . ?”

She grins. “It is a masquerade ball. Well, a masquerade party. Very small, as balls go. Have you heard of such things?”

I feign ignorance, and she races on to tell me how masquerades are all the rage in France and how she persuaded her uncle to turn this country dance into one. While such frivolities do not interest him, he is a man of ambition, and if it is popular in France, then by holding one here, he will be seen as a fashionable man. He saw the value in that, and so he agreed.

I am to attend a masquerade ball in Lord Norrington’s house. I will have access to his office during a busy party, when everyone will be hidden behind masks.

How perfect is that?

Wait . . .

“Did you say it’s tonight?” I say.

“Yes! Isn’t that exciting?”

She resumes her chatter, assuring me that I will not need to have an elaborate costume. A simple dress and mask will do. I can find a mask on such short notice, can I not?

I’m going to have to. And I’m going to have to work fast.

24

I am going to a masquerade. Oh, I have been to them in London, where they are somewhat out of vogue, but I travel in circles where fun is more important than fashion. I have been to simple masquerades and elaborate ones, and I presume this will fall on that simpler end, being so far in the countryside, where guests cannot call in a modiste to make them a costume.

I have my own modiste, in the form of Mrs. Miller. She helped me fashion the walking dress earlier, and now she helps me create a costume. What is the base of it? The dress I wore through the stitch.

Mrs. Miller exclaims at the gown after we fetch it from Thorne Manor. It is so bright and colorful, with so many petticoats. It is practically a costume itself, or so it appears to her eighteenth-century eyes. It needs very little work, and so we can focus on the masks.

Yes, masks, as in plural. There is no chance that Nicolas is letting me into Norrington’s house alone. I insist that I wouldn’t be alone—I have the ghost of the former Lord Norrington to guide me. Yet a ghost is hardly a proper guardian, and so Nicolas insists on going.

I may not argue as much as I should. I want him there. The problem is that no costume will fully conceal his skin color, and there are unlikely to be any invited guests who share it. There are, however, a couple of servants who do. When Norrington retired from his admiralty, he brought two men from London. One is of African descent, the other from India. That means Nicolas will not be the only darker-skinned person in the house. With a decent mask and servant attire, if he stays away from the party, guests will mistake him for staff. He just needs to avoid the actual staff . . . and Lord Norrington.