“Just getting a little fresh air, Mother,” I said, smiling at Leroy Elliot. His wife looked amused.

“Everyone was talking about how pretty you look, Corrine,” she said, “but I didn’t see you until now. You do look so grown-up.”

“Put her in chains!” Leroy cried. There was brandy beside the coffee the men were drinking.

“I’d like to,” my mother muttered.

My father’s eyes were twinkling with delight and maybe a little too much brandy.

“Where’s our young Mr. Foxworth?” he asked. So he had noticed it all.

“I really don’t know,” I replied. It was the truth. “He was here one moment and gone the next.”

“It was longer than one moment,” my mother said.

“Was it? Time goes so fast when you’re having fun, and this is such a wonderful gala.”

“Yes, it is,” Leroy said. “Enjoy everything you can while you’re young.”

My mother gave him a look stern enough to sober him instantly.

“I think I’ll get a cupcake,” I said. “They look so delicious.”

“Indeed, they are,” Leroy agreed. “Sweets for the sweet.” Despite my mother, he was flirting with his smile. I pretended to be oblivious, but I could see his wife was not. It was something I was sure I would get used to and casually ignore.

I hurried off. Apparently, I had somehow escaped more critical notice, and there was no feeling quite like the uplifting sensation that came with the knowledge I had gotten away with something right under my mother’s eyes.

But not Emma’s and Elsie’s, I quickly learned. They made a beeline for me the moment they saw me.

“Glad you left some cupcakes for other people,” I said, not looking at them as I put one on a dish.

“Where’s the gentleman you were with?” Emma asked.

“You went outside with him,” Elsie said.

I bit into the cupcake and turned to them. “Did I?”

“We saw you. We went to the entrance, too, and we saw you walk off into the gardens. You were holding his hand,” Emma added, as if she was accusing me of murder.

“So that’s what it was,” I said. “I knew there was something in my hand.”

Elsie laughed, but Emma kept her disapproving face.

“So where is he?” she asked more insistently. She could look just like my mother when she twisted her lips like this, I thought.

I leaned toward them as I would to give them a secret. Both leaned toward me.

“I killed him, smothered him with kisses, and left his body in the garden,” I said, and walked off laughing at the expression of shock on both their faces.