“I see you’ve introduced yourselves. Lovely. What can I get you to drink, Miss Price?”

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

“Perfect.” Even as she spoke, a uniformed maid came in bearing two flutes on a silver tray. “Please help yourselves to the canapés and make yourselves at home.”

“I hope the weather isn’t keeping your other guests away,” Dana put in.

Rowena merely smiled. “I’m sure everyone who’s expected will be here shortly. If you’ll excuse me just another moment.”

“Okay, this is just weird.” Dana picked a canapé at random, discovered it was a lobster puff. “Delicious, but weird.”

“Fascinating.” Malory sipped her champagne and trailed her fingers over a bronze sculpture of a reclining faerie.

“I’m still trying to figure out why I got an invitation.” Since they were there, and so was she, Dana sampled another canapé. “No one else at the library got one. No one else I know got one, for that matter. I’m starting to wish I’d talked my brother into coming with me after all. He’s got a good bullshit barometer.”

Malory found herself grinning. “You don’t sound like any librarian I’ve ever known. You don’t look like one either.”

“I burned all my Laura Ashley ten years ago.” Dana gave a little shrug. Restless, moving toward irritated, she tapped her fingers on the crystal flute. “I’m going to give this about ten more minutes, then I’m booking.”

“If you go, I go. I’d feel better heading back into that storm if I drove to the Valley behind someone else.”

“Same goes.” Dana frowned toward the window, watched the rain beat on the other side of the glass. “Crappy night. And it was an extremely crappy day. Driving all the way here and back in this mess for a couple of glasses of wine and some canapés just about caps it.”

“You too?” Malory wandered toward a wonderful painting of a masked ball. It made her think of Paris, though she’d never been there except in her dreams. “I only came tonight in hopes of making some contacts for The Gallery. Job insurance,” she added, lifting her glass in a mock toast. “As my job is currently in a very precarious state.”

“Mine too. Between budget cuts and nepotism, my position was ‘adjusted,’ my hours trimmed back to twenty-five a week. How the hell am I supposed to live on that? And my landlord just announced that my rent’s going up first of next month.”

“There’s a rattle in my car—and I spent my auto-maintenance budget on these shoes.”

Dana looked down, pursed her lips. “Terrific shoes. My computer crashed this morning.”

Enjoying herself, Malory turned away from the painting and raised a brow at Dana. “I called my boss’s new wife a bimbo and then spilled latte on her designer suit.”

“Okay, you win.” In the spirit of good fellowship, Dana stepped over and clinked her glass against Malory’s. “What do you say we hunt up the Welsh goddess and find out what’s going on around here?”