Alex glanced at the cloth and then at his embarrassed valet’s face. Charlotte was going a long way with this masquerade. He shrugged and turned around, allowing his valet to fit the black cloth snugly over his eyes.

Keating guided him back into the carriage and it jolted off, up the drive, unless Alex missed his bet. He was starting to sour on the whole business again. If his wife wanted him blindfolded—or tied up, for that matter—why didn’t she just do it herself? Why all this rigmarole involving the servants?

The carriage stopped and Keating put a hand under his elbow. Alex shrugged it off and stepped out of the carriage. Oddly enough, it sounded as if they had arrived at a party. He could hear the shrill laughter of women and the chords of a small orchestra.

“My lord,” Keating said softly. And this time Alex suffered him to take his elbow and steer him up some ten steps and into what seemed to be a crowded hall. The party-goers were intrigued by a blindfolded man, Alex heard that. But he also heard some very surprising accents. This wasn’t a party solely attended by the gentry.

Alex was about to wrench off the blindfold and demand an explanation when Keating stopped him, saying, “Beware, my lord. You are at the top of a flight of stairs.”

Then he felt the tie of the blindfold ease and the cloth fell away.

Alex stood at the top of a flight of marble stairs, looking down into a very crowded ballroom. He scanned the room in surprise. The ballroom was hot, and the heat was exacerbated by the aggressive smell of tallow dips and overheated dancers. Long forgotten memories stirred, telling Alex that he’d been in this room before.

On the dance floor ruffled skirts competed for space with soiled-looking Greek robes. A few women sported small masks, but lavish makeup seemed to be a more common disguise. Alex frowned. Where on earth was he? The French windows were hung with shabby maroon velvet….

Of course! This was Stuart Hall—and—and this must be the Cyprians’ Ball. The Saturday Cyprians’ Ball. It was a Saturday, Alex thought numbly.

His eyes rose, and stopped. There she was. Next to a statue of Narcissus was a slender woman dressed in a black domino, powdered hair piled high. With a sense of leaden inevitability Alex skirted the exuberant revelers on the steps and walked down into the ballroom. He walked through the crowds of dancing party-goers, his green domino brushing against the powdered shoulders and garish frills of the fashionable impure. But he didn’t look either to the left or the right. He didn’t want to break eye contact with his wife.