Death Wears a Mask

by Ashley Weaver

  He deposited me gently on the bed, and I pulled my mask off, glad to be rid of it.

  “Perhaps I had better look at it,” he said, removing his mask as well.

  I studied him for a moment but could discern no ulterior motives in his expression. In any event, Lord Dunmore had certainly witnessed more scandalous things than a twisted ankle.

  I pushed my skirts aside, and he sat on the edge of the bed, taking my foot gently in his hands. “It’s begun to swell,” he said. “Let’s get rid of this shoe.”

  He slipped my shoe off and dropped it on the floor. I had to admit, it did feel a bit better already.

  “And now your stocking,” he said.

  “Lord Dunmore…”

  He smiled. “I assure you, Mrs. Ames, I act with pure intentions.”

  I raised a brow, but offered no further objection. It would be extremely difficult to remove it myself, and I was certain the doctor would want it removed in any event.

  His hands slid up my leg, and he deftly and expertly unfastened the stocking from my garter and began to slip it off.

  It was at that moment that the door opened and Milo made one of his extremely inopportune entrances.

  7

  LORD DUNMORE REACTED as though he was caught removing another man’s wife’s stocking every evening. Then again, perhaps he was.

  “Hello, Ames.” For the space of a moment, he glanced over his shoulder at Milo, who no longer wore his mask, and then turned his attention back to me. With perfect equanimity, he finished sliding the stocking down my leg and peeled it off, careful not to jar my ankle. I shifted a bit uncomfortably and found I could not quite meet Milo’s gaze as the viscount’s warm hand brushed against my bare foot.

  “Hello, Dunmore,” Milo replied. “This is quite the party you’re having.”

  Lord Dunmore smoothed out the stocking and handed it to me. “Good silk,” he said with a smile before turning his gaze back to Milo. “Yes. I hope you’re enjoying your evening as much as I’ve been enjoying mine.”

  “Never a dull moment,” my husband answered. His tone was friendly enough, but I could never be quite certain what he was thinking. After all, this scene did look rather bad, and Lord Dunmore seemed disinclined to offer excuses. In fact, I was not altogether sure he wasn’t enjoying himself.

  “Your wife’s taken quite a tumble,” he said.

  “Indeed?” Milo replied dryly.

  “I fell down a few stairs,” I interjected. “Rather clumsy of me. It’s nothing.”

  “I shall send for the doctor, nonetheless,” Lord Dunmore said, rising unhurriedly and depositing my foot carefully back on the bed. “I’ll ring him from my bedroom. Keep an eye on her, will you, Ames?”

  “Certainly,” Milo replied, stepping out of the doorway so Lord Dunmore could pass.

  The viscount departed and closed the door behind him, leaving us alone. We looked at one another. I supposed the situation warranted explanation, but I was loath to explain things to Milo when he was always so very cavalier in justifying his own highly questionable behavior. In fact, I couldn’t seem to summon up any feelings of shame, especially after the embarrassment that he had inflicted on me this evening.

  He walked to the bed, and his gaze fell upon Lord Dunmore’s mask where it lay discarded atop the blanket. “At least only masks and stockings have been removed thus far,” he said. As usual, it was nearly impossible for me to gauge his reaction. I had to contend with a vague look of amused speculation that gave no indication of his true feelings.

  I said nothing. I felt I was doing a fairly good job of hiding my own feelings, considering I was furious with him.

  Instead of attempting to fill the silence, I straightened my skirts around me, careful not to shift my ankle, which continued to throb steadily. It was quite swollen and beginning to turn an unflattering shade of purple.

  “I’ll have the car brought round and send for Dr. Easton. He can see you at the flat.”

  “Thank you, but if Lord Dunmore has rung his doctor already, I may as well see him here.” I would have, in fact, preferred to see my family doctor in my own home, but at the moment I felt stubbornly disinclined to give in to Milo’s suggestion.

  “Very well.” His eyes shifted to my ankle, and I wondered if he had doubted my story up to now. “How did you manage to fall down the stairs?”

  “I’m not certain how it happened. I was coming down the stairs, and my foot just slipped out from under me.”

  “Very unfortunate.”

  “Yes. What are you doing here, Milo?”

  “I happened to step into the foyer and saw Dunmore sweep my wife off her feet and carry her up the stairs. I thought it prudent to follow.”

  I ignored this remark and its inherent insinuation. “I meant why did you come to the masquerade?”

  “My business with Garmond was conducted much more quickly than I expected, and I decided to come to the masquerade after all, to surprise you.”

  “Well, you certainly did that,” I retorted irritably.

  “Yes, so I noticed.” His eyes ran over me. “You look absolutely stunning in the gown, darling. It’s not the one you were wearing when I left.”

  “No, it’s not.” The more he spoke, the more averse I felt to offering any explanations. Let him make whatever assumptions he liked.

  “I’m sure there was not a man here who could take his eyes from you. Though, I’ll admit, I would have preferred that you end up in my bed at the end of the evening rather than Dunmore’s.”

  “Indeed?” My brows rose. “I thought perhaps you had made other arrangements for tonight.”

  “Ah.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You saw me come in with Helene.”

  “Yes. The illustrious Mademoiselle Renault, whom you barely know.”

  “There is a perfectly simple explanation.”

  “There always is, Milo,” I said tiredly.

  “You don’t see me causing a stir just because I happened to find Dunmore peeling off your clothes in his bed.”

  “This isn’t his bed.”

  “A technicality.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it now,” I said. “I’m in rather a lot of pain and…”

  My words were cut off by the loud sound of something very like a gunshot coming from somewhere down the hall.

  I started. “What on earth…”

  “It sounded rather like a gunshot to me.” Milo turned toward the door with his usual unhurried elegance as I made an almost unconscious move to get up from the bed and gasped in pain as I jarred my ankle.

  “Stay here, Amory,” he commanded me. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “Milo, perhaps you’d better not…”

  But he had already reached the door and smiled back at me. “Don’t fret, darling. I’m sure it’s nothing. Then again, we can’t be sure. Perhaps Dunmore has been caught stripping the clothes from some less understanding gentleman’s wife.”

  I might have thrown something at him had anything useful been in reach. But he had already closed the door behind him.

  With a sigh, I adjusted my skirts again and carefully slid my legs off the bed until my feet rested on the floor. My twisted ankle was quite swollen at this point, and I knew it would be impossible to stand on it. I attempted it, nonetheless, and just managed to catch myself before I took another tumble to the floor.

  Grasping the bedpost for support, I hopped quite ungracefully to the foot of the bed and then toward the door. I’m sure I made quite a sight, bounding across the room like a rabbit in a billowing red ball gown. I reached the door and, leaning against the wall for support, cracked it open and looked out into the hallway.

  I could hear the music and the din of voices coming up unworriedly from below, and I could only assume the partygoers had not heard the noise of the shot. Perhaps the music had muffled it.

  It had been difficult to tell from which direction the shot had come, but I could hear voices coming from down the corridor. I pulled
the door open a bit further and leaned out. Nigel Foster and Mr. Douglas-Hughes stood outside the door of one of the rooms. Though my knowledge of Lord Dunmore’s floor plan had grown considerably over the evening, it was not one of the rooms I recognized. It seemed to be a few doors down from the room in which the gentlemen had been playing cards.

  “Good Lord,” I heard someone say from inside, and it sounded like Mr. Barrington. A moment later, my guess was confirmed as he came out of the room, followed by Milo and Lord Dunmore. They closed the door behind them, speaking in low voices. Maddeningly, I couldn’t make out anything that was being said. Lord Dunmore left the group and disappeared into another of the rooms. Mr. Barrington stared straight ahead for a moment, his face slack and gray. Then he visibly drew in a breath and squared his shoulders. He went off in the direction of the library, an air of resolution about him.

  Milo came back down the hall a moment later, and I pulled the door open further to greet him before he reached it. “What’s happened?” I demanded.

  He sighed. Without a word, he swept me up and carried me back to the bed, depositing me none too gently in an untidy heap upon the satin bedspread. “You shouldn’t be walking on that ankle.”

  “I hopped,” I told him, with an impatient wave of my hand. “What was that noise about?”

  “It’s the Barringtons’ nephew.”

  “James Harker?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s happened?”

  He hesitated for only a moment. “I’m afraid he’s killed himself.”

  * * *

  I HAD HOPED, after the events at the Brightwell Hotel, never to put myself in the path of sudden and unnatural death again. Of course, I suppose I really had very little say in the matter. If one is determined to kill oneself in a public place, there is not much the bystanders can do about it.

  Milo didn’t offer any details, and I didn’t want to know, not really. He had been in that room, and I could only assume it must have been dreadful.

  “Will you be all right here for a few moments, Amory?” Milo asked, drawing me out of my reverie. “I have something I must attend to.”

  Our eyes met, both of us knowing perfectly well what, or rather who, it was.

  “By all means,” I replied, too tired to think of anything more cutting to add.

  “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  But he wasn’t. Apparently, Mademoiselle Renault was in need of greater consolation than I, for Milo had not returned by the time Lord Dunmore came back to the room.

  Though the viscount carried himself with his usual confidence, his face was grave.

  “You’ve heard, Mrs. Ames?”

  “Yes. It’s so terrible.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course. How is Mrs. Barrington? Has she been told?”

  “Mr. Barrington is with her now. She’s terribly upset, naturally, but quite composed.”

  I felt sorry for the woman. In the short time that I had observed them together, it had become apparent to me that she was very fond of her nephew. I’m sure his unexpected death would be hard on her.

  “The police should be here soon,” he said. “I don’t think the guests downstairs know what has happened. I suppose they’ll find out soon enough, however. If you’ll excuse me for a few moments, I should probably wait for the police to arrive.”

  “Of course. Thank you for looking in on me.”

  He left me alone and I knew he must be right about the other guests not knowing, for the music carried on below as though nothing had happened. People were dancing, eating, and laughing, blissfully unaware of what had occurred upstairs. I envied them.

  A few moments later, the doctor Lord Dunmore had contacted appeared and examined my ankle. He was a stout, white-haired gentleman who went about his business with brisk efficiency.

  “Nothing broken,” he said when he had finished his examination. “Just a nasty sprain. You should probably stay off of it for a few days and let it heal.”

  It was a better diagnosis than I had expected, but the thought of being bedridden was not an appealing one.

  He seemed to sense my feelings, for he added, “If you’ll give me your address, I can have a cane sent around to you in the morning. That should help you get about when necessary.”

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  He left without saying anything of the other business, though I was certain he must have spoken to Lord Dunmore. It was frustrating in the extreme to be stuck in this bedroom. I wanted to be able to help in some way, and I couldn’t even walk.

  A moment later, Lord Dunmore knocked and came in again, this time followed by a man who could only have been a policeman. Dressed in a brown suit and a serviceable wool coat, he had a stern, humorless face. My initial impression was confirmed as Lord Dunmore made the introduction.

  “Mrs. Ames, this is Inspector Harris. He’s going to use the library to interview the others that were upstairs at the time, but I told him you were injured.”

  “Good evening, madam,” the inspector said, casting his dark eyes over me in a vaguely disapproving way, as though it was rude of me to lie there while being interviewed.

  “Good evening.”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions. You were, I understand, in this room at the time of the incident?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time was it that you heard the shot?”

  “Sometime near midnight, I think.”

  “And had you seen Mr. Harker earlier in the evening?”

  “I saw him once.”

  “Here on the first floor?”

  “No, on the stairwell, but it was quite some time ago.”

  “Did he strike you as behaving oddly?”

  “Not particularly, no. I didn’t know him at all well, of course.”

  Harris nodded, as though he had suspected as much. “Very good. I think that will be all. If there’s anything else, I will let you know. Good evening.”

  He turned and left the room without further ado.

  “Charming fellow, isn’t he?” Dunmore said with a wan smile. “Forgive me for leaving you alone again, Mrs. Ames, but I suppose I had better follow him to the library. The others are all quite shaken up.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said.

  He went again from the room, and I was left alone with my thoughts.

  I couldn’t understand why Mr. Harker had killed himself. I cast my mind back to our encounter. He had seemed a bit harried, perhaps uncomfortable in his surroundings, but I had had no inkling that he was about to do anything drastic. In fact, he had expressed plans for the rest of the evening that seemed at definite odds with the contemplation of suicide. I supposed one never really knows what is going on in the minds of other people, but there was something about it that didn’t seem right.

  A few moments later, his business with Mademoiselle Renault apparently concluded, Milo came to collect me.

  “I’ve had the car brought round,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  “Have you spoken to that police inspector?”

  “Yes. I had nothing of interest to tell him. I’ll carry you to the car.”

  “Very well.” There really was no point in resisting. I knew perfectly well that I couldn’t walk. “Get my shoe, will you?”

  He picked it up and put it in his pocket, ignoring the discarded stocking. Then he scooped me up and carried me from the room. Lord Dunmore met us in the hallway. “Going so soon?” he asked with a smile. He kept up a façade of casual affability, but his eyes looked tired.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Dunmore,” I said. “I’m terribly sorry about everything.”

  “It is I who am sorry about all this,” he said, taking my hand. “I can’t imagine why…” His voice trailed off, and he went on with grim cheerfulness. “I’ll drop round in a day or so to be certain your ankle is mending.”

  “You needn’t inconvenience yourself, my lord.”

  “On the contrary, Mrs. Ames
. I shall look forward to it immensely.” His gaze moved then to Milo, as though he had forgotten I had been resting in my husband’s arms for the duration of our conversation. “Good night, Ames,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Good night, Dunmore.”

  Milo moved down the hall. As we passed the room where James Harker had shot himself, I couldn’t resist looking through the open door. The body had been covered, and it felt immensely unreal that the shapeless lump on the floor had been an affable young man conversing with me in the foyer only an hour or so before.

  There was a policeman on his hands and knees on the rug beside the body, closely examining the floor. It struck me as vaguely odd, though I couldn’t quite make out why.

  I couldn’t help but think there was something peculiar in all of this. For one thing, it was very strange indeed that all of the guests at Mrs. Barrington’s dinner should have been in such close proximity to this tragedy. In the next few days, I would pay my respects to Mrs. Barrington and perhaps see if she still harbored suspicions about the theft of her jewelry. It had crossed my mind that the recent thefts and the unfortunate death of Mr. Harker might be in some way related.

  A thought came to me suddenly.

  “Milo?” I asked as he carried me down the stairs. “Who else was on the first floor with us when it happened?”

  He paused a moment to think it over. “When I went into the hall, Dunmore, Barrington, Foster, and Douglas-Hughes were already there. That inspector also had both the Echols sisters and Mrs. Douglas-Hughes in the library.”

  An odd, uneasy feeling settled over me.

  It was Mrs. Barrington’s group of suspects, almost to the person.

  8

  THE BALL WAS still in full swing as Milo carried me across the foyer and out into the night. The revelry had increased to the degree that our departure generated very little notice. I suspected I was not the last woman that would be carried out before the night was over. That is, if the party was allowed to continue. Apparently, the arrival of the police had been handled with extreme discretion thus far, but something like this could only be kept quiet for so long.

  Milo deposited me on the backseat, and it was only then, with my body no longer pressed against his, that I realized how cold the night had become. Lord Dunmore’s butler had brought out my fur, and Milo handed it to me. I draped it over myself, trying to cover my bare arms as Milo went around to the other side of the car and got in. He sat close, but not quite touching, and neither of us spoke.