Further discussion was stopped by a whip crack of a cry. “Ho there, young man!”
Pillover jumped away from Sophronia, barking his elbow on the gazebo railing. “Ouch!”
Sophronia turned to face the house. “Mumsy!”
“Sophronia Angelina Temminnick, what are you doing alone in the garden with a boy!”
“Um,” said Sophronia.
Pillover rubbed his elbow.
Mrs. Temminnick turned her wrath on the unfortunate young man. “Mr. Plumleigh-Teignmott, this is too bad! I am shocked, shocked, I say. After we welcomed you into our home last winter! I trust you will make an honest woman of my daughter?”
“Mother! Pillover is only fourteen!”
“Oh ho, Pillover, is it? What have they been teaching you at finishing school? To meet a young man in the gardens, alone and unchaperoned…”
“Really, Mother! He is a veritable hobbledehoy. Don’t be silly.”
“Oh, thank you for that,” muttered Pillover, utterly dejected. Which fortunately made him seem less threatening.
Sophronia said smoothly, “My school has trained me to recognize when a young man offers no risk. He is my dearest friend’s younger brother. I asked him to see me ’round the garden. I was feeling most unwell after that cart ride, and the rain has abated somewhat.”
“Don’t you dare talk back, young lady!” Mrs. Temminnick looked at Pillover with new eyes. He did seem as if he could barely muster enough energy to hold his own head up, let alone menace her daughter. It obviously took great effort for him to speak to, let alone kiss, a lady. There was clearly no threat to her daughter’s reputation, aside from the fact that they had been caught alone together. Mrs. Temminnick checked to see if anyone else had noticed. No one had. Still, the value of having her youngest daughter trussed up at only sixteen?
Sophronia perfectly followed her mother’s thought process. “Mumsy, the ball is to start soon; everyone must be looking for you. If you leave quickly, Pill and I will return separately, with no one the wiser.”
Mrs. Temminnick wasn’t going to let them get away that easily. “I will be looking into the Plumleigh-Teignmott family. If Mr. Temminnick thinks them suitable, we will arrange the match. I know what is happening here, daughter, even if you are both too young. I demand an understanding. Do you understand, Mr. Plumleigh-Teignmott?”
Pillover shrugged, which was his response to everything.
Sophronia blinked. “If you insist.” There was no point in arguing further at the moment.
Shortly thereafter, Sophronia slid back into the dressing room full of primping ladies. No one had noticed her absence.
“Well?” hissed Dimity. “How’d it go?”
“You were right, Sidheag had a message for me. Although I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the information.” She quickly relayed the bulk of Pillover’s communications.
Dimity was suitably appalled. “Treason and murder? Lord Maccon’s abandonment is totally understandable, of course. To conspire against the queen is to conspire against the Alpha.”
Sophronia nodded. It was the stitching that kept the fabric of an integrated society together. Supernatural leaders, in their way, were Queen Victoria’s strong arm. To betray her was to betray them. Sidheag was the one who’d taught them that very fact. “Anything else, dare I ask?”
“Yes, unfortunately, I seem to have gotten myself secretly engaged to your brother.”
Dimity raised her eyebrows. “Oh, dear. Although I should like to have you for a sister-in-law, of course.”
Sophronia glared at her.
“Well, yes, Pillover is perfectly ghastly. But does that really matter? He’d make an amenable husband. You could do whatever you liked, take any patron you wanted. Secretly run the empire as Her Majesty’s Mistress Intelligencer and he’d never notice. So long as you kept him well supplied with bacon and books.”
Sophronia smiled. “I suppose we could play with it for a while. But I will have to find a nice way to jilt him, eventually.”
Dimity sighed and twirled her mask. “Of course you will. But it will be fun to torture Pillover in the interim.”
Sophronia’s smile turned into a grin. “Not to mention Felix Mersey.”
Dimity’s eyes sparkled. “My, yes!”
So it was that Sophronia attended her brother’s engagement masquerade secretly engaged herself. Mrs. Temminnick insisted Pillover be Sophronia’s escort and take the first dance. A very surprised Lord Mersey was forced to lead in Dimity. Thus paired, they undertook the opening quadrille with great discomfort on the part of everyone, except perhaps Sophronia, who was starting to view it all as a joke. She flirted shamelessly with Pillover, who told her to stop it in tones of such abject misery she almost pitied him.
The ball was certainly up to snuff. Sophronia felt proudly that it was good enough to impress even a man of Felix’s standing. Preshea would have found flaws, but it was a vast improvement on last year’s ball. The masquerade dresses were divine. The masks were varied, and Ephraim looked ridiculously happy dancing with his fluff of a bride-to-be. She was a pretty, jolly sort. It was impossible to determine her costume, with so many layers of white and pink. Sophronia settled on cupcake.
She recognized most everyone in attendance, even with masks. After all, the society afforded by the local gentry was not varied. There were a few unknown young ladies, friends of the bride, and a gaggle of older folk of a similar jolly roundness that suggested familial relations. Behind them stood a tall young man who held himself beautifully, if a little stiffly, wearing a full mask of black velvet and a wig of a style popular some hundred years ago among the French nobility. His costume matched the wig, complete with velvet coat and satin breeches of dark silver, and waistcoat and gloves of bloodred. He reminded Sophronia of her vampire friend, Lord Akeldama. Had the vampire sent her a message via drone? The young man did seem intent on watching her movements. This when there were a number of young ladies without partners who might benefit from his attentions.
In and around the glittering throng, the extra mechanical staff trundled, bearing trays of enticing nibbles. The mechanicals were also dressed for the occasion. These were not the faceless utilitarian creatures of Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, but proper household issue, with shiny—if impassive—metal faces. They blended nicely with all the masks. Dimity could be seen posing with one or another as they passed, for her costume was much admired. The mechanicals all wore small black evening cravats or crisp white aprons. Their protocols were simple and they moved smoothly from crowd to dumbwaiter and back, engaged in a dance of their own.