“Evidently.”

“Did anyone else notice?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think so. You just looked frightened, like you were going to swoon.”

“I never swoon,” I quipped back at him.

“It’s what I like best about you.”

“How very flattering.”

He went serious for a moment. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No! No, I feel better already. Must have been the excitement.”

He didn’t look particularly convinced. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

I tried for a breezy smile, getting to my feet and putting my dress back to rights.

“Maybe you should lie down,” he added.

I made a face. “And miss the ball? Mother would be as furious as a bag of wet monkeys.” Actually, I had no idea if wet monkeys were known for their particular anger.

Colin’s eyes seemed to close, like shutters over a window. “You’d better get back then,” he said sarcastically, “and trap your prince.”

I narrowed my gaze at him. “Stop calling him that. He’s a perfectly nice gentleman.”

“So his mama liked you well enough then? Isn’t that fortunate? And how long do you think he would have paid you compliments if his mother disapproved?”

I scowled. “I can’t keep up with your moods, Colin Lennox. You’re either kissing me or snapping at me. I wish you’d make up your bloody mind.”

I stomped off, back to the ballroom. The music was softer now, slower. It took every ounce of courage in my possession to step through the doorway. I let out a sigh when it appeared that no one spared me much of a glance. And they seemed quite alone, dancing as one did at a ball, quite unshadowed by spirits—which meant I could go back to being a girl at her first fancy ball. And though it was tempting, I managed not to shove anyone out of my way in my haste to find Elizabeth. I could just imagine the reaction if I’d knocked some old widow with pearls in her hair into the punch bowl.

I finally found Elizabeth on the edge of the dance floor, near her mother, who was whispering feverishly behind her hand to a woman dripping diamonds. My lower back was still damp with perspiration. I hoped it wouldn’t mark the silk. Elizabeth was very pretty in a plum gown with lilac satin trim. She wore a lovely necklace of amethyst and pearl loops. My own neck was bare. I hadn’t anything appropriate for a fancy-dress ball, only a simple cameo brooch an admirer had once given my mother. She’d grown tired of it and now it was mine.

I tried to ignore the glances thrown my way as I moved through the crowd. I ought not to be unaccompanied, but I’d slipped out before Mother could notice. She’d been drinking her “medicinal” tea all afternoon, and I had no wish to catch her attention.

“Violet!” Elizabeth clasped my hands. “Oh, thank God. I was beginning to feel like a veritable ninny standing here alone all this time, and Mother wouldn’t let me wander, not even for lemonade. Where have you been?” She blinked. “You’re rather pale.”

“I’m sure it’s the excitement, nothing more.” I smiled weakly, determined to enjoy the night and pretend I was like any other sixteen-year-old girl, one who didn’t see spirits or dead girls dripping onto the carpet.

“Well, you look lovely, anyway,” she added. “Xavier won’t be able to keep his eyes off you.”

We waited until the music had faded and started up again before Elizabeth took my arm. “Mother, we’re going for a turn about the room.”

Lady Ashford nodded, engrossed in some tidbit of gossip we weren’t allowed to hear. We circled the dancing couples, admiring handsome sideburns and pretty tucked flounces. We stopped several times so that Elizabeth could murmur politely to her mother’s friends, and once for Tabitha’s uncle, Sir Wentworth, with his bushy sideburns and rotund belly, to tweak her cheek and slip her a piece of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. Apparently he had been doing that since she was a child.

Elizabeth sighed in that way I knew all too well. “Do you suppose Frederic will ask me to dance?”

I followed her gaze to where he was laughing with several friends over glasses of port. It wouldn’t be long before they escaped to the gaming halls. Most young men of his age considered these balls to be tiresome affairs, forever being forced into asking wealthy single girls to dance, regardless of whether or not they had horse teeth or fainted at the sight of a moth. It was worse for the debutantes: they had to dance with wealthy old men who smelled like stewed onions and stepped on their toes. I didn’t think Frederic noticed us, even when we wandered with excruciating slowness past him, lingering practically under his nose.

“Elizabeth,” I whispered. “A lame donkey could walk faster than this.”

She tried not to laugh and ended up snorting instead. “Shh,” she added. We giggled and continued to make the circuit of the room. I’d never seen so many beautiful gowns in my life, or so many jewels. Everything sparkled. We accepted crystal cups of cherryade from a passing footman.

“Can you imagine? Wearing that color at her age?” We heard a woman sniff disapprovingly. She was regal in a silvery gray gown with several ruffles and flounces. Her companion wore green silk and an equally disgusted expression. The crowd parted, allowing us a view of the woman in question.

My mother.

She wore pink, from her bustle to her square rose-trimmed neckline, with darker pink for an underskirt. It was silk and she all but shimmered in it. Her dark hair was coiled on top, with long ringlets down her back. She wore garnets at her throat and was surrounded with younger men, all no doubt lavishing her with praise.