Lucy, smiling, pirouetted on the landing, skipped down the last few steps and made Alice a deep curtsy. She was clearly looking forward to the ball.
The dress was pure white—Mary had worked wonders—and it seemed looser, floatier and less structured than the dress Alice remembered. A Grecian-style pattern had been stenciled around the hem in gold, and gold braid sewn around the neck. Gold buckles were fastened at the shoulders, to which a length of gauzy, gold-edged fabric was fastened, floating about her, adding to the impression of a statue come to life.
Around her waist Lucy wore a braided girdle of gold rope, with ivy and other creepers from the garden woven in. Her tawny hair was arranged in a vaguely Grecian style, loosely pulled back and bound in places with more gold rope. A headband made of fresh leaves crowned her brow. She wore a pair of light sandals and carried a simple white satin mask. Alice noticed with a jolt of shock that her toes were bare and her toenails were painted gold. It was very daring and wonderfully bold.
The difference between this young, happy, excited girl and the sulky, badly dressed creature she had first encountered was heartwarming. It might have started as blackmail, and Alice still fretted about the consequences of that, but she couldn’t regret having Lucy come to live with her. Mary was right: Lucy had brought life and liveliness to all their lives.
“You’re so clever! I never could have created such a costume,” Alice exclaimed. “You could have stepped straight out of a mural in a Greek temple. And you look beautiful.” It was true, too. Lucy glowed with health and youth and excitement.
“We both look beautiful,” Lucy said.
Alice helped Lucy tie on her mask and arrange her cloak over her costume, being careful of all the greenery, then they climbed into the carriage and were on their way.
***
Alice looked around her. There was no doubt about it, Lord and Lady Peplowe knew how to throw a ball. Carriages lined the street, waiting to drop off their occupants. The front of the house was lit with blazing brands tended by liveried footmen, the dramatic leaping flames lighting up the night. A temporary porte cochere had been erected in case of rain, and a red carpet laid from inside the house to the edge of the road, ensuring that neither hem of dress nor sole of shoe need touch the common pavement.
Inside people milled about, passing their cloaks and hats to servants—though not those people wearing dominos, who were mostly men. The crowd moved slowly up the stairs, where they were greeted by Lord and Lady Peplowe.
Lord and Lady Peplowe looked magnificent dressed as an oriental potentate and his queen, in sumptuous colorful silks and satins, glittering with gold and jewels. Both wore large, splendid turbans, and Alice felt a little dull by comparison, but Lady Peplowe was extremely complimentary. “The perfect partner for you is waiting inside, Queen Cleopatra,” she said with a wink to Alice. “And anynumber of young gentlemen will be lining up to dance with this lovely Greek goddess.”
Alice hoped so. Bamber’s deadline was creeping ever closer.
They passed the receiving line, entered the ballroom and stopped to admire the scene. It was decorated with colorful silks draping the walls, potted palms and sprays of greenery placed at intervals around the room, and pierced-brass lanterns studded with colored glass throwing patterns of colored light across the crowd beneath.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Lucy breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Alice had to agree. The Peplowe ball was going to be talked about for months to come. It was already “a sad crush”—the ultimate accolade.
People were dressed in every variety of costume one could imagine. There were harlequins and pirates, knights of old, several devils with horns, Cossacks and Turks, Neptune with his trident, ladies in last century’s fashions, with high powdered hair and wide pannier skirts, creatures from mythology with strange heads and human bodies, jesters, medieval ladies with high pointy headdresses, Spanish ladies in mantillas, and dainty milkmaids and shepherdesses.
Lucy leaned over and murmured in Alice’s ear, “No self-respecting shepherdess or milkmaid would be seen dead in an outfit like that.” Then she added with sardonic humor, “Maybe I should have come as a goose girl.”
Alice followed her gaze and saw her nephew, Gerald, threading his way through the crowd toward them, a grim expression on his face. Not another quarrel, not again, surely?
“Greetings, O divine lady goddess.” A young man dressed as a medieval page bowed to Lucy. His outfit was an unfortunate choice: his legs, clothed in white hose, were bandy and very skinny. But what he lacked in musculature,he made up for in confidence. “Grant me a dance, O Fair One. Are you Athena, perhaps, or maybe Aphrodite?”
Lucy shook her head.
“Artemis, perhaps? Or Venus?”
“Venus was Roman, you cloth-head.” Another young man in a Viking outfit joined them. He bowed to Lucy. “Would you be Hebe, perhaps, goddess of youth and beauty?”
At that point, Gerald, who was dressed as a Spanish bullfighter, arrived, just as the first young man said to Lucy, “I give up. Tell us, O Fair Lady, which goddess you are. And then grant me a dance.”
Lucy pretended she was answering her pageboy admirer, but she looked straight at Gerald as she said, “I am no goddess, good sirs, but a priestess of Apollo.” Her gaze clashed with Gerald’s. “I am Cassandra of Troy, cursed to speak the truth but never to be believed.”
Gerald’s jaw tightened. “About that, could I have a word, please?”
“Hey, we were first,” the two young men objected.
“Indeed you were,” Lucy cooed, and ignoring Gerald completely, she placed a hand on each young gentleman’s arm, and they strolled away.
Gerald watched them disappear into the crowd, then turned to Alice. “She’s never going to forgive me, is she, Aunt Alice? Perhaps you could intervene on my behalf.”
“You are mistaken in me, young man,” Alice said, a little irritated that she’d been so easily recognized. She supposed being with Lucy had given her away. But she didn’t want to intervene on Gerald’s behalf, so she clung to her current identity. “I am Queen Cleopatra, aunt to no one here, and you must sort out your own tangle.”
“Indeed you must,” said a deep, amused voice behind her. “Take yourself off, young fighter of bulls, and make your own amends to yon cold and angry lady. I have an appointment with my queen.”
