Death Wears a Mask by Ashley Weaver Page A

to them.
    â€œWell?” I prompted Milo. He had said surprisingly little about Mrs. Barrington’s revelations, and I was curious to know what was going on behind that impassive face of his.
    He looked up at me. “Well, what? Shall I applaud Lord Dunmore’s taste in roses?”
    â€œI don’t give a fig about the roses,” I told him crossly. “What do you think we should do about Mrs. Barrington?”
    He rose, tossing his napkin onto the table. “I think you’re going to do just as you please, no matter what I say. There is, at least, one positive thing about the situation.”
    â€œAnd what’s that?”
    â€œI was in the room with you when the murder occurred this time. You can’t possibly accuse me.”
    He was smiling, but I sometimes wondered if that rift had been completely mended. Things had been tense and uncertain at the Brightwell, but the plain fact remained that, for a few mad moments, I had believed him capable of murder.
    â€œAren’t you curious about James Harker’s death?” I asked.
    â€œVaguely,” he admitted. “That doesn’t mean I think we should go wading into matters that do not concern us.”
    He was steadily moving toward the dining room door as we spoke.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œI have to meet up with Garmond again to finish settling matters about my horse. And then I’ve a dinner engagement with a few friends. You don’t mind, do you?”
    â€œNot at all,” I said, refusing to acknowledge the disappointment washing over me. “Have a nice evening.”
    *   *   *
    MILO LEFT, AND I did not allow myself to think about where he might really be going. I was not so naive as to accept his carefully reported plans for the evening at face value.
    I felt again the sensation that things were beginning to fall apart at the seams, that the happiness we had constructed so carefully over the past two months was beginning to crumble.
    I hobbled mournfully into the sitting room but found I was not to have the luxury of solitude in which to pity myself. Winnelda followed me and began dusting things in a very conspicuous way. She had been waiting all day with thinly veiled impatience for me to relate the events of Lord Dunmore’s ball. I was sure that bits and snatches had come her way throughout the day, and she wanted a full report, which I had been thus far too harried to give.
    Now, as I sat in one of a pair of ivory-colored leather chairs before the fireplace, she was making her presence known by cleaning everything near me as energetically as possible. When she nearly knocked over the Lalique vase on the mantel, I thought it time to put an end to her domestic charade.
    â€œWould you like to hear about the ball, Winnelda?”
    â€œOh, yes!” she said, dropping the duster and perching on the chair opposite me with startling speed. “I’ve been ever so curious, though I didn’t like to say so.”
    â€œYes,” I replied. “I thought you might be.”
    I gave her a condensed version of events, with just enough of the grim details to satisfy her appetite for the macabre. Though she tried to hide it, I knew that her tastes tended toward the sensational, for I often found her scandal sheets hidden about the premises.
    â€œThat’s ever so strange,” she said when I had concluded. She had settled back in the chair by this point and was frowning as she contemplated my tale. “It doesn’t seem quite like a gentleman would do away with himself at another gentleman’s ball, does it, madam?”
    This was, in essence, the same thing I had thought myself.
    â€œIt was quite a shock,” I said vaguely.
    â€œAnd just think, you were just down the corridor from the scene of a tragic death,” she went on, something disturbingly like envy in her tone.
    â€œIf I had been able to walk, I might have been able to be of more