“It’s hers,” Ethan said, handing it back to me. I supposed he expected I’d make the steps in front of Cadogan House single-handedly.
He must have guessed the line of my thoughts. I’ll hoist you over my shoulder if you can’t make it down three steps.
I’d make it just fine.
“Be careful,” Luc said. “And, Sentinel? Try to have a good time.”
I’d be at a fancy party in a fancy dress with my father and his fancy friends, while my boyfriend’s narcissistic creator roamed Chicago. What could possibly go wrong?
* * *
The Reed house was a mansion of the old-school Chicago variety, located in the city’s Prairie Avenue Historic District, a neighborhood south of downtown that housed some of the city’s finest architecture. Reed’s house, a monolith of stone with a sharply pointed red roof, had been built in 1885 for the owner of a successful mail-order company based in Chicago. The house formed a squared, elongated C, the open side closed with a long stone wall, creating a courtyard in the middle.
Tonight, limousines lined the neighborhood’s streets. Brody plodded along in stop-and-go traffic, his frustration evidenced by occasional grunts.
“Eyes on the road,” Ethan said when Brody checked the rearview mirror again to catch a glimpse of me.
I bit back a smile, but gave myself a mental high five for being utterly fly.
“She just looks so . . . fancy,” Brody said, which deflated my ego just a bit.
“Fancy,” I decided, wasn’t the equivalent of “astoundingly beautiful.” And the dress had been too much work to get into for anything less complimentary than the latter.
“She can hear you,” I reminded him. “And she outranks you. Eyes on the road.”
“What did you say to me last night?” Ethan murmured with amusement. “Down, girl?”
I made a vague sound as Brody reached the front of Reed’s house, where a human in a black shirt, vest, and pants opened the door.
“Stay close,” I told Brody. “Find a spot, no more than two blocks, and keep your phone on.”
“On that,” he said, and merged back into the slow crawl of cars after Ethan and I had disembarked. I tucked hair behind my ear, adjusted the dress so it fell properly around my feet, noticed Ethan’s soft smile.
“What?”
“You think you don’t fit here, Sentinel,” he said quietly, offering me his arm as we strolled the red carpet through lines of reporters who’d gathered to snap photos of the rich, famous, and infamous. “But you fit better than many of them, because you know exactly who you are.”
The lucky photographer who snapped me after that compliment got a grand smile for her trouble.
After several slow minutes of walking, we reached the front door, where a petite girl with dark skin and hair piled in a voluminous topknot stood with a clipboard.
“Ethan and Merit,” he said. “We’re guests of Joshua Merit.”
She scanned the list, nodded. “Welcome to the Reed house,” she said, and gestured us inside.
The house opened immediately into an enormous two-story room, with marble dominating the first floor, including a large marble staircase bound in curvy marble balusters that marched to the second floor. The second floor formed a balcony around the first, surrounded by a railing of thick, dark wood.
The house’s décor matched its large scale. Baroque furniture, paneled walls, heavy sconces, all of it oversized. There was something Old World about the tone, but the effect was jumbled, as if Reed had simply plucked items at random from an antiques store.
Adding to the heaviness, the furniture had been draped in jewel-toned silks and was speared with tall candelabras and dripping pillar candles. Reed had even hired performers. A couple in teal silk jumpsuits juggled painted clubs. Dancers in velvet ball gowns and harlequin ensembles, their identities concealed behind papier-mâché masks with large dark tears painted beneath diamond-shaped eyes, danced in pairs through the crowd. Most of the guests wore black, which offset the deep burgundy, gold, and crimson velvets of the performers’ costumes.
“And the theme is,” I murmured, glancing around, “Venetian masquerade.”
“Very theatrical,” Ethan said.
“It is.” A man in a black jumpsuit spun past us, his face covered by a mask with round eyes and a beaklike nose.
And a little creepy, I added silently. Very Eyes Wide Shut.
And very Venetian. That’s a medico della peste, he said. It’s based on a mask that was used by doctors to protect them from the plague.
It’s disturbing.
Some find that to be part of the appeal, Ethan said, but sidled closer as the masked man circled us, his eyes trained on us like a ballet dancer even as his body spun.
“That was creepy,” I said as he finally moved away.
“It was,” Ethan said, grabbing two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. He handed me one, then tapped his glass delicately against mine. “Sentinel, I’ll say it again: You look ravishing.”
Because I agreed with him, I shared his smile. “You have excellent taste. And I’m not just saying that because we’re dating.”
“But it doesn’t hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I agreed, and sipped. The champagne was smoky and peachy at the same time. An odd combination, but it worked. I hadn’t yet seen a snack tray, but the drink gave me hope they’d also be good.