“They’re afraid of what I might say if allowed to mingle with all our fine guests.” His tone was light, but there was something dark in his eyes.
“Same here,” I said, trying to find common ground.
His gaze met mine, and there was the tiniest glint of laughter in those beetle black depths. He knew he was being played, but he was bored and pissed and he didn’t care. “I thought they were afraid that their precious asset might get her soft, white throat cut.”
I swallowed, resisting a strong urge to cover up the vulnerable skin in question. “That’s what they say, because it sounds better. But I think they’re ashamed of me. I grew up in a vampire’s court, but it wasn’t the right court. You know?”
He nodded. It was no secret that Tony had been the vampire equivalent of white trash. It was one reason why I was starting to suspect that I would never fit in with vampire society. That and not actually being a vampire.
“We outcasts should stick together—is that your contention?” he asked.
“You’re the one who said this party needed livening up.”
“So to speak.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“My orders were to stop you.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Jack beamed like the owner of a dim-witted puppy that has finally done its first trick. “No, it wasn’t, was it?”
“Well?”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You are about to become Pythia.”
I crossed my arms. I knew what was coming. “And?”
“And you may have an opportunity to do me a small favor in the future.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Nothing too disturbing,” he murmured.
Since this was Jack, that didn’t reassure me much. “I’d have to approve of whatever it is,” I said reluctantly. It felt like I was making a pact with the devil, which wasn’t far from the truth. But I had to get in there.
“Agreed,” he said, so quickly that I knew I was going to regret this. But he flung open the door with a flourish. “I look forward to seeing Lord Mircea’s reaction to your presence.”
“That makes one of us,” I muttered, and hurried inside.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jack had set up a stool at the end of a walnut-paneled hallway just outside the kitchen. There was a mirror on the wall, probably for the servers to use to check themselves out, so I did—and got a shock. My strawberry blond curls were still hidden by the wig, but it was my own tip-tilted nose and wide blue eyes staring back at me.
“Antiglamourie charms,” Jack murmured, watching me with amusement.
Great. And the green velvet did not, as I’d hoped, look black in the low lights. I tried pulling up the too-low top, but that merely raised the skirt to indecent levels, so I stopped. “Anything else I should know about?” I demanded.
“Almost certainly,” he said cheerfully.
I shot him a look, which did no good at all, and headed down a corridor. It let out onto a vast foyer with a sweeping staircase, heavy with aged wood and hushed elegance. And another half dozen guards.
That was a problem, because a couple of these guards I knew. Tall, blond and impassive, they were like perfectly matched bookends, right down to the sleek black tuxes and eerie golden eyes. I ducked behind a porphyry vase taller than I was and silently cursed.
No wonder Jack had let me in so easily; he knew I wouldn’t get ten yards. And he was right, damn it. There was no way they weren’t going to recognize me. Those two had been assigned to my bodyguard detail until this little shindig took precedence, and ancient eyes didn’t miss much. Even worse, the staircase ended not two yards away from them, meaning I couldn’t even try to find another entrance without being nabbed.
I was about to double back and see if there was another exit through the kitchen when the front door burst open, letting in a swirl of rain and a couple of glittering corpses. They must have been important, because half the guards jumped to greet them and the rest were staring like starstruck teenagers.
No one was looking at me, so I went forward with the rest, hoping to edge around to the ballroom while the Amazon who had just come in provided a distraction. Easily seven feet tall, the voluptuous redhead was gleaming in a silver sheath and enough mink to send PETA into paroxysms.
Or at least she was before she shrugged it off and tossed it over my head.
“Meercha! I vant Meercha. Vere is dat beautiful scoundrel?” she demanded.
“In the ballroom, my lady,” someone murmured. Or maybe they said it normally; I couldn’t tell. The damn coat was heavy enough that I almost went down, and left me as little more than a mink-covered lump.
“Lyubov Oksinia Donskoi is a grand duchess; her correct title is Illustrious Highness,” the small, bald man said diffidently, as I fought my way free.
“My apologies,” the guard said, only to be bopped on the head with a jeweled fan.
“Vell? Vat are you vaiting for?”
“My lady? I mean, Your Illustrious . . . ness?” he guessed.
The bald man nodded slightly, but his companion didn’t look like she gave a damn. She raised long, white-gloveclad arms, like an opera star about to sing an aria, showing off breasts like the prow of a ship and enough diamonds to make a person wince. “Tell heem to come greet his Lyubochka!”
The guard just stared for a moment, looking suitably dazzled. Then he swallowed and manned up. “I would, but . . . but he is with the Pythia at the moment, madam.”
“Ze Pythia?” Carmine lips pursed. “Vat is dees?”
“The new seer,” the bald man said. “You remember, Lyly—the coronation?” She looked blank. “The reason we’re here?”
“I am heer to see Meercha.” Slanted hazel eyes looked down at the guard, which appeared to make him nervous. He was over six feet tall, so I suppose he wasn’t used to it. “Do you not know vere your master ees?”
“The ballroom, Your Illustriousness,” he repeated, starting to look worried.
“Zen eef you know vere he is, vhy are you standing here?” She gave him a playful smack on the arm that sent him staggering.
“Yes, my—your . . . Right away.”
The vamp scurried off and I scurried after him, trailing about a hundred pounds of mink. And neither of the guards gave me so much as a first glance, much less a second. Then I entered the ballroom and stopped worrying about the vampires behind me. I was more concerned by the one who lay ahead.
I spotted him almost at once. He stood in the middle of a cluster of people, near the patent leather shine of a piano, looking like something out of a ’40s movie. Tall, dark and handsome, he was the perfect foil for the blond perfection on his arm. Every hair in his companion’s upswept chignon was in place, except for the ones artfully arranged to curl around her ears. The low-cut, midnight blue evening gown she wore was likewise flawless, somehow managing to hug every curve without being vulgar.
She looked too good, I decided.
No way was anyone going to believe that was me.
“Zat?” I jumped at the sound of a booming voice right behind me. I turned to find the principessa or serinissima or whatever the hell her title was standing less than a yard away, checking out my doppelgänger through a pair of specs on a stick. “Zat ees ze new Pythia?” she demanded, of no one or everyone; it was hard to tell.
The little man at her side said something I couldn’t hear over the conversation and music and sounds of people stuffing themselves. But it didn’t seem to sit well with Lyly. “Common,” she announced in a tone that said it ended the matter.
And was about as loud as the announcer at a football game.
Not surprisingly, everyone in the vicinity stopped to stare at us—including Mircea, whose eyes slid off Lyly and latched onto me before I could bolt. They narrowed and his lips tightened, which for him was the equivalent of a hissy fit. Then just as quickly the expression blanked and he turned back to his date, laughing with her about something.