Free Death Wears a Mask by Ashley Weaver

thought perhaps you had made other arrangements for tonight.”
    â€œAh.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You saw me come in with Helene.”
    â€œYes. The illustrious Mademoiselle Renault, whom you barely know.”
    â€œThere is a perfectly simple explanation.”
    â€œThere always is, Milo,” I said tiredly.
    â€œYou don’t see me causing a stir just because I happened to find Dunmore peeling off your clothes in his bed.”
    â€œThis isn’t his bed.”
    â€œA technicality.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it now,” I said. “I’m in rather a lot of pain and…”
    My words were cut off by the loud sound of something very like a gunshot coming from somewhere down the hall.
    I started. “What on earth…”
    â€œIt sounded rather like a gunshot to me.” Milo turned toward the door with his usual unhurried elegance as I made an almost unconscious move to get up from the bed and gasped in pain as I jarred my ankle.
    â€œStay here, Amory,” he commanded me. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
    â€œMilo, perhaps you’d better not…”
    But he had already reached the door and smiled back at me. “Don’t fret, darling. I’m sure it’s nothing. Then again, we can’t be sure. Perhaps Dunmore has been caught stripping the clothes from some less understanding gentleman’s wife.”
    I might have thrown something at him had anything useful been in reach. But he had already closed the door behind him.
    With a sigh, I adjusted my skirts again and carefully slid my legs off the bed until my feet rested on the floor. My twisted ankle was quite swollen at this point, and I knew it would be impossible to stand on it. I attempted it, nonetheless, and just managed to catch myself before I took another tumble to the floor.
    Grasping the bedpost for support, I hopped quite ungracefully to the foot of the bed and then toward the door. I’m sure I made quite a sight, bounding across the room like a rabbit in a billowing red ball gown. I reached the door and, leaning against the wall for support, cracked it open and looked out into the hallway.
    I could hear the music and the din of voices coming up unworriedly from below, and I could only assume the partygoers had not heard the noise of the shot. Perhaps the music had muffled it.
    It had been difficult to tell from which direction the shot had come, but I could hear voices coming from down the corridor. I pulled the door open a bit further and leaned out. Nigel Foster and Mr. Douglas-Hughes stood outside the door of one of the rooms. Though my knowledge of Lord Dunmore’s floor plan had grown considerably over the evening, it was not one of the rooms I recognized. It seemed to be a few doors down from the room in which the gentlemen had been playing cards.
    â€œGood Lord,” I heard someone say from inside, and it sounded like Mr. Barrington. A moment later, my guess was confirmed as he came out of the room, followed by Milo and Lord Dunmore. They closed the door behind them, speaking in low voices. Maddeningly, I couldn’t make out anything that was being said. Lord Dunmore left the group and disappeared into another of the rooms. Mr. Barrington stared straight ahead for a moment, his face slack and gray. Then he visibly drew in a breath and squared his shoulders. He went off in the direction of the library, an air of resolution about him.
    Milo came back down the hall a moment later, and I pulled the door open further to greet him before he reached it. “What’s happened?” I demanded.
    He sighed. Without a word, he swept me up and carried me back to the bed, depositing me none too gently in an untidy heap upon the satin bedspread. “You shouldn’t be walking on that ankle.”
    â€œI hopped,” I told him, with an impatient wave of my hand. “What was that noise about?”
    â€œIt’s the