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For the first time all evening, her father looked at her. In his hazel eyes, she saw no tenderness. Instead, she saw relief.

“This,” he said, holding out his arms, “is the place that is going to solve our problems.”

Nathaniel Wright, the Duke of Duskwell, stood at the edge of the room. His back was flat against a marble pillar as he sipped his wine. He watched a peacock of a man across the room shed his mask, laugh far too loudly, and demand a fifth glass of claret. A footman approached the man and helped him retie his mask before gently escorting him out of the room.

Nathaniel looked away, shaking his head. “Pitiful,” he muttered.

“You know what?” Everett Brennan, the Marquess of Seymour, said from beside him, swirling his untouched drink.

“Hm?”

“Most men, when their friends drag them out at midnight, are taken to a gambling hell, or a brothel, or at least a mistress’s bed. I am beginning to suspect you invite me places purely to punish me.”

“No one invited you. I had to go through the trouble of securing a second invitation on your behalf. Remember?”

“In our circle, that’s practically an engraved invitation.” Everett’s grin faded as he studied Nathaniel’s face. His bearded jaw was tight, and his eyes hadn’t stopped scanning the room since they’d walked in. “You look like a man at a funeral.”

Nathaniel didn’t answer, not at once. He knew there was some truth to his friend’s words, and yet his gaze swept across the room again. He had done it stealthily, every few minutes since they’d arrived. He was not admiring ballgowns or the girls who wore them. Instead, he was cataloging the men’s faces, or what he could see of them beneath all the leather, silk, and feathers.

He was looking for one man. He had been looking everywhere for the better part of a year, and he was growing tired of waiting.

“Cumberlea isn’t here,” he said.

“You didn’t really think he would be, did you?” Everett asked, leaning closer.

“No,” Nathaniel uttered, his chest tight as he scanned the room once again.

“So, can we leave and go somewhere a bit livelier than this bloody auction?”

“No. Someone who knows where he’s gone must be here. I can feel it in my bones.”

Everett let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. He’d heard this before, the same grim patience, worn a little thinner each time. “It’s been a year, Nathaniel.”

“It’s been eleven months since Isabella died,” Nathaniel corrected, without wavering. “Eleven months since her husband put a pistol to his own head because Society decided to believe a liar over her. I have a six-year-old girl asleep in my house who has already buried both her parents, and the man responsible for it is walking free somewhere in England because no one has been able to find him.”

“I know.” Everett’s expression sobered, and his spine straightened. “I’m not telling you to let it go. I know that’s not possible. What I am telling you is… Well, you’ve had men combing London for him for over a month now, and you’ve had nothing. If they can’t find him, how can you?”

“I’ve had nothing until three weeks ago.” Nathaniel’s eyes found the door again, then the platform, then the cluster of masked men near the drink stand. “The investigator I hired turned up Cumberlea’s name in connection with a circle of men who don’t advertise themselves. Wealthy. Discreet. The sort who take their pleasures in rooms exactly like this one, underneath a masquerade secret enough that their wives never think to ask questions.” His mouth twisted, not quite a sneer.

Everett pursed his lips. “And that’s why we’re here.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get me in through the man who runs it. No one gets an introduction to him, not for money, not for rank. But he found a gentleman who attends regularly, greased the right palm, and secured me an invitation as his guest for the evening.”

“And you came”—Everett glanced around the room with open distaste—“to witness this appalling auction where women are sold like cattle to the highest bidder?”

“I came because if Cumberlea kept company with these men, someone here must have dealt with him,” Nathaniel said through gritted teeth. “Sold to him, bought from him, drunk with him. I don’t need to like the room to use it.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “This is obscene. Women paraded like cattle for men who’d never risk exposure in the doing of it. But I didn’t come here to reform it. I came to find a thread that leads to Cumberlea, and I intend to pull it.”

Everett studied him for a moment longer, then set his glass down, the humor returning to his eyes. He clearly knew better than to push the subject anymore, too pragmatic to protest a situation they had already found themselves embroiled in. It was one of the things Nathaniel liked best about him.

“Then let’s go find your bloody thread. We are in this together, my friend,” Everett whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Nathaniel said, and found he meant it.

“I’ll circle the drink stand. Men get looser tongues over claret than over anything else, and God knows I’m better company than you when I want to get information out of a stranger.” Everett clapped him once on the shoulder. “If I hear the name, you’ll be the first to know it. Try not to break anyone’s jaw before I get back.”

“No promises.”

Everett melted into the crowd with ease, and Nathaniel wondered if he’d ever doubted his welcome in any room. He watched him go, then began his own slow circuit of the room, keeping to the periphery.