Alice followed her gaze and saw her nephew, Gerald, threading his way through the crowd toward them, a grim expression on his face. Not another quarrel, not again, surely?
“Greetings, O divine lady goddess.” A young man dressed as a medieval page bowed to Lucy. His outfit was an unfortunate choice: his legs, clothed in white hose, were bandy and very skinny. But what he lacked in musculature, he made up for in confidence. “Grant me a dance, O Fair One. Are you Athena, perhaps, or maybe Aphrodite?”
Lucy shook her head.
“Artemis, perhaps? Or Venus?”
“Venus was Roman, you cloth-head.” Another young man in a Viking outfit joined them. He bowed to Lucy. “Would you be Hebe, perhaps, goddess of youth and beauty?”
At that point, Gerald, who was dressed as a Spanish bullfighter, arrived, just as the first young man said to Lucy, “I give up. Tell us, O Fair Lady, which goddess you are. And then grant me a dance.”
Lucy pretended she was answering her pageboy admirer, but she looked straight at Gerald as she said, “I am no goddess, good sirs, but a priestess of Apollo.” Her gaze clashed with Gerald’s. “I am Cassandra of Troy, cursed to speak the truth but never to be believed.”
Gerald’s jaw tightened. “About that, could I have a word, please?”
“Hey, we were first,” the two young men objected.
“Indeed you were,” Lucy cooed, and ignoring Gerald completely, she placed a hand on each young gentleman’s arm, and they strolled away.
Gerald watched them disappear into the crowd, then turned to Alice. “She’s never going to forgive me, is she, Aunt Alice? Perhaps you could intervene on my behalf.”
“You are mistaken in me, young man,” Alice said, a little irritated that she’d been so easily recognized. She supposed being with Lucy had given her away. But she didn’t want to intervene on Gerald’s behalf, so she clung to her current identity. “I am Queen Cleopatra, aunt to no one here, and you must sort out your own tangle.”
“Indeed you must,” said a deep, amused voice behind her. “Take yourself off, young fighter of bulls, and make your own amends to yon cold and angry lady. I have an appointment with my queen.”
“You have no such—” Alice began, turning. Her words dried up at the sight that greeted her.
A tall Roman soldier bowed. “Mark Antony at your service, Queen Cleopatra.”
Over his mask, he wore a gleaming gold helmet topped with a crest of red feathers. Over a short red tunic, he wore a leather cuirass that was molded to his powerful chest and hard, flat belly. A symbolic gold eagle covered his heart.
Instead of trousers he wore a kind of kilt made of strips of leather studded with brass medallions. It ended at his knees—his bare, brawny, naked, masculine knees.
She dragged her eyes away, but couldn’t help wondering whether Roman generals wore the same thing under their tunic as Scotsmen were reputed to. She clamped down on the thought. She should not be thinking of such things.
A short red cloak hung from gold buckles at his shoulders, dangling rakishly behind him. His tanned, powerful arms were bare, and a broad gold armband was clasped high on one muscular arm, while thick leather bands encircled his wrists. On his feet he wore red three-quarter-length boots.
He looked powerful, barbaric and magnificent. The sight of him took her breath away.
Mark Antony, Cleopatra’s famous lover. He couldn’t have known what she was wearing to the ball, could he? That gleam in his eyes told her otherwise.
“Who told you?”
He pretended puzzlement. “Told me?”
“What I was going to be wearing tonight.”
He laid a dramatic hand over the eagle on his breastplate. “There was no need for anyone to tell me, O Queen. It was in the stars—we are fated to be together.”
“Nonsense.” She told herself he was just playing a part, but there was a note underneath the playfulness that sounded worryingly sincere. “It can’t be a coincidence. Somebody must have told you what I was wearing tonight.”
“You’re right. It was a little bird.”
“What little bird? Not Lucy?” She’d be very disappointed if it were.
“No, your goddaughter didn’t give anything away, not knowingly at least.” He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, and they strolled around the room.
“If you recall,” he continued easily, “you had a troop of small visitors the other day—it is very kind of you to allow them to visit the garden whenever they want, by the way—and they saw certain gold-painted items drying in the summerhouse. Later, when they told me about their visit, they asked a lot of questions. Questions like ‘Who was Cleopatra, Papa, and why would she wear snakes on her head and arms?’ Which was interrupted by, ‘Shhh, it’s supposed to be a secret!’ which received the indignant rejoinder, ‘I’m not talking about the costume, just the lady. It’s history. We’re supposed to learn about history!’ ”
She couldn’t help smiling at his vivid re-creation of the scene. “And so you put two and two together.”
“And sent my valet out to scour London for a costume. You will be astonished to learn that uniforms for Roman generals are quite thin on the ground.” He glanced around and murmured in a secretive tone, “Don’t tell a soul, but this costume is actually Caesar’s.”
She laughed. And feeling bold, she directed a pointed glance at his legs in the short tunic. “Don’t you find it rather drafty? That short skirt thing.”
“Skirt thing?” He leaned back in feigned horror. “Would you call a proud Scotsman’s kilt a ‘skirt thing’?”
She shrugged. “If I didn’t know what it was called, probably.”
“This”—he touched the red fabric—“is called a tunic.” He paused. “And these dangly leather straps are called, I believe, ‘dangly leather straps.’ The official term, you understand.”
“Ah, I see,” she said, attempting solemnity through a bubble of laughter.
“As for whether I find it drafty, I don’t, here in this crowded ballroom—though I suspect it might be wise to eschew the more vigorous of the country dances. But on a windy day I suspect these dangly leather straps would come in handy. Protection in more ways than one.”
They strolled on. “Do ladies find them drafty?” he asked. “Dresses, I mean.”
“Our dresses are much longer.”
“So they are, but what about ladies who have not yet adopted the newfangled underwear our late, lamented princess popularized . . .”