The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,1

astonishingly tall space, the full height of the house, with two rows of gilt-railed balconies going round the walls. The lower balcony, at the level where a ceiling probably used to be, was supported by pillars all round the edges of the dance floor, and filled with people who talked, strolled, or leaned over the rails to watch the dancing. The top balcony, another normal room’s height above, seemed to have mostly people sitting at tables. It was all cleverly lit with electric, giving just enough light to make the dance floor glitter.

“Oh, this is lovely,” Maisie said. “What fun!”

A man approached. He wore a harlequin of a jacket of which some panels were white, and others a lurid striped green and pink material. If this was the new fashion, Will was leaving London and going back north right now. He heard Maisie inhale.

“Dancing, sir?”

“Sorry?”

The hideously-dressed man indicated the balcony. “Upstairs for conversation, down for dancing.”

“Oh! Dancing, please.”

The waiter conducted them to a table half way down the room, which made it just possible to speak over the music and the shouted conversations and raucous laughter from other tables. “And to drink, sir?”

“We’ve a voucher for a bottle of champagne,” Maisie said, flourishing it. Will felt a bit of a skinflint, since he was taking her out and should be paying for everything, but Maisie was a frugal soul and, as she’d said, the voucher was no other use.

He glanced round while they waited for their drinks. There were a couple of well-dressed Indian men visible, plus the band, all of whom were black men, but the rest of the clientele was entirely white. He and Maisie had always gone dancing further east, where the dance-halls were a lot more mixed. He hoped she didn’t feel looked at.

She seemed comfortable enough as she looked around with a calculating expression. Taking in the posh frocks, no doubt. Will assessed the room, trying to work out the point of the balconies. There seemed to be two spiral stairs from the floor to the top level, catercorner from one another. Both had a moderate flow of people going up and down. The lower of the two balconies was blocked midway on the back wall by a room with large glass windows overlooking the dance floor. Windows inside a house; what a thing. He supposed it would be the manager’s office.

“What do you think?” he asked Maisie in the subdued shout required for conversation.

“Very grand,” she said. “Except the waiters’ uniforms, goodness me. How are you getting on, Will? I haven’t seen you properly in ages.”

“I’ve been pretty busy. Lots to do. I cleared myself a room to sleep in.”

“How’d you manage that? Throw away all the books?”

“A fair few of them. I sold a pile as job lots to get them out of the shop, did some shifting of the rest—found a few good things in there—and now I have a proper bedroom above the shop. I even bought furniture.”

“Look at you, Mr. Fancy.”

“The best part is having a proper bed that doesn’t fold up and drop you on the floor. I’d forgotten what it was like not to wake up with backache.”

“And are books selling well, to pay for all this extravagance?”

“Some. More as I get the hang of it. How are hats doing? I like your thing.” He indicated her headband. “Very smart.”

Maisie, a milliner, took that as her due. “Thanks. I’m pleased with it. Phoebe loves it.”

“Seen much of her?”

She beamed, a look of far more happiness than the casual enquiry merited. “We had lunch just yesterday, actually but I’ll tell you about it when we’ve our drinks. She was asking me if you’d seen anything of Kim. Lord Arthur, I mean,” she added conscientiously.

“Kim,” Will said, because the title grated on his nerves. “Why doesn’t she ask him?”

“I don’t know,” Maisie said. “She said he’s been awfully funny, and not around much, and I said was there anything up, because the last time he disappeared off for days, well...”

She let that trail invitingly. Last time Kim had disappeared off for days, he’d been attempting to rescue Will, who had been kidnapped and held prisoner. Maisie adored the pulp serials, and remained bitterly envious that her involvement had been only tangential.

“Don’t look at me,” Will said. “I’ve no idea what he’s up to. I haven’t heard from him since I don’t know when.”

He knew exactly when: the second of January. It was currently the twenty-second of February. That was a