The Grand Ball. The one night this town of thieves and liars pretended they weren’t ready to stab each other at the slightest provocation. I anticipated an interesting time.

Stars studded the night sky as we alighted from the coach. My husband Tony took my hand, and we moved through the crowds lining the wide marble stairs to the Grand Ball House.

Tony’s men scanned the people and rooftops for danger, and the crowd parted before them. We stopped on occasion to allow the newsmen to take our photos with a flash and a puff of smoke.

Fireworks boomed above us. In the distance, cheers went up after each fiery blossom.

Boom. Cheer.

Boom. Cheer.

Fireworks reminded me of him. Every New Year’s Eve, we played with his wind-up automatons, made from bits of junk he found. When we were eleven, he set them all walking around his flat roof while we watched the show and laughed. He never saw fireworks again.

I felt Tony’s solemn blue eyes upon me; I had stopped on the stair. I took a deep breath to clear my head, to smooth my face for the cameras, and continued on. The lamps threw strange shadows behind and between our paid admirers.

I imagined the other Families climbing their own staircases. Why have our own photographers, our own toadies throwing hothouse flowers? Why this fragile ceasefire, which required separate entry to the building to ensure peace?

A magnificent building once, the years had not been kind to the old Ball House. The occasional coat of whitewash did little to hide the cracks in the foundation as the island the Ball House sat upon sank under the weight of so much falsehood.

We reached the top of the stairs without incident. Armed men in black and silver Spadros livery opened the brown paneled doors for us.

Inside lay a rosewood-paneled antechamber, smelling of lemon polish. To our left, brown leather attached with brass tacks covered the top of the coat-counter.

“Take your coats and hat?”

Tony handed over his top hat and overcoat, then brushed a strand of black hair back into place.

“And your weapon, sir.”

Tony hesitated, then retrieved his holstered revolver from his left pocket.

Tony helped me out of my floor-length forest green over-coat. It was my favorite: trimmed, beaded, and embroidered in black. I took Tony’s arm as he led me to the Ladies’ Room.

A woman dressed in black and silver opened the door, and the scent of cut flowers billowed towards me. The Ladies’ Room glowed yellow in the lamplight. Mirrored in front of me and to my left, the room overflowed with flowers and glittering ladies. These ladies were the most trusted wives and sisters of Tony’s main men.

The women beckoned me to the center of the room past a small table and ottoman. They took my new green velvet hat, fussing over my hair. Then they brushed off mud and blotted out wet spots on my gown. I sat on the ottoman, where they exchanged my muddy boots for soft green dinner shoes. When I presented myself to the Ballroom, I must appear flawless, or they would face questions as to why.

Every so often, a loudspeaker blared to my right announcing each group. The words were incoherent, muffled by distance and closed doors.

My lady’s maid Amelia brought my cigarettes. Short, plump, her black hair turning gray, Amelia Dewey wore a uniform like my disguise a few hours earlier. I let her light me up and took a long drag.

The golden lamplight reminded me of home. Not my gilded cage in Spadros Manor, but my real home in the Pot, the Cathedral.

Ma was beautiful, the owner of the finest brothel in the Pot. Her hair was curly and dark; her skin, soft and brown. She taught me how to make deals, how to run the business, how to smile at a mark. I missed her so much it hurt.

Was she safe? Was she happy? Had she learned to live without me?

Amelia rose. “It’s time, mum.” Entering the Ballroom at the scheduled time kept us from meeting another Family in the hallway without our men to protect us.

I went across the room, through the door, and to the right, down a long red-carpeted hallway to the Ballroom entry. Jazz music played far in the distance, growing louder as I approached: a dance tune.

Tony waited at the closed doors and smiled when he saw me approach. “Into battle.”

I laughed in spite of myself as the doors opened.

A golden railing lay before us. A long sweeping stair led down along the wall to our right. Beyond and far below, at least two hundred people danced. The polished oak floor gleamed.

A great red pillar stood in the center of the room, rising to a white and gold vaulted ceiling. A large raised area surrounded it, bordered by four long steps and large enough for a whole party of its own. Rectangular tables stood on this dais. Here the four Family heads sat with their Inventors, one group to each table, on all four sides.

Bridges had a Mayor, a Chief of Police, but the Families ruled the city.

The platform rotated with clockwork precision. When a group appeared at the appointed time, their Family heads faced the stair to greet them. A jazz orchestra sat at the far left of the dais, the members sorting their sheet music.

An announcer stood by a podium to our right, a loudspeaker in hand. He glanced at us as we came through the doors, checked his pocket-watch and a list, then nodded. “MR. AND MRS. ANTHONY SPADROS.”

We descended into the Ballroom, accompanied by applause. The room smelled of cooked meats, candles, perfumes, flowers, and floor polish. It smelled of a party trying to be fine, and it looked the part.

The Ballroom walls were white paneling, edged with gold, with red velvet inlays. But our Family colors decked the room as well. Black velvet with silver embroidery covered the tables; silver candlesticks sat upon them. Tacky, but it got the point across: the Spadros Family hosted the Grand Ball this year.

Tables lined the walls, laden with trays of cubed meats, candied fruits, cheeses, and small sandwiches. Waiters wearing black and silver brought drinks and cleared tables.

Tony’s parents already sat at their table on the raised area. Crossing the hall, we went to the steps to greet them.

Glittering strands of snow now crept in among his black-ice hair, but the name Roy Spadros still turned brave men into statues of frozen terror.

I remembered the frigid night I first saw him. He stood on the cobblestones in that moonlit intersection composed, as if in complete control as people died around him.

Roy smelled of cold hard cash; his tuxedo, black as a clear winter’s night. Blue-ice eyes stared out from a pale uncaring face, yet he could pretend courtesy when he wanted.

“Hello, Anthony, Jacqui.” He spoke with no emotion as he shook Tony’s hand and kissed mine. “Good to see you.”

“And you too, sir,” Tony said.

Molly Hogan Spadros was beautiful, buxom, and raven-haired. She wore heavy makeup and a long-sleeved red gown which showed her figure to good advantage.

She hugged each of us in turn and didn’t flinch when I hugged her back. “I am so glad to see you.”

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“And you.” Her nose had healed, and she no longer wore her cast. Matters in Roy’s empire must please him these days.

The orchestra began to play, dancers swirling around us. Our Inventor, Maxim Call, closed-lipped and eccentric as most on the Board were, didn’t rise. He scribbled in a notebook, glancing up to nod at us.

After our visit with Tony’s parents, we circled the dais as it rotated, visiting the heads of each Family in turn. I didn’t know them well, but we were only expected to offer brief greetings. Politeness dictated we should be off the dais before the announcement of the next guests.

Charles and Judith Hart were both red-haired, although silver battled red. It was clear Charles enjoyed his meals — and if rumors told true, his vodka — much more than he should. The couple wore forest green trimmed in silver, which suited them.

Roy Spadros despised Charles Hart; any mention of the man’s name threw him into a rage. Roy placed the orchestra in front of the Harts as an insult, so their people would have to walk around it to greet them.

I believe Roy intended me to kill Charles Hart one day. But Roy did not excel in persuasion. At the time, I saw more reason to kill Roy Spadros than Charles Hart, should the choice ever appear.

For I remembered the glint on Mr. Hart’s cheek at my wedding. It would not surprise me if Roy knew of Mr. Hart’s soft-hearted nature, and let him attend just to watch him cry. Roy’s motivation for any action was to cause pain; it seemed to be the only thing which gave him real enjoyment.

Mr. Hart held our hands in his and smiled at us as proudly as if we were his own children. “How are you?”

“Quite well, sir,” Tony said, and I nodded.

Mrs. Hart fixed her eyes on Tony. “A pleasure to see you.” In all the times we met, she never once looked me in the eye.

I smiled. “A pleasure to see you too.”

She flinched and set her jaw. So disdain, not shyness, kept her from greeting me.

Get in line with the rest, sugar.

The Harts’ Inventor (and heir) Etienne Hart never acknowledged us, so engrossed was he in his book. His thick spectacles had a multiplicity of lenses for closer magnification.

Julius and Rachel Diamond, so dark of skin and hair, were the most attractive and the youngest of the Family heads. They gained their title when the elder Mr. Diamond turned his cards in six years ago.

Rumor had it the father’s death was not natural, but who expected a Family Patriarch to die in peace?

Julius wore a black tuxedo with a white cravat. Ironic, since Tony wore the same. Rachel wore a beaded, embroidered silver-gray gown. One of the Diamond sons (they had seven in all) stood across the table. We waited at a discreet distance until the man finished conversing with his father.

The man, just past thirty, glared at Tony when he saw us, then left. We came forward.

“Hello,” Mr. Diamond said, but he didn’t offer his hand to either of us. A powerfully built man, but a fiercely suspicious one.

“Hello, sir.” Tony didn’t offer his hand either.

Julius Diamond had never spoken to Tony in my presence otherwise. Something deep lay in his eyes, close to outrage, as if Tony once gave him a terrible insult which felt fresh, which he could never forgive. Tony had never revealed what sparked his wrath; he accepted the anger as if he deserved it.

“One of these days we must get together.” Mrs. Diamond spoke in a childlike tone. Could she be unaware of her younger son’s vendetta against our Family, the glares of her older son, the open hostility of her husband?

They say Rachel Diamond was once a brilliant woman, who never recovered from the death of her father-in-law. I felt it a pity not to have met her before then. “Yes, we must.”

Their Inventor, a thin man with a face to match, tinkered with his pocket-watch there at the table, unaware of our presence.

Alexander and Regina Clubb had bright blue eyes and golden hair. Lean and athletic, they appeared much younger than the truth, by all accounts. Some whispered Regina must be at least seventy, her oldest daughter being over fifty. Whatever her age, Regina had smooth skin and a fine figure. Her royal blue gown matched Alexander’s cravat.

Alexander Clubb had a mechanical left arm, a memento from the Bloody Year long before my birth. Rumor said his arm was a marvel, made by a master craftsman, and all the fingers worked. Just a glint of bronze and leather showed between his white glove and shirtsleeve when he greeted us.

“We’re launching our new yacht next month, assuming the weather holds warm,” Mrs. Clubb said. “Would you like to visit for a week in the Spring?”

We glanced at each other. The invitation seemed genuine. “Certainly!” Tony said. “Please send word when you’re ready.”

Their Inventor, a young brown-haired woman, smiled and shook hands without rising. To speak with another Family’s Inventor raised suspicion. So our duties completed and the music waning, we descended to join the real party.

I glanced back at the dais. “What do you suppose the Clubbs were about?”

Tony smiled for the first time since entering the ballroom. “We’ll learn soon enough. Neither of them breathe without it being part of some intrigue.”

The loudspeaker blared, the applause died down, and the music began. Tony and I danced a slow waltz, deliberately circling the dais. This gave us the opportunity to survey the room. Couples from all four Families danced around us. Since the Bad Times, much of the city’s population had Family ties, even if “under the table.”

“Fled, dead, or in a Family bed,” so it was said.

Lance Clubb, a shy blond man of three and twenty, chatting with Julius Diamond? A more unlikely pair I couldn’t imagine.

“What do you find funny?”

I gestured with my chin, and Tony peeked at the two.

Julius Diamond beamed, shaking Lance Clubb’s hand with enthusiasm.

“I have a guess as to that.”

“Do tell.”

“You like puzzles, solve it yourself.”

Lance was Alex and Regina Clubb’s youngest child, only son, and the Clubb Family heir. But what could he have said to please Julius Diamond so much? I needed more information, so I put the matter aside.

The music ended, the loudspeaker died away, and we turned to promenade the room. “A drink?” Tony said.

“Will they serve anything stronger than port?”

“It’s unseemly for you to drink liquor in public.”

I laughed. “You mean to drink a ‘man’s drink.’”

He continued on with the same pace, his face and body not showing his emotions. He was a master at it. “No, Jacqui, you drink too much. The amount you drink at these events is commented upon.”

I patted his arm. “I am always in perfect control of my faculties. I would never cause you embarrassment.”

“We shall see.” But he brought me to the bar anyway. Tony could never deny me anything back then.

The bar did have some proper drinks after all. I chose a rum and soda. Tony chose a table across the room where we could see the staircase, the dais, and the dancers.

“The perfect place to sit,” I said, and Tony smiled.

Our rather long table filled with sycophants, Tony’s main men, and their dance partners.

Major Blackwood, white-whiskered and round, classified in the first group. As always, in uniform, which I suspected was custom-made well after leaving the service.

Major Blackwood made his living by being amusing at parties. He then secured invitations to luncheon, dinner, and tea the rest of the year. I imagine this saved him quite a bit of money.

The Major began regaling the ladies at the far end of the table with a bawdy story from his days in the military.

“… I had a time when I was shot in the leg when I was in the Army, and I learned to use a cane,” he brandished it, “to get around, and began to rely on it for fetching other things near to my bed … pretty nurses, for example!”

The ladies giggled.

“The use of a cane is like a habit to me, and I was walking along once …”

Since they were at the other end of the long table, the music was a bit too loud for me to hear him properly. I spent the time watching the orchestra.

“They play well,” Tony said. “I’ll have Michaels send a note of congratulations to the leader.” Jacob Michaels was Tony’s manservant, like my Amelia. The idea of servitude is abominable, but few people care what I think.

“That would be lovely.” I drank more of my rum.

“… why, it wouldn’t have been gentlemanly for me to just let her lie there …” Major Blackwood said.

A fair quality rum, but they served better the year before. Had Roy Spadros taken up economizing as his new hobby?

“I remember when I was in the military,” Major Blackwood said, “the scrapes I got into …”

I wanted a cigarette, but it annoyed Roy when women smoked. I didn’t need to attract his attention tonight.

“… and we hoisted the horse onto the ROOF!”

Gales of laughter came from the other end of the table. Tony and I grinned at each other.

When the set finished and the applause died down, the announcer said, “MASTER JOSEPH KERR, AND HIS SISTER, MISS JOSEPHINE KERR.”

I sat, mouth open in shock, my heart beating painfully. I could hardly breathe.

Joseph Kerr.

When I saw him on the stair after all those years, I knew he was going to be trouble.

Dark brown hair, green eyes, golden skin, stylishly and immaculately dressed, his body toned and taut. Sensual as a cat, a large, dangerous cat, exciting and sleek, languid yet fierce.

Still the most handsome man I have ever seen. He knew he was handsome, and from the rumors, used it to good advantage.

Arm in arm with his twin, Joseph Kerr acknowledged the applause all the way down the stair. Josephine was as blond as Joe was dark, beautiful, and single. I heard many stories of their exploits over the years. Every young man wanted her; every young woman wanted him.

Josie refused every man who asked for her hand, a source of constant discussion and speculation. As far as I knew, Joe never asked anyone for her hand since the night we last met. This sparked less controversy and more speculation as to who would tame him. No one ever asked my opinion, for which I felt grateful.

I watched Joseph and Josephine Kerr descend the stairs. The unmarried set gathered around them, laughing and talking.

Joseph Kerr was only a year older than I, yet had a reputation as a gambler, a womanizer, a dandy. Some accused him of worse. But most people defamed the Kerrs since they lost control of Bridges four generations ago.

A waiter approached, so I finished my drink and exchanged the empty glass for a glass of champagne on his tray. Tony took a glass too, and asked the waiter to bring some for the whole table.

Tony stood, addressing his men. “This has been a good year for the Spadros Family, and it’s because of you. To greater success in the New Year.”

I paused, remembering a magical night long ago, then smiled up at Tony. This time, it was genuine, the smile of a woman who adored her man, a woman in love. Tony, confident in his triumph, gave me the same smile in return. If I thought about it too long, it might break my heart.

In my whole life up to then, I had only loved one man. I had given my whole heart to this man, my very soul, if you (unlike most) should think I owned one.

“To greater success in the New Year,” the rest of the table said, and sipped at their glasses.

That man …

… was Joseph Kerr.

The champagne tasted bitter, but I drank my glass dry.