The ballroom was full by the time the cotillion was done. January looked up from his music to scan the place from the vantage point of the dais, while Hannibal shared his champagne with the other two musicians and flirted with Phlosine Seurat, who had by this time discovered that powdered wigs and panniers were designed for the stately display of a minuet, not the breathtaking romp of a cotillion. Between snippets of Schubert, played to give everyone time to regain their breaths, January tried again to catch sight of Madeleine Trepagier-if that was she he had thought he'd glimpsed in the ballroom doorway-or of Angelique Crozat, or, failing either of them, his sister Dominique.

He knew Minou would be here, with her protector Henri Viellard. During the four years between Dominique's birth and January's departure for Paris, he had known that the beautiful little girl was destined for pla-fage-destined to become some white man's mistress, as their mother had been, with a cottage on Rue des Ramparts or des Ursulines and the responsibility of seeing to nothing but her protector's comfort and pleasure whenever he chose to arrive.

The practical side of him had known this was a good living for a woman, promising material comfort for her children.

Still, he was glad he'd been in Paris when his mother started bringing Minou to the Blue Ribbon Balls.

He caught sight of her just as he began the waltz, a flurry of pink silk and brown velvet in the wide

doorway that led to the upstairs lobby, unmistakable even in a rose-trimmed domino mask as she grasped the hands of acquaintances, exchanged kisses and giggles, always keeping her alertness focused on the fat, fair, bespectacled man who lumbered in at her side. Viellard appeared to have been defeated by the challenge of accommodating his spectacles to the wearing of a mask-he was clothed very stylishly in a damson-colored cutaway coat, jade-green waistcoat, and pale pantaloons, and resembled nothing so much as a colossal plum. When the waltz was over Dominique fluttered across the dance floor to the musicians' stand, holding out one lace-mitted hand, a beautiful amber-colored girl with velvety eyes and features like an Egyptian cat's.