Regina made her way downstairs with the rest of her sisters. Despite her mask, it was evident when the guests saw five redheaded sisters who all of them were.

Elizabeth wore a red dress, a daring color given her hair, but it worked for her. Louisa wore a soft yellow. Natalie was in green, her signature color. Bridget was in purple. It was Cora’s favorite color, perhaps because it was regal, and Regina had to agree it suited her most regal of sisters well.

Regina, of course, was in her dark blue.

They must have made quite a sight, all descending the stairs with their almost-matching hair and their rich, colorful dresses. Regina had to duck her head to hide her smile. For once, she didn’t mind if people stared at her. She felt as though, standing side by side with her sisters, she was worthy of being stared at.

She did not see Cora or Lord Harrison among the crowd. But then, she might not have recognized them if she had. Lord Harrison she wouldn’t see until she entered the card room. Even then they must pretend to be strangers. No one could suspect that he had tutored her.

Cora she wouldn’t see until she grabbed her to change her dress. It wouldn’t do to be seen together either just in case someone noticed them both missing at the same time and made the connection between Regina and the mysterious red-haired woman in white.

It was appropriate, Regina thought, that she would be wearing that color. White was for spirits and the otherworldly. She would be like that to Lord Pettifer: a woman with no name and no title and no background. A woman that was there in front of him and yet did not exist.

It was rather poetic.

Remembering her bet with Lord Harrison, Regina made her way through dinner and the first few dances. She conversed with everyone that she could. At first she stuck close to her sisters but as time went on she drifted farther away from them.

Part of this was necessity. They couldn’t notice the moment that she vanished. Part of this was just how the ball was. It was large, and more people, scads of them, were arriving after the dinner. It was easy to get separated in a mob such as this.

But part of it was that Regina didn’t mind being separated from her sisters. She actually felt as though she could hold her own without them. She didn’t need them for a safety net.

It was a liberating and giddy feeling. She could do this, she thought. She was doing this. Never had she been so happy to lose a bet.

People spoke with her. Most of them obviously guessed who she was given their inquiries after the health of her family, ‘especially her elder sisters’. And yet none of them scorned her.

Her time with Lord Harrison and Cora, it seemed, had in fact emboldened her. She talked gaily and freely. There were times when she had to stop herself from making a misstep or when she found herself at a loss for words. And there were certainly times when she felt it was all too much and she had to retreat outside to get some fresh air and calm her nerves.

But people welcomed her. It was more than she could have anticipated. She was not the mouse that she had thought she was, and it seemed that once she knew it, everyone else knew it as well.

Society was a fickle thing. She had seen how it praised her mother on one side and then gossiped about her possible affair on the other. She had seen people express sympathy for her father and then turn around and take advantage of his addiction.

But in this, society’s fickleness was in her favor. She stood up boldly and all but announced that she should be taken seriously, that she did in fact know how to dance and to converse.

And once she did that, they believed her. It was as though she had never been timid or embarrassed in the first place.

After an hour or two had passed, she felt a hand on her elbow. She turned, and found herself staring into the face of a woman in a black dress.

Regina smiled. Only Lady Cora would dare to wear a black dress, even at a masquerade ball.

“And just what are you mourning?” Regina asked.

Lady Cora laughed. “The death of my sanity. Or perhaps the death of your former self, Miss Regina. You are quite changed since I first saw you. Now we see what the power of real friendship can do for a woman.”

She offered her arm to Regina. “Come. They have just begun to set up to play. We must get you ready.”

Regina took her arm and allowed herself to be led off from the main hall and up the steps to one of the bedrooms.

Inside sat a maid, ready to assist. Lady Cora threw off her mask so that she might see clearly and help Regina. “Turn around. We must make haste.”

Regina allowed herself to be quickly undressed, and then redressed in her second gown. The maid undid all of Bridget’s hard work on Regina’s hair and then did it up again in a different fashion. She even added small white pearls to it so that her hair seemed to have a nest of stars in it.

“Why on earth are there so many buttons,” Cora grumbled, doing up Regina’s dress.

“It is only to vex you, I am certain,” Regina replied teasingly.

Then the mask was settled upon her face and there was nothing else for it.

Cora stepped back. “You are a wonder,” she admitted. “I think you would quite steal the ball away from the other women if they saw you.”

“There will be time for that later,” Regina replied. “We have to go to the game.”

Cora nodded. She took Regina’s arm yet again and guided her out of the bedroom, down the hall, and around several times until Regina felt herself quite lost.

“They are in here,” Cora said, indicating a study on the ground floor which they had got to by the back way.

Cora turned and placed her hands on Regina’s shoulders. “Now, my dear, do not be afraid. They are merely men. You are more.”

Then she opened the door.

Regina took a deep breath.

And she entered.