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first time, Rue understood that Phil knew who she was. Like the girl in the library, he’d matched her face to the newspaper photos.
    The black wig actually looked better with the shining burgundy sheath than Rue’s own mahogany hair would have. She would never have picked this color for herself. Megan was wearing a deep green, and Julie, bronze. The men were wearing shirts that matched their partner’s dress. Burgundy was not Sean’s color, either. They looked at each other and shrugged simultaneously.
    Out on the terrace, minutes later, the three couples began dancing to music provided by the live band. After watching for a few minutes, other people began to join them on the smooth marble of the terrace, and the professional couples split up to dance with the guests. This was the part of the job that Rue found most stressful. It was also the most difficult for her partner, she’d noticed. Sean didn’t enjoy small talk with companions he hadn’t chosen, and he seemed stiff. Thompson was a great favorite with the female guests, always, and Karl was much admired for his sturdy blond good looks and hiscourtesy, but Sean seemed to both repel and attract a certain class of women, women who were subtly or not so subtly dissatisfied with their lives. They wanted an exotic experience with a mysterious man, and no one did mysterious better than Sean.
    John Jaslow, the host, smiled at Rue, and she took his hand and led him to the dance floor. He was a pleasant, balding man, who didn’t seem to want anything but a dance.
    Men were much easier to please, Rue thought cynically. Most men were happy if you smiled, appeared to enjoy dancing with them, flirted very mildly. Every now and then, she danced with one who was under the impression she was for sale. But she’d met hundreds of men like that while she was going through the pageant circuit, and she was experienced in handling them, though her distaste never ebbed. With a smile and a soothing phrase, she was usually able to divert them and send them away pacified.
    Rue and John Jaslow were dancing next to Megan and her partner, who’d introduced himself as Charles Brody. Brody was a big man in his fifties. From the moment he’d taken Megan’s hand, he’d been insinuating loudly that he would be delighted if she went to a hotel with him after the party.
    “After all, you work for Sylvia Dayton, right?” Brody asked. His hand was stroking Megan’s ribs, not resting on them. Rue looked up at her partner anxiously. John Jaslow looked concerned, but he wasn’t ready to intervene.
    “I work for Blue Moon, not Black Moon,” Megan said, quietly but emphatically.
    “And you’re saying you just go home after one ofthese affairs, put on your jammies and go to bed by yourself?”
    “Mr. Brody, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Megan said.
    He was quiet for a moment, and Rue and Mr. Jaslow gave each other relieved smiles.
    “Then I’ll find another woman to dance with, one who’ll give a little,” Brody said. Abruptly, he let go of Megan, but before he turned to stalk off the terrace, he gave the small dancer a hard shove.
    The push was so unexpected, so vicious, that Megan didn’t have time to catch herself. She was staggering backward and couldn’t catch her balance. Moving faster than she’d thought she was able to move, Rue got behind Megan in time to keep her from hitting the ground.
    In a second, Megan was back on her feet, and Mr. Jaslow and Sean were there.
    The gasp that had arisen from the few people who’d watched the little episode with Brody gave way to a smattering of applause as Megan and bald Mr. Jaslow glided across the terrace in a graceful swoop.
    “Smile,” Rue said. Sean had gotten everything right but that. As he two-stepped away with her, his lips were stiff with fury.
    “If this were a hundred years ago, I’d kill him,” Sean said.
    He smiled then, and it wasn’t a nice smile. She saw his fangs.
    She should have been horrified.
    She