"Joseph Redding!" he beamed, and clapped his hand against my back. "Good God! I scarce recognised you, you wicked boy! What are you doing here without a drink? It will never do." He swiped a glass of wine from a passing tray. "Here, here. A crisp white French. Don't be so shy; I've another ten dozen bottles in the cellar. Drink, dear lad. You must try it!"

I thanked him and sipped. "Vallée de la Loire? You have excellent taste, sir."

"Ah, clever boy! Clever boy." He patted his palm against my sleeve and I grew somewhat tipsy just by the smell of him. "Pardon my surprise, Joseph. There is nothing unexpected about an auctioneer who knows his vintage."

"For antiques, you are quite correct. For wine ... I should rather call it beginner's luck."

"My lad, you do amuse me. But indeed, as you say, green apple and a hint of lime from the vallée. One knows a thing or two when one has tasted every fine wine Europe offers. Now, I'm sure you remember the Lady Tolliver from Lord Tolliver's supper in July."

The pale woman dressed in a pallet of golds and greens waved my way, but I am ashamed to say that I remembered her only for the frightful manner in which she ate. "This here is Kathlene Siler, Marlyn Puliam and her husband, Sir Oscar Puliam – once tailor to His Majesty the King of Denmark in his day, to state but one of his many accolades. Sat beside the lovely Kathlene is my longest-enduring friend and personal physician, Maurice K. Mercier – perhaps you already know of him – and ..."

De Veyra took the liberty of introducing me to every one of his immediate gathering, none of whose names I would remember anyway. It is one of my poorer traits. Regardless of this redundant formality, I tipped my head to each of them in turn, presenting my well-rehearsed smile in abundance. I'd been told Redding had always worn his smile well, making a comely young man out of a rather plain face.

None of it mattered. I was there for only one thing, and repeatedly nodding at Glasten's highbrows and agreeing with de Veyra's choice of food and beverage was far from it. I longed to find the one woman with whom I could spill my darkest fears, my bitterness and adversities, and whom I had unwittingly hurt so much she wished me not around.

"I must be frank with you, Joseph," de Veyra continued after a while, clumsily topping up my glass. "I was not expecting you here to-night. Nina insisted you are quite unwell with influenza, but on the contrary, my boy, I see you have never looked more dashing."

His comment genuinely entertained me and I chuckled. "It seems I'm somewhat more resilient than she takes me for. Why, the thought of being absent on her birthday had not crossed my mind, nor would she ever forgive me. I don't suppose you have seen her pass through here, have you?"

"Nina? Not in some time," he said, "but a good many other guests for me to introduce my future son-in-law to, why yes! Must you leave so soon? Come, you have not yet had your wine. And do tell everyone what it is you do for a living; I'm quite sure I could hear the curious tale of Varian Stone one more time."

"Varian Stone? Do I know the man?"

"My, Joseph, you are quite the farceur to-night!"

I spared de Veyra a wry smile and took another sip. "Of course," I said, scanning his guests' expectant, powdered faces. "It would be my pleasure."

It was some time later, with the alcohol burning in my blood and conversation flowing like the wine, that I slipped away from Lord de Veyra back into the throng. It was not until the turn of 1889 that I indeed uncovered the tale of Varian Stone for myself, having narrowly avoided the topic at the soirée. I only hoped my host did not notice.

The hands on my pocket watch neared 10pm and I still came no closer to catching sight of my sweetheart. I pressed on in my hunt to find her and speak truthfully of the horrors I had faced without her, but my search came to no avail, lost in a roaring ocean of strangers.

I started when another hand patted me on the back.

"Joseph. What are you doing here?"

When I turned and saw the speaker, the muscles in my face and shoulders tensed as if I were but a marionette on restless strings. It was Elijah de Veyra, Nina's elder brother and heir to the estate, dressed in a contrarily uninspired black waistcoat and with his ashen hair parted to the side. When I had first met him he'd had the unforgettable demeanour of a man twice his age. Now, with his sideburns completely shaved and his moustache smartly trimmed, he looked fit to be in his thirties. He was not immediately handsome, though still becoming in his majestic, old-fashioned way, if I might be so brash as to humbly admire my fellow gentleman. There was a weariness about him that night, and no amount of his sister's cosmetics could hide the sickly, purple bruise beneath his left eye. Even in the few weeks since I'd last seen him I saw his musculature was less pronounced now, and his waxen complexion revealed to me he was that he was gravely ill, perhaps even anaemic.

"Eli," I smiled, a little glazed from the wine. "A joy it is to see you in more ... sociable circumstances. Won't you try this? A dazzling white French for a most dazzling eve of revelry. A fine choice of Lord Alphonse as usual –"

He paid my pleasantries no mind. "If you are looking for Nina, she knows you're here."

Sobriety struck me like a father's chastising hand. "Where is she?"

"I am sorry to have to tell you, but as much as you may be the apple of my father's eye, my sister does not wish to see you. I think it's best you leave; you've had quite enough to drink."

"Absolutely not." Though the words I heard in my own ears were amicable, by the way every head in the room turned my way, perhaps they had carried far more passion than I'd intended. Eli's narrow eyes almost disappeared from his face as he scowled, and I became suddenly hot and self-conscious in my many extravagant layers. "My apologies," I added, not out of genuine remorse, but in the event my reception was as I'd feared. Still the other guests did not look away.

"It is not up to me whether your presence is welcome," Eli continued, now cupping my elbow. Up close I noticed how very graceful he became in his ire. "I should rather have liked to talk to you more, in fact, but you are fully aware that Nina did not invite you here and you should respect that. You should leave."

"I only came so I might see her. Please, Elijah, tell me where she is!"

"Mr Redding," he hissed through clenched teeth. His face came mere inches from my ear. "You are making a scene. Do not let me tell you again. Leave. Now."

I shrugged off his grip, washed down the last of my wine and wiped my lips indignantly on my sleeve. Without further discussion I pivoted towards the door, gazing low to block out the sea of staring, dark orbs fixed upon me, following me as I strode away for reprieve.

I weaved between guests and house servants, stepping on their toes, the hems of their dresses, spilling their beverages down their fronts as I stumbled into them ... It is much to my disgrace that I left without subtlety.

On the safety of the street beyond, where the sky had developed an unhealthy shade of yellow over the trees in Minster Park, there came a flurry of snow. Quick and light like dancers, or the sycamore seeds of winter. With wine in my veins I hardly felt the chill nipping at my ears and fingers, and cared not for my expensive frock coat which remained inside the estate with Rolland.

I did not know what I should do, knowing only that a man in disgrace must excuse himself and it did not matter his destination. I had spent everything in my checking account on attire for a soirée I was not welcomed to, leaving no way to procure my December rent. I could return the clothes to-morrow, though it would still mean another long, cold return home. I did not wish to retire yet for the night.

Fragmentary thoughts whirred inside my mind like a spinning newspaper reel, both joyous and wretched in unified abandon, and yet my limbs accorded me the gait of a pitiful drunkard. It was in this most unrefined state that I happened upon Viola Howard, the portly nurse I had met in Glasten General, only to find her this time not as talkative.

When I first stepped on a snail I thought nothing more of it and stumbled on through the park as if once again my puppeteer commanded it. Though the second and third times there sounded that fleshy crunch underfoot, it gave me reason to pause and I glanced down at my boots. There, amidst the slushy layer of snow now tranquil upon the grass, lay part of her skull. I knew not whose it was at the time, only that it was the unmistakable ridge of an orbit. I would dare even say that I knew not the immediate ramifications of it under the influence of that particularly heady French wine, though the numbness of my senses did not prepare me for the internal chaos of the countless body parts strewn across the grass, leeching scarlet into the surrounding layer of snow.

I staggered backwards a few feet, crushing yet more bloodied chunks of flesh and bone beneath my soles with a sickening symphony of cracking and squelching. From my mouth spilled several vulgar words that I should not wish to repeat, but seemed apt upon unearthing hundreds upon hundreds of weeping body parts surrounding me as far into the quickening furor of snow as I could see.

I had blindly stumbled into a nightmare; a spectacle I can only describe as a conjuring from Hell itself. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle the yells that fought to escape it. I needed to unsee. I needed to close my eyes and for the illusion to vanish.

But it did not.

The blood was real.

When at last I found my sweetheart – for whom I had lost every penny I was worth, and without whom I had been a wreck of a man – I was on my hands and knees on the street outside the estate, cold, shaking, and with the madness of my condition betrayed in my eyes. I barely remember her running from the estate and pulling me to my feet. I also cannot recall what she said to me in this time, and instead only felt the warmth of her hands as she held my cheeks in them, so desperate for me to look at her and tell her what had happened.

I could not look at her. How was I to speak of these horrors on her birthday when I saw only the field of body parts as if I had stared too long into the fire.

"Joseph!"

I had witnessed no illusion. There was no coincidence. I had seen the same, grisly fate befall two separate victims a month apart... Frederic's vicche. What did it mean?

"Joseph! Speak, my love! What's wrong with you?" Nina shook my face between her palms as she pleaded. It was not in the way I had hoped she would embrace me when she saw what an impression I had made, though it was far from the impression I had been hoping to make, to say the least.

"A body," I breathed, when finally I found my voice.

"A body? Whose body?" Word had spread quickly of my delirious reappearance from Minster Park. There came a few muffled gasps and frightened faces amongst the growing crowd of guests as they saw me, and it was clear the night's mirth had descended into something sinister. "Where? Joseph? Answer me. Whose body?"

"Someone ... is dead," I told her, pawing her hair in a frenzy. I spat every syllable of it, half drunk on wine and half on fear, but she did not balk from my deranged state. "Dead. Somebody is dead. I found them. Nina, I ... I ... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything."

My face contorted as though I might begin to bawl, but I reminded myself it was the 19th century, and men kept a stiff upper lip. Despite my trauma and my regrets, I would not allow myself to lose the last shred of my dignity by squalling like a babe. I steeled myself, focussing hard to straighten my knotted countenance before anyone else might perceive my weakness.

I sighed, harshly and heavily, and when at last I let myself look at her with composure, my gaze fell upon her lips the way it so often had in days past. Her violet eyes glimmered at the waterline like a river beneath the stars, so clearly distraught at the pitiful sight of me, or the disruption of her birthday I'd brought upon her, or both, I could not be certain. Her hair was still immaculate despite her agitation, pinned up in loose curls of mahogany to the side and adorned with snowflakes as they settled. Her face was as flawless as if crafted of painted porcelain, and I desired nothing more than to stroke the tender skin on her pale neck and kiss it with deliberated passion.

I wanted her to hold me the way she used to when we first met, to love me as she did in our moments alone; I longed to indulge myself in the primal pleasures of laying with this magnificent woman that I had so far denied myself. There. In the street. Before the crowd of horrified onlookers. Uncaring. Audacious.

What became of me then was but a disgusting aberration of myself. A vain, twisted, lustful parody I could no longer restrain.

"No. No more," she asserted. She turned her beautiful head away as I leaned in to kiss her neck. "Curb yourself, Joseph. You are drunk, you're emotional, and you need to tell me what manner of evil has perverted you this way."