Finding himself in an ornamenal garden Tomlin cursed himself for a fool. How could the silly girl have followed him? Certainly, it wasn’t her down the corridor. Obviously he was safe in the garden. How could a garden not be safe?
His eyes strayed to the stars above, the capricious masters of fate to some. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal. What is fate, he mused to himself, if not the coincidences of life explained more dramatically or poetically. He wasn’t one for fate; he considered his life his own to mess up, as he was sure he was doing tonight.
A quiet corner of his mind whispered, “The mask.” Lost in contemplation as he was it took a moment. But logically, the woman in question had only seen his mask, the silly lion’s mask his butler found so amusing. Without the mask, she would not be able to recognize him. Nimble, manacured fingers raised the mask and pull it away.
His briefly obscured view returned to reveal a woman, a woman in crimson red staring at him across the garden.