The Luxe (22 page)

D
IANA WATCHED AS HER AUNT EDITH TURNED
down the hall and began to descend the main stairs, the white appliqué of her skirt trailing behind her. Diana pushed at her hair and practiced breathing with her stomach sucked in and her shoulders thrown back. She was wearing the same seersucker she had been wearing last Sunday when Henry had come to visit, which hadn’t seemed like a bad idea when she’d still been planning to stay in her room with her Amélie Rives novel all day. There was nothing to be done about it now, of course. Her aunt wasn’t likely to sympathize with her needing to put on a smarter dress for her sister’s fiancé.

When she entered the drawing room Henry stood up quickly, and almost awkwardly.

“Miss Diana,” he said, bowing his head and suppressing a smile.

She walked across the floor, wishing that Edith could be gone for just one minute—what she could do with that min
ute!—and took the chair next to Henry’s. From this position, her aunt could see the right side of her profile, although Diana could not see her. This was the seat Elizabeth had only recently occupied—she could tell by the damp and tea-stained armrest. She set her lips together, but still they twitched, threatening to curve into a full-blown smile. She raised her eyes slowly until they met Henry’s. There was a nervous cast to his features, and she knew that he knew that they were being watched.

She folded her hands in her lap and took on a high, ladylike voice: “The weather has been very fine, Mr. Schoonmaker, but I fear it may turn.”

“You’re right, quite right,” Henry replied, mimicking her tone of extreme and dull gentility. “As I was coming in, I got a touch of cold breeze, and found it
most
foreboding.”

“Oh,
dear
.” Diana punctuated her statement with a wink.

Henry crossed a leg and fidgeted with a button on his vest. He was wearing a dove-colored suit, and it made the darkness of his eyes and hair look especially arresting. She watched the minute workings of his cheekbones as he tried not to give away the joke.

“And did you enjoy all the festivities on Friday evening, Mr. Schoonmaker?” She watched as the left corner of his mouth flexed upward, and hoped that the phrase
Friday evening
resonated the same way it did in her own mind. “I heard you were quite busy…on the
Elysian
.”

“Yes…” he said slowly. “I did enjoy that evening most, out of all the festivities of the last week. It started out dull, but later that night became particularly…
revealing
.”

Diana could feel her blush spread across her collarbone. She desperately wanted to come up with some clever reply, but all she could think of was her nearly naked self, being watched by Henry in the window. She stammered for a minute, and then heard herself say the first thing that came into her head. “And what brings you to our house today?”

The playfulness left Henry’s face, and Diana immediately regretted her lack of cleverness. With all the novels she had read, surely she could have come up with some witty remark. She had half formed one in her mind, when she heard her aunt say, “Oh, it is for a very good reason.
Tell
her, Mr. Schoonmaker.”

Diana looked up and batted a stray curl off her forehead. “What?” she said, in an inadvertently high, childlike tone.

Henry studied her for a moment and worked his jaw back and forth. “Perhaps you should tell her,” he called to Edith, with forced lightness. Diana noticed for the first time that there was a bruise on his left cheek. So he had fallen hard from the trellis.

“No, Mr. Schoonmaker. You should.”

Henry paused and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His gaze went all around the room, and then back to Diana. It felt to her as though the temperature had suddenly dropped. She
was staring at Henry so intensely, waiting to hear what Aunt Edith was prodding him to say, that she felt she might get a sudden attack of headache. “Your sister and I…we’ve decided—Elizabeth and I—to move the wedding date…up.”

“The wedding date?” Diana lowered her eyes quickly. A date implied an actual wedding, and Diana realized that until that moment she hadn’t really believed in any of it. Henry and Elizabeth were merely engaged, and not very ecstatically at that, and she supposed she’d thought things would progress in that way forever. “But why?” she asked, her voice losing itself in the back of her throat.

Henry’s dark eyes glanced quickly at Edith, and then back to Diana. He held her gaze for a long moment and nothing was said. She understood. The fun was over, and she had to put a stop to this ridiculous dreaming.

“Yes, it is wonderful,” Henry went on, as though he had explained everything and Diana had already congratulated him. His voice projected across the room. It was a bit much, really, but then Diana had never been one to disguise her feelings. She could well enough imagine what she looked like at just that moment. “In fact,” Henry continued, “I should be going now. There is so much to be done, if the wedding is indeed to happen in only a week’s time. I must go tell Isabelle that Elizabeth has agreed to be married next Sunday. She will put it all in motion.”

Diana looked up and saw that Henry was already standing. His eyebrows reached sweetly together even as he looked carefully in Aunt Edith’s direction. Then he moved so that his body blocked her view. He bent very suddenly, and Diana felt his breath and then his lips against her neck.

He stood to leave and said, in a loud and formal manner, “Good afternoon, Miss Diana,” but the brief, ticklish touch of his mouth on her skin had begun a series of pleasurable little tremors, which were now radiating through her body.

She sat very still and listened as Henry said good-bye to her aunt. He left quickly, and then she was alone with her aunt in the room where all their big moments—joyous or woeful or heart-lancing—were supposed to occur.

Diana slouched into her chair and looked at the empty space where Henry had been. That was when she noticed the small volume of Whitman that must have fallen from his pocket during his visit. She reached forward and snatched it up, and turned immediately to her favorite passage. She liked the idea of finding it in Henry’s copy. But she never got as far as reading any verse, because that’s when his bookmark fell into her lap. There, in what was now the familiar scrawl of Henry Schoonmaker, was a message that had been inked just for her.

Diana glanced up at Aunt Edith, to see if she was watching, and then around her family’s drawing room. The many antiques and heirlooms and objets d’art appeared small and dull in the late-afternoon light. But the beating of her blood and the fast tick of her heart and the glowing spot on her neck where Henry’s mouth had been—these were all bright and shining. Diana felt she was beginning to understand why, in all those novels she read, the headiest loves were the loves that couldn’t be.

A
S SHE ALWAYS DID ON ANY REALLY IMPORTANT
day, Penelope Hayes wore red. It was the deep shade of American Beauty roses, and the sleeves of her matching bolero were elaborately embroidered in the same crimson. She had ordered the dress from Paris for the fall season, and was now especially glad that she had. She painted a violent streak of color across the fabric department in Lord & Taylor as she followed Elizabeth through the great piled bolts of sumptuous white muslins and silks and laces. Elizabeth was wearing a very pale blue, so she might have almost blended in with all those bridal hues, except that her dress was made out of ordinary cotton eyelet.

“There’s really nothing.” Elizabeth sighed, turning back to Penelope and wrinkling her small nose. “If only we had time to go to Paris.”

“We’ll find something perfect.” Penelope watched Elizabeth’s narrow back bend to examine some Alençon lace, and practiced her coldest stare while no one was looking. It
was remarkable to her that this slight, finicky girl had all along been harboring a secret passion—for someone who lived in a stable, no less. Penelope still found it astonishing, and really sort of fascinating, that Elizabeth Holland, who never spoke out of turn, had desires, too. Under other circumstances she would have liked to have her old friend tell her the whole, sordid story. But it was too late for that. “You’ve just got nerves, that’s all,” she went on, mustering a bit more counterfeit kindness. “That’s why nothing looks good enough to you right now.”

“You’re probably right,” Elizabeth replied absently. She stood and ran her fingers along a bone-colored mousseline de soie. “This is going to be the most hideous wedding party ever.”

“Hush, it’s all going to be divine, even better than you could imagine. But Liz, how
are
you managing without your maid, during a week as mad as this one?” Penelope moved close to Elizabeth and drew her fingers across the unbelievable intricacies of the fabric.

“Did I tell you about that?” Elizabeth paused, and for a moment Penelope worried that in her eagerness to seem nice she had shown her hand too soon. But her friend’s thoughts were evidently too scattered for her to pick up on such subtleties. “It might have been a disaster, but Mrs. Schoonmaker has lent me two of hers for the week. And really, that girl
I had, Lina, was totally unsuitable. I should have fired her long ago.”

Penelope edged closer, letting her shoulder graze Elizabeth’s. Lina really had proved to be a canny girl, commanding such impressive sums for her information. Of course, if it had come to it, Penelope would have parted with twice as much in exchange for that outrageous secret. She had gotten the five hundred out of her father easily, by claiming that she wanted to donate it to an organization that was building an orphanage in the Sixth Ward. And then, just to put Lina back in her place a little bit, she had set her up in a little hotel on a street that was known for its brothels. “This is very pretty,” she said.

“Yes. You’re right. Mr. Carroll!” Elizabeth called out to the dressmaker, who had been scurrying around the fourth-floor fabrics department, pulling various things he thought would be of interest to the Holland-Schoonmaker wedding party. The entire prospect had thrown him into a tizzy, and Penelope had been wondering whether he or Elizabeth had the worse case of nerves. He scuttled over now.

“Yes, m’lady?” he asked, holding firmly to the measuring tape around his throat and leaning forward eagerly.

“What do you think about this one?” she asked, running her hand over a matte white silk. “Perhaps with that ivory point de gaze you showed me earlier?”

“I think it would be bee-
yoo
-ti-ful,” he replied with a flourish of his small hands.

“Can you pull this then, while I continue to look?”

“Yes, m’lady.” Mr. Carroll collected the bolt and went off, and Elizabeth turned down the next row. Outside, a cloud moved out of the way of the sun, and a beam of light fell through the high, arched windows and across the almost factory-like room, with its row upon row of cloth and simple wooden floorboards.

Penelope cleared her throat. “Liz,” she said, “can I ask you something?”

Elizabeth looked up and gave her a gentle smile. “Of course.”

“Are you…nervous?”

“About what part?”

Penelope made a show of looking around them and averting her eyes. “You know…the
wedding night
part.”

Elizabeth covered her face with a delicate hand, but Penelope could see perfectly well that she wasn’t blushing. She almost liked her more, now that she knew Elizabeth was not so hideously, boringly perfect. “Not really,” she said.

“Don’t you think it might hurt?” Penelope gave Elizabeth a girlish nudge.

“No,” Elizabeth replied with a shrug. Then she quickly
added: “I don’t know why, I just, that’s not the part that I’m afraid of. It’s strange, I suppose—”

“Not
that
strange.” Penelope met Elizabeth’s eyes, and put away the sweet persona she had worn that afternoon. “Not strange at all, really.”

She watched the blood rise in her rival’s cheeks. Her pupils grew large and black, and for a long moment the girls did nothing but face each other, their pretty lashes flickering over watchful eyes.

“It’s just that I wasn’t
thinking
about that part,” Elizabeth replied defensively.

“No. Why would you have to?” Penelope asked, her voice dropping to a cold whisper. “When you’re already doing that part with a member of the
staff
.”

Elizabeth’s lower lip dropped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered. A cloud moved in front of the sun again, now, and the whole room took on a dark hush.

Penelope rolled her eyes. “If you want to waste an hour on false denials, that’s fine with me. But I know for a fact that you have been spending nights with one William Keller, coachman.” Penelope couldn’t hold back a little smile. It was fun, this putting Elizabeth in her place. “And I have proof.”

“What kind of proof?” Elizabeth asked in the same slow, stunned voice.

“A letter. From him to you. Sweetly enough, he left it on
the night he skipped town.” Penelope gave a careless flourish of her hand. “It’s an entreaty for you to follow, which you obviously didn’t heed.”

“Will left me a letter?” Elizabeth’s smooth forehead creased poignantly as she thought this through.

“Oh, yes. Forgive me.
Will
.”

Elizabeth was virtually shaking with this news, and her eyes were damp. She folded her lips together so that they disappeared, and clasped her hands. “Penny, you can’t tell anybody about this.”

“Oh, really?” She gave Elizabeth a little fake pouting look. “Why can’t I again?”

“You’re still angry about Henry…” Elizabeth said slowly.

“Oh, that doesn’t even
begin
to describe it. But yes, Liz, my dear friend, I am still angry. Henry was mine. We were
gorgeous
together. And then some perversity of fate mucked it up. I don’t know how that happened. But now I know how I can undo it. I am going to
ruin
you, Liz.” Penelope gave Elizabeth a small, malicious smile. “But really, darling.
You
did all the work. I’m just going to let your nasty little pigeon out of the coop.”

Elizabeth’s gaze fell once again to the slightly scuffed wood floor, and she continued to work her hands together. The natural light in the room caught her pale hair, giving her a look of angelic distress that did nothing to soften Penelope’s stance. She
tucked her lower lip under her pearly teeth and met Penelope’s eyes. “Penny…” she whispered. “Nobody likes a mess.”

“
I
do.”

“Yes, I know.” Elizabeth spoke in quiet, pointed words.

“That’s why you’re you…and I’m me. But if you set about to ruin me, nobody is going to end up liking you any more than they do now.”

“Nobody has to know that I was the one—”

“And when you charge in and try to marry the former fiancé of the fallen favorite? Oh, Penny. Don’t be
stupid
.” Elizabeth took a forceful step forward, and for a moment Penelope glimpsed the hot-blooded creature that lived inside that perfect lady’s cool skin. “Penny?” she went on. Her voice was still confident, though the thing she wanted and the extent of her desire were plain across her face. “Can I see the letter?”

Penelope threw back her head and exhaled impatiently. She reached inside her jacket, drew out the letter, and waved it at Elizabeth long enough for her to recognize her own stationery. “You can have it for keeps if you do what I say.”

Then she turned sharply to show Elizabeth her red-sheathed back. She listened as Elizabeth took a timorous step in her direction. “What do you want me to do?”

“Meet me at my house on Wednesday morning—at ten o’clock—and I will try to think of a way for you not to marry Henry without the total ruin of your reputation.”

“But I—”

“Liz,” Penelope broke in, still facing away from her. She ran a hand over several bolts of gold-and silver-embroidered silks, and then looked over her slim shoulder at her friend, whose eyes were large and petrified in muted fear and fury.

“You really don’t have much of a choice.”

A light sheen of sweat had broken out on Penelope’s forehead, and her stomach had a sour turn to it. It was time to go. She drew her crimson skirt away from her feet and began marching for the elevator. She didn’t bother looking back. She knew that Elizabeth would be waiting for her on Wednesday morning, wearing that same desperate face.

As she reached the end of the ivory and ecru row, she set her hand on a worktable and called back, “Oh, and Liz?” She turned and met Elizabeth’s doe eyes with what she fully intended to be an intimidating stare. “Choose your own damn dress.”