“Who let you in?” She greeted him without a smile. She placed her fist on her hip, causing the gold, gypsy-style bracelets to clatter down her wrist. “ You’re not wearing a costume. And it said very clearly on your invitation that this was to be a costume ball.”
Henry turned to her with a face of casual amusement, not even bothering with a faux self-conscious examination of his black tails and trousers. “Have I done wrong, Miss Hayes? See, I don’t have time to read my mail anymore, but a little bird told me you would be having a party tonight….”
It was whispered among the women of New York that Henry always had the band paid off in advance, because they frequently struck up a waltz just precisely when he needed to end a conversation. The band began playing now, and Henry gave a gentle nod in Penelope’s direction. She could not stop the corner of her mouth from twitching, smile-like, for a moment. He kept his intense gaze fixed on her as he began walking her backward into the room until they were waltzing.
For a moment the crowd just watched, dazzled by the lightness of the couple moving across the floor. But Penelope was very good at arousing jealousy, and her cousins and friends were not very good at standing still when they were jealous. Soon other, less bright couples began dancing, too, so that the gleaming pattern of the marble floor was blotted out by the bright swinging skirts of the girls and the nimble black feet of their partners.
There were plenty of eyes still on the flamenco dancer and the dandy in tails; Penelope knew how much she was watched, so she spoke quietly as they moved. “Why did you send me that note?” she asked, tilting her head slightly as they turned.
“I like teasing you,” he answered. “This way, I knew you’d be especially grateful to see me.”
Penelope considered this for a moment, but there was something in his lively, deep brown eyes that told her he was lying, just a little bit. “You were someplace else before you came here, weren’t you?”
“Now, what would make you think a thing like that?” he replied with unwavering amusement. “I’ve been looking forward to this precise moment all day.”
“You lie very well,” she told him. “But I knew you wouldn’t stay away.”
Henry stared at her carelessly and did not answer. He just pressed his hand into her skirt, somewhat lower than the small of her back, and kept moving her through the crowd. She felt in that moment as though they were a known item, and that all those lesser girls were already crying into their hankies at the thought of Henry William Schoonmaker being married. The music seemed to be playing triumphantly and just for her. She could have gone on like this forever. She might have, too, had not the large, whiskery figure of Henry’s father appeared over his shoulder and pulled him out of the dance.
“Pardon me, Miss Hayes,” the elder Mr. Schoonmaker said in a voice that was level but devoid of apology. The rest of the dancers kept moving, but Penelope found herself horribly stalled in the center of everything, her great performance curtailed by this large, odious parental presence. She felt a fit coming on but somehow managed to contain it. The other dancers were pretending not to notice what was going on, but they were all terrible fakers. Penelope wondered if Elizabeth was out there watching. She had wanted to reveal her secret relationship to her friend with maximum drama, and this exchange wasn’t helping anything. “I am going to have to borrow Henry for the rest of the night. It’s quite urgent, and we must leave immediately, I’m afraid.”
Instinct made Penelope smile even through her misery, and she tipped her head. “Of course,” she answered. Then she watched, alone, from the middle of that epic room, as her future husband disappeared amongst all those ordinary bodies. Penelope knew, despite the still-dancing masses, that for her the party was over.
THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT I, WILLIAM SACKHOUSE SCHOONMAKER, DO LEAVE ALL MY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS, AS ITEMIZED BELOW, INCLUDING ALL HOLDINGS RELATING TO BUSINESS, REAL ESTATE, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY, TO _______________.
HENRY SCHOONMAKER PRETENDED TO STUDY THE piece of paper for another moment, and then he did what he always did when he found something too serious or too boring to bother trying to comprehend. He spread his long thin lips back from his perfectly white teeth and laughed.
“Awful morbid, Dad,” he said. “We left a party for this?”
His father stared back at him, large and unsmiling in his black suit and thick, dark muttonchops. William Schoonmaker had small eyes skilled in intimidation and dyed his hair an inky black out of vanity. Because of his frequent turns to rage, his skin was a patchy red, and his mustache curled down around his pink chin. But one could see, under all that, the fine, aristocratic features that he had bequeathed to his son.
“ Everything is a party to you,” his father finally said in reply. Henry saw the father he knew best emerge now the full, unpleasant personality Mr. Schoonmaker reserved for when he was in his own home or office. Henry had been raised by his governesses, and so his father had always seemed a distant and awesome figure, charging about the house while a fleet of underlings made awkward, obsequious gestures in the vain attempt to please him.
Henry pushed the sheet of paper back across the polished walnut pedestal table toward his father and stepmother, Isabelle, and hoped he wouldn’t be bothered about it again for the rest of the evening. Isabelle smiled apologetically at him and gave a surreptitious little roll of her eyes. She was twenty-five only five years older than Henry himself, and they had often been dance partners before her marriage last year to the richest and most powerful of the Schoonmaker men. It was almost strange to see her in his own house; she still looked like Isabelle De Ford, who was always good for a flirt and a laugh. It might have been all about money, but Henry still felt secret respect toward the old man for winning her.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on Henry,” she said in a high, girlish voice and brushed a golden curl away from her face.
“Shut up,” his father replied in his deep rasp, without so much as turning to look at her. Isabelle made a frowning face and continued playing with her hair. “Get those silly looks off your faces, both of you. Henry, pour yourself a drink.”
Henry did not like to appear overly obedient to his father, and they avoided each other enough that indeed he rarely had the opportunity. But there was about his father the rangy, discriminating air of all extraordinarily powerful men, and there was a part of Henry that craved his attention, that longed for the man to notice his actions and approve. At this particular moment, however, he chose to listen to his father because what he most wanted in all the world was a drink. He crossed the room and poured himself a Scotch from one of the cut-glass decanters on the side table.
The room was dark and heavy with the cigar smoke that attended all his father’s dealings. The walls and ceilings were of ornate carved wood the virtuoso Italian craftsmanship so familiar to Henry that he barely noticed it anymore. So this was the sort of place where business got done, Henry mused with a touch of wonder. His life was so absolutely crammed with play that the serious mood of this room felt like a foreign territory. Earlier, he had dined at Delmonico’s on Forty-fourth Street, and then there had been an interlude at one of those downtown saloons where one could hear rags and dance with working girls, and then off to Penelope’s grand fete. He got a little perverse thrill from being slightly tipsy in the midst of his father’s serious decor.
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