Chapter 8 The Line and the Lure
The Line and the Lure
“Another ten minutes, I think,” Alice calls over her shoulder. “We won’t want to be early.”
She gazes into the mirror. She looks rather drawn, pallid, but it suits the character she’s playing. The gown is secondhand
but doesn’t seem it, procured discreetly from a shop in Philadelphia. It took Béatrice twenty hours to go there and back,
but the expense of her rail ticket was offset by the money they’ve saved not having a dress made to order. This is a Worth
gown, Parisian, cast off by a Pennsylvania debutante only last season. It suits Alice’s complexion well.
Béatrice has an eye for these things. She really is remarkable.
Here she is now, behind Alice in the mirror, frowning so charmingly as she tries to add a little life to that French twist,
but Alice waves her off. “See to Cora one more time, final details. She must be the object of all eyes tonight.”
“That will be difficult standing next to you,” Béatrice says quietly.
Alice smiles just as faintly. Only Béa would believe that.
“We won’t be locked at the hip tonight as we’ve been these past weeks,” Alice notes with a sigh. “I hope she’s ready.”
“She is. It is all lining up exactly as it should.”
Béatrice presses a hand to Alice’s shoulder before she goes. Alice feels her touch lingering there even after she’s left the room.
She draws a few deep breaths, soothed somehow by the confines of her corset, a reassurance that she is here, she is real,
even if all else is illusion. That she is held in, not overspilling. Calm and prepared.
“My bustle barely fits through any of the doors!” Cora’s giggles erupt from the sitting room. “This dress is divine, though.
Even you have to admit it, Dag. Gef?llt dir mein Kleid?”
Alice hears Dagmar’s amused grunt of acquiescence as she rises to make her own careful way down the hall. When Alice reaches
the sitting room, her shoulders drop in relief. Cora is exactly as she’d envisioned—warm where she herself is cool. Her champagne
silk dress dazzles in contrast to Alice’s deep plum fabric. Cora’s strawberry-blonde locks set in playful curls, one ringlet
dropping loose, where Alice’s pale hair is pulled back tightly in a more austere and old-fashioned style. The younger woman
will draw eyes while Alice works in shadowed corners. Just as she has planned it.
Béatrice stands watching for Alice’s verdict on her handiwork.
Alice nods, appreciation lifting the corners of her mouth.
Color returns to Béa’s cheeks at that and Cora outright beams, twirling about in her shining gown.
“It’s a good thing we’re selling this one or I’d be tempted to wear it every single day.”
Alice notes the wistful pleasure in Béa’s expression and wonders if she looked like this back in Montreal, in the years before her first arrest—a young teen working at a dressmaker’s shop, learning the trade, only close enough to the gowns to stitch them up, never to wear them herself.
I’ll buy her dresses to wear when this is done, Alice thinks. All the gowns and slippers and gloves she wants.
The front doorbell rings and Béa turns to see to it, jarring Alice out of her foolish thoughts.
Béatrice will be able to buy herself dresses when all this is done. They all will.
“Mr. McAllister’s carriage is ready,” Béa returns to announce. Every inch the well-trained housemaid. One would never guess
she was ever anything else.
Béatrice holds the door for Alice and Cora to step out onto the street. Alice can feel more than hear her warmly murmur, “Good
luck,” as Alice sweeps past her into the waiting night.
Ward peeks out from his carriage door, held ajar by a footman, with a saucy grin. “My goodness, you do clean up well, Your
Grace. And I am so very pleased to at last make the acquaintance of . . . is it Lady Cora?”
“We are going with ‘Miss,’” Alice murmurs, Württembergian accent back in place as she settles beside Ward inside the carriage,
Cora filling the spot opposite.
“I may have told a few people ‘lady,’” Ward frets. “Never mind that. This is going to be a night to remember.”
“In a good way, I hope, Mr. McAllister,” Cora says demurely.
Ward goggles at Alice. “That accent. She’s nailed it!”
Alice can’t help but smile as she shushes McAllister. He takes the hint, changing the subject.
“You know, there was a young fellow loiterin’ outside your house when I arrived,” Ward announces. “Didn’t much like the look of him. He told me he was a reporter and I liked him even less.”
“Probably angling for a quote on the situation in Württemberg,” Alice says, looking away.
“You’re givin’ quotes to reporters on a fictional resistance movement?” Ward gawks. “Do you think that’s entirely wise?”
“How did P.T. Barnum put it?” Alice shrugs. “There is no such thing as bad publicity?”
“I couldn’t disagree with him more,” Ward drawls. “Lawd knows there’s plenty about myself I don’t plan on publicizin’ anytime
soon. But I have nothing but faith in your own judgment, my dear duchess.”
Cora, Alice notes, has followed this turn in the conversation with barely concealed alertness. Even so, she asks no questions
and remains uncommonly silent for the rest of the short drive down to the Financial District.
Nerves, Alice thinks. Or perhaps Ward drawing attention to her Württembergian accent has made her self-conscious about it.
Alice herself is more relieved than anxious when they arrive at last outside Delmonico’s flagship building alongside scores
of other carriages bearing guests to the brightly lit doorway.
At the entrance to the restaurant, McAllister hands all three of their invitations to the doorman with a wink, then parts
from them as the two women are ushered by a waiting maid into a dressing area that’s already awash with women. The sudden
chatter and flash of color that assaults them as they walk in is such a contrast to the cozy insularity of the past several
months in the flat on Thirty-Eighth and Third Avenue that Alice has to bite back a gasp as they step inside. The overall effect
is one of an aviary full of tropical songbirds.
For her part, Cora looks, if anything, more at ease. Perhaps it reminds her of dressing rooms before performances.
“Your Grace,” comes a saccharine voice from across the room—Mrs. Pearl Ames, her many-layered gown of yellow charmeuse giving her the
look of a mangled canary.
Alice straightens elegantly as she greets Mrs. Ames, knowing all eyes in the room have now turned away from their mirrors
and firmly onto her.
Her own performance has now begun.
She meets Mrs. Ames halfway across the room, Cora and Arabella trailing behind the two elder women like dinghies pulled by
yachts.
“So the rumors are true,” Mrs. Ames coos. Her smile is bright, tinged with desperation. “Your Grace’s cousin, is it?”
“Mrs. Ames, may I present Miss Cora Ritter, daughter of my late uncle Reginald.”
Cora, as rehearsed, dips her head in grief, even as she extends her gloved hand to Mrs. Ames.
“Oh, he’s . . . he’s dead, then?” Mrs. Ames sputters, her hand flying to her broad bosom. Then she leans in to whisper, “It
wasn’t the Austrians, was it?”
“In a way, it may have been,” Cora murmurs. “He pledged his heart to Württemberg and his king, mein papa. In the end, it could not withstand the strain of all that we have lost.”
There is a somber silence before Mrs. Ames chirps, “My daughter, Arabella. You two will be quick friends, I’m sure of it.
Arabella, don’t be rude. Take Lady Cora to meet your other young acquaintances. She doesn’t know a soul on these shores, do
you, poor thing?”
“I’m afraid I do not,” Cora answers, turning to Arabella with a shy smile.
“Come with me, then,” Arabella answers eagerly, the pink of her cheeks flushing to match her rose gown. “I should love to ask you about Württemberg, if you don’t mind. Mamma tells me you fled here for your safety? That must have been terrifying for you . . .”
As little Arabella and Cora break away toward a clutch of gathered debutantes, the two arm in arm already like childhood friends,
Alice notices not for the first time that there’s a genuine sweetness to the younger Ames woman’s expression that does not
appear to have sprung from either of her parents.
She swallows away the stab of compunction that accompanies that observation. There is no leeway for mercy in this plan of
hers—not even for Cora, who shoots Alice an alarmed look over one champagne puff of a shoulder. Sometimes you have to push
the baby bird from the nest in order to get them to fly.
“Dare I ask about the resistance?” Mrs. Ames asks, her face a rictus of feigned worry. “Your brother, safe, I hope?”
Before Alice can draw breath to answer, Mrs. Ames glances in apparent panic over Alice’s shoulder. Alice follows her gaze
to see Mrs. Witt flinging her fur warmer and winter cloak at an attendant maid and rapidly crossing the room to intercept
the conversation.
Mrs. Ames leans in and frantically whispers, “My brother nearly died in an ice-skating accident when he was seven and I’ve had a terror of ponds ever since. Isn’t that silly?
Don’t tell anyone; it’ll be our secret.”
She laughs shrilly as Mrs. Witt reaches them. Thank goodness Alice has the other woman’s cheek kisses to use as an excuse
not to bother conjuring up a reaction to whatever bizarre display of intimacy Mrs. Ames was clearly attempting.
If they are all birds, then Mrs. Witt, in her feathered lime-green gown, is an Amazonian parrot. An exceedingly gangly one.
“My darling friend,” she drawls, acting for all the world as if they’ve been intimates since childhood. “You’re looking ever
so well, considering. Did you see I dressed in your honor tonight? Emeralds! I’ve got tiny ones sewn into the bodice, you
see—not Württembergian ones, alas, but I did try. Now, where’s your poor orphaned niece? I’m sure she’s as pretty as they
say, but it amuses me to picture her as some haggard waif out of Dickens. It’ll be a shame to spoil the illusion, but either
way, my son will want to meet her.”