Chapter 9 Quiet Decorum
Quiet Decorum
Coraline O’Malley feels like a bomb about to detonate right here inside this ballroom. Months of planning, training, sitting
straight, talking softly, laughing in just the right key, whispering in French as she nibbles on asparagus—everything, all
of it, comes down to tonight’s introduction to society, and somehow, mere hours into the evening, she has been rendered a
debutante non grata.
Not one suitor has approached her on his own accord since Cora stepped foot inside this grand wedding cake of a building, with its
dwarfing chandeliers and glittering ballroom floor. Could her Württembergian accent be too harsh, off-putting? No, that’s
ridiculous; she has barely had the chance to speak to anyone. And it’s absolutely not about her appearance—Béa’s cosmetics
skills tonight have sharpened Cora’s features to the point where they could cut glass—nor her gown, as this champagne silk
rental is especially stunning.
Cora peers around the party from where she’s currently marooned, near the refreshments table, beside a trio of vapid young ladies—Arabella Ames, the Vandemeer girl, and Mrs. Witt’s boresome daughter, the pug-faced brunette Bonnie Witt.
Cora spots Alice across the ballroom, currently preoccupied, she and Ward both being paraded from one fine family to another by Mrs. Ames, like pets on a leash.
No, Cora will need to figure this out on her own, and fast. If she cannot ensnare the attentions of some of these gentlemen before Mr. Peyton arrives—assuming he will indeed arrive—she’s going to appear to her mark like unwanted, damaged goods.
“If Robert Davenport doesn’t approach me in the next ten minutes, I am going to throw a fit,” mutters the curvy blonde beside
Cora.
“Marion Vandemeer, known as Mimi.” Alice’s tutorials flood Cora’s mind like a spring. “The spoiled rotten daughter of old money James and his second wife, Olivia, a glamorous laudanum addict—or so the rumors
go.”
“I’m sure he’ll come around, Mimi,” Arabella whispers. She smiles gently at her scowling friend. “He probably assumes your
dance card is already full.”
“What a conniving little attempt to point out my shortcomings.” Mimi’s eyes narrow. “The card is half full, Arabella, which means half empty. And I’ve already made far too many compromises. Boys with immigrant parents, paltry inheritances, overbites—”
Cora seizes the opening. “At our balls in Württemberg, young women are encouraged to approach the men.”
She flinches. Her accent came out much too harsh and her proposal far too desperate.
The trio all turn to stare.
Cora swallows. “It is seen as deferential and, ah, honorable, in our country. Perhaps we might all—”
“No suitor is going to want to speak to you.” Mimi laughs.
Bonnie barks out a chuckle. “Besides my nutter brother, but who wants him?”
Cora’s face must show her confusion plainly as Mimi adds, “I mentioned to Edward Livingston that you practice the occult with
your little green gems.” She smiles sweetly. “Perhaps he spread it around?”
Cora grits her teeth. Why, you vicious little twit! Alice’s voice, though, sounds through her mind, drowning out her own thoughts: “A lady always projects quiet decorum.”
Through sheer will, Cora resists the urge to throttle her.
“Forgive me.” Cora forces a smile. “I do not understand why you would say this.”
“Because you’re pretty,” Bonnie drones, “and a beautiful emerald heiress is compet—”
She cuts off when Mimi elbows her in the waist.
“Ladies,” Arabella puts in softly, glancing at Cora. “We would do best to welcome new friends to our shores—”
“Oh, lighten up, Arabella, it’s harmless fun.” Mimi’s eyes sparkle. “A welcome joke between Lady Cora and me. To break the ice.”
“It’s Miss Ritter.”
At Mimi’s arched, challenging eyebrow, Cora amends, in a softer, more Württembergian accent, “I am not titled. But call me
Cora, if you please.”
Arabella gently cups her elbow, gracefully diverting her attention. “Cora, then. I, for one, would love to hear more about
your nation, the landscape, the culture, the emeralds. About everything concerning your homeland, really. I confess, I’ve
come to greatly enjoy the posts from your cousin. The grand prince spoke so hopefully about the fate of Württemberg in his
last message.”
“You cannot know what a service you’ve offered him,” Cora says, attempting to reclaim her footing. “In your words, he sees the hope of true support from abroad.”
Arabella smiles. “The pleasure is mine. It has been a long while since I’ve engaged in such frequent correspondence.”
“Ah yes, since sad little Harry Peyton,” Mimi says flatly as she inspects her nails.
Cora’s pulse jumps at his mention, while Arabella blushes.
“I hear his father keeps him chained in the basement now,” Mimi muses. “Only time he’s allowed to leave the house is to watch
quacks hack up dead bodies.”
Arabella blurts, “So he has an interest in anatomy. As do many of the greatest minds of our time.”
“Speak of the devil,” Bonnie drones, nodding toward the restaurant’s large doors, and Arabella’s voice gulps into abrupt silence.
Cora follows her gaze toward the restaurant entrance.
“So he’s finally decided to show his face again,” Mimi says. “And my, my, how he has grown.”
Arabella shakes her head, still reeling. “Oh . . . He’s . . . You’re right.”
“Harry Peyton just arrived,” Bonnie announces to Cora in a bored monotone. “The one we were just discussing.”
Cora feels upended. Dizzy. As if she’s levitating herself.
Harry Peyton. Son of Harold Peyton the senior, Alice’s white whale, the supposed “worst of them.”
Cora’s ultimate mark has finally walked through the door.
“The years have treated him kindly, I see,” Mimi adds. “Although that attire. How . . . misguided.”
Through the crowd, Cora spots the young man Mimi’s speaking about—and a wave of relief crests over her shoulders.
Sometimes in the past weeks, at night, when cold rain pelted the windows or when the fire would pinch out and Alice’s apartment turned frigid, Cora’s mind turned chilly too, imagining the very worst that lay ahead—far worse than mastering dances and place settings.
Harry Peyton could have proved a true ogre, after all, one she must spend months fawning over and charming for the sake of her payout.
Thankfully, the young man working the crowd—shaking hands now with Mr. Vandemeer—looks more like a hapless prince than a gruesome
ogre. Tall, slim physique, a big smile. Animated, bewildered eyes as he takes in the ballroom. Cora can’t tell what color
they are from here, but she wouldn’t mind finding out.
Mimi mutters, “Harry should save that getup for your mother’s costume ball, Bella.”
“Hush, Mimi,” Arabella says, unusually sharp.
Mimi does make a point this time. Good heavens, no wonder Cora thought of a prince. What is Harry wearing, and why? A blue satin coat that doesn’t quite fit, scuffed shoes, a clearly borrowed and worse-for-wear powdered wig?
No matter. Cora’s mind clicks into performance mode, nerves singing now that her target has taken on tangible form. Now that
the plan is no longer theoretical but here, curtains opening, the act about to start. And a wrong first step could foil the
entire show.
She considers her move as Harry turns to approach Mrs. Ames.
“Lady Cora, allow me to introduce myself.”
Cora startles, turning to find a pale, spindly young man hovering on her heels.
The man’s dull gray eyes narrow, his rounded spine hunched like a question mark as he bows. “Beau Witt the Third, heir to my father’s empire. Once my mother passes and gets out of the way, obviously.”
Bonnie’s “nutter brother.” Oh no, not now.
Beau straightens somewhat, smiling to reveal a set of crooked gray teeth.
“Ah yes, charmed, Mr. Witt.”
“My sister has been monopolizing your time,” Beau coos. “I take it you have an interest in the occult? I myself . . .”
His voice sinks into the party’s swells as Cora tracks Harry out of the corner of her eye—still with Mrs. Ames, though Arabella
has wisely used Beau’s interruption as an excuse to cross the room and join them.
“. . . and so I was hoping the two of us might have a word,” Beau concludes, to his own apparent satisfaction.
Cora blinks. “I believe we just had several.”
Beau laughs like a hyena, so loud that even his sister grimaces and shrinks away. Mimi, too, slinks off to a nearby table,
eyebrow crooked again.
Wonderful. Now just the two of them.
“I should think you would be excited for some conversation, a chance to practice your English. Cora—I can call you Cora, can’t I?” Beau waggles his haywire eyebrows. “I notice that no other gentleman has been bold enough to approach.
I assure you, we Witts are confident stock, not easily intimidated by matters of the heart, mind, or even the supernatural.
It is not every day one meets an international, powerful princess—”
“I am not a princess, Mr. Witt.”
“And all this talk of mystic gems—”
“Emeralds.” She glances away, searching for rescue.
“Not to mention how truly enchanting you look tonight.” Beau winks, his smile stretching wide. It’s like a cemetery in there,
she thinks, a mouth of ancient headstones on a gloomy eve.
Cora’s pulse begins jumping faster than the orchestra’s rag. From her vantage, she can see that Arabella and Harry are speaking
now, both of them smiling. Beaming, really. Friends from childhood, it sounds like, correspondents, although it looks like
more. There’s obvious chemistry between them. Not a spark necessarily, but . . . something. A simmering.
A simmering she supposes she’ll need to quickly cool, which is hardly possible when one is trapped by a young Grim Reaper.
“Did you hear me?” Mr. Witt presses petulantly, fiddling with something in his pocket. A pencil. What the dickens, is he about
to ask her to dance? “I said enchanting.”
“Yes, a play on . . . the occult, is it? Very clever.” Cora smiles brightly. “But I’m afraid the thing I feel most at this
moment is overheated. If you’ll excuse me—”