Chapter Three #3
Grace sipped her tea, which was strong with jasmine, and followed Lillie toward the open-air balconies, where the sunrise was beginning to streak across the sky in shades of soft pink and lilac.
She knew, even without having to ask, where Lillie was going tomorrow: the Evening Dispensary.
She was the only one who knew Lillie’s secret and she held it close to her breast, as careful as an infant, knowing what it would cost Lillie if high society—or worse, her own mother—found out.
Sneaking off to help female doctors at the underground women’s clinic was dangerous, but it wasn’t wrong.
It was noble, actually, and that was why Grace was willing to help her.
She loved her good, good cousin. Her smart and wickedly funny and kindhearted cousin.
She gave Lillie an affectionate kiss on the cheek, just because she could.
For one more week at least, she could do that whenever she pleased.
And then she glanced over her shoulder, scanning the room for Earnest.
“Cousin,” Oliver said, finishing his drink. “You look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you,” Grace said. She smoothed down her dress. “So does Harriet,” she added, so that only Oliver could hear.
“She looks happy,” Oliver said, as Harriet laughed throatily at something Theo said. And she did. She was beautiful, wearing a black dress patterned with iridescent shells that caught the dim light. Theodore was sharply handsome in a tailored black suit, his face all angles in the shadows.
“Indeed,” said Grace lightly. “Mr. Parker is playing his role well.”
Too well? she wondered. She wouldn’t put it past Theodore Parker to be the sort of man to steal his friend’s love. And, a darker part of her thought, if Harriet was merely out for money and status, then Theo had even more to offer her than Oliver.
She felt almost violently protective of her cousins. She wanted their every happiness. And yet she knew how money distorted things. How enticing Oliver might be for his fortune alone. How difficult it could be to tell the truth of feelings when money was involved.
After all—she liked Earnest Allred. She could feel her attraction to him growing. But she wanted to make certain she liked him for genuine reasons, and not just what he could do for her. Or in exchange, she would come to no longer like herself.
Almost as though summoned by her thoughts, Frannie Allred appeared at the palace entrance dressed in a jewel-blue dress that set off her pale skin and auburn hair.
Grace leaned forward and her heart rose, but the man on Frannie’s arm wasn’t Earnest. Instead he was a tall, handsome redhead that Frannie gazed at adoringly.
Grace felt the sharp prick of disappointment. Careful, she cautioned herself. Don’t get your hopes up.
She’d been burned enough times to know that people in these circles worked with different sets of rules than she did. Perhaps, despite asking her to dance, Earnest wasn’t coming tonight after all.
“Looking for someone?” Theodore asked wryly, appearing at Grace’s elbow, sipping his yellow wine. She smelled a whiff of honey and smoke.
She didn’t look at him. “For a man who hates parties you seem to attend a frightful lot of them,” she said.
“With company this pleasant,” he said smoothly, “who could blame me?”
She rolled her eyes. The air was pungent with floral scents of yellow wine and sprays of peach blossoms and chrysanthemums. Grace loved the smell of the intricately carved teakwood chairs, the rustle of the Chinese women’s rich silks.
The way she felt so far away from her real life.
She plastered a smile on her face as Oliver and Lillie approached with a young Chinese man, trying to chase away the disappointment that Earnest was still not there.
“Grace. Theodore,” Oliver said, “I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Wang. He was born and raised in Beijing and studies at Yale. This is my cousin, Miss Grace Covington.”
“If this display is to be believed, your country is more beautiful than I can imagine,” she said, curtsying.
He laughed a little, bowing in acknowledgment. “Even I still don’t have a full grasp of my country’s beauty. But we have done what we can to capture a faint breath of it.”
“You would argue that these fair exhibits are hardly reality, then?” Oliver said. “We don’t actually have temples of corn here in Missouri, after all.”
“Perhaps they do not show the reality, but the ideal,” Mr. Wang said. “And yet what we believe to be ideal shows the reality of who we are.”
“I couldn’t agree more!” Frannie’s date said energetically, coming to join them.
“That’s what the fair is all about, isn’t it?
Picture this,” he said, his blue eyes alight.
“Tonight. A flying contest, pitting the newest machines and the best pilots. The winner has to get their machine around the course three times at twenty miles per hour. It can be a balloon, an aeroplane, a glider—the imagination, if you will allow the pun, soars.”
“We’ll allow it,” Lillie said, smiling. “Won’t we, Grace?”
“Ah, the infamous Grace,” the man said, interest lighting his features. He turned to her with an appraising look. “Earnest has told me all about you.”
Grace couldn’t hide the flush she felt instantly sweep across her cheeks. Frannie’s expression darkened like a storm.
“I’m Laurel,” the man continued, “but everyone calls me Copper. Earnest and I row together. I’m his trainer.”
“Don’t say that,” Frannie said haughtily. “It sounds so common. You’re much more than his trainer.”
“That’s true, I’m also a runner,” he said. “I’ll be participating in the Olympic Games in a few months.”
Frannie was incensed. “Earnest and Copper were school chums at University of Chicago, and he’s the grandson of a governor,” she said indignantly, sipping her rice wine.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Grace said.
She stole another look around the room. Theodore was speaking with Harriet and didn’t seem to be looking in their direction at all. Something about that annoyed Grace more than she cared to acknowledge.
“Shall we head outdoors?” Copper asked, taking Frannie by the elbow. “The flight show is about to start.”
They made their way outside. The night was mild, and lanterns hung from the eaves and lined the pathways to the rose gardens and the sloping roof of the teahouse.
The cacophony from the heat of the day had quieted to a pleasant, dull chatter and the gentle tinkling of distant bells.
The tea was warm and fragrant in Grace’s hand—jasmine—and the air was pregnant with something.
And that’s why part of Grace still wanted to try to be in this world, even though it didn’t want her back.
There was always a feeling as though something magnificent could happen at any moment.
She looked over her shoulder again. Earnest was fascinated with aeronautics. He wouldn’t miss this.
Was something wrong?
“Will Earnest be joining us tonight?” Grace asked Copper.
“Are you familiar with the Wright brothers, Miss Covington?” Copper asked, instead of answering.
She smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Their aeroplane was all over the papers in December.”
“I’m told that a new flying machine called the Windshare is going to attempt something similar tonight.”
“Oh?”
Grace chanced one more look around the pavilion for Earnest’s golden head, his bright blue eyes. Maybe he would show up at the last minute? Surely Frannie would have mentioned if he were ill?
“A dirigible called the California Arrow set the current record in the contest. It was airborne for thirty-seven minutes,” Copper said.
The sun was setting in a striation of pinks to the west when a spotlight from the top of the Whitcomb Publishing building swung toward the sky.
The gathering crowd looked up, rapt, and applause rang out across the courtyard as something began a trajectory. It didn’t look like a regular plane, but something made of silk and a bamboo-like scaffolding taking flight.
Prince Pu Lun stood next to fair President Francis on the pavilion, eyes trained on the sky.
“The future,” Francis said, his eyes shining. “This is what it’s all for.”
Oliver slapped his knee, then put his arm around Harriet as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to. “And hot damn! Here we are, right on its front porch, demanding to be let in.”
Lillie did a slight double take when she saw him, taking in the intimate way he was holding Harriet. Her eyes widened.
“I can’t believe it,” Copper said, chuffing, shaking his head. “He did it. Earnest bloody well did it.”
“What on earth do you mean?” Frannie asked, turning toward him. She choked out a laugh, as though the thought that occurred to her was absurd. “Surely you don’t mean Earnest is inside that contraption?”
“I absolutely do.” Copper raised his glass. “To the World’s Fair!”
The crowd around them whooped and responded. “To the future!” they shouted.
And at that moment, the Windshare exploded.