Chapter Four #2
“Help yourself,” Theo said with a perfected disdain.
“I’m hearing people surmise that it was sabotage,” Sam said, chewing.
Grace’s stomach turned. “People think the crash was intentional?”
A look of grotesque delight crossed Sam’s face. “It wouldn’t be the first mishap for that event. The only thing steeper than the ascent and the entrance fee is the size of the prize money at stake.”
“How much is the prize money?” Harriet asked. She touched the heavy earrings that dripped from her lobes.
“One hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
Harriet’s jaw dropped. Theo’s face remained unreadable.
“They have to complete a course that some pilots say simply can’t be done,” Sam continued. “Some dropped out, others are finding unfortunate mishaps are happening along the way.”
“Mishaps?” Grace asked.
“Two of the other competing machines were balloons that were found slashed. Another caught on an errant nail and lost all its hydrogen. And tonight, Mr. Allred’s machine falls from the sky in a blaze. Coincidence?”
The music was loud, the room growing warmer. Grace fought the feeling of dizziness again.
Harriet looked troubled. “What kind of a person would try to murder someone for money?”
“You must not read my paper much,” Sam Whitcomb said with a dark laugh.
A sick feeling settled into Grace’s stomach, much like the time her grandfather had closed the door in her face when she was seven.
Lillie had given her a hand-me-down doll that day with a delicate porcelain face and a satin dress.
Grace had taken it back to Kansas City, where it made her own beloved muslin doll look so plain and pitiful.
In a rage, Grace had spat on her muslin doll and stomped on her face until she was ruined.
Then she had cradled her and promptly burst into tears.
The memory still filled Grace with shame, and she tried to shake it away.
It helped that Mr. Joplin launched into a song that warmed the room like it had taken a sip of spirits.
A woman sashayed past them toward the stage, radiating confidence.
She had large brown eyes and olive skin and was wearing a lavender silk gown with a jeweled high collar that shimmered in the lights.
When she opened her mouth, her voice had a tone one could drown in—deep, luscious, and rich.
The lights went low, the conversations dimming.
“Miss Ethel Adams,” Scott Joplin said. He raised a hand toward her and the crowd burst into applause.
“A rival of yours, isn’t she?” Sam Whitcomb asked Harriet with a wolfish smile that made perfect sense on his face. He made his living looking for the weakest, most vulnerable parts of people to sink his teeth into and feed to the masses.
“How fortuitous for her that the foremost talent manager for the Chicago stage is sitting right over there,” Sam continued, gesturing with his drink. “The one nursing a gin on the rocks. Word has it he’s looking to make someone a star.”
Harriet’s face flushed.
Ethel caught Harriet’s eye from the stage and winked. Her smile was dazzling, with a cut of edge beneath it.
Harriet gritted her teeth and gave her a delicate nod.
Grace tried to relax, to lose herself in the luxurious velvet of Ethel’s voice the way others lost themselves in a drink.
But all she could see was Earnest, falling from the sky.
Lillie, rushing toward the burning embers of the flying machine, helpful in a way that Grace could only dream of being.
And Theodore Parker lending her his coat, protecting her along the Pike and making sure to put himself between her and Sam Whitcomb.
She wished she could forget Frannie’s heart-wrenching scream. The shiver of it curled through her insides. She could almost escape it in this room.
Almost.
When Ethel was finished, she bowed to thunderous applause. In response, Harriet threw back the rest of her drink and, almost shaking, sauntered toward the stage.
Sam laughed. “Careful, Mr. Parker. Might lose your lady to someone who can make all her dreams come true tonight.” He rose, tipped his hat to them, and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Grace and Theodore alone at the table.
“What delightful American treasures we get to encounter at this fair,” Grace said, turning to meet Theo’s eyes. “I think that was the only man I’ve ever disliked as instantly as you.”
“While your company, dear Grace, reminds me a little of these fried potatoes,” Theodore replied.
Her thoughts caught on the words dear Grace. Something sparked within her. Why did it feel so good to challenge him?
“Golden and addictive?” she ventured. “The perfect companion for every meal?”
“Initially delightful,” he said, “and stomach-turning when cold.”
She snorted. “That’s the first time a gentleman has ever likened me to soggy potatoes.”
His handsome face broke into a half smile, and her chest warmed.
She smiled back at him, and there was a moment of unsettling silence between them.
The sharing of a secret—and now, a tragedy—was an intimate thing.
She felt it melting away her rancor’s sharpest edges.
Theo cleared his throat. “I should pay the tab.”
She tried to bring out her purse to cover her own portion, but he said, “Don’t insult me, Miss Covington.”
“More than being called a soggy potato, you mean?”
He left her with a low laugh, and she turned her attention back to Harriet.
Where were Earnest and Lillie and Oliver right now, she wondered?
In a hospital ward, while the three of them were lost in another world?
That’s what the World’s Fair felt like. A dream.
An immersive reality that wasn’t, in fact, real.
Harriet’s voice filled her ears, her thoughts, magnifying her twisting emotions with a mournful, heartfelt ballad.
It brimmed with such intimacy that an older woman near the stage raised a bejeweled finger to wipe tears from her crepey cheek.
When the song ended and the applause rose around them, Harriet turned toward the talent manager.
Gone was the woman who had run through the fields an hour ago toward the horror of the burning crash with dirt on her face.
She had shed that persona like a skin and became the actress she was known to be.
Brimming with charisma. Shimmering like a diamond.
Turning in the spotlight and the shadows to share endless facets of herself that she hadn’t shown before.
It left Grace feeling uneasy. The same way she’d felt earlier, when the lies slipped off Oliver’s tongue like smoothly polished stones.
It was clear that Harriet wanted that talent manager to see her, to pick her over Ethel. She wanted to win.
Grace’s coffee had gone cold.
As for Ethel, she was glaring at Harriet with unvarnished displeasure that bordered on rage, clearly feeling as though she had been upstaged. She whispered something to a man sitting to her right.
“Are you all right?” Theodore asked Grace, appearing at the table. He was looking at her with a concern that she could not have imagined was possible after their exchange in Chicago.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll just visit the ladies’ room, and then we can go.”
She brushed past him, feeling confused at the way everyone had shifted tonight, the very people around her warping like a funhouse mirror.
Grace splashed cold water on her face. Her face was pale, and her eyes looked huge. She pinched her cheeks, unsure why she suddenly cared how she looked. When she stepped out, she glimpsed Harriet navigating to the back of the restaurant.
“Harri—” Grace started to say but stopped short. Someone was already speaking to Harriet ahead, half hidden in the shadows. He was too far away to make out, but Grace could tell by his build that it was a man.
She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, not really, but something stopped her from interrupting. Perhaps it was Harriet’s look of surprise.
Grace listened to a sudden instinct and dropped back.
“I’ve seen you with him,” the man said. “And I’ve got connections, too. If you want me to introduce you to that talent manager—”
The music began again, drowning out the rest.
The man, whoever he was, seemed to be growing more and more agitated.
He was dressed in the fine clothing of a gentleman.
He had a signet ring on his right hand, a crest impressed into onyx.
But his face was flushed, and he was unsteady on his feet.
Grace wished suddenly for Lillie and Oliver.
None of this was her world. From ritzy parties to burning planes to expensive restaurants far beyond her father’s, she felt so out of place.
And Harriet almost looked frightened.
Grace strode toward them, catching a glimpse of the man’s profile as she neared. He didn’t look familiar to her, and he was too intent on Harriet to notice Grace approaching.
“He owes me. You tell him,” the man snarled. “Make sure he gets me that money.”
He turned and staggered away in the opposite direction, and she could smell the alcohol in his wake. He was drunk.
“Who was that?” Grace asked.
“Just someone who thought he knew me,” Harriet said. Her voice turned brittle. “He was mistaken.”
“Are you all right?” Grace said.
Two splashes of pink had appeared on Harriet’s face.
“I’m fine,” she said. Grace examined her. Harriet was regaining control of herself, as any good actress could, but something had definitely spooked her.
“Are you certain, because—”
“It’s nothing,” Harriet said briskly.
“There you are,” Theodore said, approaching behind them. “I thought you both had left me behind and Oliver was going to challenge me to a duel.”
“Let’s go home,” Harriet said. She tugged on Oliver’s borrowed coat, her face flushed. “This party has soured.”
With a twinge in her gut, Grace followed Harriet and Theo to his waiting carriage. Someone Harriet knew owed this man money—enough to enrage him.
And for some reason, she was lying about it.
Grace leaned against the cushioned seat, deciding she needed to keep a much closer eye on Harriet Forbes.
Especially where her darling and very rich cousin Oliver was concerned.