She was aware of her own slightly mixed motives for wanting to marry someone of means. If someone close to Harriet owed a substantial amount of money, was Oliver merely a tool?
She’d thought that Harriet was her companion, a fellow outsider, but something about the previous night made her realize that she didn’t know Harriet at all.
“Earnest,” Lillie said, entering his room. “You gave us an incredible scare.”
The morning light poured through the bedroom window. Earnest was starkly bruised, surrounded by white linens and pillows. A heavywristwatch sat on the nightstand beside a vase of fresh lilies the shade of apricots. Frannie was wringing her hands, pacing. She looked as though she’d hardly slept.
“Did I fall from heaven?” Earnest said with a lazy smile. “Because you sure look like an angel.”
“Not even remotely funny yet,” Lillie said.
His smile cracked wider, his right eye a ghastly shade of purple. When he moved his hands, Grace noticed they were bandaged, as though they’d been burned.
“I missed that dance last night,” Grace said lightly to him.
“Yes, well, things didn’t go quite according to plan. I’d envisioned waltzing in triumphantly after a successful flight, but I ended up falling on my face. From quite a height.”
He smiled at her, but his usual spark was dim.
“What happened?” Grace whispered, coming to stand near the bed.
“The machine seemed to be doing fine upon takeoff, and then something caught fire. I smelled the smoke and managed to bail with my parachute just before the damn thing exploded. Pardon my French.”
“C’est bon,” Lillie said. “Now, can we come to visit you again?”
“No need,” Earnest said, sitting up with a slight grimace. “I’m not missing any more of the fair. I’ll be back by tonight.”
“Tomorrow, at least,” Lillie insisted. “Surely you need to rest.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He did look gray, though. As Lillie turned to leave, he caught her by the hand. “Thank you, Miss Carter,” he said. “I believe I owe you my life.”
She laughed. “Let’s not be dramatic, I did very little,” she said, but he held her tight.
“It meant a lot to me.”
He gave them a hint of his old smile, then turned to look out the window.
Lillie was quiet in the carriage as they left Earnest’s enormous house behind.
“Are you all right?” Grace asked her gently.
She had been planning to take this opportunity of a brief moment alone to tell Lillie about her to decision to leave. She felt a sudden sadness as the wheels passed the elegantly carved sculptures and blooming fruit trees of the Allred mannsion. Their time alone together was so little.
“You were amazing last night,” she said instead, threading her fingers through Lillie’s.
“I think there must be something wrong with me that I feel so alive when others are having their worst moments.”
“Are you still planning to slip away tonight?” Grace asked. “When I distract Oliver with a game of croquet?”
Lillie threw a look over her shoulder as she always did when they discussed the Evening Dispensary, even though they were completely alone.
“I’m actuallyhelping, Grace,” she said, her face lighting up. “Dr. May has been training me. She helps prostitutes sick with venereal disease, girls and women who came to work at the fair. They’re going to open a home for them so they have somewhere safe to go.”
She laughed when she saw the look on Grace’s countenance. “Don’t look at me like that! I think what Dr. May does is so noble. And yet—can I be perfectly, dreadfully honest with you? Sometimes I don’t know if I’m ready to give all of this up. Sometimes I think, perhaps I’ll go into medicine myself. Nursing, if I don’t have what it takes to be a physician. But Mother and Father would have a fit. They’d disinherit me, I’m certain of it. And so I pause. Isn’t that selfish of me?I like my pretty dresses and my clean food and a safe place to sleep at night. And it makes me ashamed.”
“Those aren’t bad things to want, Lillie.”
“No, perhaps not. But then—it all starts to feel sort of dulled, doesn’t it? When there are things to do out in the world that matter. That have to do with someone else and not just myself. People below my station.”
