“Don’t worry, I brought some along in that paper bag you gave me,” he said.
She took the perfunctory arm he offered, hoping that Oliver had in fact secured her entrance to the party or this was about to be quite embarrassing.
Theodore hired a rickshaw to take them across the fairgrounds to the brightly lit Palace of Varied Industries. They crossed beneath the massive gate and made their way toward the Louisiana Monument and the Grand Basin, surrounded by fountains and the illuminated Cascades. She leaned forward, feeling the night breeze on her face, and he watched her with a bemusement that felt patronizing.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she ordered.
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like I’m some sort of puppy,” she said.
He snorted. “Then stop acting like one.”
But the side of his mouth quirked in half a smile, and that place in her chest warmed. She didn’t hate him anymore, she realized. She had almost come to like his aloof company, in those rare moments when he shed the storm clouds he wore like a cloak.
The air smelled like sugar and roses, and the Palace of Varied Industries felt even more massive in the night. It was lined with impressive columns, and intricately carved statues of men and womencrowned the rooftop, perched above cornices and dentil molding. As the rickshaw drew closer, Grace caught sight of the vast arched windows above the carved double doors. A hundred evenly fitted glass panes glowed warm with golden light, beckoning them inside.
Theodore offered Grace his hand to disembark from the rickshaw.
“Mr. Gatewood!” she said with delight, stepping down. He was an old friend of her grandfather’s, and she remembered a party she had once been to at his house where fir trees were lit with live candles. She and Lillie had found a fairy nutcracker and taken turns closing its mouth by pressing its wings. He had always been kind to her, asking about her mother when no one else would.
But this time, when she approached him, Mr. Gatewood looked at her like she was something on the bottom of his shoe. She had reached out her hand to greet him, but he regarded it with scorn.
“You have a lot of nerve,” he said.
He took his wife’s arm and they hurried into the Palace. His wife, Roberta, looked back with a troubled glance.
Grace was confused.
Had he not recognized her? Mistaken her for someone else?
A group of people around her were staring and beginning to whisper.
“I don’t understand,” she said faintly as Theodore appeared at her side. There were many people she expected unkindness from, but not Mr. Gatewood.
Theodore hesitated, then bent so that his voice grazed her ear. “He and your uncle had recent business interests that ended badly,” he whispered. He caught her eye and added roughly: “It wasn’t you.”
There was a compassion in his voice that made her skin flush as they approached the entrance.
“Name?” the doorman asked.
“Theodore Parker,” Theo said.
“Grace Covington,” she said, hoping that Oliver had, in fact, secured her entrance. She was unsure she could handle any more humiliation at this point as she glimpsed the elegant array of guests inside, drinking flutes of champagne and dressed in the finest clothes Grace had ever seen.
She spotted Oliver with relief, who came to greet her.
“Cousin,” he said. “You look magnificent.” He ushered her past the doorman, nodding with the air of someone accustomed to being accommodated by people eager to do his bidding. It was endearing and infuriating at the same time, even when done on her own behalf.
“Thank you for helping me to be in two places at once,” he said to Theo. “Can you believe my mother cast her out?”
“Martyrdom looks good on her,” Theo said.
“I just had an unfortunate encounter with the Gatewoods,” Grace said, irritated that Theo had been dispatched to fetch her like an errand.
“Ah, such a shame,” Oliver said, instantly sobering. “I always really liked them—admired them, even. Alistair took me under his wing for an apprenticeship one summer when I was nothing but a knobby-kneed kid.”
“What on earth happened?” Grace asked.
