As Mrs. Astor sets out saucers and cups, she addresses Cora. “Do you know, my dear, that this young man used to terrorize my daughter Carrie with tales of goblins and wicked ghosts roaming the city streets? I always knew he had a gift for fiction, but I never dreamed he would use it in quitethiscapacity.”
“You haven’t been formally introduced,” Alice realizes. “Lina, this is my good friend Coraline O’Malley.”
“The belle of the season.” Mrs. Astor sniffs, taking Cora in, head to foot. “And already engaged.”
“Oh. Well.” Cora’s throat bobs as she swallows. “That’s obviously not happening. Given current events.”
“I meantthisone,” Mrs. Astor snaps, nodding to Cal. She turns to Alice with a frown. “Has he not proposed yet?”
To this, Alice can only shake her head in honest befuddlement.
“I might have stopped by Aunt Lina’s for a few visits.” Cal winces, caught. “She wanted to know how things were going!”
“Not that he indulged my curiosity,” Mrs. Astor comments dryly. “I could scarcely glean a single insight as to your littleconfidence game, because all this young man could talk about was Miss Cora O’Malley, the clever, beautiful, and kind.”
The outrage that floods Alice’s veins at hearing of the absolutely reckless, unnecessary, and frankly typical risks her brother has taken fades surprisingly quickly. Yes, he was a fool. But that no longer matters. Much has taken place unseen, without Alice there to pull the strings, and when all is said and done, the realization comes as a rather immense... relief?
She’s done controlling every possible angle now. She can let it all go.
“So?” Mrs. Astor demands. “Are you or are you not engaged?”
“Give me a minute to catch my breath, Aunt Lina.” Cal laughs, loosening his collar. “Anyway, I’ll be able to offer Cora a much finer ring after we divide up our takings than anything I could’ve afforded on a reporter’s salary.”
Cora looks like she might cry from happiness.
Cal gazes back at her in open adoration. “Maybe even diamonds and emeralds?”
Cora’s expression morphs from rapture to a laughing wince. “Anything but emeralds.”
“If you’ll beg my pardon,” Ward cuts in, apparently recovering from the first wave of his surprise, not yet predicting the greater shock soon to follow. “I hadn’t realized you were all relations.”
“Not by blood,” Mrs. Astor says, pouring Alice’s tea. “They call me aunt as an endearment, much simpler and more affecting than anything you’ve concocted, Ward. ‘Mystic Rose’ indeed.”
Ward’s face goes mottled with embarrassment.
“Mrs. Astor was my mother’s dearest friend,” Alice says. “And my own godmother.”
“She was the only one to attend our father’s funeral,” Cal recalls, his eyes distant.
“I offered financial assistance after the disaster, but Mary wouldn’t have it.” Mrs. Astor sets her own tea aside with a leaden sigh. “Alice and I kept up our correspondence over the years, but I found that in adulthood she’d inherited her mother’s stubbornness.”
Alice shakes her head. “I only wished to keep you clear of all this, dear Lina. It was not your vendetta.”
“Oh, but there I disagree,” Mrs. Astor says, a vicious smile spreading across her face. “I always hated them. The lot of them. Ogden’s predations and his wife’s hatred of her own sex. The Vandemeers with their unseemly competitiveness. Those new-money Ameses, desperate for legitimacy. I have half a mind that Iris Witt killed her husband for the fun of it—it’s a wonder she hasn’t offed those dreadful children. And Peyton. Well, he’s the very symbol of everything rotten in society today. Honor means nothing to this breed. Only cold hard cash, earned by any base means. I’m glad to see them as thoroughly ruined as poor Mary, who deserved it not a whit.”
Ward nibbles a cookie, trying valiantly to puff himself up again. “What divine felicity that I happened upon your own goddaughter that day at the flower market!”
“Divine poppycock!” Mrs. Astor turns to stare at Ward in sheer incredulity. “It was my own handiwork, you fool.”
Ward drops the cookie. Scrambles to pick it up from the silk settee.
“I sent you to the market that day to fetch me roses. I directed Alice to run the same con you’d fallen victim to months prior, knowing you wouldn’t be able to resist assuming therole of wise mentor. You do enjoy the sensation of feeling far more clever than you actually are.”
Cora lets out a snort, then stares into her teacup. “Excuse me. Bit of dust in the air.”
“I’d have done far more myself,” Mrs. Astor says. “But Alice thought it might be more prudent to drop you into it instead.”
Ward glances between them, his eyes at last flashing panic. “I thank you for that decision, my dear Alice. It’s proven to be a rather lucrative one for both of—”
