“An olive branch!” he crows.
Alice laughs in sheer incredulity. The man went down to the flower markets to buy an actual olive branch to hold. Why do anything subtly?
“Which I offer”—he bows deeply, branch extended—“to you.”
Cora glances between them. “Are we going or...?”
“Yes, yes, come inside!” Ward shakes himself out of his seat, lending them each a hand into the carriage. “We hadn’t spoken of it specifically, but as I tend to escort you two to these events...”
“Of course,” Alice says coolly. “Very gracious of you.”
When the door shuts, Ward raises an eyebrow, the branchstill in his hand. Alice grudgingly takes it from him, sensing he’s not going to relent otherwise.
“I realize,” Ward starts, squinting regretfully, “that I came on unnecessarily strong with my demands. There was no need for all that... unpleasantness.”
“It’s fine,” Alice says, peering out the window. “We came to an arrangement.”
Cora’s big eyes flash between them with interest Alice has no time or energy to entertain. To the girl’s credit, she refrains from inquiring.
“Yes, but I realized belatedly, I could’ve approached it with a bit more gentility. After all, we are old friends by now, my dear, and if I’d only explained to you thewhyof it, I reckon you’d have offered to up my take without the need for bombast and bullyin’.”
Cora draws in a sharp breath, but a glare from Alice sends her looking in the other direction again.
“I don’t need to hear the why,” Alice says, knowing damn well he’s about to tell her anyway.
“For one thing, it’s a matter of fairness,” Ward plows on. “Who’s done what and so forth. You’re the brains of all this, no doubt about it, but there would simply be no opportunity without a person such as myself by your side. Cora, did Alice ever happen to tell you about the first time she and I met?”
Alice could slap the man for dragging Cora into this. She smiles vaguely instead and keeps looking out at the city scenes filtering past her isinglass window.
“No, she hasn’t,” Cora says, a hint of rebellion in her voice. “Do tell, Mr. McAllister.”
“Why, it was a little more than a year ago, can you believethat, Alice?” Ward continues to use her real name, she notes. Like a weapon. A bomb he could drop at any moment, should he choose to. “I was down at the Union Square flower market, pickin’ out American Beauties for Mrs. Astor. She likes for me to select her flowers personally, you see. When along comes a woman in a lovely day dress—now, that was the first tell, right there. Ladies of that apparent station would send their maids, don’t you know, not traipse down among the hoi polloi themselves. But I smiled politely, didn’t I, Alice? Tipped my hat. Now, here’s where the fun began. She was holding a vase, blue and white, in a Chinese style. As I took a step forward to point to a rose, she positioned herselfjust so, allowing me to knock straight into her, at which point the vase fell from her hands and shattered on the flagstones. Tears swirled in her eyes. The lady had brought it here to pair flowers with it, she told me. It was her mother’s, Ming dynasty, priceless!”
Alice sighs. She knows the rest of this tale only too well.
“Now, at this point, any kindhearted gentleman of means would offer to pay for the damages,” Ward says, leaning back to rest his hands on his “pauper’s” waistcoat, the buttons threatening to spring loose from their seams. “In fact, that’s exactly what Ididdo several months prior, when another, far less genteel woman had pulled the exact same trick on me down at the Canal Street flower market. Some luck you had, Alice, playin’ the same tired, old con—but in the end, I’d say it was good luck, not bad.”
He turns to Cora.
“Right then and there, I offered her my arm, and I said, ‘I’m not gonna give you money for that piece of junk. I’m gonna offer you something much more valuable.’ Took her out to tea and imparted my wisdom to her. ‘You are clearly an elegantwoman of fine breeding,’ I said, didn’t I, Alice? ‘You can do better than two-bit street tricks.’ And that was when she told me she spoke French. And German. That she knew all about European current events. And that she had a wild plan in that lovely head of hers. The rest, as the man says, is history.”
“And I am truly grateful,” Alice says placidly.
“Now that there is our history,” Ward says, adjusting himself on the bench. “A fine story, but my future is looking even finer.”
“Let me guess.” Cora cocks her head. “You’ll build the biggest mansion in New York, secure the best box seat at the Met, and throw the first and best ball every season.”
“As enchanting as all of that sounds... no.” Ward waggles his bushy eyebrows. “I’m taking myself off to Paris. I shall bid adieu to all of these pathetic, desperate, two-bit wannabe aristocrats and make friends with real ones. Oh yes, I’m going to live out my days as a wealthy expatriate, fill my salon with the handsomest men and most entertaining women I can find, and I will not spare a single thought for those I’ve left behind.”
The implication is clear: including Alice.
“What of your wife?” she asks. “I can’t quite picture her carousing in Parisian society.”
The carriage stops.
Ward widens his eyes. “Funny. I can’t picture that either.”
He grins.
