She buries her face in her pillow to soak up her tears.
“This is a first,” Iris Witt declares, racing through B. Altman with two shopgirls and a floor merchant tailing her. “What does one wear to an embassy luncheon?”
“Perhaps something in the style of the country in question?” the merchant suggests.
Iris sneers at him. “I think emeralds would be a bit obvious, don’t you?”
“Or perhaps”—he frowns thoughtfully—“obvious is exactly what the occasion calls for?”
The shopgirls murmur between themselves.
Iris flings herself onto the closest settee. “Very well. Bringme everything you have in green. Quickly! Might as well collar a seamstress; the event is tomorrow.”
As they curtsy, bow, and turn, she calls again, “While you’re at it, show me some bags. Crocodile skin, large enough to hold two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash.”
The color drains from the merchant’s face.
Iris fans herself. “And if you breathe a word about anything I’ve said today, I’ll tell all my friends that B. Altman and Company is infested with bedbugs. Now shoo!”
“Very good, madam,” the merchant says, and just as they round the corner, out of earshot, he tells the shopgirls, “Raise the price of everything twenty percent.”
“Are you sure I oughtn’t accompany you tomorrow, my darling?” Priscilla reaches her vein-riddled hand across the table to grasp her husband’s.
Revulsion ripples through Ogden, even as he smiles adoringly. “We’ve talked about this, Priscilla. It’s a business meeting. You’d be bored to tears as we men talk of bonds and market share.”
Dinner is the only time she doesn’t wear her gloves. It’s a wonder he can eat at all.
“But it won’t just be men, will it?” Her hooded eyes narrow farther. “She’llbe there.”
“I’m not sure to whom you’re referring,” he says lightly, sipping his wine.
“Cora Ritter,” she hisses. “That girl couldn’t stop looking at you during their last visit. And that vulgar song she sang. She has aims on you, I know it.”
“Now, darling, you know she’s engaged to—”
“Which makes it all the more disgusting, how she flirts with you.” Mrs. Ogden cuts into her steak with renewed vigor.
Does she?Ogden wonders. A secret smile plays over his lips. Perhaps he’ll have the duchess as a main and the girl for dessert. Preferably before she’s been sullied by the marriage bed.
“You’ve nothing to worry about, dearest,” he breathes. “I am yours alone, body and soul. And the riches I bring home tomorrow morning will be mere icing on the cake of our felicity.”
Priscilla lets out her broken-glass laugh. He guzzles his wine to dull the grate of it.
“Where is it?” James Vandemeer shouts, his cheeks reddening above his freshly trimmed beard. “I insisted it be ready by eight this morning!”
“It is eight now, sir,” the valet says, handing him the heavy-laden folio case he requested.
“Byeight,” Vandemeer repeats disdainfully. “Do they not speak English where you come from?”
“They speak French, sir.”
Far down the corridor, Olivia Vandemeer drifts like a ghost between rooms.
“Goodbye, my darling!” James shouts, hoisting the bag. “I’ll be the first outside the embassy door. Position in the room is everything, you know. Let’s get going. Time is money, and I mean to gain an obscene amount of it today!”
“Get me my cane!” Harold Peyton Sr. shouts.
Harry cringes. “I don’t suggest rising from your chair, Father. Not without first performing a few calisthenics to strengthen the muscles—”
