In the corner, with her sour-faced mother, is Greer Trummer, my former closest friend. I let out an anxious breath, turning my mother by the elbow so she doesn’t spot them, but it’s too late.
With a wide smile, my mother waves in a large arc over her head.“Lady Trummer, Greer, how lovely to see you here.” My face burns with shame as everyone turns toward us, disdain and pity all over their faces.
“Did you see the ribbons just here, Mama?” I say, trying to redirect her to a display of silk and lace, but it’s too late.
Greer’s mother turns away, as if she hasn’t heard us. Greer offers a sheepish smile, but doesn’t so much as wave back.
My mother, undeterred, crosses the shop, pushing past a dozen people as she goes.
“Please, Mama, she’s busy,” I protest, but she pretends not to hear me.
“Greer, darling, Ivy told me you were nervous for tomorrow. You’re going to do fabulously. I do hope the turn around the park you two girls took this morning did something to quiet your nerves.”
For the first time in months, Greer looks at me. Something flickers behind her blue eyes as she catches me in my lie.
“The turn around the park?” She’s confused. Of course she is. I’ve been lying for months, going to sit alone in the stables or skulking around the neighborhood with my cloak pulled tight, any excuse to escape the stifling misery of our house. I’ve been telling my mother I was with Greer, like she’s any better than the rest of them. She dropped me at the first whiff of scandal, just like everyone else.
I brace myself, ready for Greer to give me up. She blinks a few times, then turns back to my mother. “Oh yes, the turn around the park. Thank you, Lady Benton,” she says softly. “Ivy issucha good friend. Always so willing to offer an uplifting word.” She turns back to me. We used to be able to communicate with nothing but a glance, but I don’t know what she’s feeling now. The tether between us is broken. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear Mama calling.” Hermother definitely isn’t calling, but neither of us say it.
I let out a sigh of relief as she walks away.
The seamstress waves me over, and I step onto the pedestal in front of the three-way mirror as the final adjustments are made to my gown. I pretend I don’t hear the whispers of the other mothers and daughters in the shop:“Surely she’s not expecting any invitations this season.”
When the seamstress is finished, Mama muscles her way to the counter and pays with a stack of bills I feel guilty looking at.
We return home without discussing the whispers we both heard, as if by refusing to acknowledge our family’s misfortune, we can make it not true.
Lydia made her debut in society—and her bargain with the queen—two springs ago.
She returned that day in her frothy white gown with a confused look on her face. She couldn’t recall what happened in the throne room. She must have given up the memory in exchange for whatever the queen bestowed upon her, but in the two years since, we’ve never been able to discern what the gift was.
Her beauty remained the same, there has been no sudden talent or skill, only a Swiss cheese memory and a failure of a season that ended without a proposal.
Her lack of a match and her secret bargain were embarrassing, a blight on the family. My mother has spent the better part of two years saying I was the Benton family’s only hope, though my slim chances of making a match went up in smoke when the scandal of Lydia’s disappearance broke.
The news that she was missing reached the marble halls of London society before the sun was fully up. All the titled ladies in theneighborhood were at the door that very morning, with baskets of pastries and looks of concern on their faces. They could smell blood in the water.
And those same ladies passed the news of Lydia’s shameful return around like petit fours at a tea party. The fun of grace is to watch someone fall from it.
Walking into the foyer of our house, I can’t help but think of the night she returned. Sometimes it feels like I never really left that moment.
It was the constable who brought Lydia home, covered in grime. He shoved her by her elbow through the door with a sneer. “I thought this was a respectable family.”
I was already at the top of the stairs when Mrs. Tuttle shouted to the whole of the house that Lydia had returned.
Mama cried as she burst out of her room wrapped in a dressing gown, and Father caught her as her knees gave out on the stairs.
I raced past them down to my sister. My beloved big sister, the one I’d wept for, feared for, snuck out of the house to search for.
I clasped her face between my hands and found her skin cold and clammy, as if covered with morning dew.
Lydia just stared, silent and still, like she wasn’t there at all, like she was a ghost.
Then she collapsed in my arms.
Papa and Mrs. Tuttle carried her up to her room, but it was I who bathed her, wrapped her in a clean nightdress, and tucked her into bed.
It was I who first noticed that the soles of her feet were bloody, like she’d lost her shoes a long time ago.
