“Where do you live?”
I wasn’t sure why I felt so embarrassed to admit the truth. I hadn’t chosen to live there. “Lower East Side, in Five Points.”
Her eyebrows darted up. Everyone knew about Five Points.
“Mr. Charles Dickens visited there,” she said. “He came to America in the ’40s and wrote about the squalor. Is it as bad as he claimed?”
How could I tell her about Five Points? It was only four miles from her home, but it could have been a world away. There was nothing that would ever cause a woman like Mrs. Hill to wander into Five Points. And I wasn’t sure who Mr. Charles Dickens was, so I didn’t know what he’d said about it.
“’Tis all I’ve ever known, ma’am,” I finally told her, wondering if I would get the job now that she knew the truth about me.
“You live there with your family?”
“Aye. My uncle and aunt and cousins.”
“And your parents?”
My parents? How did I tell her about them when I didn’t even know? Had my mother died in the gutter, like Aunt Orla claimedshe would? Was my father a client of hers? Wealthy, poor, married, single? I had no idea.
“I’m not sure, ma’am,” I said, not able to meet her gaze. “Me mum sent me to America with me uncle and aunt for a better life.”
“And has it been a better life, Miss O’Day?” Mrs. Hill asked, her voice low, serious.
I looked up at her and saw curiosity in her gaze. Slowly, I shook my head. It hadn’t been a good life—though I didn’t have anything to compare it to.
“My father was a Scottish immigrant, and he lived a very difficult life as a fur trader,” she said. “My mother and I didn’t see him for months out of the year.” She looked around the room at the splendor and said, “I can’t imagine what he would think if he saw where I live now in a room first built in France and then reassembled here.”
Why was she telling me this? I would never have guessed that she hadn’t been born into this lifestyle. She looked like she fit in perfectly—whereas I had never felt more out of place.
I was trying to get up the courage to ask her why she’d invited me to come when there was a light knock on the door.
“Come in,” Mrs. Hill said.
The door opened and I expected the maid with our tea—but my heart leapt into my throat when I saw Mr. Alexander Paxton-Hill standing there. My surprise brought me to my feet.
He was wearing a simple black suitcoat and white shirt with a green vest and black tie. He wore no hat today, and his dark, curly hair looked as if he’d run his hand through it a few times.
But it was his surprise—and maybe even his disappointment—that made my cheeks warm.
“Miss O’Day,” he said formally, without the teasing from last night. “I didn’t think you’d come.” He moved into the room tostand in front of the fireplace and address me. “Has she told you her harebrained idea yet?”
Frowning, I looked to Mrs. Hill.
“Have a seat, Miss O’Day,” Mr. Paxton-Hill said as he crossed his arms and looked at his aunt. “You’ll want to be sitting when you hear this.”
I slowly lowered myself to the chair and looked between them. Mr. Paxton-Hill did not look pleased, though Mrs. Hill appeared quite happy with herself.
“I want to adopt you, Miss O’Day,” she said with a wide smile. “And marry you off to an English duke.”
I stared at her, wondering if I had heard her incorrectly.
“What?” I managed to ask.
“My aunt is suffering from a malady that has attacked many of thenouveaux richeshere in New York City,” Mr. Paxton-Hill said as he addressed me. “The old set controls society, those who are in and those who are out. According to Mrs. Astor and Ward McCallister, if you have gained your wealth within the past two generations, then you are not fit for proper society. You are too new—too inexperienced and in poor taste. In short, you are out.”
Mrs. Hill lifted her chin and pursed her lips, looking toward the window. I could see years of frustration and discontent in her gaze.
Mr. Paxton-Hill continued. “So, the newly rich are fighting back. They built the Metropolitan Opera House, because Mrs. Astor and the other nobs would not allow them to have a box at the Academy of Music. The old set did not allow them into the Patriarch Balls, or the Assembly Balls, either.”
