“Very good—uh—thank you for the advice.”
Lucy pulled her back to a sofa. “That was a very strange conversation.”
Cordelia could only nod.
“I can scarcely wait to put on my costume,” Lois said from the chair beside them.
“Shall we be able to guess who you are?” Cordelia asked.
“Probably,” Lois said with a low, seductive laugh. “It is a trifle shocking, but I couldn’t resist purchasing it.”
“I am intrigued already,” Lucy said.
Lois grinned tigerishly. “Then I am already a success.”
The tea things were cleared away. Cordelia led both Lucy and Penelope to her room, where Miss Vaughn was waiting with three ballgowns displayed on dummies. Penelope gasped when she saw the first gown. It was pink and truly exquisite, with a dog collar necklace that had belonged to the unfortunate dead queen Marie Antoinette. Her mother purchased it for an enormous price from Tiffany’s.
“I think you have chosen your costume,” Cordelia said, and pulled the interesting hairpiece out of the trunk. “There is even a wig.”
“Are you sure?” Penelope asked. “I’ve never worn anything so fine.”
“It’s only a costume,” Cordelia said, glad to see a smile on the ever-serious Penelope. “Miss Vaughn, can you help Penelope into the gown? And put the French perfume on her—a dab on each wrist and one on her neck.”
“Why the perfume?” Penelope asked.
“I always wear it. It would have given me away.”
“We’ll have to add a bit of padding to the bosoms,” Miss Vaughn said matter-of-factly.
Penelope giggled—a sound that Cordelia had never heard before.
“Now, Lucy, which dress do you want?”
Her friend shook her head. “You should choose first. You are the hostess. The most important person at the party.”
“And you are my best friend and I insist.”
“You are as stubborn as your mother,” Lucy said with a reluctant smile. “Very well then, I would pick to go as the Statue of Liberty.”
The dress was decorated with glass pearls in a lightning-bolt pattern and made of yellow satin. The ensemble came with a torchlike light with a built-in battery that, when you pressed the button, lit up.
“That leaves me with Queen Elizabeth I,” Cordelia said. “Although, Lucy’s red hair would go better with the costume.”
“I am sure your mother bought a wig to go with the dress,” Lucy said. “She never misses even the smallest of details.”
It was true. Cordelia wondered if Lucy realized how often she mentioned Cordelia’s mother. Her friend had not grown up with her own mother, a famous opera singer. Nor with her father because she was illegitimate. Was Lucy trying to help Cordelia reconcile with her family? Was she in communication with Cordelia’s mother? It was something her mother was entirely capable of.
She forced herself not to think about that now. She helped Miss Vaughn dress Penelope first. Cordelia clasped together the dog collar diamond necklace around Penelope’s neck, and Miss Vaughn pinned the curly white wig onto her hair, with the pearls already strung through it, then powdered her face in the style they did in the 1700s. Cordelia brought the mask from the same trunk—it was porcelain, delicately painted. She tied it behind Penelope’s head, while Miss Vaughn put on the French perfume. Penelope looked as if she’d walked out of an old painting. She was more beautiful than ever.
Cordelia swallowed—her throat dry. She almost wished that she hadn’t lent her dress to Penelope so that Thomas would not see her in it. Suppressing the petty feeling, Cordelia couldn’t help but admit to herself thatshewanted Thomas’s admiration. She wished for her husband’s love because he held her heart.
She still cared for Stuyvesant, she probably always would, but the connection between them had weakened—over time or distance. Could it be renewed? Would she love Stuyvesant as she now did Thomas?
Did she stay with a husband who didn’t love her? Or leave with a man who did and that she no longer loved? It was an impossible conundrum, as both paths seemed littered with heartbreak for more than her.
Miss Vaughn brought out the matching slippers, but Penelope’s feet were too large for them. Cordelia couldn’t help but be a bit pleased that there was one area in which she was daintier.
“The skirt is so large that no one will ever see my feet.”
