Page 11 of The Scarlet Ball

“What are you?” she asked, and weren’t there a lot of answers to that one.

“I was at the convent school in Honfleur, where they taught me my letters and my sums as well as my pretty manners. They prepared me for a life of service,” I said. “Things are a little more disorganized after that, I’m afraid. As to what I am, men like your husband would know.”

Her hand raised to strike me. It was the kind of impertinence she likely hadn’t had cause to suffer in decades, but I drew back.

“You don’t get to do that.”

“I have not paid yet for the privilege?” she asked, which meant she saw me quite well, and she snorted when I would not be shamed. “All right then. Do I speak to you, or do I speak to your pander?”

If she had made inquiries about me, she knew I had none. “I speak for myself. And as my own representative, I will need to know about fees and transport, room and board, all that. And we have not even spoken yet about the clients I will be entertaining.”

“You will be entertaining common enough company, mostly. It is a month before we come to the White Ball, and until then, it is only dinners and parties, the kind you could bring any halfway clever girl through if she has a trim ankle and an inoffensive face. Four weeks is enough time to find my granddaughter. I may find her tomorrow. I may find her today.”

“May God will it should be so,” I said. “But I’m sure you understand that’s not what I’m asking about, don’t you? I’m asking about the men. Tell me about the men who aren’t really men. Tell me about Mr. Howard and Mr. de Lange and the others.”

Her lip curled. “You could have money instead of that.”

“I’ll have money as well, a salary for every day I spend here. And a house.”

Her laughter was a sharp bark of disbelief, far from the soft giggles and bell-like tones the women of her class were allowed.

“A house.”

“Or an annuity that gives me the keeping of one. A lease of no less than sixty years. Other women have gotten as much for the use of their bodies.”

“Very well, a salary and a lease for a house, in Boston perhaps, or Philadelphia. That is plenty for what is only a little bit of work that may be done tomorrow. Are we agreed?”

“And an explanation,” I insisted, even as I knew I was pushing my luck. Every time I balked her, I came closer to simply disappearing before she went to find a girl less bullheaded, less curious. Still, I insisted, because I remembered the men who sat before empty plates, and I remembered how little they looked like men once you allowed yourself to see things as they truly were and not as you expected.

“I do not explain myself to the likes of you,” Mrs. Howard said in chilly tones. “Here. You may be shown. Come dress. I will play maid one more time for you.”

This time it was a light morning gown, nearly sheer lavender cotton embroidered with a design of asters around the neckline and the hem. She buttoned me into it with a motion like shoving an eel into a basket, but still I drew a soft breath at the smooth crispness of the fabric over my hips and how neatly it nipped me in at the waist. She had a good eye; I could have been Iphigenia Marshall’s dress double, standing in for her at fittings, if they’d ever allow someone like me into her employ.

I coiled my hair into a low chignon, serviceable in the moment if not elegant, and in cloth-soled slippers, I followed her into the hall. We met no servants, and finally, she came to a door where she paused.

“I am placing a great deal of trust in you. You might be honored.”

“Better, I will be paid,” I retorted. “Let me see.”

She opened the door like Bluebeard’s wife, and then, before I realized what she was doing, she grabbed me by the upper arm and thrust me inside.

The heat struck me like a solid wall. My eyelashes curled, the bare skin of my arms, throat, and face tightened, and I closed my eyes in panic because I knew that if I did not, they would boil in my head. I reeled back grasping for the doorknob behind me, but the heat moved, a searing wind that brought no relief, nothing but a concentration of crackling air. I felt as if someone had brushed a handful of heated wire against my cheek. Something tall leaned over me, something made of pure fire, dangerous, eradicating, reaching for me, and I stumbled, no, please, please, please, no—

Then the heat was gone, and it was only Mr. Howard looking down at me with a vague expression of concern. He had a handsome face, I thought blankly, but I realized now how empty it was. It was nothing more than a token by which he might move through the world, something to keep people from screaming.

There was an avid glint in his eyes as he approached me with the unhurried gait of some patient predator, bound to trot after its wounded quarry for miles. The way he moved woke an animal instinct in me. Don’t run, I thought. I knew that if I ran, he would chase me. I had seen what happened to the girls who were caught.

“Tell me,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it came from some very distant place, “are you perhaps one of the Farthingworth girls? Or perhaps you are Tilney Barrett’s daughter, the one who went to Boston for a year?”

The words were right. The words were what one expected a gentleman to say upon meeting girls dressed as I was, if not with my natural face. It was the space around the words that distorted, and his hands, which grew long and spindled as I watched. The heat came up again, that terrible heat, and I saw his gray hair take on a curl as it crisped.

In a moment, his head will light aflame and he will be on me, I thought with dreadful clarity, and my hands clenched, because you could not claw a fire. I hadn’t even my trusted rock. All I had were my manners.

“Neither,” I said with forced gaiety. “I am neither, Grandfather, don’t you recognize me?”

Mr. Howard, the thing that called itself Mr. Howard, paused, and for a moment, I thought it was not fooled. It studied me, nails still sharp for tearing, the threat of fire lingering like the shimmer of heat off a cast-iron pan. Then suddenly it straightened, pulling back, pulling in, and the monster smiled with a human face.

“Oh, Ginny,” he said. “What a fool I am. You must forgive me, dear. Forget my own head next. Are you well?”