The Housekeepers(79)

Miss de Vries let her neck fall back, spine arching. Lord Ashley’s fingers were digging into her shoulder blade, his nails scratching black muslin. She kept one fist on her train, taking care not to trip. The electroliers were popping and spitting overhead, and the crowd roared with pleasure as they swept past. Lord Ashley had led her inside to dance, as the news of their engagement swept through the house.

“They’re offering us their congratulations,” she said in Lord Ashley’s ear as he hurtled her backward into the center of the room. Up close, she could see his curls were slick with grease, darker than his usual white blond. The waltz was the fastest of the night, the orchestra red-faced and exhausted.

“Get your skirts out of the way,” he huffed, wrenching her waist.

He wants to show off to the crowd, she thought. The room was spinning around them, all roaring salmon-painted pillars and the tang of sweat. But Miss de Vries made out two figures moving ponderously in her direction.

Shepherd and Lockwood, making a beeline for her.

She smiled, radiant, laughing, for the crowd. “May we stop,” she said, catching her breath, “my lord?”

His hands came away so fast he nearly dropped her. He turned, arms aloft, hair askew, and the best families in London cheered for him. She tried not to stumble.

Shepherd was on her, Lockwood right behind. “Her Royal Highness is here, Madam.”

“What? Where?”

“Her motor just pulled up at the front door.”

Lockwood still looked pale. “Excellent news, Miss de Vries.”

“Where’s Lady Montagu?” she asked.

Shepherd frowned. “Indisposed, Madam. We took her to the Boiserie to—”

“Ah, there she is,” said Miss de Vries. She saw a familiar gleam of pink satin, hoop skirts lurching through the crowd. A powdered wig bobbed furiously in the air. “Come.”

They all followed the duchess, who was half running down the grand escalier.

Hephzibah thanked God for her hoop skirts. They kept people at arm’s length. Everyone caught up with her at the foot of the stairs, a perfect traffic jam. There was Miss de Vries, descending behind her, butler and lawyer at her side. In the opposite direction, she saw the Princess Victoria’s people, clustered at the front porch, waiting for someone to come and receive them. Oh, Lord, she thought.

“Lady Montagu?”

Miss de Vries was moving toward her at double speed.

Hephzibah turned. I refuse to be rushed, she said to herself, trying to blink her dizziness away. Men stood under the portico. Real policemen, she realized, feeling sick.

“Miss de Vries!” she said. “Splendid, you’re here.”

Guests on the right, guests on the left. No way out. Could you be arrested for fraud? Naturally. But on the spot, without clear charges? Hephzibah’s mind spun like a loose wheel about to fall off. She wished, in this moment, that she had someone solid beside her, someone to reassure her.

Winnie would help her, if she were here.

Buck up, Hephzibah, she told herself. Buck up, do.

Miss de Vries frowned. “Aren’t you going to meet the princess, Your Grace?”

Hephzibah summoned all the severity she could muster. “You are the lady of this house, Miss de Vries,” she said. “Her Royal Highness is waiting for you.” She threw her arm wide, as if to say, Do hurry up.

Hephzibah had never been trained to be a lady. She’d never been schooled in dance, posture, elocution. She’d refined herself on her own, for the stage—keeping her wits about her, her eyes open, watching other people, learning how to do it: how to live, how to be. But Miss de Vries had been trained. Belts and chokers and laces and straps on her flesh. She was alert, ready, all the time.

She gave Hephzibah a hard, penetrating stare.

Hephzibah dug her fingernails into her palms, made her face smooth. She raised an eyebrow.

Another second and she would have failed. Miss de Vries would have seen a line of sweat creeping out from under her wig. She would have smelled the acrid scent rising off Hephzibah’s body. Fear. Hephzibah could already smell it on herself.

But Mr. Shepherd leaned forward, worried, eyes on the clock. Hephzibah saw the saliva on his lips. “Madam…”

“Yes,” said Miss de Vries briefly, and moved on.

Hephzibah followed. She had no choice.

Oh, God, she thought. Oh, God.

Winnie should have known something was about to go wrong. Everything had been too simple. From her vantage point, patrolling the terrace, she had watched Hephzibah’s people herding the crowd, shifting them eastward then westward, keeping them entirely distracted as ropes began rippling down the eastern side of the house. The plan had been immaculate; everything was progressing without a hitch. She’d begun to feel her heart thump with surety, with unshakable confidence.

But suddenly one of the waiters snapped his fingers. “Get those beasts out of their boxes.”

Slowly, the French doors at the top of the terrace opened. Winnie saw movement, a crowd emerging from inside the house. And she felt something change in the atmosphere, a thrill passing through the company assembled in the garden below.

Miss de Vries was at the front of the party issuing down the terrace steps, and she’d removed her headdress. It made her look small, like a jet-painted icon. Next to her walked a woman of no very remarkable height, maybe in her late thirties, maybe forty, with a bright blue sash across her shoulder. She was being steered along a sort of tidal line of people, catching them like driftwood: guests, hangers-on, people crumpling into curtseys as she passed them. She looked almost like…