You’re perfectly stunning, draped in a sheath of teal-colored silk that clings to your body like a second skin and seems to change color as you move. Blue, then green, then faintly silver, like the scales of some great fish. Or a mermaid in a fairy tale.
You’re wearing long teal gloves to match and a simple strand of silvery-grey pearls at your throat. Your hair, shiny dark, is swept back, piled up in waves at your crown, exposing the perfect pale heart of your face, the small Cupid’s mouth, the pointed chin with its faint cleft. An arresting face. The kind that imprints itself on the soul like a photographic negative. Or a bruise.
You sip absently from a glass of champagne, and as your eyes roam about the room, they catch mine. It’s a strange moment, as if some unseen current has passed between us, like the pull of a magnet. A force of nature.
I incline my head slightly, the barest and coolest of nods. I suppose I think myself charming. I must to make such an ass of myself. You turn away, as if you haven’t seen, and begin to chat with a woman sporting a rather unfortunate hairpiece, and I notice that the pearls you’re wearing hang past your shoulder blades, swinging like a pendulum halfway down your bare back. The effect is mesmerizing.
I’m still staring when you dismiss your companion and turn to look at me, as if you’ve been aware of my eyes the whole time. You hold my gaze. A reproach? An invitation? I have no idea. Your face is blank, giving nothing away. I should know it then and there, in that instant of icy incandescence, that you will always hold some part of yourself from me. But I don’t see it. Because I don’t want to.
I half expect you to step away as I approach, to vanish into the crowd, but you stand your ground, eyes still on mine over the rim of your coupe. You look young suddenly, vulnerable in a way I haven’t noticed until now, and I have to remind myself that you’ve just celebrated your twenty-first birthday. “Careful,” I say, smiling smoothly as I slip up beside you. “It’ll sneak up on you. Especially if you’re not used to it.”
You toss me a cool look. “Do I look like I’m not used to it?”
My gaze slides over you, lingering on your throat, the slender arch of your collarbone, the rise and fall of your breath, a little faster than it was a moment ago. “No,” I say finally. “Not now that I look more closely.”
I extend a hand and give you my name. You give me yours in return, as if it’s possible to be in the room without knowing it already.
My eyes linger briefly on the diamond glinting from your ring finger. Pear-shaped and at least three carats, though I’m hardly an expert in such things. “Best wishes for your engagement.”
“Thank you,” you say, letting your eyes drift away. “It was kind of you to come.”
Your voice, startlingly low for someone so young, gives me pause, but I’m amused, too, by your smooth delivery. You clearly have no idea who I am. If you did, you’d hardly be so polite.
You look me up and down again, lingering on my empty hands. “You’re not drinking.” You crane your neck, casting about for a waiter. “Let me get you a glass of champagne.”
“No, thanks. I’m more of a gin-and-tonic man.”
“You’re British,” you say, as if you’ve only just worked out that I’m not one of your set.
“I am, yes.”
“Well, you’re certainly a long way from home. Might I ask what has brought you to our shores? Because I’m certain you didn’t fly all the way across the big blue ocean just to attend my engagement party.”
“Adventure,” I say simply, evasively, because it won’t do to admit what has really brought me to the St. Regis tonight. Or to the States, for that matter. “I’m here for adventure.”
“Adventure can be dangerous.”
“Hence its attraction.”
You run those wide-set amber eyes over me again, long and slow, and I find myself wondering what it is you see—and how much you see. “And what sort of adventure suits you?” you ask, with that air of boredom you sometimes assume as a defense. “What is it you . . . do?”
“I’m a writer.” Another evasion, but a smaller one.
“Really. What do you write?”
“Stories.”
We’re getting warmer now, closer to the truth, but not quite. I can see that your interest has been kindled. The word writer has that effect on people.
“Like Hemingway?”
“One day, perhaps,” I answer, because that part at least is true. One day I might write like Hemingway. Or Fitzgerald. Or Wolfe. At least, that’s the plan.
You wrinkle your nose but make no comment.
“You’re not a fan of Mr. Hemingway?”
“Not especially. All that bristling machismo.” Your eyes wander out to the dance floor, and for a moment I think you’ve grown tired of our conversation. “I’m more of a Bront? girl,” you say at last over the muted brass of “Never in a Million Years” drifting from the bandstand.
I shrug vaguely. “Brooding heroes and windswept moors. Very . . . atmospheric. But a little gothic for my taste.”
You tip back your glass, draining it, then give me a sideways look. “I thought the English were terrible snobs about books. Nothing but the classics.”
“Not all of us. Some of us are actually quite modern, though I’ll admit to being a Dickens fan. He wasn’t terribly romantic, but the man knew how to tell a story.”
You lift one silky, dark brow. “You’ve forgotten about the dubious Miss Havisham and her awful cake. That isn’t gothic?”
“All right, I’ll give you that one. He did stray to doomed young lovers now and then and reclusive women in ruined wedding gowns, but as a rule, he wrote about social issues. The haves and have-nots. The disparity between classes.”
I wait, keeping my face blank, wondering if you’ll take the bait. I’m trying to draw you out. Because I’ve already formed an opinion of you and suddenly, inexplicably, l want very badly to be wrong.
“And which are you?” you shoot back, neatly turning the tables. “A have or a have-not?”
“Oh, definitely the latter, though I aspire to more. One day.”
You cock your head, eyes slightly narrowed, and I see a new question gathering there. A self-admitted adventurer with neither money nor prospects, and here I am rubbing elbows at your pretty little party. Drinking your father’s champagne and being impertinent. You want to know who I am and how someone like me got my foot in the door. But before you can ask, a stout woman in rusty black taffeta seizes you by the arm, all smiles beneath her chalky layers of powder.
She runs an eye over me, dismissing me as no one of import, and presses a kiss to your cheek. “Bonne chance, my dear. To both you and Teddy. No doubt your father is pleased. You’ve done well for yourself. And him.”
You respond with a smile. Not your real smile—the one you reserve for functions like this. Practiced and mechanical. And as I watch you simper, I can’t escape the feeling that the woman standing beside me, this glittering belle with her silk and her pearls, is a sham, a player in a lavish costume drama, a well-oiled being comprised of wheels and gears.