My mouth split into a huge grin. “Miss Vanderbilt,” I replied. “Thank you so much for your gracious invitation.”
In a sparkling gown of white chiffon, and with her hair piled on top of her head, Consuelo Vanderbilt was beyond lovely. After a quick round of introductions, Mrs. Vanderbilt sauntered off, calling greetings to her guests. Collum stared after her, looking like he’d just swallowed a spider.
Consuelo tugged me to a quiet spot next to the steps. Away from her mother’s watchful eye, her smile vanished. “Mother found out,” she said. “She would not allow my . . . my friend to attend and has sworn to lock me in my room after tonight. I fear I shall never see him again.” Her voice trembled as she pulled me close. She looked up at me with damp eyes. “He has asked me to run away with him,” she said. “Do you—?do you think I should?”
My mouth fell open. “Why would you ask me that?” I said, eventually. “We’ve only just met, and—”
“But you are the only one who understands,” she begged. “You, too, are being forced into a loveless marriage. Would you not do the same? Would you not give up everything to be with the one who holds your heart?”
Oh God, I thought, as I took in a deep breath. What do I do?
My Aunt Lucinda’s recurrent lecture blasted through my head.
Viators hold an awesome and terrible responsibility. As interlopers we must—?above all—?hold tight to our knowledge of future events, particularly from those whom we encounter in the past. Even though it might seem callous . . . even cruel . . . the one thing that we must never, ever do, is interfere with the happenings of things yet to come. One wrong word and we could ruin lives and events beyond imagining.
I looked at Consuelo’s hopeful face, and swallowed down the painful knot that formed beneath my sternum. I smiled, though it felt like a scarecrow’s grimace as I tried to mimic what Aunt Lucinda would say in this kind of situation.
“I think,” I said, “that we cannot easily step off the path that the future has laid before us.”
“This way,” Tesla was calling as he slipped into the stream of guests who were heading up the two arcing staircases that led to the open second-story landing.
“I see,” Consuelo choked. “Yes, I’m sure you are right, Miss Randolph. I suppose that path you speak of is the only one open to me now. Thank you. I—?I bid you a good evening.”
Consuelo Vanderbilt bowed and slipped quietly away. But not before I saw the tears that crested her eyelashes roll silently down her cheeks.
Silks in purples and reds and golds flowed down the banisters. As we climbed, I let my hand glide over the slick, cool surface. Next to me, Collum stared straight ahead, his face as grim as I felt.
“What was that all about?” Phoebe asked.
“I think I just ruined that poor girl’s life,” I said, miserably. “She wanted me to tell her it was okay to run away. But that’s not what happened . . . will happen.”
“You didn’t have a choice, Hope.” She wrapped a soothing hand around my waist and squeezed. “It’s okay. It’s part of the job, you know?”
“A sucky, sucky part.”
“Aye,” she agreed. “It is that.”
“You did what you had to do, Hope. Sometimes that is not an easy task,” Collum said.
“Then why do I feel like utter and complete crap?”
Collum took hold of my shoulders and looked at me with that serious, steadfast gaze that always made me feel safe. “Feeling like crap,” he said, “is just a hazard of the job, one we never get used to.”
In the shadowy rear of the wide second-floor landing, an older gypsy woman sat behind a table. A group of young people gathered around to watch a muscular guy cluck like a chicken.
“Come, come,” said Tesla, moving toward a set of tall open doors with the rest of the crowd.
As we walked away, the gypsy called after us. “You! Little one.” Phoebe turned back. “Me?”
“Yes.” She nodded, the huge hoops in her ears waggling as she crooked a finger. “I sense something about you, child. A greatness that is as yet undiscovered. You are a creature of moonlight and magic. Come and allow me to set it free.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Collum said as Phoebe swayed toward the woman. “No time for that weirdness. God knows what she’ll make you do. Come on.”
Phoebe groaned, but trudged after him. As we approached the wide entrance, I tripped, catching myself on Collum’s sleeve.
“The hell?” he said, startled.
“Oh no-o,” I moaned.
Phoebe grimaced. “Damn. I was afraid of that.”
The sheer overlay she’d whipstitched to the waist of my skirt had come free and was dragging. The toe of my shoe must have caught it, and ripped the entire front section loose.
“Oh, miss!” A maid standing sentinel near the door rushed over to bob a curtsy. “Come with me. We have a seamstress on hand for just such emergencies.”
Collum cursed as Tesla moved off, unaware, and obviously unconcerned with such trivialities as torn skirts.
“Well, go on with you then,” Phoebe told her brother, Moira incarnate as she waved him on. “Go and do what you came to do. We’ll be right along.”
The maid deposited us in an exquisite pocket parlor, loaded with all kinds of Chinese tchotchkes, which—?based on the myriad photographs that covered walls and tables alike—?the Vanderbilts had acquired on a recent trip to the Orient.
Phoebe stood. “Might as well make for the loo, while we’ve a moment. Be right back.”
The elderly seamstress took her time getting there, but once she started in with her needle, the repairs took only moments. By the time she’d helped me back into the gown, and taken off, Phoebe still hadn’t returned.
“Where is that girl?” I muttered under my breath as I reached for the crystal doorknob.
The door opened suddenly inward, startling me so that I had to hop back.
“Ready, Phe . . . ?”
My voice died.
Because there she stood. In all her perfectly polished elegance. In all her stupid, heiress glory. For what felt like eons, neither of us moved or spoke. I don’t think either of us blinked as Gabriella de Roca and I stared at each other.
Then she closed her eyes and murmured, “Oh, gracias a Dios!”
Darting an uneasy look over her shoulder, she rushed in and closed the door behind her, muting the sounds of a ball in full play.
Before my lips could remember how to form words, Gabriella was hugging me. Squeezing until my bones creaked. “Thank God I have found you in time.”
I lost my tongue. Like . . . it seemed to have literally absconded from the inside of my oral cavity.
“Please,” she said, stepping back. “We must to speak. Please.”
It was that second “please” that did it. That, and the bruises on the pale underside of her arm. Four of them. Dark. Long. Parallel. The exact size and shape of human fingers.