The waiters stopped in their tasks and the bored socialite threw a glance over her shoulder and then said something in a low tone to her companion that made him throw back his head and laugh.
Lucy could feel shame, hideous shame, rising red in her cheeks. Your mother’s daughter, her grandmother said.
“You called me Philip before,” said Mr. Schuyler, looking like a disappointed little boy.
“Before, you hadn’t tried to kiss me.” Lucy reached below the table, rooting for her bag. It had fallen in the scuffle, somewhere under the table.
“Lucy . . . Lucy, wait.” Philip Schuyler grabbed her hand, pulling her up to face him. He twined his fingers clumsily through hers. “I thought you liked me.”
He was looking up at her with such big eyes, all vulnerability. A little boy, rejected by his stepmother. Indignation warred with pity, and, worst of all, flattery. “I did like you. I do like you. It’s just—I can’t—”
Philip’s hand tightened on hers. “Sit down.” He gave a little tug. “Have another drink.”
Lucy stared down at him, fighting a crushing sense of disappointment. “And what? Be your little bit on the side? Kiss you in the dark and then take your calls from your fiancée? No, thank you, Mr. Schuyler.”
Philip Schuyler stared at her in genuine consternation. Or perhaps that was just the gin, slowing his wits, wrinkling his forehead. “I never thought— You’re a girl in a million, Lucy. Has anyone ever told you that? You’re the bee’s knees. The cat’s meow.” Grandly, he declared, “You’re the best secretary I’ve ever had.”
And whatever last illusions Lucy had cherished shriveled and died.
What had she thought, really? That Philip Schuyler was going to sweep her into his arms and declare he loved her, only her? She’d seen the pictures of him with Didi Shippen.
It wasn’t that Didi was beautiful. In themselves, Didi’s features were pleasant but pedestrian. It was what she had made of them. It was the arrangement of her hair, the set of her mouth, the pearls in her ears, all of which proclaimed her status as loudly as any number of entries in the social register.
Didi was the sort of woman a man like Philip married. Maybe, in the end, he wouldn’t like her all that much. Maybe, after a few years, he’d take to kissing his secretaries at speakeasies.
But Lucy wouldn’t be that secretary.
“What? Lucy? What did I say?”
Lucy’s head was beginning to ache. The smell of gin and Turkish cigarettes was strong in the air, clinging to her hair and clothes. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing but the truth. I’m your secretary. You are my employer. Which is why I shouldn’t be here right now.”
“No reason not to be.” Philip Schuyler was still clinging to her hand. He tapped a finger against his nose. “After business hours. No one’s going to know about it.”
Lucy yanked her hand away. “No one is going to know because this never happened.” She wanted to cry with shame, to drum her fists against the scarred wooden tabletop, but she kept her back straight and her voice level. “Meg comes back in another month. Until then—I’m your secretary. And this never happened.”
“Can you really say that?”
A crazy laugh bubbled up in Lucy’s throat. “I have to say that! Don’t you think I wish it were otherwise? Don’t you know that it’s going to make me crazy, every day, seeing you, and having to pretend this never happened? But I can’t afford to do otherwise. If I ask to be reassigned, Miss Meechum will know something happened! And who do you think she’ll blame? Not the junior partner. She’ll blame me. And I’ll be out on the pavement, looking for another job and wondering how I will pull together the money to pay my rent!”
Philip Schuyler stared at her, frozen in tableau against the banquet.
Once started, the words kept bubbling out. Lucy couldn’t stop them. “I need this job. I’m not one of your debutantes. I don’t work on a whim. I work because it’s how I keep myself alive. Do you think I enjoy typing and filing? Do you think anybody enjoys typing and filing?”
“I didn’t—” Philip Schuyler shook his head as though he were trying to clear it. “Lucy—”
“Don’t you mean Miss Young?” Lucy’s tone was as acid as the bootlegged gin. “I thought you were different. Everyone knows that Mr. Cochran pinches and Mr. Gregson isn’t to be trusted after a few drinks. But I thought you—I thought you were something special.” More fool she. “I thought you were a gentleman.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing Philip Schuyler flinch. She had done that at least. She had torn a strip off his smooth fa?ade. But it was a Pyrrhic victory. She would have done anything never to have come here, never to see what he could be, never to have known what he thought she could be. She had liked it before, when he was her preux chevalier, Saint George on the wall, unreachable and untarnished.
“Lucy.” The gold light winked off Philip Schuyler’s class ring as he reached out a hand to her. “I never . . .”