Olive stared in horror at those chilly blue eyes, the exact same shade as Harry’s, except that on Prunella they reminded her of little chips of arctic ice. And her voice, frostbitten, hanging in the air. I know who you are.
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m Olive Jones, the housemaid.”
Miss Prunella leaned forward. “Jones, indeed. You’re the architect’s daughter, aren’t you? I recognize you, even if the others don’t. I used to watch him while he was at work. My goodness, he was handsome. You have that same peak in your hair, in the middle of your forehead, and your eyes are exactly alike.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I knew something was wrong about you, right from the beginning. The way you looked at us. And I turned it over and over in my head until I realized, watching you, that night at dinner, when my brother was so obviously in love with you . . .”
“That’s—that’s—”
“And your name. I remembered he had a daughter named Olive. He used to speak of you.”
Olive’s mouth opened without speech.
“Oh, I’ve kept it to myself, of course. Never fear. I’ve been waiting to see what you mean to do. And I suppose this is it, isn’t it? Seducing my brother, as if that would ruin us.” She laughed, a bitter sound. “As if disgraced housemaids aren’t already a regular occurrence around here.”
“That’s not true.”
Prunella didn’t reply, except with her eyes, which narrowed in frosty contemplation. She looked so unnervingly perfect, so incongruously innocent with her round face ending in a pointed chin, with her silky curls clustered girlishly around that alabaster forehead and those dainty spiraling ears. Her lips formed a sweet pink pout. Only her eyes were hard, calculating the sums that lay on the other side of Olive’s hot face, inside the nooks of her soul.
Until she laughed and turned away. “Fetch my gloves, Olive, and be quick. My father is waiting downstairs to lead me into the ball, my ball, where I will dance and laugh while you serve drinks to my guests and mop up the mess when they spill, because that’s what servants do. Isn’t it, Olive?”
“I—I—” Olive swallowed back the response that rose to her lips. What would Prunella do if she were crossed? Tell Harry? Of course she would. She would tell Harry, and Harry would know. He would look at her with bewildered eyes, a confusion that would turn to betrayal and then to hatred. “Yes, of course,” she whispered, and her hands turned into fists at her sides.
Prunella laughed again. “You’ll do whatever I say, won’t you? You haven’t any choice, because I know your secret.”
Olive felt sick. She stumbled to the dressing table and searched for the gloves, while Prunella went on behind her, in a voice high with triumph. “I am going to be married, don’t you know, into one of the oldest and best families in New York, right about the time you find yourself alone and abandoned, living in some miserable tenement downtown. Perhaps you’ll read about me in the papers sometime, Olive. The wedding’s in October. I’m sure the photographs will be everywhere.”
Olive stalked back toward Prunella and thrust the gloves toward her beautiful cream-satin chest, then walked without pause straight on to the door, eyes blurring, while Prunella’s vertiginous laugh rippled the air behind her.
The grand second-floor drawing room had been transformed into a ballroom, filled with all the glittering jewels of New York society, but Olive—balancing a dozen glasses of champagne on a single silver tray—saw only one man: Harry Pratt, who was dancing with the most beautiful girl in the world.
Well, maybe the lady in question wasn’t quite that beautiful, not on objective study. But she seemed so, swirling about the room in the shelter of Harry’s arms, beaming and blushing at something he was saying to her, as if the glow of Harry’s attention contained magical properties that altered its object into something better and more perfect than it was before.
Like Olive herself.
Olive looked away, because the sight was too much to bear. The girl had light brown hair set with brilliants, and her dress was made of a filmy pink stuff, so pale it was almost white. Not the sort of girl who would allow Harry Pratt to have his way with her on an attic staircase: oh, no. That was Olive’s weakness, Olive’s shame, though it hadn’t felt like shame until this instant, when Harry danced with another girl. The sort of girl he was supposed to marry.
Harry had spoken often of Italy over the past week, and the eternal summer that awaited them there. But he hadn’t mentioned marriage. Of course he hadn’t. She had pretended not to notice the omission; she had perhaps convinced herself that the promise of marriage was implied in his offer.