Lucy’s throat was tight. She’d lied to Philip Schuyler, she’d deceived him, and here he was, offering her a piece of his past. Of her past. “Thank you. You don’t—you don’t know anything about what happened to Harry Pratt?”
“No one does.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent on hers. “If this matters to you, we can get someone on it. Even after this many years, a good private detective should be able to follow his trail. That is—if you want to know.”
He spoke with such easy authority. And Lucy knew, without questioning, that if she were to say yes, within hours the wheels would be put in motion, all of Philip Schuyler’s considerable resources placed at her disposal. It was a heady taste of what it would be to be Mrs. Philip Schuyler.
And also terrifying.
“I don’t know,” Lucy said honestly. “I thought all I wanted in the world was to find my real father. But now . . . I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” Philip said, and Lucy knew he wasn’t just talking about Harry Pratt. “Sleep on it. It’s kept for this many years; what’s a few days more?”
If I refused you, would you still find my father for me? Lucy wanted to ask. But she already knew the answer. Philip Schuyler might be many things, but he wasn’t petty.
Lucy looked at him, at his pale blue eyes and the nose that was just a shade too long and too thin. “Didi Shippen doesn’t know what she’s losing, does she?”
“From her point of view,” said Philip wryly, “an apartment on Park, an Italianate villa on the Hudson, and an allowance of five thousand a year. And a suitably dressed man on her arm for social occasions.”
Lucy pushed back her chair, rising to her feet. “Then she didn’t deserve you.”
Philip tossed some money on the table; the tip, Lucy noticed, was probably twice what their server earned in a week. “And what about you, Lucy?”
It would be so convenient if she were in love with Philip Schuyler, as she had fancied herself two weeks ago. She knew him better now; she liked him better now. But she didn’t love him. If liking could make love . . . But, then, that was what her father had hoped, wasn’t it? And look how that had turned out.
Lucy fumbled with her gloves. “I have—a great deal of thinking to do.”
“All right. I won’t push you.” Philip grinned a crooked grin. “Or attempt to ply you with gin. But I can’t promise I won’t ask again.”
“You’ll think better of it in a week,” said Lucy, as they stepped back out into the July sunshine.
“I’m not so fickle as that.” With a tip of his hat, he dropped her back at her door. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Who was that?” It was Maud, one of the other women who roomed at Stornaway, on her way out in a new hat and shoes with a strap. “He looked rich.”
“Just my boss,” said Lucy quickly.
“If my boss looked like that . . . ,” said Maud.
Lucy waved to her and quickly let herself in through the front door, into the house where her mother had fallen in love with a man named Harry Pratt.
What should I do, Mama? What happened to you? Why did you choose as you did?
But the marble stones of the old house were silent. There was only the staircase spiraling up, up, up to eternity, around and around, like time, circling and circling, always coming back to the same point.
Lucy’s thoughts went around and around in a similar spiral: John and Philip and Philip and John. John had lied to her. Philip had proposed to her.
But it was John whom her heart yearned for, John with whom she felt as though she had found a missing piece of herself. And could she really condemn him for lying to her? She had done the same, and for the same reason. If Philip Schuyler could forgive her, why couldn’t she forgive John Ravenel?
When I saw it on you— He had seen her necklace and assumed she was part of Prunella Pratt’s scheme, whatever that scheme might be.
But was the necklace on the lady in his father’s picture really the same as the one around her neck? And, if so, how had it come to be there?
There was a telephone booth just next to the concierge desk. Fishing in her purse, Lucy put a coin in the slot. “Can you connect me to the Waldorf, please?”
“Just a moment,” said the disembodied voice of the operator.
There was a fly buzzing lazily next to the receiver; the sound seemed to blur into the whirr of the wires.
She could put the phone back now. Put the phone back and walk away. John Ravenel would go back to Charleston. And she could marry Philip Schuyler and have beautiful gowns and appear in the society pages.
And wonder, always, if she had made the mistake of her life.
There was a click.
“Your party is on the line,” said the operator, as someone else said, rather curtly, “Yes?”
“Hello,” Lucy said quickly, before she could think better of it. “Is this the Waldorf? I’d like to leave a message for Mr. John Ravenel. Yes, Ravenel. R-A-V-E-N-E-L. Would you tell him that Miss Young would like to speak to him?”
Twenty-five
AUGUST 1944
Kate