“You’ll find that person, I have no doubt.”
Rose’s emerald eyes lit up. “What if I didn’t go at all? What if I feigned illness and stayed upstairs?”
“No!” Fern cried with a laugh. “You can’t leave me alone in this. Maybe we can be sick together?”
Rose smiled and hugged her sister close. “Mama would drag us downstairs in our robes and force us to dance. There is no escape, I’m afraid.”
Fern reached for her cup of chocolate and warm milk—she despised tea—and lifted it to her lips. As she set it down, the cup caught the side of the saucer and tipped over. The brown liquid spread over the tabletop and dripped onto her silk skirt. “No!” she cried, jumping up. “Oh, no!”
Rose grabbed a napkin and wiped her sister’s skirt with quick motions. The smudge grew larger, spreading across the green chiffon. Fern fluttered her hands at her side. “Mama will be furious,” she whimpered.
“No, she won’t,” Rose said. “Here, take this off then help me.” She unbuttoned her sister’s dress and let it drop to the floor, then turned so Fern could undo her own buttons. Holding her pink gown in her hands, Rose handed it over to Fern. “Put this on,” she said, her voice allowing no argument.
“Rose, I couldn’t!” Fern held the delicate silk like it was something dangerous and could detonate at any moment. “Mama would never allow it.”
“Mama will never know, she will be far too busy to notice,” Rose replied, a smile curving her lips. “We can help each other. I’m not ready to be the belle of the ball tonight, and you’re afraid to embarrass Mama. So let’s not be ourselves.” Rose winked and darted down the hallway, returning with one of Fern’s ball gowns from last year’s party. She pulled the light green dress over her head and grinned at her sister.
Fern cocked her head and stared. “I don’t understand. Shouldn’t I wear that?” she said, pointing to the minty green gown.
“No,” Rose replied with a sly smile. “I will wear this.” She held the green frock against her chest. “I can go as Fern, and I can meet people and interact with no expectations. I can decide if I’m ready to go on with this courting nonsense once I’ve met some gentlemen when they’re not trying to impress me. And you can go as me. I can make mistakes and no one will fault me. You can be yourself and won’t disappoint anyone.”
Fern processed Rose’s idea, a mischievous tickle of promise in her chest. “But won’t people recognize us?”
“We favor each other enough that in the dark and behind our masks, no one will notice the differences.” Rose picked up the green and pink masks from Violet’s dresser. Rose had painstakingly embroidered them over the past several weeks, adorning them with crystals complementing their coloring and eyes. She had stitched each girl’s initials on the silk ribbon holding the mask in place.
She handed the pink mask to Fern and her eyes went soft. “Fern, I love you. And I need you to be out there tonight, with me. Please, will you do this?”
Fern hesitated. If her mother discovered their deceit she would be furious. But to spend one night free from the pressure to be normal, to fit in…it could be wonderful. She lifted the pink mask to her face and looked at her reflection.
What would it be like to be Rose for just one night, to not be a disappointment to her family? She might actually enjoy herself, perhaps even meet someone…
The thought made her cheeks heat, and she cleared her throat. Fern turned to her twin and nodded with far more confidence than she felt. “I’ll do it.”
Rose grabbed Fern’s free hand and squeezed, shrieking with delight. “Oh, this will be wonderful! Here, button up my dress, we need to get ready!”
Chapter 5
“Theworldischangingquickly, son,” his father had said when Alex started his first year at Oxford. “When you graduate, you will have the power to mold the world in which we live. You can make things better for all of us.” The Carroway family of Birmingham existed far outside the trappings of wealth, and Alex spent his childhood in a cramped but tidy apartment above his father’s printing business.
As a child surrounded by books and a deep-seated love of the written word, Alex approached learning with reverence, something to be treasured. When the elder Mr. Carroway printed a set of mathematics texts, eight-year-old Alex fell in love, specifically with the crest showing the publisher—the Oxford University Press.Someday my name will be on a book like this.
Mr. and Mrs. Carroway were determined to provide their son with the education they lacked, and education reforms allowed their slight, bookish son to attend the posh Harrow School outside London. To see their child break through social barriers and make a name for himself on his own merit was entrancing. For Alex, attending Harrow meant diving into the river of privilege with both hands tied behind his back. He was miserable, a constant target of his wealthy and connected classmates for his Brummie accent and secondhand uniform. Coming home for visits, Alex witnessed his parents laboring long hours in the shop, doing without and scrimping to save for his tuition. Along with the works of Shakespeare and Plato, Alex learned the careful dance of straddling both worlds, never quite belonging in either place.
Sitting in the bumpy open-air carriage, his heart pounded furiously, like a schoolboy at the margins again. He shifted in the slightly too-small suit he borrowed from Henry, pulling the sleeves of his jacket down to cover the worn cuffs of his shirt. The black silk mask pulled over his eyes cut off his peripheral vision, and he experienced an eerie sense of vertigo as he moved. Henry drove the horses at what must have been an unnecessarily brisk pace, doing nothing to ease Alex’s nerves. A strong whiff of brandy made his stomach turn. As if Sir Roland could sense Alex’s unease, he lifted his flask of liquor in a mock toast before spilling a large quantity over his waistcoat.
Alex’s knees nearly connected with the gravel drive as he tumbled from the coach, stumbling to catch up with Henry as his friend handed the reins to a waiting groom.
“A few words of advice,” Henry said when Alex reached his side, as though his friend had not narrowly avoided making a scene. “First, masquerades make people lower their guard. You’re likely to see some behavior you wouldn’t expect in a ballroom, so don’t gawk.”
Alex’s mind raced to imagine what sort of debauchery could arise in this group of stuffy-looking ladies and gentlemen, but Henry kept going.
“Second, the punch is always foul. Champagne is key to survival. Find a footman, slip him some coin, he’ll keep you stocked all night.”
Alex had only enough coin to pay for the fare back to Oxford. While he trusted Henry with his life, he did not trust him to remember his obligation to deliver Alex back to Pembroke safely.
“And if you happen to catch the eye of some foolish girl,” Henry remarked, “you can talk all you like—”
“But don’t touch,” Alex interrupted. Society girls were precious things, not to be sullied with the likes of him.
