Page 10 of The Scarlet Ball

“You know a great deal about me.”

“Remarkable what keeping diligent runners in one’s employ may yield. So whatever will you do next?”

I bared my teeth at her. She could think it was a smile if she wished.

“I am certain that you will tell me what I have to do.”

“Why, we are in America, didn’t you know?” Mrs. Howard said, as if she could imagine no better fate than that. “America, where no man is a slave or forced to work that displeases him. Of course you may do as you like.”

It was as if we had crossed some boundary. We had not moved from Iphigenia Marshall’s room on Twenty-Third Street, and neither had we changed our faces or even our clothes, her dress likely from Mrs. Hall in England, me in my underthings. Still, matters were different, and I could feel it in the sharpness of my teeth and the curl of my lip.

“You could have me up in front of a judge for stepping on your shadow. You speak, and I listen, but I will not be grateful for it or think you kind.”

She folded her hands in her lap and gave me a look I recognized from the women who ran the expensive houses in France, speculation and warning in one.

“You performed well last night. You have won me some time, and now it has come to me to decide what I must do with it.”

Mrs. Howard hesitated, and then she nodded, the barest movement of her chin.

“My granddaughter, against all sense and possibility, has fled. It is only nerves and perhaps some measure of spite directed toward me. She will return. She may be on her way back as we speak, and the conversation that you and I are having may come to nothing, or less than nothing. However.”

She shook her head.

“I do not have what I have because of things that may happen, no matter how likely they are. Therefore, I would offer you a position.”

In bed, against the wall, hanging from the chandelier, went the old joke I did not say. I waited, and Mrs. Howard spread out her hands.

“This is a critical year in my granddaughter’s future. This winter will determine whether she takes her place among society as one of the leaders of the age or whether she will linger on as a pretty bauble, glorifying the house of some rich man or even as a wittering little fool with her cats and her lacework in some brownstone that my husband and I have arranged for her.”

Her face left no doubt as to what she thought of such a fate, though it was still one held high above the deep and violent sea where almost everyone else in the world treaded water.

“Still, she must be convinced, and the convincing could take time that we do not have. This is where you step in, quite literally. You will stand where my granddaughter should stand. If necessary, dance where she should dance, laugh where she should laugh. You can be taught to do all of it, it’s no more than a dog’s tricks—but her place must be kept, ready for her to step back into it when she is found. That is what I ask of you, as well as your silence, but then you seem a clever sort. You know how well you will not survive my displeasure.”

“How well will I survive simply leaving?”

“You may leave whenever you wish. The memories you have from last night, of course those are mine, and those must stay. It is no worse than what any dismissed servant might have.” She smiled, polite and relishing her menace. How infrequently she must allow her true face to peek out from behind her mask.

“That face,” I said suddenly. “The face you gave me last night. Whose face is that?”

Her brows came together at my effrontery. “I am not some witch who goes stealing into the tenements to peel beautiful faces off of poor girls. The original wearer was given enough money to go west to Ohio with a new face that no one will miss. I understand she has a nice life there now, if it is any consolation to your sensibilities.”

“And who was this girl who has such a nice life in Ohio that she will never come back here?”

“A relation by blood, if not by name,” she said, the most genteel way to say bastard. “She was near twin to my granddaughter, and she was not going to be allowed to go about with that face in any case. Are you satisfied, then, that everyone was fairly compensated and given value in exchange?”

I smiled because I had never in my life intended to get merely fair value for what I did. I knew how my fate was likely to go, and it would always have more in common with some little bastard sent west than it would with Mrs. Howard and her missing granddaughter.

“I am never satisfied,” I said, “and if you want to employ me, I’d like to know what I might get for it beyond threats and being told who and what I am.”

She bridled at that, unused to dealing with tradesmen who spoke so plainly, and when she replied her voice was stiff.

“Well, there will be a fee that we shall settle on, of course, money should you perform well—”

In response, I rose gracefully from the couch, my head held clear of my shoulders like some great long-necked bird, shoulders down, elbows bent and kept close to my ribs. It takes real strength to perform a curtsy like the ones they favor on the Continent, muscle through the thighs and the waist that can move you like people are not really meant to move, and the result is ridiculously lovely.

I dipped to the ground like a water-weighted willow wand, and when I came up, it was only my own face, but that was pretty enough for most days.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Howard,” I murmured, and then I said no more, because while unearthly silence was not always required, no one liked it if young girls talked overmuch. I coolly met her gaze, and she stared at me. It was the look of a woman who has realized her little dog speaks like a man, puzzled and dismayed at the miracle.