A-Splendid-Ruin(102)

I didn’t bother to disguise my pleasure at his words. “Well, thank God for that. I don’t know another soul.”

“Of course you do.” He leaned close to whisper, the warmth of his breath once more against my ear. “There’s Angel Martin—the one in the peach satin, an old gown, but who can blame her when there’s so little to be had? And over there is Mrs. Lassiter—no, not her, the one by the champagne where the bunting looks ready to fall. That’s an old gown too. She wore it to the Christmas ball last year. I think it’s a theme, actually. No one’s in anything new. Except you. Very becoming. Still . . . City of Paris.”

“How silly of me. I should have thought to telegram Mr. Worth in Paris.”

He took a sip of his champagne. “He’d fall over backward to oblige you.”

“I’m glad you came.”

His gaze was so warm it made me want to whisk him off to someplace private. “You mean to beard the lion in its den. I wouldn’t miss such a show.”

“I thought, because the article had so little effect—”

“I’m sorry it didn’t do what you hoped for,” he said. “But Older’s moved me to the waterfront beat, so . . .”

“You must be happy.”

“I don’t know. I find I rather miss all the gossip.”

“There should be plenty tonight,” I told him dryly. “Enough for a lifetime.”

“I’m leaving that for the new reporter who’s taken over Bandersnitch. He’s here somewhere.” Then he said quietly, “I would have come even without the show, you know. Just because you asked me. I’ve missed you. I’m sorry I—”

He stopped. I followed his gaze, and when I saw what he was looking at, everything I’d been about to say, or hoped he would say, fell away. There was my uncle Jonny, returned to his sartorial splendor, his red hair gleaming, with Mrs. Dennehy on his arm. Behind him was Goldie, resplendent in green, with emeralds about her throat, and Ellis, and at the sight of them the rage I thought I’d mastered returned. How happy they looked. Goldie’s smile, Ellis’s gracious nod, my uncle shaking hands, everyone welcoming them. Nothing had ruined them. Not my taking away the money. Not the gossip, not Dante’s articles. They had not even been tainted.

“Astonishing,” Dante whispered.

I said nothing. I could only watch, mesmerized, as they came into the ballroom and took their champagne. Goldie talking with Linette, laughing with Thomas. All just like that night so very long ago, when Goldie had gripped my arm and said, “We shall have so much fun!” And Ellis, self-assured, his hand on her elbow a light touch. And my treacherous uncle. “You’re part of the family now.” Untarnished. Bright as the flames that had devoured the city. San Francisco still welcomed them. Everything they’d done, and nothing had touched them.

Yet.

I saw when they noted me. Goldie’s smile froze, and she whispered something to Ellis, who licked his lips and never lost—not even for a moment—his self-assurance. My uncle, turning at Goldie’s mouthed, “Papa.”

Uncle Jonny looked toward me. The welcome and pleasure that came into his expression—had I not known him, I would not have thought it an act. Even now, it raised a flutter of longing.

But I knew better.

“They’re coming over,” Dante said, laughing beneath his breath. “Christ, what nerve.”

I had known this was what they would do. I had known it because once I had seen Goldie poring over Dante’s society columns. I had seen the way she’d cried over losing Stephen Oelrichs, not in sorrow, as I’d thought then, but in anger and frustration. I’d heard her resentment of Mrs. Hoffman, and her longing to be invited to the Cotillion Club. Goldie had not bothered to discover what I wanted from my life, but I knew very well what she wanted from hers, and I wondered, had I the power to take it from her? Were the lessons I’d learned from my mother enough? Was I enough?

I stood my ground as they came over. Goldie with her glittering smile, Ellis looking certain he would be forgiven. My uncle with his assured and knowing glance, penetrating, believing, and Mrs. Dennehy with a smile of welcome that made me sorry that she must be included in this, but not very sorry, because she had to know, on some level. She had to realize.

Everyone was watching. I took another sip of champagne.

Dante stiffened beside me as Goldie—first, of course, always first—hurried to me, holding her arms out for an embrace. Oh, that smile—one could not see the serpent behind it. How happy she looked. As if I’d just granted her greatest wish. “May! Oh, May, how glad I am to see you! We were all so worried!”

I waited until the precise moment before she would gather me close, and then I looked her in the eye and turned sharply and quite deliberately, and then, as if I did not see her at all, I walked away.

The Sullivans did not stay long after that. They couldn’t, because no one would speak to them. Once I’d cut them, so did Mrs. Hoffman. Ned Greenway looked through them. Mrs. Oelrichs’s expression became wax. Stephen kept talking to his friend as if Ellis Farge had not tapped him on the shoulder. One by one, San Francisco, who prided herself on following her own drummer, followed a Van Berckyl from New York City.

I had my revenge after all. I had ruined them, not with the proof of their own misdeeds, but because of who I was.