The Unknown Beloved(93)

He stared, not knowing what to make of it, not knowing if he should make anything of it. At this point, everything felt like a clue . . . and a cruel joke.





22


Her dress was a sleeveless purple silk that was so deep it was almost black. It didn’t grip, but skimmed, from the drape of the neckline to the fishtail skirt that swished around her calves, and it would allow for dancing if Malone was sincere. The dress had belonged to a client who had abandoned it when she couldn’t pay for the desired alterations. It’d been hanging in a closet of similar discards since the stock market crashed almost a decade before. It had just needed a shortening of the straps, a tuck at the waist, and a press, which she’d easily accomplished.

She wore a long pair of black gloves and black pearls at her ears and throat that Zuzana claimed were gifts from the emperor himself. She’d copied Greta Garbo, complete with vivid lips and sweeping lashes, and she’d been confident about her appearance until she’d heard Michael climbing the stairs to fetch her. Zuzana poked between her shoulder blades with her cane, scolding her about her posture, and Lenka fretted about the fact that she didn’t have a stole.

“Shall we go?” Malone held out his arm.

“I just need to get my glasses and my coat,” she said, suddenly nervous.

“You don’t need your glasses,” Zuzana snapped.

“Or your coat,” Lenka moaned. “That dress demands furs, and we don’t have furs.”

“All right. No coat. But I need my glasses,” Dani insisted.

“It will ruin the look, girl,” Lenka protested. “You don’t want to ruin the look.”

“You represent Kos Clothiers,” Zuzana agreed. “These people might be future clients.”

“No one will notice the dress if I don’t wear my glasses. They’ll be too busy staring at my eyes,” she worried.

“Let them stare,” Lenka said. “You look so glamorous. And no one will notice your eyes except for those who get close enough to say hello . . . and then they won’t be able to forget you.”

Malone’s brow furrowed as if he’d made a miscalculation.

“The people there will be the political, the wealthy, and the connected,” Zuzana said. “And if they ask where you got your dress, you will tell them Kos Clothiers. It is publicity we can’t buy.”

They would not go unnoticed, that was for certain. And she’d been right. Her dress complemented Malone’s suit perfectly. They were about a decade behind current fashion, more roaring twenties than late thirties, but the statement looked intentional instead of tired.

She’d even added a ribbon in the same shade as her dress to his white fedora, which pulled out the white chalk stripe in the silk, and added a pocket square to match. He looked as though he were having second thoughts, but she wasn’t sure if it was the attention they would garner or the fact that the aunts were hovering. He was so handsome, dark-eyed and distinguished, she caught herself staring, and Zuzana prodded her between the shoulders again. He acted as though he wasn’t sure where to look, though his hooded eyes had widened when he’d reached the top of the stairs and seen her standing there, waiting for him.

“It will be easier to walk than drive,” he said. “The line of cars for the valet is already a block deep, and if we don’t bring a car, we won’t be waiting for it to be brought around when we’re ready to go.”

“Have a good time, dears,” Lenka said as they turned to leave.

“If she’s not back by midnight, Mr. Malone, I will ring the authorities,” Zuzana threatened.

“Oh, Zuzana, do you really think the authorities would come?” Lenka sighed.

Malone simply grunted, and they escaped into the dark night, her hand linked through his arm and the lights of St. Alexis beckoning them.

“I imagine that’s what the Titanic looked like before it sank,” he said, tone dry, as they made their way up the long, circular drive.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” Dani said. She’d always thought it so.

“You are magnificent,” he said quietly, almost begrudgingly.

“I am?”

“You are. So we’ll be steering clear of Ness . . . and everyone else . . . as much as possible. Unfortunately for your aunts and your shop, drawing attention is not my goal.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“You don’t want any obvious association between you and Ness.”

“Yeah.”

“So what is your goal?”

“We’re going to take a stroll through the cloakroom after I get a good look at everyone in attendance. And after we dance.”

Their tickets put them at a table of eight near the dais with a congressman named Sweeney and his wife, Marie, who had the burr of an Irish birth to her voice and kept darting nervous looks at Michael like she thought him delicious and dangerous. The congressman ignored them altogether, his attention consumed by the Catholic bishop on his left and a man named Higbee, whose family established the department store of the same name on Public Square, seated on Dani’s right. Higbee’s wife, Constance, was seated between her husband and her unmarried daughter, who took the final chair at the table, a balance to the unaccompanied bishop.