“Who did this?” Ruby asked, her voice so soft that Viola could barely hear it over the rushing of the fountain’s water.
“No one. It’s nothing,” Viola said, hitching the shawl back up. She knew what Ruby was seeing—the purple-green bruise on the side of her jaw, the cost of slipping out to take the carriage ride without telling Paul where she was going. She’d missed saying good-bye to her mother, and he’d decided to beat some manners into her.
She could have killed him, but instead she’d taken the punishment without fighting. It had seemed to appease him well enough. What else could she do? She couldn’t very well have told him where she’d been. But every time she spoke or took a bite of food, the bruise throbbed, and every time it ached, she promised herself that she’d pay him back tenfold.
Still, Viola felt somehow wrong for being here, with these people. They would hurt Paul if they could—especially the girl. They would break him, destroy him. She should want that—she did want that—and yet, he was still family. Still her blood. She didn’t know anymore if that word meant anything, or if it was just another lie, like happiness and freedom.
“That is not nothing,” Ruby said, reaching for her. “Someone hurt you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Viola said, brushing away her concern. People hurt other people all the time. Why should she be exempt?
Ruby’s manicured fingertips reached to touch her cheek. “We can help you, you know. You don’t have to—”
“Basta!” She pushed away Ruby’s hand again. “What are you going to do? Take me home like some stray dog?”
Ruby blinked, clearly surprised at the tone of Viola’s voice. Probably because no one else had ever dared talk to her in such a way. Ruby Reynolds was the type of girl who’d grown up without hearing the word “no,” and Viola had been born with the taste of it in her mouth.
“Don’t pretend you understand my life,” Viola said, a warning and a plea. “Don’t pretend you can do a thing to change it. And don’t imagine that I want you to.” She raised her chin. “I’ll take care of it myself.” It was a declaration and a promise all at once. “I don’t need some little rich girl’s charity.”
She saw Ruby flinch, but the girl didn’t back down. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just wanted to help.”
“I came like you asked,” Viola said, ignoring the hurt in Ruby’s voice. “Now, what is it that you wanted?”
“I thought we could talk.” Ruby worried her pink lower lip with the edge of one of her straight white teeth.
“So talk,” Viola told her.
“Maybe we could go somewhere more private,” Ruby said, glancing around as though she were worried someone might see her talking to a woman as common as Viola.
Viola’s chest felt tight, like when she’d been trussed up in stays that night at Delmonico’s. She shouldn’t have come.
She could still leave. She should, before she allowed this bit of rich fluff to make her start doubting herself or the life she’d chosen. But leaving would mean that Ruby had won, and Viola couldn’t have that, either.
“Fine,” she said, the word coming out even sharper than she’d intended. “Where do you want to go?”
“Perhaps we could take out one of the boats?” Theo said. “It’s a pleasant enough day, and I could use the exercise.”
Viola swallowed the sigh that had been building inside of her. She couldn’t imagine a life so easy, so filled with luxury, that Theo needed to find work. Pointless work, rowing in circles and getting nowhere at all. Ridiculous. But the sooner they were done with it, the better. “Fine,” she said, not quite looking at Ruby. “Let’s go.”
A BIDDABLE GIRL
1902—New York
Viola was mad at her for sending the note. Viola hadn’t said anything specifically, but Ruby knew that the fire in the other girl’s eyes had everything to do with being summoned. It wasn’t what Ruby had intended to do, and yet now she could see that it was what she’d done just the same. She’d summoned Viola, the way she might call for her maid or ring for the cook to make her some tea. And somehow Theo had just made it worse by suggesting that they take one of the rowboats out onto the lake.
But Ruby found that no matter how quick her brain or how smart her tongue might be in any other situation, whenever she was around Viola, they both failed her. With Viola’s violet eyes glaring at her, she hadn’t been able to do much more than nod weakly.
“This is a terrible idea,” she whispered as she walked next to Theo, with Viola trailing behind them.
“Why’s that?” Theo asked, glancing over at her.
“Because she hates me,” Ruby said, soft enough that Viola couldn’t hear.
“She’s a source, Ruby. Treat her like any other source. She doesn’t need to like you. She needs to help you.”
He was right, of course, but it certainly didn’t feel that way.
Things didn’t improve when the attendant who prepared the rowboat for them suggested that their servant could wait on the bench near the boat shed.
“No,” Ruby said, her cheeks heating with absolute mortification. “She’s coming with us.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Viola’s head whip around at her. “I mean to say, she’s not my servant—our servant. She’s our . . .” What, exactly, was Viola?
“Our friend will be coming along,” Theo said, breaking in to rescue her.
Not that it stopped the heat that had already climbed up Ruby’s neck and into her cheeks. Her skin would be blotchy and red. It was mortifying. Really, it was.
Viola was silent as they clambered into the boat and the attendant pushed them off into the water. Theo began rowing in long, slow pulls, causing the boat to glide away from the shore and into the center of the lake.
It was a beautiful day, just as Theo had said. Any other time, Ruby might have enjoyed the outing, floating on the water far from the worries and responsibilities that she usually carried with her. Weightless and serene. When she was just a girl, she had positively loved it when her father would bring her and her sisters down to the park, especially on early spring days like this one, when it seemed like the city would be in bloom at any moment.
But that was before everything happened. Theo had brought her a couple of times last summer, trying to cheer her up, but nothing worked for that better than work itself.
This was work, she reminded herself. But with Viola glaring at her, Ruby found it decidedly uncomfortable.
Viola was just so . . . much. It wasn’t that she was large. She was even shorter than Ruby herself, and she certainly wasn’t fat or even plump. But Viola’s body had the curves and softness that Ruby’s did not. She wasn’t any older than Ruby, but somehow she looked like a woman rather than a girl. There was experience in her eyes. Knowledge.
Oh, but her poor face.
Viola noticed Ruby staring again and hitched her shawl up farther to cover her bruise.
Someone had hit her. Someone had hurt her, and it made Ruby want to destroy them in return.
Theo was whistling some unnameable melody as he moved them in slow, looping circles around the lake.