She shook off that thought. It was nothing but nerves. Maybe she hadn’t completely thought everything through, but at least she was there, as close as anyone could possibly get to the Order’s biggest event since Khafre Hall had burned. Tonight, R. A. Reynolds would get a story like no one else’s.
Still, the dress was ridiculous. She had never shied away from a little bit of scandal, but now she worried what her wearing it—and wearing it in front of anyone who mattered in her mother’s circle—would do to Theo’s reputation.
“If you don’t want me to—”
Before she could finish, Jack Grew had come around the curtain. He eyed her for a second, looking far too pleased with himself, before he turned to Theo. “Barclay, you’re going to have to go. We’re about to begin.”
Theo gave her a long, unreadable look, and in that instant she thought about changing out of the gown and going with him. But before she could, he was gone.
“You look like perfection, Miss . . .” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I know Theo has introduced us before, but your name seems to have slipped away from me.” He gave her a smile that would have been charming had his eyes not been so calculating. “Product of the accident, I suppose—head injuries will wreak havoc, won’t they?”
“Reynolds,” she told him, wanting more than anything to get away from him and his leering. “Ruby Reynolds.”
“Reynolds?” he asked, his expression darkening.
It was the same thing that had happened a thousand times before. If someone didn’t already know whose daughter she was, their face would transform itself once they found out. But this was different. Jack’s expression was more one of fury than pity, and Ruby realized her misstep.
It had been an Order member who’d ordered her death. It could have been Jack.
“Well, then,” he said, his face still carefully blank. “You have everything you need?”
She nodded, trying to hide her fear with the brilliant smile she’d learned for her debut. “Yes, thank you.”
“Excellent. It should be quite the show.” He gave her an appraising look, and then he was gone, off to the next set of performers.
Ruby prided herself on being an intelligent woman, one whose intuition had gotten her out of countless scrapes over the years, so she knew she’d made a mistake. She needed to find Theo and get out of Morgan’s mansion before anything else could go wrong. She put down the cup and the wand she’d been preparing to carry and started to pull her cloak over the scrap of fabric she was wearing.
“What are you doing, miss?” The costumer was there with a look of horror on her face. “You don’t have time for that.” The woman was already taking off the cloak and tucking it over her arm before Ruby could argue. “Up you go,” she said, leading Ruby to the thronelike seat and handing her the cup and the wand she’d just discarded.
“I need to go,” Ruby tried to tell her, but the woman just gave her an impatient tut-tut.
“Everybody has nerves. It’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”
The music was already starting on the other side of the curtains, a trilling run of a harp and the soft sounds of a violin, and the woman was leaving with her cloak. And it was too late for Ruby to do anything more than carry on and hope that she was wrong about how badly things were about to go.
BASTA
1902—New York
It was only the weight of Libitina that kept Viola anchored as she took one step and then another into J. P. Morgan’s ballroom. She was on the arm of John Torrio and surrounded by people who hated her, people who would just as soon see her dead or deported as anything else, and it took every bit of her determination to keep the hate from her eyes as she followed Paul through the crowd, nodding and introducing himself to people as they went.
They’d trussed her up again in a corset and a gown covered in silken flounces. A ridiculous thing that did nothing to disguise what she was. Worse, it seemed only to encourage the Fox, who kept sliding glances at the slope of her cleavage above the neckline of her dress. His arm would occasionally rub against the side of her tette, and she knew from the leering look in his eyes that the small brushes were no accident. Had she not needed him—and needed to keep attention away from herself—she would have gladly introduced him to her most deadly accessory, the blade strapped to the side of her thigh.
Paul and Torrio made their way through the room, dragging Viola along with them, and as they went, the glittering jewels and perfectly tailored silks of the women all around her only served to remind her of who she was—and who she wasn’t. She’d never be one of these perfectly coiffed debutantes, so demure that they seemed able to blush on command. She didn’t want to be one of them. Even if one of them had a sharp tongue and a nose that crinkled when she smiled.
Basta. She tried to take a breath, but the boning of the corset reminded her that in this world, women were not even supposed to breathe. Focus. She needed to figure out which of these preening pigeons had the ring.
The quartet of musicians in the corner were starting to warm up and the other attendees were beginning to find their seats when Viola noticed a familiar silhouette that had her nearly stumbling. Theo was there, talking to an older man who had his eyes. If Theo was there, and Torrio noticed . . .
He wouldn’t do anything, she tried to tell herself. Not here, not in the midst of all the men they were trying to impress.
But if Theo was there, Ruby might be as well.
So what? She was done with them, finished. Wasn’t she?
She was about to turn away, to settle herself between Paul and Torrio, when she saw Theo give the older man that sad, lopsided grin he’d given at the park. He’d warned her then that it wouldn’t turn out well, and she hadn’t listened.
None of this was his fault. Ruby had dragged him into this mess and had nearly gotten him killed. But Viola had risked everything to save him once. To simply hand him over to Paul and Torrio now? It would mean that all the hurt and the anger Viola had lived with since Ruby had looked at her with hate in her blue eyes had been for nothing.
Besides, Ruby loved him.
Viola would save Theo for that reason alone. If it was her lot in life to always want and never have, so be it. She was strong and smart and could make her own way. And there were worse things than loneliness. There were the long hours in the dead of night when you had to live with the choices you made.
She excused herself to follow Theo as he headed toward the back of the ballroom. Paul gave her a curious look, but the musicians were starting in earnest now, and he couldn’t do much without creating a scene.
It wasn’t that difficult to get ahead of Theo before he started back toward a side hall. When he rounded the corner, she pulled him into an unseen alcove.
He startled, but almost seemed unsurprised to see her. “Viola?”
“Shhh—” She pulled him farther into the alcove, away from prying eyes.
“I didn’t really think I was your type,” he said, giving her that lopsided smile again.
She opened her mouth to refute his words, her instinct after a lifetime of hiding and denying and refusing. But he wasn’t looking at her with the same disgust that Paul or her mother had when they noticed how captivated she’d been with her English teacher years ago. “You’re not,” she told him, which was as close to an acknowledgment as she’d ever given anyone except Esta.