“Are you in there, Miss Luck?”
Before she calls my name a third time, I wrench open the door. “It’s Mrs. Sloane. May I help you?”
Lime-green silk pours over Miss Hart’s slender figure, interrupted only by a navy silk sash slung low across her hips. A headband with a single peacock feather cinches her short hair in place. What a simple but bold hair accessory. In her hand, she carries a suitcase made from some reptile’s skin, probably one of those alligator monsters from America.
With an unimpressed tilt of her fine-boned face, she reaches out and lifts my veil.
I jerk back. “How dare you!”
“Oh, I dare a lot of things.” She smiles. Her eyes glitter like two pieces of amber that trap more light the longer you study them. She marches right in with her suitcase as if she is boarding a train. The scent of her cigarettes and something musky follows her. She looks around her. “Nice. Very Empire-style. I prefer a more modern design, myself. Doesn’t catch so much dust. Obviously, they didn’t get a woman’s opinion.”
I close the door and hurry after her.
She slinks around the room like a fox, sliding out drawers, peering into the wardrobe. “That was a skillful bit of climbing you did. How’d your limbs get so bendy?”
“Is there something I can help you with, Miss Hart?” I ask, trying to be polite, though my face still stings from being unmasked. She knows my secret. She alone can undo me. Has the fox come to stalk a weak prey?
She glances at me fanning my face with my hat. “April, please. Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. But I do have a little favor to ask of you.” Setting down her suitcase, she lifts the vase of tobacco and sniffs. “Not bad. But a little too much tar for me.”
I lean against the vanity, tracking her with my eyes. What could she possibly want from a beggar like me?
“You have a lovely shape.” She looks up from where she was peering at the contents of Mrs. Sloane’s trunk and winks.
“M-my shape?”
“Oh yes. Perfectly proportioned, strong limbs, good posture. Well, it’s perfect for House of July.”
I snap up. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
She laughs, a hearty sound that is more like applause. “And it’s not that kind of house. House of July is my haute couture fashion label.” She picks up one of Mrs. Sloane’s more matronly dresses, olive green with generous pleats, and her face puckers.
“What do oats have to do with fashion?”
“Oats? Oh, you mean haute.” Another round of applause. “Haute couture means ‘high dressmaking’ in French.”
I’m getting a little tired of this woman who goes anywhere and touches anything she wants.
“I’d like you to wear my brand.” She smooths her hands down her bodice and turns a circle. “It’ll be fun.”
I snort. “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”
Rather than look insulted, her face bends into an amused grin. “Wearing a veil like that? You’re drawing eyes, whether you like it or not. Might as well give them something to look at.”
“I wasn’t planning on parading about. I am a woman in mourning, after all.”
April sweeps a hand over the chaise longue and pours herself across it. “Mrs. Sloane must be a woman of means to get a crib like this, and I believe that you are her maid. But why isn’t she here?” Her eyes grow round. “Did you murder her?”
“Of course not. She . . . died, if you must know. Over a week ago.”
“Aha. So you’re a thief.”
“No! I mean, not intentionally. We had already sent the trunk.”
“Hmm. And did you find your brother?”
“Yes,” I say around a grimace.
Her brow dents. “I hope he appreciated your commitment to seeing him.”
I make a sharp noise in my throat. She certainly is presumptuous. But perceptive, too. Why am I telling her any of this? I don’t want to be part of this woman’s schemes. I have enough trouble as it is. “My answer is no. Now if you don’t mind, I need to be going.”
“So you will be parading about.”
“Not in the way you want me to.”
“I don’t ask for much. Just wear my clothes whenever you go out.” Retrieving her suitcase, she sets it on the chaise longue and unbuckles it. “They are scrummy, as you Brits like to say. Sinfully rich and tasteful. They will make you feel like royalty.”
“I plan to be in my room ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“I highly doubt that. A young woman who climbs cranes as easily as pulling on stockings is not someone who stays put for long.”
She holds up a pearl-white crêpe de chine dress. The English love all things Chinese—silk, tea, plates—just not if it comes with a beating heart. A cloth panel like a wall hanging overlies the front, hand painted with a crane and bejeweled with tiny beads that catch the light. My jaw yawns open, like I’ve caught a gullet of fish. It’s the most magnificent dress I have ever seen.
“You made that?”
“Yes, I did. A crane’s good luck. This is your daywear for tomorrow. Touch it.”
As cautiously as if the crane might take flight, I stroke my finger over the front panel. The fine fabric feels cool and slippery under my hot finger.
“I have the perfect one in mind for your meeting with the captain.”
I snatch back my finger. “What meeting?”
“Everyone gets to meet the captain. It’ll be your big moment. Everyone will be watching. Don’t worry, they’ll send along an invitation.”
As if that is the thing I’m worried about. “B-but why can’t you parade your own clothes?”
“The best way to sell your art is to let someone else do it for you. I’m trying to create a ‘stir’ around my line, and I can’t do it myself. It would be uncouth.”
She frowns at my black boots, which were made for a man with very small feet and could use a good scrub with a horsehair brush. Draping the crane dress on the bed, she pulls a dainty pair of tan pumps with straps from her suitcase and dangles them from her fingers.
“No one takes American designers seriously.” She closes the suitcase and sets the pumps on top. “All they want is Lucile, never mind that her overwrought ‘creations’ look like clown outfits. Those Merry Widow hats of hers—piled high with garden clippings—were abominable, a crime on the eyes and a pain in the neck.”