Romany from the stage and penny novels, which was the point. Everyone would see what they expected to see.
Violet had held up well so far, pulling on her persona like a well-worn pair of gloves, handing out fortunes with smooth aplomb. But then she looked up to see Daniel walk by in the hall, and misery crashed down on her.
Violet couldn’t look away from him. As unhappy as she was, she needed the sight of him, to hear the sound of his voice.
Daniel paused outside the drawing room door. He was speaking to, and laughing with, a blond woman in a gray satin ball gown and a giant of a man who wore a kilt of the same plaid as Daniel’s. The man’s casual stance echoed Daniel’s, and when they both turned to greet someone new, their movements were identical.
Father and son. Violet’s heart squeezed with a strange yearning. She wanted to know his father, to talk with him and his stepmother, to learn the way they saw Daniel.
“Tell our fortune, miss?”
Three young ladies arrived to block her view of Daniel. She’d watched these three, in their blue, green, and yellow silk gowns, move around the rooms with haughty aplomb. Clearly they were the leaders of their set—or at least they considered themselves to be.
Two were English and one French—the French girl being the comtesse’s daughter. All three wore ball gowns with bits of puffy sleeves, tiny waists, and narrow but flowing skirts. Hair was dressed in loose curls on the tops of their heads, glittering gems tastefully interwoven into the coiffures. The French miss and one of her English friends were dark, the second young English lady, Lady Victoria Garfield, daughter of a marquis, the lightest blond.
The dark-haired English girl sat down. “Me first.”
She dropped a coin into the bowl on the table, then tugged off her glove and laid her hand flat, palm up. She’d done this before.
Violet kept her movements elegant, her voice dusky with a hint of accent. She’d let Mary brush her face and hands with dark theatrical powder to stain her complexion, and the faintest touch of kohl under her eyes made her irises look darker.
Violet lifted the girl’s hand in her own and brushed a finger across the lines on her palms. She didn’t have to make up things to please people—every line on the palm meant something, as did the number of lines, the way they crossed and where, and where they were broken. She’d learned reading from a Romany woman, who had the uncanny knack of being right about everything. Violet could only imitate—whether her fortunes came true or not, she never knew.
After studying the young woman’s hand for a time, tracing the lines this way and that, Violet said, “You will be well loved. Your path might take you far from home, but your love will endure.”
“Oh.” The girl’s cheeks grew pink. “I’ve never been told that before. But you might be right about my path taking me far from home. My beau is an officer.”
“This line is long,” Violet said, gliding her finger along it. “It means that your love will not be broken, no matter what, no matter how wide your travels.”
The young woman smiled happily and shot a glance across the room, where a man in uniform was engaged in loud conversation with a knot of men. Violet, while quietly setting up her table earlier, had heard him confess to a friend that he was madly in love with the dark-haired young woman but worried she wouldn’t follow him into army life.
Looking into the young woman’s eyes now, coupled with what Violet had overheard her telling
“You should tell him your choice,” Violet said, keeping the mysterious note in her voice. “He needs to know.”
“I will. Yes, I will.” The young woman’s eyes glowed. “Thank you.”
“Now me.” Lady Victoria slid herself into the seat, forcing her pleased friend out of it. “I want to know if I have a handsome husband in my future too.” Her look turned sly. “Someone Scottish, perhaps?”
The French girl giggled. “She wishes you to tell her she will marry the Scottish man Daniel Mackenzie. She is, as the English say,
Violet’s mouth went dry. Lady Victoria smiled a knowing smile, waiting for Violet to tell her what she wanted to hear. Violet had only to touch the girl’s palm and say that yes, her husband would be tall, handsome, and Scottish. Lady Victoria would go away feeling smug and leave Violet alone.
But another glimpse of Daniel made Violet’s heart pound. He was in the hall again, speaking to the hostess. Being gallant and charming, no doubt, excelling at it. He could charm paint off the walls.
Violet’s anger surged. She traced the lines on Lady Victoria’s palm with a light finger. “I can tell you only what I see.”
Lady Victoria leaned forward, eager, and in the background, Daniel laughed, the sound warm and smooth.
“You will not find love where you assume,” Violet said, trying to shut out the laughter. “It might take you a long while to find love at all, and you might have to go far. You might think it hard, but from this hardship will come strength.”
Lady Victoria’s blond brows slammed together, and she snatched her hand away. “I don’t like that fortune.”
Violet shrugged, trying to look indifferent. “That is your destiny.” She truly had seen that in the girl’s palm— the lines read exactly as the Romany woman had taught her. “What we like or do not like is not of interest to Fate.”
Lady Victoria got huffily to her feet. “It’s all nonsense anyway. Fortune-telling is lies. I’ll wager you’re not even a real Gypsy.”
Violet drew herself up with all the dignity of her Romany teacher. “I was born in a field in eastern Romania. My mother was Romany. My father . . . who knows? That is my lineage.”
Lady Victoria had a mean light in her eyes that her dark-haired English friend didn’t notice, but the comtesse’s daughter did. As Lady Victoria strode away, the comtesse’s daughter dropped two coins into Violet’s bowl and thanked her. Lady Victoria hadn’t bothered to leave a tip.
When they’d gone, Violet balled her fists in her lap and drew long breaths. She heard Daniel laugh again. She both wanted to push the sound away and grab it and wrap it around her.
No one approached the corner for a moment, so Violet took the opportunity to close her eyes and try to compose herself. There was no use being upset. The world wouldn’t change for Violet because she had one nice day out in a balloon.
The soft young ladies who were now clustered together like a clump of butterflies were the sort of ladies Daniel would marry, and that was the way of it. The titled classes intermarried, striving to keep money and property circulating amongst themselves. A business arrangement. The debutantes might believe this man or that in love with them, but what the gentleman usually saw was a deb’s dowry or title, or perhaps the influence of her family.
When a debutante followed her heart with a man not of her privileged world, scandal and ruin ensued. Likewise, when a highborn gentleman married below his class, that wife was never truly welcome in the family. She could be ridiculed and shunned. And a stern father could banish a son who didn’t marry to his pleasure.
Violet had seen such things time and again while doing performances in the big houses. Theirs was a closed world. Transgressors were harshly dealt with.
But witnessing Daniel in this setting, especially when she saw the comtesse stop him and introduce the three girls to him, made Violet want to be sick.
If she could get through this night, she’d do her best to come to her senses, return to being Princess Ivanova until the end of the month, and then decide where she and her mother should go. Violet would have the memory of two lovely days to savor, and then they’d be gone, lost in the mists of might-have-been.
She opened her eyes as two eager young men approached her, and smiled at them, forcing herself into her role again.
“We’ve practically known each other forever, do you not think?” Lady Victoria Garfield said over the
