Her stomach grumbled with disappointment as she found that the earlier refreshments had been cleared away, undoubtedly so the guests could reserve their appetites for supper. Distracted by hunger, she stumbled right into the Holgrave twins, dressed as a pair of … hyenas? Alley cats? Some sort of mangy animal with ears—it was hard to say which. Callie caught her arm and pulled her out of the path of the affronted twins, one of whom pulled up her tail with a decided “Hrmph!” before stalking away.
“Genevieve!” Callie exclaimed, wiggling excitedly, her bosom barely contained in the sparkly outfit. She drew several appreciative glances from nearby gentlemen.
“Callie, stand still before you fall out of your dress,” ordered Eliza, moving to stand strategically between her friend and the group of ogling men.
“Where have you been, Callie? I haven’t seen you all night,” Genevieve asked.
“On the dance floor.” Callie’s voice dropped conspiratorially. “On the hunt.”
An involuntary wince hit Genevieve’s body at the word “hunt,” as it was so close to her own goals for the evening. Of course, Callie meant hunting for a husband, but it was still disquieting.
“And how goes it?” inquired Eliza.
Callie accepted a glass of punch from the footman behind the table and led the trio to a slightly more private area of the ballroom.
“Mixed results thus far,” she admitted. “I danced the last quadrille with Richard Moore.” She nodded toward a knight from the Crusades, who appeared quite overheated in his chain mail. Callie peered after his retreating form while absent-mindedly taking a sip of punch. “I don’t know why they make dinner so late at these things. I’m simply famished. What do you both think of him?” She gestured with her glass toward where the knight had been swallowed by the crowd.
Eliza glanced in the direction Callie indicated. “I’ve heard he has gaming debts,” she admitted.
“Blast.” Callie pouted, taking another sip. “He actually had interesting things to say. Can you imagine being married to someone who had nothing interesting to say? What would you discuss at breakfast?”
“There’s always the weather,” Eliza remarked mildly, as Callie batted her eyes at a passing Henry VIII. He smiled back but made a regretful nod toward a trailing Anne Boleyn, made obvious by the severed head she carried under her arm.
Callie frowned. “Are there no single gentlemen at this party?”
Eliza smiled. “Callie, there are plenty of unattached men here. Isn’t your dance card nearly full?”
Callie waved this away. “Oh, pish. None of them are rich enough for what Grandmama and I need. Now Genevieve, did I or did I not spy you and Mr. McCaffrey in an alcove earlier this evening? After the promenade?”
Feeling the color rise to her face, Genevieve nodded.
“And did he finally kiss you?” Callie demanded.
“No,” she responded, cross. “Honestly, Callie, is that all you can think about?”
“Why would I want to think about anything else? Kissing is delightful. And speaking of, he’s coming this way. Stalking, really. My, Genevieve, he does stalk well, your Mr. McCaffrey.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that Daniel wasn’t her Mr. McCaffrey, but in the face of their pretend courtship, she held her tongue.
A brief spasm of longing passed through her, shocking in its unexpectedness. What if he was hers?
And then he was there, and Eliza was discreetly pulling a protesting Callie away to give them some privacy. She shoved the unruly thought away.
He followed her friends’ retreat with an amused glance. “Do they believe it?” he asked in a quiet voice, as he gently retrieved and kissed her hand.
The feel of his lips on the back of her ungloved hand was unnerving. As was the way he gazed into her eyes, one corner of his mouth twitching upward. “They do,” she said. “As will everyone else, the way you’re behaving.”
“We need the courtship to seem legitimate,” he murmured, lowering her hand. “Now, I believe the next dance is mine, is it not?”
As Daniel led her onto the floor for the start of their waltz under the watchful eyes of half the Astor 400, Genevieve had a brief, strong flash of recollection of what it felt like to be fully accepted by society. To be the object of approving gazes rather than censorious ones. With her and Daniel’s sham courtship, she could feel the societal tides shifting, away from their dour disappointment that she’d chosen a career over a husband and toward a self-righteous satisfaction that she was finally fulfilling her proper role, even if it was with someone currently under their collective suspicion. Anger welled within her, causing her jaw to clench, even as her body mechanically followed Daniel’s in the graceful rhythms of the waltz.
Why must women fit into preordained molds? Why couldn’t she be accepted and celebrated as a journalist rather than only as a fiancée or a wife? A turn around the dance floor brought Eliza, standing alone at the edge of the dance floor, into and then out of her line of sight. Eliza was a brilliant artist, but her skill and merit were never lauded as they should be, simply because of her sex. Another turn and there was Callie, dancing in the arms of Victor Fairstoke, a widowed banker twice her age, ridiculously dressed as Don Juan. The man was known for having a string of mistresses barely out of the schoolroom, and Genevieve’s stomach knotted at the thought of Callie tied to the old leach. Her hand involuntarily tightened on Daniel’s shoulder.
“Is my dancing that bad?”
She instantly relaxed her hold. “I’m sorry. No, of course not.” And it wasn’t. Daniel was a beautiful dancer.
“What have you learned?” The music, along with their constant rotations, was likely preventing anyone from overhearing, but he still kept his voice lowered.
“Not much,” she admitted, relaying in equally muted tones her conversations with Ernest Clark and Peter Stuyvesant Senior. Daniel winced.
“The son is not much
